splendid coral rose
disrobes amidst dimmed moonlight
petal by petal
unfolds revealing pistil —
anxious virgin’s wedding night
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Author Notes
--Painting by Ikenaga Yasunari
--The pistil is part of the female reproductive structure of a flower.
--Coral Roses represent desire.
TANKA is a Japanese poetic form that originated in the Japanese Imperial Court, where nobles competed in tanka contests and for men and women engaged in courtship. Created 1,200 years ago, it can embrace all of the human experience in its brief space with emotions of love, pity, suffering, loneliness, or death.
Tanka is succinct and may not exceed 31 syllables (5/7/5/7/7) but it can be less than 31 syllables in a short/long/short/long/long format because English syllables are longer than Japanese. Personification, metaphor, simile are permitted in Tanka. Capitalization and punctuation should only be used when necessary. No end rhymes. Alliteration should be avoided or used sparingly. A pivot line, usually line 3, can be read sensibly with lines 1 and 2, and also sensibly with lines 4 and 5, a property which can be used to introduce ambiguity and resonance into the poem. for rules click here
Thank you for reading and reviewing my poem.
Gypsy
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