[Holly Martins]

I was going through some old poetry info I'd downloaded and came across something I don't remember seeing before: apocopated rhyme - rhyming a line end with a penultimate syllable. I've had a go but I'm sure you could do much better.


PULLING FACES

I thought her text was hurtful -
crushing, distant, curt;
when all I’d been was truthful,
the dumb caprice of youth!

And now there’s only coldness
in place of her to hold -
withdrawn, the cheerful smilies,
she’d tapped out by the mile.

[basil ransome-davies]

EH?

My destiny was distant,
Occluded by a mist,
Or else I'd had a skinful
At Cohen's Irish Inn.

I felt I was repeating
A painting by Magritte.
No sentiment came easy;
I'd lost my loving squeeze.

I turned to travel homewards,
But did I live in Rome?
Much more likely-seeming
I inhabited a dream.

[Holly Martins]

Nice one, Basil - but is that a typo in L6?

[basil ransome-davies]

Now corrected. Thank you. This kind of stuff can be addictive, it rolls out so easily, but I see it as one of those useful limbering-up exercises for the craft.

[John Whitworth]

Gavin Ewart wrote a poem which I cannot find. It goes something like this:

When a cat-flea bit my scrotum,
My cock shot up like a totem-pole,
dada dada Death's dark portal,
Dada dada da my immortal soul...

There's more but I can't remember it. The rhyme scheme is clear, but what is it called?

[A. E. Stallings]

The finest poem I know that employs this kind of rhyme is Merrill's http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch....html?id=15015"The Octopus."