The ambling gent in casual mode
Swings as he progresses,
His movement bares no heavy load
It’s pleasure he expresses.
The skipping child to her mother’s gait
Will dance to a missing beat,
In later years she’ll see as bait
Her syncopated feet.
The couple with a strolling pram
Take comfort in its rocking,
The child aboard sleeps like a lamb
When Mother Goose comes knocking.
. There’s a punctuated rhythm to a passing crowd,
. People making patterns – composing out aloud.

© Tim Grace, 28 February 2010

To the reader: The rhythm of life pulses through the human race expressing our moods and demeanours. The confident gait belongs to those with status, the boastful strut marks the braggart, and the carefree skip of a child renders all else a function of bipedal progression. When watching a crowd, it’s the collection of gaits, struts and skips that give it character, and mark it as different to a marching parade; having the hallmark of precisely choreographed passage.

To the poet: In the absence of a strict iambic-pentameter, the initial four lines of this poem capture what is probably my natural rhythm of a longer first line (eight syllables) followed by a shorter phrase (of seven syllables in this case) to conclude the two-line sentence. The mechanics of poetry are vitally important but contrived construction ensures collapse. Every poem should have its own pulse; and for the readers’ sake help to transform the words from a written to oral state.

Punctuated Rhythm