Poetry for Today: Cinquains

The Cinquain is a fairly modern form (poetically speaking) that holds to a strict word and syllable count. Most that you see as examples are faithful to the syllable count but vary from the word count, particularly in the third line. I've tried to keep both. It also follows specific guidelines for what each line presents: Title, Description, Action, Feeling, End. There's also an old form and a contemporary form, but I won't get into that.

These are the Cinquains I wrote yesterday. I'd like to mention that for the "Haiti" cinquain, I want to finish with cholera, but it's three syllables and will not work. I may update it and slide it into a contemporary heading because the word is so much MORE than the generic ending it has now. More impact. More real. That's why contemporary poetry allows deviations; it lets the poetry itself speak rather than be so tightly confined to form that the form is more important than the words. See if you think it improves rather than detracts:

Iraq
fighting factions
killing brothers, soldiers
anguish, dying, fearful, crying
deathbed

Haiti
simple people
floods devastate, destroy
homeless, thirsty, hopeless, helpless
disease

Driving
school ahead
following other cars
outrage, anger, frustration, tears
ticket

Haiti (contemporary)
simple people
floods devastate, destroy
homeless, thirsty, hopeless, helpless
cholera