Heather’s Sonnet Notes

Structure: Three quatrains and a coupletMeter: 6 syllables or trimeterSchema: abab cded fgfg ce Example Sunrise by Jez Farmer At the beginning of the day I feelJust like a whisper in a lover’s dreamAs remnants of dreams in gold rays congealIn rushing waters of the little streamI feel you standing there right beside meJust like …

Visions of the Inner Eye

Form: Choi's Sonnet Delicious silence sighs with contentmentAnd smiles like a sleeping innocent childThe sweet hint of the secret merrimentOf dreams and the wondering mind beguiledSlowly breathing as the spirit runs wildImagination never meant to be mildSilence embraces the different kindOf thinking; sleeping with an open mindLike the scent of sandalwood redefinedThe words of love …

Half Measured Sonnet Notes

Structure: 3 quatrains and a coupletMeter: alternating tetrameter and trimeterRhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg Example The Sentimental Jerk by Jez Farmer As roses bloom in redAnd the violets in blueThe heart rules it is saidWith the words ‘I love you’The heart is just a foolThose words need much more thoughtThey are not for me …

Call of Fire

Form: Free Style Sonnet 1 The gut instinct that comes from a somewhereA someplace but I have never been thereLike a memory held too deep to shareFrom ancient days and my soul is awareIt feeds my spirit to do and to dareAnd I find myself drawn closer to careA past life seed planted deep inside …

Haiku

Form: Haiku keep this and throw thatshrinking down the piles of junkI’m ready to write ©JGFarmer2021

Haiku

Form: Haiku cacti and orchidssit watching the world go byjackdaw taps window ©JGFarmer2021

The Creative Mind

Form: Four Kings Sonnet The creative mind as sharp as an axeHas no time for acts of complacent thoughtHis soul not for sale and cannot be boughtIn imagined worlds formed in parallaxHis muse shedding her artificial factsIn his darkness of thinking they are caughtAnd fingers lightly strike words as they oughtCompiling the notes into story …

The Henge

Form: Free Verse Chilling winds echo setting sun.carrying time backwardstemple of peace, focal point,herders’ lands mingle with grain,where bronzed traders negotiate Avebury Henge, Wiltshire, UK ©JGFarmer2009

A Question Asked

Form: Raven’s Rovi Sonnet 85 The shouting waves crashing on the dark rocksThe sea running free in its frothy whiteA stormy night revealing tidal shocksViolently stretching towards the clouded skiesNature’s rage displayed in passion and strengthOn a winter’s night her power defiesThe manmade resistance on the shore’s lengthProving again that Man’s will bears no strengthAgainst …

State of Insanity

Form: Raven’s Rovi Sonnet 84 Entwined in tangled webs of solitudeYou are distant, so far away from meAn empty void within love’s attitudeYet my soul is held in the captive stateStifling the tears in the shadows of hopeAs egos of passion are forced to waitAnd heart’s desires, in darkness, lost their scopeEndlessly falling down destiny’s …

Unspoken Words

Form: Free Verse The emotions that cannot speakas they have no words on my lipssurrendered as he kissed memy breath stolen by his mouthas his soul spoke softly to mineand I listened in the feelingof his whispers glidingfrom the back of his throatto graze over my lipsbefore growling into my heart ©JGFarmer2021

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay1923 Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay Robert FrostBorn: 20 March 1874, California, USANationality: AmericanDied: 29 January 1963, Massachusetts, USA Robert Lee Frost was a …

Going Blind by Rainer Maria Rilke

Going Blind She sat just like the others at the table.But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cupa little differently as she picked it up.She smiled once. It was almost painful. And when they finished and it was time to standand slowly, as chance selected them, they leftand moved through many rooms (they …

Playing the Blues

Form: Quatrains As moonlit midnight skies drift in wonderTo the dawn of the new sapphire sunrise,My dreams turn to the muse that lies yonder,My brush seeks out her cerulean eyes. The artist lost to her cold heart of steel,As paint so creates the cloudless figures.My indigo tears flow, each stroke I feelOf portrayals, she greets …

Hail Holy Queen

Form: Sapphic Stanzas In silver lunar, light divine,As by the Ancients cast foreseen,A message I could not decline,Hail Holy Queen! In one with Mother Nature’s lightThe Balance I have found in YouMy trust and fate I give tonight,May I walk true To use Your power as a giftAnd only ever with Your good will.For the …

Facing Her Down

Form: Heroic Stanza Each morning I stare her straight in the eyeHer dark eyes waiting to tear me apartShe’s daring me to resist as she callsMy name again I deny her my heart Oh lady of destiny I know youI know your touch as if it was love’s kissIt’s not today; today you wait in …

Monchielle Stanza Notes

Created by the popular Norwegian poet, Jim T. Henriksen the Monchielle consists of four five-line stanzas. Each line is six syllables, preferably Iambic trimeter. The first line forms the refrain at the beginning of each stanza and lines three and five rhyme giving the following rhyme layout AbcdcAefgfAhijiAklml Example Arcane Blue by Jez Farmer I …

Oi Sunshine

Form: Free Verse What label should I wearfor you to understandmy personal beingmy own identityand why the hell do you need to knowthe genitals inside my jeansand the gender of who I sleep withit’s not your bed I get in at nightit’s not your bedroom I feel safe to undress init’s not your arms that …

Before the Dawn

Form: Quatrains The world of stars I see,Above the Earth each night,Is where I find my dreams,Before the dawn’s daylight. The kiss of dew tastes sweet,The gift of nature’s rite,Awake the spites of life,Before the dawn’s daylight ©JGFarmer2009

Haiku

Form: Haiku endings to beginlet’s breathe; learn to live againas seconds countdown ©JGFarmer2021

July 8th

Form: Quatrains For July 8th I have just one wishTo spend an hour with Percy ByssheTo hear him speak and share a whileMaybe even see my hero smile. His works of beauty, I have them allWords from a romantic that often call.Magic images that release my mindSo much inspiration for a painter to find. Verses …

Kinda Cool

Hello my lovely, Well, here we are again, doing the whole love over distance in lockdown. This time we know we can do this – a knowledge that really doesn’t make it feel any better. I know you are there for me and I hope you know I am here for you – and if …

Song of Myself LII by Walt Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk....

Harmony

Form: Abbreviated Haiku II insideand outsidewithin close byfar awaywithout connectsoul and mindas one ©JGFarmer2020

Sacred Connection

Form: Raven’s Rovi Sonnet 83 This morning beneath the winter’s grey skiesThis morning whispered the promise of snowAnd in the silence I sat, closed my eyesMy soul entwined within the earth’s embraceAs consciousness floated gently awayI am weightless as I fall into placeIn the soft light of another new dayI’m sat by the pool where …

Hohenlinden by Thomas Campbell

On Linden when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly...

Mandalay by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: "Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! " Come you back to Mandalay...

Magic 9 Notes

So the story goes typing too fast led to abracadabra being misspelt as abacadeba and thus creating the Magic 9,Nine lines of nine syllable with a rhyme scheme ofabacadeba Example Bewitched by Divina Collins Shalt not thy deprave the spell of loveenchanted words that melts the heartthat cast thy spells deep within thereofwithin a mystical …

Stardust

Those eyes of truth of an innocent child Shine with the wisdom of knowing nothing To grab the heart with the senses beguiled...

Thirty Years

A foolish age, sixteen She wanted pics of me For her bookshelf display...

Silence Before

In the stillness of discord the waves seek the tender dreams you have long forgotten. In the silence before the storm I speak...

Crimson Vapours

love left tearing my soul as sharpened blades traced veins...

Dusty Labels

You judge the clothes I wear, but I don't care, a narrow mind can't know the inner me, there's more to me than social tags can say...

Haiku

Form: Haiku rekindled spiritin the moment of rebirththe return of life ©JGFarmer2020

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold...

Out of Nothing

A poet’s pen crafts words of love romantic lines sculpturing beauty out of thin air...

A Poet’s Death Is His Life IV by Kahlil Gibran

The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow and on the verge of falling. In a dark recess of that hovel was a poor bed in which a dying youth was lying, staring at the dim light of his oil lamp, made to flicker by the entering winds....

Haiku

Form: Haiku herbal infusioninviting poets to speakwords lost in absinthe ©JGFarmer2020

Haiku

Form: Haiku pencil twisting tapea movie snared in the machineoh, them were the days ©JGFarmer2020

Queen of the May

She is the queen of starlit nights, her beauty beyond mortal sights, one kiss, she will possess my soul...

Wrappings of Innocence

Form: Epistle To the girl with innocent eyes. Innocent? Well, I sure know different now. From innocence came my desire to practice the art of making love because you are everything I can want and need in a woman, and no I didn’t know when I first saw you. I couldn’t have imagined what was …

Endless Time by Rabindranath Tagore

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes. Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers...

Ode to Age by Pablo Neruda

I don't believe in age. All old people carry in their eyes....

Photographic Memory

old photos before time passed by I’ll call you...

Long Measure Notes

A variation of Common Measure, Long Measure consists quatrains of iambic tetrameter lines with a rhyme pattern of abcb defe and so on, or abac dedf and so on. Example Beneath the Willow Tree by Jez Farmer My words are naught but summer rainwhen met with acrid clouds of doubt.Each time the hurt denies my …

Clone Hunters

I felt their cold hands reaching out for me Demons of the night there as I walked home Stealing my soul before I thought to flee...

German Sonnet Notes

Structure: Two quatrains and a sestetMeter: Decasyllabic or pentameterRhyme Schema: abba abba ccdeed Example Sacred Art by Jez Farmer Beguiling beauty humbles the proud roseHer grace, a hidden jewel, caught my eyeAnd like a whispered love that breezes sighHer name is lost in gardens I suppose.I sort her name from clouds that swept the skyThey …

The Nine Tailors

Church bells ring at Fenchurch St Paul. A wedding, celebrated in true English fashion. A time for joy before the outbreak of war...

Winter’s Bough

From winter’s bough a lonely song Echoes across the empty field She chirps her song the whole day long...

Haiku

Form: Haiku silver reflectionas hooves prance on nature’s groundshe neighs with the moon ©JGFarmer2020