David Bogomolny—the maestro himself!—is the Poet-of-the-Week for the W3 Poetry Prompt #159. He challenges us to write a pararhyme poem. A what? A pararhyme poem—never heard of it‽ Read on to find out!
If you already know about it (unlike me!), feel free to skip ahead to my very first pararhyme!
The prompt guidelines
“The Pararhyme Paradox”
Write a poem using pararhyme throughout—where consonant sounds match but the vowels shift (e.g., fill / fell, stone / stain). Let this half-matching quality reflect a theme of incompleteness, near-misses, or strained connection.
Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) was a master of pararhyme, which he used to evoke unease, dissonance, and the psychological trauma of war. Below are two examples of pararhyme from his poem “Strange Meeting”:
1)
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
2)
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
*Click* to read Owen’s poem.
From the prompt’s theme choices—incompleteness, near misses, or strained connection—I chose incompleteness.
One More Piece
Written and narrated by Lesley Scoble
One more piece is all I want,
but I don’t know where it went,
Without it I can’t finish it
I can’t leave it at…
this stage;
the stag
is incomplete
I cannot contemplate
it left undone, without the antlers,
it would be… like an anthill, antless!
After placing ten thousand pieces
(Goodness, how my time passes!)
I must find one last missing bit—
or it’ll be like a cricket ball without a bat!
It will be ruined
Just like the night it rained
on my last jigsaw of the black horse
drawing the carriage of a hearse,
unfinished in the past
It makes me pissed!
I spent a long time
working on the tomb,
carefully placing each piece,
piece by piece
at a slow and steady pace,
precisely side by side
spending hour upon hour…
Losing it, is deeply sad
it must be here…
somewhere lying lost, alone on the floor…
without that piece, there is a major flaw
Who wants a stag without its crown?
A pointy hat without a crone?
A horse without its flowing mane?
It’s like a beard without a man.
Lesley Scoble, May 2025
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Enormous thanks to the brilliant David Bogomolny, The Skeptics Kaddish, for his encouragement and enthusiasm, and for introducing me to the pararhyme!
Image credit to Copilot (I worked on it in Procreate art to get the missing jigsaw piece where I wanted it).
Heartfelt thanks to you, the reader, for taking the time to read my poem. I really appreciate it.
To find out more about David’s W3 poetry prompts, click the link below.
LesleyScoble.com 
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