Rictameter

The rictameter (singular and plural) is a modern 9-line, syllabic form in which the lines have 2/4/6/8/10/8/6/4/2 syllables and the first and last lines are the same 2-syllable word. They may also be iambic or trochaic, or otherwise have half as many stressed syllables as unstressed per line.

Poems

1. 2026-04-05

   In grace,
   A blind wind reads
   The contours of your face
   And tenderly appends each line
   With tears—commingled salt from every sea,
   Pre-dawn saudades and griefs withheld
   To keep the workplace neat—
   It writes the world
   In you.

   ---

   Similar subject dealt with much more briefly and bluntly in a septolet from the same day, which spends nearly half the words on the sun as a counterpoint; I came up with the lines “While sun omniscient / Is innocent / Of grief” to end this poem to match the other one, but decided to focus on just sympathy and the wind.

2. 2025-06-04

   Anti-
   Material—
   A tendency of fear,
   Each relic in your sepulchre
   Is made of bugs and dirt and stars
   Like all the rest of us
   As changeable as chalk
   In children's games
   Outside.