Meisenheimer's Sestet

This form was created by Glenn Meisenheimer, aka gmcookie on Allpoetry.

It is stanzaic consisting of two or more stanzas.

It is syllabic, each stanza being a sestet of 11/8/11/11/11/8 syllables.

It is metrical, with the long lines consisting of three anapestic feet and an iamb, and each short line consisting of two anapestic feet and an iamb.

Rhyme pattern:  xabbba

My Example

April 7th Phone Call     (Meisenheimer's Sestet)

And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,

and why did it happen like that?

You promised to cherish, to love and obey

I promised the same yet you left me one day

and none of my pleas could persuade you to stay

so home with my two boys I sat.

But one time you tried to rejoin me and them;

by then I was slightly involved.

I'd promised another to be her escort

one day to a wedding as symbol of sorts.

I'd told you I'd promised and could not abort-

one day! then the problem'd be solved.

One day was too much for your too needy heart

I think you’d expected I'd stay

and forget a promise for now things were changed.

I couldn't and wouldn't get things rearranged

so after a month we were newly estranged.

You took our girls; you went away.

And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,

that caused you to call me last night?

You're dying and know it and facing the end,

have mem'ries to reckon with, fences to mend.

You know I still love you and think you my friend.

I wish that could make it alright.

© Lawrencealot - April 8, 2014

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Pentibrach

It is so named because of the unique metric foot proposed by

its creator Glenn Meisenheimer, known on Allpoetry as gmcookie.

He proposed a five syllable metric foot with only the center syllable being accented.  Because of its resemblance to an amphibrach with

And unaccented syllable affixed to each end, I named this the pentibrach.   If scholars find a precedent we will of course bow to an established usage.

The poem is stanzaic, consisting of at least two quatrains.

It is syllabic: 10/9/10/7

It uses external rhyme, rhyming the last line of each stanza. (xxxa)

I realize there are alternative options to provide a metric schema, but I shall use the authors own presentation, and define here the metric feet to be used:

The pentibrach:             da da DUM da da

The secundus paeon:    da DUM da da

The iamb:                        da DUM

Each stanza is formed thus:

L1 & L3      two pentibrach feet

L2               a pentibrach followed by a secundus paeon

L4               a pentibrach followed by an iamb   

The author's original poem.

Kandahar

As the shadows fall and the daylight fades

And the owl flirts with the whippoorwill,

In that twilight time when the nightingale

Sings his love songs to the stars,

You will find me here in the umbral dark

As I wend through trees and monuments,

In the gloaming dusk when the sunlight fades

And when Jupiter joins Mars.

It is only then, from this cursed ground,

There is strength in my soliloquy,

As I raise my voice on the evening breeze

And I sing my ghost-thin bars.

It's an ancient tune yet a timely one

Of a sailor washed ashore near here

Who was buried deep in this Christian soil

Far away from Kandahar.

My Attempt at one:

Entranced     (Pentibrach)

As she stretched her arms to the morning's dim

and her curvature delighted me

 I assumed that I'm just a blessed guy

who was honored here by chance.

The is nothing that would predict that I

should be met on earth by goddesses

or be catered to by the likes of her. 

Don't awake me from this trance.

© Lawrencealot - February 15, 2014

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