Short forms

One of my favorite forms is the Quatrain, pearls in four lines, and I have a small collection of those I consider the best. Here’s my contribution to the style:

It matters not if rich or poor,
This life is quickly through,
So give to friends a little more
Than they can give to you.
--Robert A. Hall

There was an American poet—alas, the name escapes my old brain, but readers may recall—who invented an English form of the Haiku. Instead of being based on syllables, which is very suited to the structure of Japanese, they are based on iambic beats, with one, two, three, four and one beats in the five-lines of the poem. I used to write more of these. One of my constructions is:

The still
Beyond the door
Was more than I could bear
So quietly, I grasped the knob
And turned.
--Robert A. Hall