Iambic Insomnia

It's a tough call writing a poem purely in iambic pentameter. Especially for a girl like me who likes to write spontaneously from the heart. I can write with rhythm no problem but it's where the stresses come in the lines that I find tough. In iambic pentameter the stresses are short long short long etc - when I looked at some of the verse I have written this week I realised that the stresses were in the wrong place some of the time. Mind you the odd out of place stress in a poem can be very powerful.

anyway here is the final article:

Insomnia


Boo to a goose, the words hang left unsaid,
for I’m afraid, afraid of life itself,
I am a helpless bird deprived of flight,
in loathsome darkness tearing up the night,

interminable thoughts that swim around, around,
unholy dreams unbidden haunt my bed,
then tossed on barren seas I run aground,
and flounder, flounder, wishing I were dead.

In salt washed sheets I’m doused until the dawn
breaks singing birdlike through soft window pane,
and all falls silent, silent as the grave,
and I am overcome with sleep again.