Eerie midnight creak

Weight shifts slightly, in closet?

Faint breathing menace

Cleaver raised, bursting through door

Just late night paranoia

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Tanka poetry consists of five units, usually with the following pattern of – 5-7-5-7-7 which is syllables.

The first three lines (5/7/5) are the upper phase. This upper stage is where you create an image in your reader’s mind.

The last two lines (7/7) of a Tanka poem are called the lower phase. The final two lines should express the poet’s ideas about the image that was created in the three lines above