With Real Toads: Orion poetic form

Kerry, of the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, received an e-mail from Dr. FTSE, introducing her to the Orion poetic form. Kerry decided to use it for today's Sunday Mini-Challenge, although it seems like a full-size challenge to me.

The ORION in its short form has 7 lines, 7 being the number of stars in the "simple" form of the Orion Constellation, i.e. without the Hunter's shield and club.

The seven lines must begin with the initial letter of the names of the 7 stars working in sequence from the celestial zenith, ie, 

B, B, M, A, A, R, S (see picture) and each line in the "pure" form of the Orion, must have seven syllables, but flexibility is allowed. There is no set rhyme scheme.

KEY: The seven principal stars in the ORION group.

Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak, Rigel, Saiph.

I must admit that although I knew of Orion, the hunter, etc., the only star in this constellation whose name I knew was Betelgeuse, and that only because my young brother, introduced me to the animated cartoon Beetlejuice. (I was not impressed.)
Anyway, what do I know? Here I am, a little old lady retired from the nearly-defunct newspaper and printing industry, hanging out in cyberspace with serious poets, who throw famous names around like confetti. But it's fun trying to respond to the prompts at Real Toads, so here I am.

I produced five attempts at the Orion today, and wasn't completely unhappy with two of them.

Here, then, are my two submissions for today. One is called Love and the other, although unrelated in style except as it conforms to the Orion, is called Marriage. No horse and carriage relationship intended.

*
LOVE

*

Bending under the weight of

Beauty, held fast by your love,

My body cannot remain

All my own, not any more...

Avenues I never knew

Reveal themselves to me now,

Saying take me, I am yours.

*

MARRIAGE

*

building a life together

bonding, agreeing (or not)

making sure each day will count

accepting, giving (a lot)

arranging, rearranging,

realizing what you’ve got—

secure in one another

With Real Toads: Pleiades poetic form

For this weekend's Sunday mini-challenge, Kerry of the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads introduces a poetic form called Pleiades, named for the group of stars otherwise known as The Seven Sisters.
The poem has a one-word title, and the first letter of the title is also the first letter of each of the seven lines (for seven sisters). There are six syllables in each line because only six of the sisters are visible with the naked eye.

Kerry also introduced another new element to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads today: the group's newest member, namely Yours Truly: Kay, with whom I seem to have spent my entire life.
I'm thrilled to have been invited to become a member of this terrific group, because, in a short time, Real Toads has been influential in getting me to break out of my rut and try new things. I am convinced, and I hope rightly, this will help me break out of my long-standing inability to get back to the style with which I started my book An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel. To any writer, a prolonged siege of Writer's Block is not only unpleasant, it can also be dangerous. Not fatal, one hopes, but dangerous in that the longer we stop, the longer we are apt to stay stopped.

I was thinking this past week about my father, who died two years ago this month, and remembering how he never seemed to let himself get bogged down by such a thing. In fact, if I might be so bold on his behalf, I could say he probably didn't even believe in Writer's Block. If he didn't feel like writing, he'd go for a walk on the beach to clear his head, then go back to his typewriter. He never did have a computer, but he did agree to accept my brother's gift of an electronic typewriter, which made corrections easier to handle. In the process of editing his Living Rivers books (which was not a difficult job, because he wrote well) I would enter them into a computer before delivery to his publisher.

Gordon Davies
1924-2009

Where is all this leading? Kay just loves to talk about Gordo, my friends could tell you. That's true, but this is leading to my Real Toads submission for today: a Pleiades style poem—one-word title, seven lines of six syllables each, each line starting with the same letter as the title word.

Father

funny, handsome young man,

faithful husband to Mom,

free spirit, eccentric,

filling our lives up with

fabulous adventures,

finding self in travel,

fishing, writing—our Dad.