I can’t pretend the lai is a form I’m warming to. I wrote another this morning that worked well, then tried another and it was hellish difficult. This is the hellish difficult one. I’m keeping the good one in reserve for later. Since the lai is a Medieval French form, I’ve taken the liberty of using a few French rhymes to increase the rhyme pool. The last line has three syllables instead of two, and I stand by it.
A wild midnight hare
I watch by the clair
de lune.
In her silver stare
and the stars glitter-glare
a tune
(that he hears, I swear)
hums, beware the snares
they’re strewn,
hid at meadow’s edge
beneath the plum hedge,
you’ll see.
Bright bold hare, I pledge
to warn you, the sedge
sighs, flee.
He flips his scut, wedge
de queue, blanc comme neige,
sans souci.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
I think this is amusing, and I like a lot of the lines. I can just imagine that hare. BUT, I think if you just wrote it Jane-style and not as a lai, I’d like it better. So far, I’m not thrilled with this form either. I like villanelles and pantoums, but the lai poems (lais?) seem stunted.
I think the point of the lai (lay) was to tell a story like a saga or edda. I don’t think it lends itself to these little snippet poems that aren’t really poems, just rhyme lists. I know I’d feel happier writing the same poem without all those damn rhymes! You’re right about the other rhyming forms being so much more satisfying. Maybe because the lines are a decent length and the same rhyme isn’t obligatory all the way through. And they have refrains which gives the rhyme a point.
I like it and look forward to read your poem you have saved for later… somehow as short poems I think they work best as humorous snippets.
Thanks. I think you’re right about them working best in a not too serious way.
Lovely. I’m shite at poetry but enjoy reading them. Never heard of a lai poem 😱
Thank you! You should have a go, it’s same as writing but in a different gear. A lai was a French Medieval long-winded story style. To be honest, I think it should have been buried with the troubadors.
🤣🤣🤣
I really like the combined languages. I’m finding this form difficult too (I did a very slant rhymed one with the Oracle this morning)–it has a sing-songy quality that is very like a circular dance that reverses, or yours remind me of nursery rhymes. In a good way. (K)
There just aren’t enough rhymes in the English language to sustain this form in a meaningful way. It ends up jokey with the emphasis on the silly rhymes.
That’s exactly right. The rhymes take center stage.
I wonder if we’ll get any better at it?
Maybe, maybe not.
Jane, this is a lovely share. I agree with Bjorn, it seems to work well with short funny and light themes. Thanks for your comments and looking forward to your other poems.
I’m glad you like it. Between the very short lines and the constraints of the rhymes, it’s difficult to get it to make sense.
I like the idea of adding those French words to increase the rhyme pool.
You need so many rhymes for this form, and I don’t think half rhymes work.
I’m not keen on the lai either, Jane. I don’t think it suits western languages and I’m unsettled by ungrammatical poetry. You’ve done a great job in two languages; your lai may have been hellish difficult but it works! I enjoyed the mix of English and French, which reminds us of the Medieval French form and, as you say, increases the rhyme pool – and no croaky toads. I love anything that has a wild midnight hare in it, especially one that ‘flips his scut’ and escapes a snare. Are those French hunters at it again?
Cramming so many rhymes into such a short space it’s hard not to sound jokey. There’s no rhythm either, which I’m surprised at if it’s meant to be sung. I agree with you about ungrammatical poetry. Poems have to comply with grammar too, and the words also have to mean what the poet thinks they mean. Too often I see words used in a nonsensical way just to get a rhyme. Or a word used that isn’t a rhyme at all. Free verse of strictly formal, but I’m not happy with a mid ground between the two, it’s neither fish nor fowl.
The hunters are only allowed to go after ‘pests’ at the moment, so they get a band of brothers together (middle aged, overweight, unhealthy-looking individuals) and charge off in their white vans full of dogs to persecute some poor fox. We had one gathering just beyond our meadow but they thought better of it and charged off somewhere else. We’ve made it known we don’t like it and if they stray over the boundary we’ll be out there roaring at them to bugger off.
They must come very close, Jane. What’s bugger off in French?
Allez vous faire foutre bande de cons! Or in the singular: va te faire foutre espèce d’abruti!
😊