Time to announce a winner.
All of these are good. But I think that prendrelemick made the best use of the given line.
Congrats, P-Mick and you're up to bat!
Time to announce a winner.
All of these are good. But I think that prendrelemick made the best use of the given line.
Congrats, P-Mick and you're up to bat!
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
Thanks Pen.
The next line comes from Maya Angelou's Million Man March Poem, which begins -
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
So up next is, "The Night Has Been Long".
ay up
You Are My Love Song
I recite poetry
as your fingers
dance in slow
graceful movements
across the harp strings,
a twang within my heart,
making my soul vibrate,
each cord breathing life
into my words,
a ghostly melody
before a burning fire,
which adds its own voice
in whispered undertones,
the wind bleeds through
seeking entry
like death at the door
wanting shelter from
the storm,
the night has been long,
as the world rages on
but Hestia watches
from the shadows
of her firelight,
blushing at our
musical caresses
and lyrical kisses.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Dirge #25
I am a man who was born in the dark
I have kissed the lips of Mother Night
The Night Has Been Long a friend
Since I was birthed from the darkness
I know what men try to hide under the cover of darkness
Since Mother Night walks beside me
I know the secrets men try to hide beneath her starry skirt
Because I dwell among the shadows
I know the hidden secrets people would have the shadows conceal
The Night Has Been Long and weary
But the sun doesn't visit my land of shadow
You think that you have hidden secrets:
But I know...
Pendragon
11/17/2015
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
Of Life, Song and Wine
Let us embrace the night
With song and wine, bright
Lights keeping out the dark,
Wrapped in a nocturnal lark.
The night has been long,
Filled with wine and song.
Now, as the sun reappears
We stop denying our fears.
Finding hope in death is pithy,
Living now, before dark Lethe
Holds us in eternal slumber -
Live your days as they number.
Last edited by North Star; 11-27-2015 at 02:09 PM.
The night has been long. No daybreak is near.
The demons are eating. Tim gives the “All clear.”
We move our positions. It’s safer out there,
But where is it safer? We no longer care.
We fight and we kill building mountains of dead.
We fight and we die and we hope we are led
By those better than demons who die as we do
Since the night has been long for our enemies, too.
Last edited by YesNo; 11-18-2015 at 12:06 PM.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
I shall look at them this weekend. Any more?
ay up
She Never Lost a Passenger
The night has been long, the suffering great,
though darkness offered a welcome ally,
as she conducted her fight underground.
Moonlight reflects faces of a bartered people
burnished in the alloy of polished rails.
Put an ear to the ground and listen;
do you hear vibrations of twisted commerce,
the crack of a whip, the rumble of fear?
Or, is it the stampede of hope queuing,
to catch her next train?
Last edited by Gilliatt Gurgle; 11-28-2015 at 10:02 AM.
Ok, here we go.
Dark Muse. Once again a sublime layering of metaphor upon metaphor building up a surreal atmosphere, using heightened poetical language. Nothing is simply what it is, it feels to float unanchored to reality.
Pendragon. Anyone perusing these pages will know that Pen is in a purple patch with his poetry at the moment. Here the story and the mystery grabs your attention from the first line, The atmosphere of lurking menace is just right. The voice of the narrating presence is consistant and well drawn.
North Star. This is the kind of thing I would've done, light and bouncy, with a pithy homily at the end. It was good, I liked it, I feel though the rhyme is contrived in a couple of places, which I know is always a problem - you have to compromise either the meaning or the natural syntax to hit the rhyme.
YesNo. Here is the left field entry. Good rhythm, good rhyme, plain language. It is the opposite of Dark Muse's entry, everything is just what it is. We are landed in the middle of a much larger story, what's going on? we ask ourselves - is it Dante or Buffy? .
Gilliat Gurgle. I usually catch your drift about a month after reading one of your poems, and then go, "Ahh yes of course. Clever!" So I'm probably missing something here - a whole network of allusions and references and the like. Anyway let's say it's about the evening Metro commute with underworld connotations. I like the phrases you have used - bartered people, twisted commerce, stampede of hope, and best of all, burnished in the alloy of polished rails. adjectives/abverbs can be the ruination of a piece but you know what you're doing.
And the winner is....
Pendragon,...again - somebody break his keyboard or something.
Last edited by prendrelemick; 11-29-2015 at 10:38 AM.
ay up
Hehe, yeah, I wondered if the locals might have had a better chance at catching my drift.
I'll spare you the agony of waiting a month...Harriett Tubman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman
Congratulations Pendragon, another fine entry.
edit - and thanks for the comments btw.
Last edited by Gilliatt Gurgle; 11-29-2015 at 10:47 AM.
My blushes, Mick! And please don't break my keyboard! I surrender!
This is the first line of "The Cremation of Sam McGee" a longtime favorite of mine for the way that the rhyme rolls so smoothly.
"There are strange things done, in the Midnight Sun, by the men who moil for gold."
To accommodate Christmas, this is to be decided December 21st.
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
There are strange things done in the midnight Sun by the men who moil for gold
And the gold grips tight to their minds’ dim light being heavy, bright and cold.
It is all they see and they work for free trusting fate to guard their dreams
When they have enough they’ll forget how tough all their loneliness now seems.
There are thieves they fear who are ever near who would take all that they’ve got
And they might confess they’d deserve no less than to die without a lot.
But for those who win and forget their sin a fine future could be had.
They would share their gold, give a thousandfold, so that all the Earth is glad.
But for Thomas Redd on the ground and dead all his dreams have reached an end
And the midnight Sun takes the hand of one who had failed to find a friend.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
Under the Midnight Sun
The gunman walked
dressed in black
across the burning sands,
the vulture followed
as his shadow,
black wings fluttered in
an arid wind,
ghosts walked at his side
his only true companions,
it was a barren land
devoid of all forgiveness
with strange things done
in the Midnight Sun
by the men who moil for gold
and the women
who toiled had hearts
blacker than
a miners pit
or the gunman's eyes,
they came, with hopes
and dreams
crushed to dust
beneath the heel,
and the scavengers
thrived upon the bones
the only thing
left behind.
Last edited by Dark Muse; 12-01-2015 at 12:22 AM.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
the Sun, in Midnight/Dada & Anagram
the Sun, in Midnight,
strange gold done
who for the moil, things by
There are
men.
~~~~~~~~~
God ere morning within
the lasting holm -
The dear refined hymn
thus to be
song.
12/1/2015
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Last edited by tailor STATELY; 12-01-2015 at 12:10 PM. Reason: 2nd stanza / line break
tailor
who am I but a stitch in time
what if I were to bare my soul
would you see me origami
7-8-2015