This poem writing has me by the throat...

I wrote a sonnet the other day; that's line two.

I don't write much formal poetry--that is, poems that require a specific form. That being said, in the last two days, I've written three--a sonnet, a villanelle, and a pantoum.

Formed poetry is, to me, mathematical in its precision. I have to worry about meter and rhyme scheme, and sometimes, as with the villanelle and the pantoum, I have to flip lines according to a specific pattern. It's hard; it requires concentration. But once I get started with them, they are hard to shake.

So, here's the pantoum; I'll post this on NaPo tomorrow:

A Possible Pantoum
04/05/09

There is no heart where heartache cannot go.
We guard ourselves, believing we are safe,
Yet pain will come, and we will never know
The lengths to which it goes to find its place.

We guard ourselves, believing we are safe
From jealousy, and love, and burning rages.
The lengths to which it goes to find its place
Never lessens, not with growing grace or age.

These jealousies, and loves, and burning rages
Consume us, fill our souls with awful fire.
It never lessens, not with growing grace or age
And drags us through the mud of grand desire

That consumes us; it fills our souls with fire
That burns us down to ash and smoky embers
and drags us through the mud of grand desire
To places we fear we always will remember.

It burns us down to ash and smoky embers.
The pain will come, and we will never know
the places we fear, that we always will remember.
There is no heart where heartache cannot go.

See if you can figure out the "rules" for this one!