The Grayette Verse Form

Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I originally picked this form because it’s only 12 lines, and many of those lines looked really short. However, the joke’s on me. It’s got one of those up and down syllable counts, and some of those lines rhyme. *sigh*

The Grayette was invented by an American named James Gray, not to be confused with the James Gray from Scotland who was a friend of Robert Burns. There’s not much to be said about this form, other than the syllable count is: 2-4-8-8-4-2-2-4-8-8-4-2. Lines 1, 5, 7, and 11 do not rhyme. The remaining lines are rhymed thusly: 2-a, 3-b, 4-a, 6-b, 8-c, 9-d, 10-c, 12-d.

Here’s the schematic (lines ending in x are the non-rhyming lines):

x x
x x x a
x x x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x
x b
x x
x x x c
x x x x x x x d
x x x x x x x c
x x x x
x d

I’m thinking that if you wanted to get all fancy, you could center this and turn it into a shape poem. But I’m not going to do this here. ;-)


After The Fall

After
the fall from grace
everything changed for mankind;
no longer did we know our place –
we were as lost
and blind
grieving
for what had been,
regretting the choice that was made,
creating original sin,
and leaving us
afraid.