17A. It's pretty © Bruce Goodman 1 January 2016 (By way of explanation: I have decided to post on the first of each month a poem in a specific form. Throughout that month, if further poems are created and posted, they will all use that form. The poetic form chosen for January 2016 is the Pantoum. The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century. The modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The third to last and last lines of a pantoum are often the third and first respectively of the opening stanza.)

It's pretty but there's no hope in the picture on a jigsaw box; patched, thatched, and always a puzzle, and a couple of ducks on a lake. In the picture on a jigsaw box there’s always lots and lots of flowers, and a couple of ducks on a lake with lots and lots of babies. There’s always lots and lots of flowers and those inside the house with lots and lots of babies, can't feed them all. And those inside the house, they’ve gone to pieces, can't feed them all in bits and pieces. They’ve gone to pieces, jigsawed into shape in bits and pieces, disintegrated and broken. Jigsawed into shape, patched, thatched, and always a puzzle, disintegrated and broken. It's pretty, but there's no hope.

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