Hello, this is Frank Hubeny. Today at Meeting the Bar the topic is couplets as the final part of a poem. The poem need be no longer than a couplet, two lines, or it could have anything else before the final couplet including free verse or a prose poem. 

A couplet is two similar lines of verse. Both lines have the same meter. They do not have to rhyme.  However, they should make sense together and have a similar metrical structure.

A couplet can stand alone. Consider Alexander Pope’s bit of humor: 

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

 

Something like that would be great for this prompt.  However one may write something more elaborate. 

For this prompt anything can come before the couplet. A Shakespearean sonnet with a couplet at the end giving the reader the punch line(s) would also do.  Perhaps you would like to modify the haibun form and replace the haiku with a couplet or two American sentences or one American sentence split on two lines.  Or one could write a free verse poem followed by a final couplet. I have often wanted to write rambling sentences like Gerald Stern does in “Box of Cigars” but end them with metered lines that rhymed like a couplet. 

The only constraint for this prompt is that a couplet of some sort should appear at the end.  

We featured couplets before. In 2012 Gay Reiser Cannon described the “framed couplet” where both the initial accented syllable and the last accented syllable rhymed between the two lines.  Those would be great as well.  I even featured the couplet in 2018 to celebrate the solstice. 

To participate, post your poem with a final couplet on your blog. Don’t forget to link back to this prompt so others know how to find it. Copy the link to your post and paste it in the Mister Linky below. The Mister LInky will be open for the next 48 hours (two days). 

Read what other people have linked. See how they faced the challenge. You may even leave a comment below, if you wish.