Women could make
babies, ached for
love, baked and were
kind; their tears cured
and cheered; a lot of the male sort glared.
They claimed special
place with gall 'tween
legs, sol blessed, not
earthly, wrought lies
that taught women were jealous: a guise!
It was they all
the while bawled their
gripe, stalled the true
complaint: you have
a womb, we don't and can't not be haves.
— joystjohn
babies, ached for
love, baked and were
kind; their tears cured
and cheered; a lot of the male sort glared.
They claimed special
place with gall 'tween
legs, sol blessed, not
earthly, wrought lies
that taught women were jealous: a guise!
It was they all
the while bawled their
gripe, stalled the true
complaint: you have
a womb, we don't and can't not be haves.
— joystjohn
I really like the rhythm of this poem, the tension. I especially like the content as it reflects the realization I had decades ago that men have to oppress women because we bring forth life and they could not.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to the latest episode of the podcast "Capitalism Hits Home" where she was talking about the roots of this exact thing - - I knew I had wanted to talk about "the patriarchy" because of the prompt - - and I chose at random a new poetic form I'd never tried before - - and voilà! Thank you for reading! :)
DeleteI am curious about the new poetic form. This poem seems to cruise along at top speed, maybe because of lots of rhyming and near-rhyming? I felt I'd been on a tiny, important roller-coaster. (Macoff)
ReplyDeleteIt's Korean, if I recall correctly! A very weird little structure! Lemme see if I can paste . . . "Ya-du . . . a Burmese poetic form . . . Quintains (or five-line stanzas).
DeleteFour syllables in the first four lines.
The final line has either five, seven, nine, or 11 syllables.
The fourth syllable of the first line rhymes with the third syllable of the second line and the second syllable of the third line.
The fourth syllable of the third line rhymes with the third syllable of the fourth line and the second syllable of the fifth line.
The fourth syllable of the fourth line rhymes with the final syllable of the final line.
Subject usually deals with seasons.
Most ya-du are written in three or fewer stanzas.
Wow! Exacting!
Delete