PAD Challenge Day 20

Tdoay's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title, "Let's ________", and (2) take some notes, mental or otherwise, while you travel today (by car, bus, foot, etc.) and write a poem of your impressions.  Since it was foggy this morning on my short drive to work, this is the poem I came up with:

Let’s Be Careful in the Fog

our morning washed of details
we move through a gray blanket

our cars glide more quietly
our morning washed of details

traffic lights come from nowhere
our cars glide more quietly

caution is our best defense
traffic lights come from nowhere

at the last minute, we see
caution is our best defense

on this whitewashed workday
at the last minute, we see

someone who wasn’t careful
on this whitewashed workday

police strobe lights pierce the haze
someone who wasn’t careful

respectfully, we slow down
police strobe lights pierce the haze

we move through a gray blanket
respectfully, we slow down


This is in a form I created that I call the "pan-ku".  I was inspired by my friend Anna Evans, who created a similar form called the "haikoum". (An example of her form can be found here.)  Like hers, mine is a kind of cross between a haiku and a pantoum, but mine is different in the pattern of the repeated lines and their length.  The poem consists of unrhymed couplets of seven syllables each,  and a line pattern of AB, CA, DC, ED, FE... YX, BY.  The poem can be any length, but it seems the shorter ones - say, 14 lines or less - tend to be better. (The one above is the longest I've written so far.) The last couplet must consist of the second line of the first stanza and the first line of the next-to-last stanza.  I like these because they have the structure and repetition of a pantoum, plus the fourteen-syllable couplets have the sound and feel of haiku. Try writing one!