Crooked Quads
The crooked quad is a 4-line, rhyming, accentual-syllabic form I came up with inadvertently. The rhyme pattern is A/B/C/B and the syllable counts are either 2/8/4/8 or 4/8/2/8 in iambic or trochaic meter; the poems tend to be split in some way between the second and third lines, but what form that takes is pretty fuzzy. Crooked quads tend to be about two contrasting/complementary subjects, or a turning point, inflection, or revelation.
History
The first one I wrote is Nightmare Times, though that's actually a slight rework of a tercet with an 8–4–8 syllable pattern. After writing the later poem 2025-04-29-the-harvestman, I decided to give the form a name and group all the ones I'd written so far in a single place (till that point, they were in misc. quatrains).
Notes
In length (22 syllables), it's close or identical to the tetractys (20), Crapsey cinquain (22), and englyn-alike (24), though with a more flexible structure than the first two and a more flexible rhyme than the last one. There might also be some influence from the Kelly lune, with its shorter middle-line pivot.
Poems
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2026-04-26
On wings of lead Our roof takes leave to join the storm; Old thoughts Spill out in desiccated swarms.
The third line used to be “Dead thoughts”.
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2026-04-13
This winter's spring When even solar winds blow cold Sees all Our births ordained, our fates foretold.
Kinda similar in subject to a previous crooked quad, though more outwards than inwards. I think I prefer the earlier one a bit, though.
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2026-03-22
Lurching Pot-bellied harvestman-machines Now duskward home Low-garlanded with black fatigue.
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2026-01-24
Hellmouth! Red halls where skinless lords hold court All dressed in rags The rich have shorn from poor they bought.
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2025-12-20
New butcher-kings Invade our yardang palaces; Pig-heads, They swill their shit from chalices.
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2025-12-12
I spy a sign Miraged in clouds of dead-and-done —Perhaps!— The thin idea of the sun.
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2025-11-20
Astride the house The titan ice makes candles quake— Its prey Burn life to keep the flame awake.
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2025-11-14
From space Our cities blaze with screaming cars In parking lots, Where once dark rivers spoke in stars.
I think this also works as just a couplet of the two long lines: “Our cities blaze with screaming cars / Where once dark rivers spoke in stars.”
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2025-11-06
The Column Creeps Strike BackGrown without love, Our cultivar of Column Creeps Learns nothing But to find more kids to eat.
Follow-up on a previous crooked quad about the same kinda person/people.
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2025-11-05
Anxious angstroms Separate the desperado From Death And legendary bravado.
Some wording shared with a Crapsey cinquain from the same day.
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2025-11-01
Dim-bulb haloes Glower over holy Europe; Pogroms Fuel the furnace, that we're sure of.
Similar subject to a Crapsey cinquain I wrote the same day. Also getting a rhyme for “Europe” is a bit hard so I just went for a rhyme on the stressed syllable.
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2025-10-30
Stay warm! These underwater seasons, each A lifetime long, Send icebergs crawling up the beach.
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2025-10-25
Flagellants whine: “If we were bred in sin and grime— We'll come To God through pain divine.”
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2025-10-23
Irradiate Your hateful soul with corium, The love Of concrete angel Corazon.
Concrete Angel Corazon kind of a magical girl name… I'm kinda pushing it with the rhyme there but there aren't many words that rhyme tightly with “corium” so I'm relying on the “cor-” sound and the half-rhymes after that.
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2025-10-23
Glister The moon that sunbathed in the night Seduced the stars And turned them into satellites.
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2025-10-20
Bland businessmen, On long invisible commutes, Leave art On pavements wet with rainbow fruit.
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2025-10-18
The amnesty Entombs our town in frozen war— White walls, Old hate cemented with our gore.
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2025-10-15
The Pulpit Demon (day)Through silver tongue The Pulpit Demon has its way With me— Before my flock—I blush and pray—
Alternate to the first version of The Pulpit Demon (night).
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2025-09-27
The Pulpit Demon (night)In church, The Pulpit Demon has its way With words tonight— Its thrusts and whispers—make me pray—
I later added an alternate verison: The Pulpit Demon (day).
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2025-09-27
How Come All the New Killborgs have Degradation KinksSurgeoneers Devised a megadeath assembly line; Saboteurs Milked the little death from their designs.
I might give this one a more expansive treatment. Also, yeah it's 2 extra syllables per couplet.
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2025-09-22
Proserpina SurvivesPersephone Dug deep inside her bridal vault; Hades Never thought she'd find a thunder-bolt.
Extra syllable to round out the last line and return to Persephone's meter.
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2025-09-19
What Master OwnsThe golf course preens Above the slump of houses' bones— The flames Have yet to reach what Master owns.
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2025-09-17
Play deaf— The banshee anchored in the bay Sings rusty screams To prophesy our final day.
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2025-09-08
Our parcan god Descends from heavenly machines; Our hands Burn hot to work the djinnic dream.
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2025-09-02
Our autumn clothes: Thin sheep shake off their coats of rain For wool, And likewise I wear fleece again.
Uses a similar line to an englyn-alike I wrote the same day.
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2025-08-25
Those lonely peaks, Whose eldritch beauty makes hearts dance, Wake up— They yawn and stretch and—Avalanche!
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2025-08-25
The Sin InventorChrist-robed, The Sin Inventor hums off-key— He takes no note As demons sing in harmony.
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2025-08-02
Cloud Dogs (B)Let sleep The cloud dogs wreathed around the fire That Brother Moon Has thieved from Sister Sun's empire.
Started from the same point as another crooked quad I wrote that day.
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2025-08-02
Cloud Dogs (A)Let sleep The cloud dogs wreathed around the fire Where Sister Sun Now hides from Brother Moon's desire.
Started from the same point as another crooked quad I wrote that day.
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2025-07-12
The Prayer DemonOilman! You set your votive well aflame; In black-gold tongues The prayer demon begs your name!
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2025-07-12
Beneath the hill, The dragon meditates and starves; On high, A Boeing nurses screeching calves.
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2025-07-12
A scorn of stars Behind the veil of sun-vault blue Whisper All the things you'll never do.
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2025-07-06
You charm With seafoam songs and dancing eyes, While round your rock A choir of groping corpses cries.
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2025-06-01
Apocalypse Will wipe the hours off the clock, And Time Will see what else it has in stock.
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2025-05-28
Tonight The puddles dream of better times, While ghosts flow by In coracles of coralline.
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2025-05-19
The Ballot BastardLook sharp! The Ballot Bastard's up the street, Their pencil teeth A cage for tigers craving meat.
See also The Column Creep.
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2025-05-07
Neon creatures Creep so softly off the storefronts, Awestruck By the incandescent stormfront.
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2025-05-05
Forgive The last spring day its winter-cold Soliloquies— It's born, and then its bell is tolled.
It was cold.
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2025-04-29
The harvestman Who doesn't know his snowflake odds, Swings blind And nicks the face of laughing God.
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2025-04-27
Two tons of rust, The car atop the scrapheap looms; Unseen, Its fifty tons of lifelong fumes.
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2025-04-27
The road is gone That pointed to the city queer— They pried The stones to build a tollhouse here.
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2025-04-25
The Column CreepThe Column Creep With groping fingers hopes to hurt, With words, The rebels dispossessed of Earth.
See also The Ballot Bastard, and the follow-up crooked quad about the same kinda people.
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2025-04-24
Nightmare TimesWatch out! The Seasons' weary walls grow thin And nightmare times With cold cathedral eyes peek in.
A rewrite of a very similar tercet, but splitting it over 4 lines at an obvious breakpoint with 2/8/4/8 syllables and a rhyme pattern of A/B/C/B instead. I'm gonna write some more in this pattern (or 4/8/2/8) because it seems interesting to me and I've been kinda struggling sometimes with the stricter requirements of the Crapsey cinquain and englyn-alike.