To suggest a thread written only in Iambic Pentameter?

[ethelfleda]

If you think I know how it works, you’re wrong

(I don’t know if that counts, does it?)

Just read something that made me cry
A thread that I should not have read
A sadness that should not be known
Was brought to life as if my own
And suddenly her life was mine
And I could shed a thousand tears
But I can choose to look away
While she will be forever changed

Iambic Pentameter can make you blue.
Am I right or A.I.B.U?

TeacupDrama - for we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise...

Spread out upon my sofa on my twat
She is a very very comfy cat.

Your scheme is great, there's just one fault in it
The thing itself cannot be made to fit!

[aside: everyone who has mentioned iAMbic penTAMeter in their verse has lost the game!]

I saw the title of the thread and thought
It was a ref’rence to Homeric verse of old.
But now I’ve realised the truth, it’s true
That anything reads better in this form.

(Having looked it up, Homer wrote in dactylic hexameter which itself actually wouldn’t fit an iambic pentameteic line. )

*pentametric obv.

The night doth stretch before me long,
My brain afire with thoughts galore
Must I be so very exercised
By expression of such subtle rhyme?
A rant, a rail, a tale described,
Essential structure must be sublime
And expressed with feeling as yet defeated,
Until my memoirs are in full repeated?

(Disclaimer - written with a vodka undertone lol )

Oh wow! You are, no doubt, a clever lot,
To entertain this way, and rhyme so well,
It is the reason that I love this place
Into whose pages long ago I fell.
It was advice that long ago I sought
(My baby's feeding was a nightmare then)
But since those days he's grown and left the nest
No squalling baby now upon my breast.
And yet, what wisdom, and what fun I find
On these same pages, now I'm left behind
And so dear Vipers, thank you once again,
You fed my child, and now you feed my brain.

Bugger. That was fun, but now I need to go back and sort out the rhyme scheme. Or do the ironing. Hmmmm

Not clever enough to post on this thread,
I’ll STFU and go off to bed

The night is growing late, and yet, and yet...
I cannot tear myself away, Mumsnet.
My screentime tells a story of its own
Much time - too much - spent gazing at my phone.

Notvery, how your verse is keenly writ
I only wish for talent half of yours.
And now to bed, to dream of such a time
When my attempts elicit more than snores.

(Best thread in many years OP!)

Coleridge rhymes his definitions thus,
Commit to mem'ry - never be nonplussed

TROCHEE trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort

Slow SPONDEE stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with DACTYL TRISYLLABLE

IAMBICS march from short to long;

With a leap and a bound the swift ANAPAESTS throng;
One syllable long, with one short at each side

AMPHIBRACHYS hastes with a stately stride;

First and last being long, middle short, AMPHIMACER
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred racer .

I wrote this not long after DH died. Not every line is a perfect pentameter including the first!

Every night now, when you go to bed
I find you're wearing some of his old clothes.
You favour the brown jumper that you said
Can roll right down, and tuck under your toes.

And his is the blue t shirt with the hole
That 'Daddy must've made'. In my arms
He's slight - no, fragile - little hurting soul
Made smaller in the grown-up clothes that calm.

They wear your things: their smell mixes with yours
Your absence ever present in their beds
It pains me, but I hope their nightwear stores
Some sweeter sleep-time memories in their heads.

I feel the times you held her as she clings;
I know my hand-hold's not the one he craves
You're missing those daft songs he used to sing
You're both so sick of having to be 'brave'.

The lights go off; you're dreaming in your rooms
I need some time to tend to my own grief
But, of course, I'm still thinking of you
The three of you, and willing you at peace.

tunnocks

tunnock
I’m shedding actual tears here. That is beautiful.

to you

Oh! Thank you. I’ll share one more if I may and then run off as it’s not in iambic pentameter 🤣

Sums

I wish I could be you and me
And somehow make our four from three
I wish my pair of arms was more
And one plus one plus one made four
I wish that we could do a sum
That truly counted everyone

But you and I made he and she
And in his eyes it’s you I see
And how she walks and how he talks
Of bridges, buildings, trees and hawks
Her sunny nature’s straight from you
His wanderings just what you’d do

And so you see you do not hide
So many features multiplied
It’s not a case of minus one
You’re in your daughter and your son.

Wow @tunnockreturns. Beautiful and moving. Thank you. 🌹

Again, so beautiful. What a gift you have, to express such things from such sorrow.

I'd just sound like a snivelling piteous beastie, if I tried such a thing!

Thank you!