Poetry for Jonathan

Yellow Racing Stripes

http://www.seawatch.org/photo_library/images/tuna_terry_1_PSD.jpg

Ya-Du
The Ya-Du is another Burmese form, a kind of overgrown Than-Bauk with aspirations to haiku-ishness. Each stanza - there should not be more than three of them - has 5 lines, of which the first four have 4 syllables each, and the last can have 5, 7, 9 or 11. The last two lines rhyme in the conventional way. There is climbing rhyme in syllables 4, 3 and 2 of both the first 3 lines and the last 3 lines e.g. in the first stanza here, days/amazing/laze and about/without/devout. And, as with a haiku, there should be references to the seasons.

Yellow Finned Tuna
Swim in a school
We’re so cool, no
Speed rule for us
We’re sleek with our yellow racing stripe
We’re fast as can be, you know, and that’s no hype.