Walking at Night

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet.

As a break from writing fiction, I decided to have another attempt at writing an Etheree, a particular form of poetry.  This form was created some twenty years ago by an Arkansas poet named Etheree Taylor Armstrong.  An Etheree, consists of ten lines of un-metered and un-rhymed verse, the first line having one syllable, each succeeding line adding a syllable, with the total syllable count being fifty-five.

Here’s my attempt

Why
Do we
We Still walk here
Every night
Small dog and I
Together in the
Cold empty streets of town
Where nothing moves and no dogs roam
Where all is locked and barred for the night
We should both go home to our warm safe house.

Lotte and I always walk in the daytime but I have often wondered how different the world would be if we walked at night.  But I know that even here it is not safe for a woman and a small dog to be out late at night.

Note – I saw the repeated word and have now changed it.

“No matter how dark the night we know that whatever happens the sun will rise tomorrow and then all the shadows will be chased away.”
Judith Baxter, Blogger and friend. 1938 –

Related articles

• .. . words fail … . .. {redux} (haikulovesongs.wordpress.com)
• (inter)national Poetry Month ~ April 2012 “E” etheree and more (haikulovesongs.wordpress.com)
• In-form Poet – the Alliterisen (cloudfactor5.wordpress.com)
• One Syllable Story (searchingfortiffanys.wordpress.com)