Epitaph

Day 364: a quatrain poem of non starters that still end up in the ground

This poem started out life a few days ago with the word ‘Never’ buzzing around in my head as the first word in each line, yet each line was only populated with ‘Never dum-di-dum-di-dum’, so it needed a bit more work.

There are a couple of firsts too:

This is the first poem I’ve written which is entirely in the third person, all others have been first person or neutral, (whatever the correct word is):

And secondly, it’s my first poem which doesn’t take its title directly from the verse.

Finally, although it’s a quatrain not all the stanzas have four lines. This is simply to allow every line to begin with ‘Never’.

[Editor’s note: thanks to Brooklyn Crane’s comment below, I now know that a repeating word starting each line is called ‘Anaphora’]

I trust you’ll enjoy reading ‘Epitaph’ and do spend a few moments leaving your comments and thoughts below:

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Epitaph

Never said never
Never tried again
Never said die, ‘cos he never knew when

Never won the lottery
Never saved face
Never beat the odds, so he never won a race

Never trusted bookies
Never trusted priests
Never bit the bullet
Never caught a thief

Never ate alone
Never wasted food
Never made a meal of trouble doubled up for two

Never failed at anything
Never tried at all
Never heard the starting gun, you never saw him fall

Never said the kind word
Never toyed with Fate
Never told his bestest friend he was his bestest mate

Never slept
Never dreamt
Never called his name
Never walked the tightrope
Never found fame

Never wanted anything
Never played the fool
Never ever did a thing that anyone thought cool

Never got the last round in
Never paid his way
Never shared his Rollos
Never saved the day

Never wondered how it worked
Never grasped a nettle
Never went against the grain
Never tested mettle

Never saw it coming
Never dodged in time
Never caught the last train home
Never paid the fine

Never lived or loved or lost
Never held his breath
Never ran the race of life
Never cheated Death

~

Two more poems just for you:

‘Let Bygones Go By (Dr Seuss edit)’

‘Watch It Burn’

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Photo by Veit Hammer