A Poet’s Truth

Having turned my hand to the sonnet in the past, I thought I would investigate the ottava rima. In the English form, a stanza has eight lines of three alternate rhymes and one rhyming couplet, following the pattern a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. The meter is usually iambic pentameter.

A Poet’s Truth

A word is struck and bursts forth from a spark,

Ignites a poet’s candle in his den;

A silent moment in the velvet dark

Illuminated by the poet’s pen.

A flame that burns the page with every mark

Fills the aching silence once again.

The candle melts, dissolving what is learnt,

The poet speaks his truth and is not burnt.