angry words shouted hammers the heart like a fist nails in animus thin, icy strands loop around and around a heart cold barbed wire cuts deep starving, hollow heart fed on by gluttonous man lies mute at death’s door ©2022 July Day senryu
(The last senryu was inspired by a line from the Karen Slaughter book Pretty Girls that I recently read, and I quote: “Marriage—that’s what he called it. Though men like Paul do not marry women, they own them, they control them, they are voracious gluttons who devour every part of a woman, then clean their teeth with the bones.”)
Image by DrMedYourRasenn from Pixabay
Pen and Paintbrush 
Nice writing, July.
I must say, I have never tried
writing a senryu. It seems to have the same 5 7 5 syllables as a Haiku.
What’s the difference?
I’ve written lots of Haikus
and Tanka’s.
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From what I understand, a haiku deals with nature and the natural world, while a senryu is concerned with human nature. Until I took an online poetry course a while back, I had never heard of a senryu, nor a tanka, which (as you know) has 5 lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count, and can have any subject. And another note about a haiku, not long ago I read that now the majority of haiku are written in a 3-5-3 syllable format. I haven’t tried that yet. I enjoy the challenge of theses short poetic forms—every word has to count.
Thank you for reading, Alan…always. 💕😊
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Wow. All that from a quote.
July, this poem is PERFECTLY written. Every word hurts. “Nails in animus.” Damn.
PS Thanks to Allen’s question and your response, I’ve learned some more about poetry. I’ve never studied it. So thank you.
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Thank you, Andrew. Until I studied poetry, nearly every poem I wrote was free verse, but after learning of all the different forms, I now mostly structure my poetry. I enjoy the challenge. If you’re interested, here’s a site I like that explains the different forms: http://www.shadowpoetry.com/index.html
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Thank you! I’ll check it out.
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