Temperance

Temperance


A Champagne glass filled with despair,
its sparkle waning in the air
in shallow tribute to my sins.
A toast to all the might-have-beens.

Anguished red is this bitter drink,
brewed from pieces as my dreams sink,
collected as tears. So begins
a toast to all the might-have-beens.

This arcane potion blinds my eyes;
I drink too deeply of my lies,
tasting the failures – never wins.
A toast to all the might-have-beens.

A Champagne glass filled with despair;
a toast to all the might-have-beens.

An entry for "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" 
Prompt(s): Word List – red, collect, shallow, glass, despair, drink, pieces, eyes
Form: The Kyrielle Sonnet consists of 14 lines (three rhyming quatrain stanzas and a non-rhyming couplet). Just like the traditional Kyrielle poem, the Kyrielle Sonnet also has a repeating line or phrase as a refrain. Each line within the Kyrielle Sonnet consists of only eight syllables. French poetry forms have a tendency to link back to the beginning of the poem, so common practice is to use the first and last line of the first quatrain as the ending couplet. This would also re-enforce the refrain within the poem. A good rhyming scheme for a Kyrielle Sonnet would be: AabB, ccbB, ddbB, AB.