5.4 Tercets
The following poem is written in tercets.
There’s no one here at the moment
It happens once, in his absence.
The bright hall rings, rings and, mid-ring,
clicks back over into silence.
It leaves two isolated sighs,
hers, momentarily frozen
before an ocean of blank space
that by nightfall he’ll come across
and save against the backdrop of
a Friday evening office;
give up on; rewind to and play
more times than makes sense; tomorrow,
or the day after, wipe away.
Activity 15
Now write a poem with the same title – ‘There’s no one here at the moment’ – consisting of two tercets, rhymed or unrhymed.
Think about what happens between the first and second stanza. This may comprise the point or heart of your poem.
The following poem is in tercets with a rogue line at the end.
Spilt milk
Two soluble aspirins spore in this glass, their mycelia
fruiting the water, which I twist into milkiness.
The whole world seems to slide into the drain by my window.
It has rained and rained since you left, the streets black
and muscled with water. Out of pain and exhaustion you came
into my mouth, covering my tongue with your good and bitter milk.
Now I find you have cashed that cheque. I imagine you
slipping the paper under steel and glass. I sit here in a circle
of lamplight, studying women of nine hundred years past.
My hand moves into darkness as I write, The adulterous woman
lost her nose and ears; the man was fined. I drain the glass.
I still want to return to that hotel room by the station
to hear all night the goods trains coming and leaving.
The chosen stanza form is appropriate to the theme of an erotic triangle, with a third party suggested by the ‘women of nine hundred years past’, not to mention the disparity between the punishments for women and for men involved in adultery.