If you’ve read any of my work, then you’ll notice my affection for poetry. There are are pieces of poetry in every single book I have had published, thus far, and that will likely continue. Formal and informal, often rhymed but certainly not always.

In my spare time, I will try out creating my own formal devices. Last year, I began sketching out what I came to call the Cinebelle (meaning “beautiful cinema”). It is composed of four tercets and a quatrain, meant to represent the “sting” and the “story” and the “end” but need not follow that rigidly. There is a rhyme pattern, equally optional, that goes like this (numbers representing lines and letters representing rhyme):

1     a

2     b

3     a

4     c

5     d

6     e

7     e

8     c

9     d

10     d

11     e

12     c

13     a

14     b

15     a

16     a

There is a more constrictive rhyme scheme that only allows for three variations of rhyme (a,b,c), but I find allowing for five variations of rhyme (a,b,c,d,e) to be less stressful and more flexible for storytelling. To each there own! But I imagine that, unless you are into this type of thing, you may be better served by reading an example of the form.

So, here you go. The following piece is an untitled cinebelle I wrote about the 1985 film SILVER BULLET:

Full moon above is but a harbinger of what’s to come

Illuminating sleepy Tarker’s Mills as a righteous nightmare beast

A Werewolf’s single swipe removes the head of Arnie Westrum

Full moon above, a silver dollar scream

Salvation from the flesh found in rending

Slaughterhouse pieta carved by claws

See all that serve the will and mind of Claw

Can you see? the Reverend Werewolf screams

But Marty asks him if life’s worth ending

Your eternal life is worth defending

Salvation can and will be served by Claw

Marty crafts a bullet silver blaspheme

Bullet blasts the orbital, eye turned to ruined plum

Werewolf-cum-deceased priest is from his curse released

A body-horror miracle one might be inclined to shrink from

Is a life worth ending? and Silver Bullet tells us: some

Anyway, I find it important to do these types of things. It gets me out of my own head and is great for breaking up any sense of writer’s block I might be facing. Besides, the world needs more poetry. And, werewolves.