For Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 48 Marianne Moore – Melissa has invited us to write a syllabic poem in one of the styles invented by Marianne Moore.

Photo: taken today, 24.1.26, in the garden. A peppermint pelargonium (useful in cooking, great to line the base of a cake tin especially for a choc cake – becomes a choc mint cake!) with wind blown rose petals sitting on top.
The syllabic form I have chosen is a rhyming aa-bb-c with syllabic count of 1-3-9-6-8
Garden Drama
Fire
crackle pyre,
but where then is the red dancing flame
no flicker I declaim,
nothing is moving everything is
still,
no smoke rill
not a wisp to be seen anywhere,
investigate I dare
closer I see the truth and I
smile,
o what guile
our plain humble pelargonium
pure pandemonium,
scattered red petals second bloom.
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