by Holly Jahangiri | Dec 8, 2025
In May, I invented a new form I called the Scala Decima. Yesterday, I thought it might be fun to introduce its mirror twin, the Scala Decima Inversa. The rules are simple: Go down the staircase backwards.
- 10 lines;
- 10 syllables per line (iambic pentameter if you can manage it);
- rhyme on syllable that corresponds to the last line number (i.e., the tenth syllable of the first line sets the rhyme; ninth syllable of second line, eighth syllable of third line, seventh syllable of fourth line, and so on continue it);
- the rhyming syllable can occur anywhere within a word and need not be the whole word.
City Noise
An example of the Scala Decima Inversa poetry form. This was harder than I expected it to be, and not a pleasure to write. But I would never want to ask or suggest you try a thing I wasn’t willing to do, myself. Good luck with this.
Warm, gentle rain that muffles city streets
below - incessant hustle, noise. E-train's
on time. A whoosh, a thousand feet rush in,
soles clattering on concrete, rising din
a contrapuntal beat reverberates
on iron tracks. Heat rises, industry
goes on, replete with tired workers, faceless,
like Magritte's "The Son of Man," they dare not take
a beat to rest, for families like theirs
eat food to live, while factories live to eat.
E-train’s a bit of a cheat, here, but it fit the theme. That’s the thing – knowing when to intentionally sacrifice a “rule” to make the thing work at all.
“Factories” is technically one syllable too long, but do we say “fac-to-ries” or “fact-ries”? Elision is a time-honored (some would say time-worn) poetic device; if I were living in the 18th or 19th century, I might’ve written “fact’ries” but James Matthew Wilson suggests modern poets avoid marking elision and trust the reader to read the line as intended. So I am trusting you, dear Reader, to read it as “fact’ries.”
As an experiment, I fed the rules to ChatGPT to see if AI is a serious threat to human poets, yet. I’ll let you be the judge. I’ll give it this – it followed the rules.
The hush of evening gathers growing LIGHT
We drift along by night to find LIGHT there
Soft whispers rise as hopes now LIGHTen souls
In dusk we stand and breathe LIGHT near nightâs end
Under summer soft LIGHT we walk at peace
We move through dark LIGHT and trust the still air
The stars grow LIGHT as shadows slip beyond
At dawn LIGHT pours gently over the hills
In LIGHT we trust the waning night to fade
LIGHT we rise to greet the calm renewed day
Your Turn!
Try your hand at writing a poem in the Scala Decima Inversa form. Can you write one that’s better than ChatGPT’s? (C’mon, you know you can!) Feel free to post it in the comments or leave a comment with a link to where we can find your poem.
by Holly Jahangiri | Dec 2, 2025
In celebration of my friend Vinitha Dileep’s two hundred and seventy-eighth edition of Fiction Monday, I wrote a little something on her prompt: Drift. Vinitha is a fine poet and a longtime blogging friend. Please be sure to visit her site, Void Thoughts.
On lifting a seashell to my ear, I heard a poem whooshing on a tide…water or just the blood coursing through my veins and rushing past my eardrums? You decide.
Balance in Nature
Grey seabirds bobbing on a tranquil seaâ
horizon out of reach, no change of scene
or sound breaks hazy dawn's monotony.
Adrift, a sea of troubles roils, foams
as whitecaps seethe and day gives way to gloam
the silent, placid whale swims deep, to roam
the vastness of an undiscovered deep
green forest, sunlit kelp and creatures keep
slow time, and even sharks drift, dreaming, sleep.
We humans drag our toes on shifting sands
traversing gold-flecked shores of distant landsâ
a fragile peace, like seashells in our hands
held precious, broken, full of promise still
an offering, a vow: "We will not kill;
we'll heal the world together if you will."
by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 22, 2025
Spice Level 10½
after Vince Gotera
I like my chili peppers hot, but stop
before I burn my tastebuds off and yell
for bread or milk or lemonâs acid tang.
The mild jalapenoâs but a prop
that grants the diner bragging rights, but hellâ
my peppers need more biteâa sharper fang.
In scorpion, Iâve met my match, then someâ
the waiter, worried, asks me, âAre you well?â
Glares, disapprovingly, at laughter from the gang.
Florid-faced and tearful, I succumbâ
a whimper, not a bang.
This poem was inspired by Vince Gotera’s curtal sonnet, “Papa’s Chili.” He has been trying to get me to write a curtal sonnet for two years. I have stubbornly resisted. I have been trying to coax him off his shadorma kick for a few months, so when he wrote “Papa’s Chili” how could I not relent and try a curtal sonnet?
Vince, by the way, thought I cheated on the last line of this curtal sonnet form, developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s supposed to be a 10½ line sonnet, but my original draft was “with a whimper not a bang” (six and a half feet). Picky, picky, picky. I would rather it flow, rhythmically, and say what I mean to say than to strictly adhere to the form. That said, I finally settled on this version. I don’t think much is lost by adding an em dash and removing “with.” Neither did Vince, who suggested almost the same thing, in a small poetry group we belong to, after I rewrote this. Great minds, or something like that…
Editing and refinement are half the fun. However, it is so easy to get stuck in a sort of holding pattern, because a poem may never be truly “done.” If we fret, revise, add, and subtract, we’ll never deem it worthy of publication. It will rot in a drawer, as so much of my writing has done over the years. And once it’s released in the wild, opinions on whether it flows better with an extra metrical foot or needs an ellipsis rather than an em dash are nearly as numerous as the readers who’ve seen the thing. I say “nearly” because I suspect most readers, unless they are writers or avid poetry scholars, themselves, won’t notice or care so long as the writer’s last choice doesn’t trip them up like an unexpected speed-bump on a rural road.
I mentioned the other day that I’m rarely inspired by “prompts.” Lately, I’ve been approaching them the way a recalcitrant student might approach a tedious assignment, with a mix of michief, rebellion, and smart-assery. Just “git ‘er done,” right? But I’ll admit I enjoy tossing a gauntlet back and forth, for fun, with my fellow poets. Not a prompt, a challenge – be it a topic, a response, a form, or some other constraint. I enjoy writing collaboratively, as well.
Poets responding to other poems is an old tradition – using the original poem as a prompt, a springboard, an invitation to a conversation. I have been doing this with my friend, Necia Campbell, for a couple of years, now. I once sent Vince critique on one of his sonnets – and wrote it in sonnet form. If the usual type of “prompt” isn’t working for you, be it in poetry, short fiction, or other forms of writing, consider that the whole world is nothing but prompts. Talk to it. Talk about it. Argue with it. But whatever you do, pay attention to it.
by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 21, 2025
Every parent knows the endless “why?” of a curious child. And everyone who’s ever used a search engine has been sucked down the rabbit hole, themselves, beginning with a simple “why?” Ever spend hours following intriguing links and breadcrumbs, only to realize you never did get the answer to your original question–or, if you did, you got so many different answers that they were all meaningless, and you were left just as clueless as when you started?
The Writer’s Digest November PAD prompt, today, was to write a “why blank” poem. As with yesterday’s prompt, I have one serious and one smart-ass poetic response. That was the intention, but now I’m not sure which is which. Perhaps both are really quite serious, after all.
Why?
Why ask âwhy?â when every questionâs met
with punditry from tyros and tyrants?
Vast libraries lie within your grasp,
and graze your curious fingertips
to yank you down, down, down
a winding maze, the dusty stacks
where knowledge lives until you realize
(hours later) that you have always had the answers
to all the questionsâsave one. You still
donât know the answer to the question: âWhy?â
Why Blank?
"Why blank?" the teacher asked,
confused. The boy replied, "You said
we ought to write an essay,
what we thought
of summers off, or flying kites,
or looking deep
into the eyes that stare at us
from our reflection in the mirror."
The teacher nodded. "And?"
She held the pristine sheet
of paper to the light.
The child sighed. "I've never known
a summer off, the grass grows faster
than I do, and there are weeds to pull.
Nor have I ever flown a kite--
though some have told me
that I ought to do, I don't know how.
And there is no one looking back
but me, outside the window pane
or from the mirrored glass
above the sink. His silence
tells a lonely tale, and even I--
who longs to have a friend--
grow bored. You see? My mind
is dull, just like
the other teacher said--
uninteresting. And that,"
the sad-faced child said,
"is why it's blank."
Sometimes you start out writing one thing and it veers off into unexpected territory. Don’t judge – just go with it and see which rabbit hole it leads to.
by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 20, 2025
Really, Robert Brewer? You give a retired technical writer, one old enough to remember when internet trolls thought telling n00bs to “Format C:\” was great sport, a prompt like “write an explanation poem” and this is the result. You want real technical help, like “How do I answer my Samsung phone from the lock screen?” this is the wrong post. Click the link.
Customer Support
First, youâll press the power button. That
almost perfect circle â yes, the one thatâs giving you
the middle finger just for thinking that you couldâ
yes, there you go. Now wait. And count to ten
no? Itâs the proverbial âwatched pot.â Look away.
Now, go get coffee. A sluggish old PC might
benefit from liberal application of caffeine.
Ask me how I know. Iâm a pro.
Just pour it in between the letters H and O
and T. It should be hot. Hear it sizzle?
No? Letâs troubleshoot the thing.
Grab another cup of joeâthis time for youâ
weâll have another go at this. Rinse
the unit, and repeat. Now what do you see
upon the screen? Itâs black? Not blue?
Ahh, the blue is you, you say. The thing
wonât do the things you want it to.
Perhaps we can repurpose itâI hear
that Frisbee golf is all the rage, and they
accept the odd, misshapen parallelogramâ
Whatâs that, you say? RectangularâI see.
My Supervisorâs busy helping others but
your callâs of paramount importance to our company
Iâll transfer you, just count to three.
Our AI ChatBotâs more prepared for this than me.
