With Real Toads: the Balassi strophe

Sunday Mini-Challenge, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

*

It’s a good thing I’ve seen Cirque du Soleil, or I wouldn’t believe how high this Hungarian dancer can jump.

This is Kerry’s idea of a mini-challenge but it’s more maxi than mini to me. I’m supposed to look at this photo as an inspiration for a poem. Thinking of those young men jumping four feet up in the air is more apt to give me a heart attack. I can’t even jump out of my recliner without pushing the eject button.

I looked at the photo for a long time, trying to summon something romantic from the depths of my irritable bowel, thinking of all the angst and anguish of my youth, my broken hearts, the hearts I broke, the emotional pain of it all.

It didn't help. These Cirquesque dancers make me think of osteoporosis and the pain of breaking one of the vertebrae in my back.

So...about the Sunday Mini-Challenge and the Balassi strophe. Balassi was a multilingual Hungarian poet in the 16th century, who wrote everything from hymns to erotica, and this stanza form is named in his honor as recognition, I assume, of his work in one or another of those fields.

Below is my submission for this week, which is neither.

when he nods, my heart leaps

then he frowns: my heart weeps.

I should dance with another—

he knows me far too well

and he can always tell

anger I just can't smother.

he makes me so annoyed!

I really should avoid

leading roles with my brother.