Picture Poetry Contest (...continued...)

[Pompey Bum]

Pssssssst, Hawk, you won. Post another picture, wouldja?

[Hawkman]

Sorry everyone. I kind of forgot about this, and anyway, didn't really expect to win as I didn't actually put the poem up in the thread, just a link

Thanks anyway to all who liked it . Commiserations to anyone who didn't and especially to those who actually posted poems... Interestingly, there was a bit in the Guardian the other day about the fake Chauvet experience being offered as a tourist attraction in France. The actual cave art is far too fragile to withstand hordes of visitors and the detrimental effect of their collective bad breath. But the reviewer slammed the exhibit as false and lacking the connective experience of seeing the real thing and being in the actual place with its dank air and drippings. Can't please some people.

Right, well I've been having trouble posting actual images to the forum for some time now. Whenever I try, I'm unable to insert an image into a post at all, only an attachment. So when I get the chance, that'll be the best that I can do. Sorry.

Edit: ok Let's try this...



Now that should be a bit of a challenge

Deadline: Midnight GMT 1st May

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Hawkman, unfortunately I'm not seeing the image, of course it may be something wrong at my end(?)
Perhaps someone else can verify.
If you like, perhaps you and I could work together on the side on getting your photos posted or I could post the image for you.

[North Star]

It seems to be a single (white?) pixel.


A little speck
on the screen
wiped away

All our lives
and the Earth
one day.

[Hawkman]

Oh dear, this image posting business is really winding me up! It's actually displaying on my system, for once, although I have to be logged in to see it. I'll try it as an attachment below.

image.jpg

[Pompey Bum]

Okay, got it. Great picture.

[tailor STATELY]

;

if this works I used the following (so far it previews ok)...

[img]then url: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9542&d=1429363387[/img]

(lol) Used this meme as part of my endiing line when I wrote "Gazelle".

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Pompey Bum]

In desert wastes, where no relief I found
But faith, I met a beast whose labors said
That there were works untried on earthen grounds
Although to me all fissured dry and dead.
A god, it seemed, and many hungry ghosts
Agreed, and called it LORD and God of Flies;
And death, they said, would die before its host,
Where now it pushed the sun across the skies.
I saw its armored pincers and crab gait,
Its insect face pressed to the ball it loved:
A thing evolved by blind and vacant hate;
Like Cain, its course marked by an eye above.
So Venus rose at length and filled the sky,
But neither followed Life and nor did I.

[YesNo]

Beetle, beetle having fun
Rolling up a ball
Bigger, bigger, almost done
Beetle you’re so small.
Sisyphus had rolled one, too,
Despairing at the top,
But you don’t care what humans do.
You roll, refuse to stop.

[Pompey Bum]

Are we allowed to enter more than one horse?

The Beetle
(apologies to W. Blake)

Beetle, beetle, burning bright,
Rolling up a ball of sh*te:
What infernal sort of species
Likes to play with others' feces?

What the f*ck? Oh what the heck?
Where exactly is your neck?
Where your waist and where your thighs?
In what deep and distant skies?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what burrow dwells thy brain?
What the nerve & what the gall
Persuaded you to build that ball?

When the poo was downward falling,
Did you hear your maker calling?
Did He smile his work to see?
Did he who made the cr*p make thee?

Beetle, beetle, burning bright,
Rolling up a ball of sh*te:
What infernal sort of species
Likes to play with others' feces?

[tailor STATELY]

Sisyphus; and Sun Wukong, the Monkey King

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, traveling far and wide
met Sisyphus one day toiling with his infernal stone.
Sisyphus importuned, after pleasantries were exchanged,
besought the Monkey King's great compassion to
give the condemned a respite from his eternal toil.

Being no stranger to stone the Monkey King set the
massive rock before his shoulder and rolled the boulder
clear up the hill with powers far beyond any mortal man.
Hermes, ever vigilant, flew to scold the Monkey King
promising sore judgment if he would not right his wrong.

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, piqued as never before
formulated an avengement upon the winged one; and so
to Sisyphus Sun Wukong declared: "You shall not find im-
punity for my sake, but I shall grant you one boon" - bid-
ding Sisyphus to transform into a dung beetle; and before
Hermes' eyes the Monkey King conjured up a fog; then with
a somersault he and Sisyphus did henceforth disappear.

4/23/2015 r.4/25/2015
(dedicated to Robin Jay & Wendy Margaret on their birthdays)

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Hawkman]

Thank you, comrades, for participating in this round. Pompey, ever exuberant, provided two offerings, but alas, although the first, in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet employs flawless iambic pentameter, with but a single dodgy rhyme, I fear the poem lacks coherence. The end result is a confusion of ingenious ideas which don't necessarily flow all that logically from the classical references. Everyone has picked up on Sisyphus allusion, as the unfortunate scarab is condemned to endlessly roll a ball bigger than itself, and, of course, the Egyptian deity who was responsible for rolling the sun across the sky is remembered, but though the names of many and various gods and mythical characters have been bandied about, poor old Khepre remains nameless

Pompey, you second offering, though very amusing, I feel would have been better entered into a famous quoted line contest! I think this would have worked better if you had not so closely mirrored the original. Whereas a tiger or even a tyger, might be described as buning bright, owing to its colouration, this particular beetle is rather dull, and though Khepre's ball wass the flaming orb of the sun, the one in the photograph looks a little too moist to burn "What the hammer? what the chain?" didn't work particularly well in Blake's original! One should always remember that he was a bit potty

tS, your take, with its eclectic blending of classical Greek and Chinese mythologies, is certainly original but to me reads rather prosaically. There are moments of rhythm, but they become lost amid the fairytale style. Some of your line breaks, mid word, don't work for me, especially as there is no constraint on line length through regular syllable count. But the narrative works quite well. I did rather like the playfulness of "...shoulder to the Boulder..."

Which brings us to Y/N. Your piece was both simple and effective so I declare you to be the winner.

Thanks again to all who took part. Live and be well - H

[Pompey Bum]

Congratulations, YesNo! And don't worry, Hawk. My poetry has soared over taller heads than yours. ;-)

[YesNo]

Thanks, Hawkman and Pompey Bum! I will try to get a new picture ready by tomorrow.

[YesNo]

The next picture is a photo of the strange lights on Ceres.

http://mashable.com/2015/02/25/stran...-planet-ceres/

Deadline in a couple of weeks or so.