“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” – Andre Gide
A cinquain written for Ronovan’s Cinquain Challenge #28
Submitted for a final AllPoetry assignment. I tried to incorporate the senses into this poem more than I would normally do. This whole poem is also inspired by an Alan Watts quote:
“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”
For the last line – apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.
Syllable count per line – quatrain : 7
Rhyme scheme: Quatrain – alternating rhyme and Cinquain
Rhyme types: mostly perfect rhyme
Personification: I am a rock!
Senses: smell (gasoline/perfume), sound (shout/scream), sight (unseen) touch (smash me/numb), taste (bitter salts)
Alliteration: shout/suffering/scream, any/answers, unseen/surprise/smash/succumb
Assonance: shout out/louder, unseen/surprise/succumb, stagnant/starts, I/silence, meditate/in, counteract/the, am/an/a
Consonance: salts anaesthetise, re-righting
Metaphor/simile: The first stanza is a metaphor for the chaos of the world. ‘Once unseen’ – rocks are not something noticed but always there. ‘Bitter salts’ – lick a rock, it tastes salty. ‘Numb’ – rocks have no feelings. “passing through old time’s filter” – mineral water cleaned as it passes through rocks. “re-righting the Earth’s kilter” – no matter what mankind does, the Earth will sort itself out.
Submitted to No Theme Thursday and the attached picture.
Cinquain is a short, usually unrhymed poem with twenty-two syllables distributed in five lines: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2.
Line 1 has one word (the title).
Line 2 has two words that describe the title.
Line 3 has three words that tell the action.
Line 4 has four words that express the feeling
Line 5 has one word which recalls the title.
Today I’m feeling:
Not so terrible but I can’t speak clearly because of whatever is going on in my throat.
I felt ok to get up but once I got to school I felt tired again.
Today I’m grateful for:
My grade 10s contacting me whilst I was at the cafe, asking if I could teach them immediately, as they had no other classes today and didn’t want to wait until 2.30. It seemed like a good idea because it meant that I could finish at 12.30 and go home too.
This turned out to be a double-edged sword. The grade 10 was simple enough and the grade 8s immediately afterwards went well enough too and I headed home. However, I was low on energy and motivation and had an hour snooze and after getting up again from that, just felt like wanting to sleep more.
This meant that I didn’t do any reading or writing today and I’m back in bed again now at 7.30 pm
The best thing about today was:
I put my grade 8s into random pairs to practice conversation. Most of them complained and asked to swap partners, to which i just ignored them and asked them to get on with it.
This showed me who was prepared to just get on with it and do what was asked rather than avoiding it until the very end. None of them got away.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
Despite my fairly low feeling today I didn’t let anything in particular bother me.
Something I learned today?
I came across this quote that I like: “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” – Soren Kierkegaard
1994ever 