I am simply including the inventor’s description here, but note, in my template, I have replaced the capital letters with numbers to indicate the chosen words.
I feel this is more conventional or soon should be.
Canzone
The canzone is an Italian form with strong similarities to the sestina. There are no rhymes; instead there are five keywords that determine the structure of the poem. Every line of the poem – and there are 65 lines altogether – ends with one of the keywords, which must appear in a prescribed order.
Here’s one I made earlier:
Bananas
As will be plain to people of good taste,
The least sense of the five is that of smell,
An adjunct merely to ones sense of taste.
Bananas, say, you know best by their taste.
The skin’s not that distinctive to the touch,
But no-one ever could mistake the taste!
That subtly tangy creamy fruity taste!
Now stick one in your ear. What do you hear?
Be honest – there is nothing there to hear.
The whole point of bananas is their taste.
And look at them – there’s not a lot to see.
A yellow boomerang – that’s all you see.
Although perhaps there is more you can see.
On second thoughts, perhaps sight rivals taste.
From looking at its colour, you can see
Whether it’s ripe enough to eat, and see
If it is over-ripe and rank. Though smell
Can tell you that as well, that I can see.
The shape is something else that you can see.
You could of course detect the shape by touch,
But that’s an overrated sense, is touch.
My policy’s believing what I see –
A pretty common one, from what I hear.
Though I don’t credit everything I hear.
You’re bats if you choose fruit by what you hear.
There’s no excuse for that that I can see.
But with a radio you need to hear.
That is the whole point after all, to hear.
With radios there is no role for taste;
It’s all about the programmes you can hear.
It’s true that maybe now and then you’ll hear
A programme on bananas and their smell;
Technology can’t help you smell the smell;
The smell must be evoked by what you hear.
There’s one potentially confusing touch
Called scratch-’n’-sniff – smell comes from what you touch!
Which proves, perhaps, the primacy of touch,
Though here it’s just augmenting what you hear.
In silent moments you can still use touch.
Bananas have some lovely bits to touch –
There’s more that you can feel than you can see.
The curve; which end is which; all told by touch.
To peel one you must use your sense of touch.
You have to peel the thing before you taste…
But there’s more to it than what you can taste.
If wiggled slightly, with a gentle touch,
It will trisect – releasing waves of smell.
The fifth sense, and the least, the sense of smell.
Still, few things are evocative as smell.
Though mankiness you can detect by touch,
It’s better for that to rely on smell.
You needn’t wash your hands if you just smell.
You ought to smell bananas first, d’you hear?
If they are good it’s quite a different smell,
A really very pleasant sort of smell,
And that’s why you should smell your fruit, you see.
It sometimes tells you things that you can’t see.
Bananas with the true banana smell
Are fruit that it is safe for you to taste.
That’s what it’s all about, of course – the taste.
Sometimes a poem leaves an aftertaste,
Some slight suspicion of a musty smell,
The nagging fear the poet’s lost his touch,
Acquired a wooden ear with with which to hear…
Such faults the bard himself can never see.
“Mankiness” may be a Britishism. “Manky” means “rotten, bad, nasty”. It comes from either Scots, or English dialect, or Polari (homosexual slang), depending on which dictionary you believe.
Anyway, as you see, there are five stanzas of twelve lines each, followed by a five-line envoi (which I am tempted to call a tornada, as for the sestina). The pattern of the keywords goes like this:
stanza 1: ABAACAADDAEE
stanza 2: EAEEBEECCEDD
stanza 3: DEDDADDBBDCC
stanza 4: CDCCECCAACBB
stanza 5: BCBBDBBEEBAA
envoi: ABCDE
No particular line length or metre is prescribed.
Variations
Other structures are possible, apparently, but I have never seen any of them. The one used here is supposed to be the most common (in so far as any kind of canzone could be described as common).
Prescription
Anyone addicted to writing sestinas should be encouraged to write canzones instead, as a kind of aversion therapy. The canzone goes on too long to be enjoyable for either writer or reader, in my opinion.
A big thanks to Bob Newman for the fine Volecentral resource.
My example
Impatient Pleas (Cazone)
Come lie with me you pretty, pretty thing,
and let us stop our toying with our words.
Your flirting with me started off this thing
and now my mind’s rejecting any thing
but ideas of you- no other thoughts
seem even to amount to anything
because to lie with you’s the only thing
that promises to make my soul my own.
My mind minds not directions of my own
for I most work and tell it that the thing
I want with you can’t be the first and last
thoughts each hour should I want my job to last.
You’re such a curvy and becoming thing;
you beauty leaves me lacking proper words.
You are a woman for man’s betrothing
for character shines through without sleuthing.
although a lesser man may hold out thoughts
that you would be the optimum plaything,
once stripped of outer and underclothing.
It is my plan to take you as my own
while cognizant you’re not a thing to own.
Instruct what I must do- I’ll do that thing.
You’re smitten now, and I want that to last
I’m not your first but wish to be your last.
How can such ardor ever hope to last-
It seems almost a supernatural thing?
When we first kissed I thought “Oh,God! at last”
I’ve lived, so now fulfilled, can breathe my last.
Let Lethe leave behind those unsaid words
for now I wish this mortal life to last
for even should I find my soul will last
I want to cherish you in more than thoughts.
You must be bundled up with loving thoughts
accumulated and well built to last
so when the physical’s not ours to own
your memories will conjoin with my own.
This is the year that we should make our own
I’ll build a future we’re assured will last.
I’ll give you confidence that you will own
all pieces of that heart I called my own.
And parsing out my heart’s no little thing
because it’s always only been my own
and you may have it- while it’s still my own.
You’ll not have to rely upon my words
for acttions will be louder than mere words
and bringing joy to you provides my own.
So frequently I find you in my thoughts
and frequently they’re very sexy thoughts.
When we’re apart you’re with me in my thoughts
and nature makes all scenery my own.
The whispers leaves exchange are surely thoughts
about your luscious form and babbling thoughts
voiced by the chuckling stream recalls the last
time it lapped where my illicit thoughts
will wander although more productive thoughts
would fit the scheme. There’s no more sensual thing
than promised passion- not a single thing
comes close. the anticipatory thoughts
may eclipse the act and mock any words
which may be writ, for they are only words.
Just know that when you penned the pretty words
of a sweet kingdom stirred, that my own thoughts
already were in tune with just those words;
there’ll be no pining there in other words
for my impatience equal to your own
confronts and overcomes delays, and words
are not required to hasten me, though words
from you are like a siren first and last
that cannot be ignored. I know you’ll last
as long as I; I’m burning beyond words
so hesitation will not be a thing
permitted as you are my everything.
Be anxious for that “touch of soft skin” thing.
Do not expect a waste of time with words.
A sensual script will emanate from thoughts
when my urgency meets your very own
Each time, I’ll feel like saying, “here at last”.
© Lawrencealot – January 7, 2014
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