ㅁ Kiamon maybe once thought to herself "might just be better to put on a shelf; face all the ways that we each reach our end; face just the fact that the gods' wills don't bend."
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Category: Kiamonic Quatrains
Caveat: Poem #1992 “Forty-eighth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon gazed at the fog on the lake weather had forced her to take a short break. Still she grew frustrated, time passed her by... hopes were obscured just as clouds hid the sky.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1968 “Forty-seventh stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon ducked to avoid the man's gaze. He only glanced quickly, stuck in his ways. Once he had gone, she got up and pursued, mind overwhelmed with resolving the feud.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1967 “Forty-sixth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon didn't know what was in store. Riding the train through the night was a bore. Suddenly someone appeared in the car: dangerous face, with a notable scar.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1966 “Forty-fifth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon watched as the fields tumbled by. Moonlight illumined the snow and the sky. Slowly the train made its way down the shore. Kiamon didn't know what was in store.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1959 “Forty-fourth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon thought to herself, what a life: struggling and fighting through battles and strife. Now she could rest for a moment at least, gazing down past the old trees toward the east.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter,
Caveat: Poem #1947 “Forty-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon reached a decision, at last; do what was needed and take on the past; ghosts might object that the time wasn't right; they'd give up soon, and would fade with the night.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1876 “Forty-second stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon sat in the dark before dawn trying to focus her mind: where'd it gone? Time had been swallowed by efforts in vain; now all she had was the slow, quiet rain.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1868 “Forty-first stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon stared at the mist and the trees. Recent events filled her soul with unease. All of reality's rules had been bent. Now she'd just wait and would see how things went.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1867 “Fortieth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon studied the map in detail trying her best to determine her trail. Hopelessly lost, she set out in the end, randomly choosing a turn past the bend.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1829 “Thirty-ninth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon dwelt in her house by the lake built by her grandmothers' hands long ago. Daily she walked the two blocks up the street, rode on the streetcar downtown to her work.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1820 “Thirty-eighth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon wanders the dreams of the dead, questing through mythical stories, she said. Then she awakes with a start, and she thought "moonlight's cold hands are alive!" - but they're not.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1797 “Thirty-seventh stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon leads in a novel I'll write, someday eventually bring into light. Meanwhile she serves as a suffering foil, taking the place of my own mortal coil.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1796 “Thirty-sixth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon stared at the sky with distaste. Solutions she'd tried had all gone to waste. Still, she had hoped to explain her concerns. Life always tossed her these frustrating turns.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1749 “Thirty-fifth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon stared at her coffee and stirred, watching the tendrils of cream spin around. Nothing had happened in line with her hopes. Patterns emerged but the picture was vague.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1722 “Thirty-fourth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon thought about stories and songs, struggled to figure out what was her own. Only the ending seemed clear in the least, all was a blur beyond that, she was sure.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1721 “Thirty-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon looked at the rocks and the stones scattered about on the slope by the road. Pointlessness dwelt in her frustrated mind: what could she do but attempt to survive?
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1623 “Thirty-second stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon struggled to push on alone, lacking the help her ancestors had known. Dancing the stories she'd learned as a child, Ghosts only watched like shy beasts in the wild.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1608 “Thirty-first stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon looked at the city, its lights: flickering images limning her nights. Quietly brooding, she pondered her pain, but, in the end, she just sat in the rain.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1570 “Thirtieth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon couldn't help asking the ghosts. Late in the night they would lurk on the coast, drifting along the wide lake's rocky shore, helpless and hoping to not be ignored.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1569 “Twenty-ninth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon sat there and looked at the crowd. Tables were packed and the cafe was loud. Still, down inside, she felt empty as wind. Nothing was true. Her mood was chagrined.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1568 “Twenty-eighth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon knew in the tomb of her heart: All was a dream and she'd wake with a start Trapped deep inside some philosopher's cave. Meanwhile, she wept at her grandmother's grave.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1567 “Twenty-seventh stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon watched as the sun tasted sky. Clouds were flushed gold and she thought she would die. Gusts licked the dawn and the trees failed to show. Angels cavorted across the fresh snow.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1566 “Twenty-sixth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon's mouth was all flavored with dust: tasting like stones and small hintings of rust. These were the nerves that she felt at that time: facing her fears, among trees clothed in rime.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1552 “Twenty-fifth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon knelt down and looked at the ground, searching for signs but they weren't to be found. Standing again, she began to decide where in the world she'd look next, far and wide.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1534 “Twenty-fourth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon boarded the tram down the block. Brownstones and brick walls began to stream past: cold-windowed churches, a tall, pensive clock, human creations - the city seemed vast.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Kiamon lives in Ohunkagan.
Caveat: Poem #1481 “Twenty-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon sat on the shore of the lake, watching the water that danced with the wind, narrowing eyes from a face that had thinned, barely remembering desert and ache.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter, but with a different rhyme-scheme than previous quatrains on the topic of Kiamon.
Caveat: Poem #1457 “Twenty-second stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon acted without prior thought, forcing the hand of the fate that she sought, failing to plan for contingencies, then, marching off into the desert again.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1439 “Twenty-first stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon sat by the lakeshore and watched: wind-woven waves biting stones where they touched, trees overseeing the greenness and breeze, clouds climbing skies with magnificent ease.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1431 “Twentieth stanza”
ㅁ Not-a-Wolf wielded a sixgun and knife, Lived like he didn't much value his life. Soldiers pursued him through sun and through snow, Never once thinking to just let him go.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Luc Not-a-Wolf is a character in a story I sometimes work on, which takes place in the imaginary land of Makaska. He is Kiamon’s great-great grandfather.
Caveat: Poem #1403 “Nineteenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon knelt at her ancestor's grave clutching the keepsake her mother once gave. Angels cavorted around by some trees summoning shadows that only love frees.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter, on the ongoing angsts of a fictional being.
Caveat: Poem #1390 “Eighteenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon traveled to worlds beyond ken using her mind to find meaning again. Body in place, like a somnolent monk, worlds coalesced out of cognitive junk.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #1380 “Seventeenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon thought about ancestry then, counting back mothers and fathers to ten. How did her elders perform at these tasks? When at last death took them, what did they ask?
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.