Paradiddle

He plays a paradiddle on the drums
while his lover sleeps. The room is dim,

no heat at the ending of the day,
although the weather has stayed dry.

She really wanted to go for a walk,
but he focused on his drumsticks, work

took precedence, with a new world tour.
She turned her back on him, a tear

about to spill. She is not innocent,
their relationship is far from nascent.

The drummer scratches his growing beard
and prays his muse isn’t getting bored.

They co-exist until he has to leave,
and she’s left to weigh up loneliness and love.

Kim M. Russell, 4th March 2026

Image by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash

I won’t be around to Meet the Bar at the dVerse Poets Pub on Thursday as I am spending some time with my daughter and the boys for Lucas’s 8th birthday, so I’m posting my poem a day early.

Laura is putting us through our paces with two and a half rhymes, sharing excerpts from a spring poem by Christina Rossetti’, which is written in couplets, and Alice Oswald’s’ ‘A Short Story of Falling; for couplets of half rhymes she has chosen the delightful ‘Snowdrop’ by Ted Hughes,

Laura would like us to write at least 12 lines of poetry in couplets of two-line stanzas, which must rhyme but only using half rhymes which have the same end consonant, such as alive/move; lame/come; mad/bed; hate/pot OR para rhymes, which have the same start and end consonants, such as hall/hell; stirred/stared; escaped/scooped.

We may write about a specific (imaginary) couple from the perspective of they or we OR choose the concept of two as a topic.

20 thoughts on “Paradiddle”

  7. Kim happy you get time to spend with your daughter and the grandkids. Happy 8th Birthday to Lucas!

    I’ve known a few musicians and think that music will always be their first lady love. Hard to play 2nd fiddle to it sometimes. You reflect that well in your poem.

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