Octains of Hope and Despair

Victoria Slotto at dVerse reminds us of the Octain refrain form, invented by Luke Prater: a poem of eight lines – two tercets and a couplet with rhyme sceme Abb   a-c/c-a, b-A.  C is an internal rhyme in the 5th line.  

I struggled and limped to express the idea that was amorphous in my head.  Then, as I was making a fair copy, another one leapt on to the page!  I give you both, in the order they arrived.  I don’t do syllable counting, and these are written in (very) loose iambic tetrameter.

 

Octain I

A small space of words to enlarge the world,
I ask what makes a poem great,
demonstrate faith to change our fate

What gift is this that makes a poet
transform the humdrum. We become
wise as serpents to forego it,

gloss the boring, to create
a spate of words to brighten the world.

Octain II

We’re going to hell on a carousel.
Terror reigns and people die
for no valid reason that I

can imagine, save lunacy,
foul, vile malevolent evil
nursed in pseudo religious cradle

to purge the so-called infidel
the world is going to hell on a carousel