After having read about the form in Terrie Leigh Relf's The Poet's Workshop - and Beyond, I decided to experiment with cinquains.  Here are a few I composed recently, following the 2-4-6-8-2 format.  I don't know if they are "ideal" cinquains by any means, but I was a bit happy with the results, considering I just started experimenting with the form:

Signs Before the Fall

Augur
tosses old bones
to read battle-omens
and proclaims a heart-rending doom -
defeat.


Sword of Light

Bright blade
engraved with charms,
forged from mystical steel,
may only draw blood to spread peace,
not war.


Cosmic Ship of Dreams

Pure thought
powers this craft
across the vast cosmos.
It sails from star to star as time's
tide ebbs.

***

Oh, you devil!     Yeah, go ahead, plant ideas for visuals in my head.  Once I start thinking about it, my mind won't let go of the idea.  Now I have the image of an old hand tossing knucklebones into a circle in the sand. 

And then there's the image of an armoured paladin brandishing his holy sword.  Ooo, I really like that one.

And when I have so many other illustrations I should be working on (not to mention more dark poetry).

and I agree - as effective as an illustration

Since you brought up the Turn, I thought I'd refresh my memory on Volta theory. Figured maybe others might benefit as well:

VOLTA: The turn in thought -- from question to answer, problem to solution -- that occurs at the beginning of the Sestet in the Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet. The volta sometimes occurs in the Shakespearean (English) Sonnet between the twelfth and thirteenth lines. The volta is routinely marked at the beginning of line 9 (It. S.) or 13 (Eng. S.) by "but," "yet," or "and yet"                ---"A Handbook to Literature" ninth Ed. Harmon & Holman

Wish I had my Abrams - ironically enough, my prof borrowed it and has yet to return it.

The volta or 'turn' really is as simple as a change in perspective. This can be as subtle as problem/solution or as jarring as objective/subjective. It all depends on the need of the poem. Many of my own 'turns' move from personal to social, internalized to external, or romance to pragmatism. The classic volta went from general to specific and was usually used for a rhetorical stance - either to reaffirm or disprove the opening subject/topic/stance/thesis. That tends not to hold for contemporary audiences in general.

"Taiga" = tanka haiga. Modern English Tanka uses the word here: http://www.shortverse.com/gallery/ I've always found haiga to be a challenging art; discovering the perfect image to address the theme of the haiku, not only its description, can take much longer than composing the haiku itself!

I've also seen the turn occur most often in the fourth line--which means that the "break" (sometimes punctuated) comes between the third and fourth line. Following the punctuation of "Signs Before the Fall," I read the first four lines as one and then broke off before the fifth. My mistake.   Still, I think the cinquain could be improved if the last line did something other than rephrase the last part of the fourth line.  

I like the connotations of keen blade, as if it were ready to draw blood; it does give the pivot a greater element of surprise. To a modern audience, though, the concept of "fighting for peace" is not something new.

~Bitter Irony