Sailing
I like the way Shelley and Keats
folded their poems into paper boats
and sailed them on Saturday afternoons
on lake waters where spectators
questioned their origamic nonsense
insisted they were too grown-up to
act grown-down but the two poets
went about their sailing unperturbed
because sometimes poems need relaxation
they need to close their eyes
and sail beneath a hot sun
or as Keats might say, Stew awhile,
or Shelley, We need to test the waters…
so their white poems sailed in a fleet
of rhythmic lines laden with cargoes
of imagery and some bobbing with rhymes
(Before you race to Google-search
"the paper boats of Shelley and Keats,"
remember even we unknown poets
have a right to poetic license)
#
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 3 Views
Quick analysis:
| Scheme | AXXBXXCX DXDXBXXX XACX |
|---|---|
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 689 |
| Words | 123 |
| Stanzas | 3 |
| Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 4 |
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"Sailing" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/83391/sailing>.
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