my condolences tailor I hope you are ok.
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my condolences tailor I hope you are ok.
And the winner is?
Lovely poems everyone. Sorry for being so terribly late but things have been hectic over here.
Sorry for not giving as thorough a critique as usual, but I will try and say a little something about each poem.
Pendragon: I enjoyed the way in which you compared the moons broken reelection with a broken heart. Also interesting use of the repetition.
YesNo: Beautiful little poem. I thought it created lovely imagery. I also liked your use of rhyme.
But the winner is
tailor STATELY: An elegant and somewhat haunting poem with powerful impact
Congrats. Tailor! :wave:
Thank you Dark Muse and Pendragon and cacian; and the aforementioned. Yes I am fine. Having an eternal perspective keeps me grounded.
.
.
Next: "If I should die" http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/If_I_should_die, by Emily Dickinson
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Organisms get to die.
Machines work best man-made.
Moonlight blesses evening sky.
Mourning gets to fade.
Living grows our memory.
Machines don’t understand.
Breathe on, fulfill the mystery.
I held you by your hand.
If I should die--indeed I will--
And you will too as well,
I’ll wait for you
Like lovers do
With wondrous things to tell.
Any more entries ?
Would You Die With Me?
If I should die
would you weep enough
to flood the skies
and make the gods themselves
mourn with regret?
If I should die
would you rage against
the night,
and tempt the fates,
fall to your knees before death's
gates, like Orpheus
beg for another chance?
If I should die
would you give way to time,
and allow the memories of me
fade away like sand slipping
through the hour glass?
If I should die
would you allow
another pretty face to catch your eye,
take your breath away,
steal away the last essence
of me upon your lips?
If I should die
would you die
with me?
Deadline: next Wednesday 10/15/2014 11:59 pm PDT
If I should die, who is it that will mourn me
Will I pass in the night or the hours of the morn?
To pass from this world into the vast unknown
Will my passing bring sorrow or unending joy?
Will I ride of the crest of a religious outpouring
With I discover there is nothing beyond
Will I simply return inside a new body
Born again as someone's daughter or son
If I should die is it end or beginning
Leaving one life for another somewhere
I'll never know until my final moments
When death comes for me, the answer will be there
Pendragon
(C) 10/9/2014
Think Only this of Me
If I should die
Dig a hole in the sky
And fill it with smoke from my pyre;
Let the maidens weep,
But don’t let them sleep
Or I’ll come back to show you my ire.
I'm to go off
With a jolly good scoff,
A feast for a king will do fine.
Then bury my bones,
Line the cyst with stones
And roof it with bristlecone pine.
Place by the trench
A nicely carved bench
Where people may rest and take ease,
There they can ponder
On spirits that wander
Eternally after decease.
But I'll be snug
In the hole that you dug,
Carousing with Odin and Thor.
Valkyrie kisses
(with one as my missus)
Will keep me from asking for more.
Long, long, long overdo. As Tailor seems to have forgotten this, I withdraw my own poem and give the victory to HAWKMAN...
Congratulations to the recent winners of these contests! And now for another round of them.
What? Another one! Cheers chaps. Ok. Let's go with Hart Crane's "Southern Cross" and the opening line, "I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,"
Get stuck in chaps...
Deadline 20th January 2015.
I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,
But you would have that fatter, wealthy guy
To hypnotize with hips and opened mouth
Except when you would break away, then I
Could be the fascination of your eyes.
That’s when I led you, hard like jealousy,
Till you were teasing truth from your own lies.
That’s when you realized that only he
Could touch the heart of you, but I don’t care.
I left you and he crucified you there.
Rebounding from a broken heart
Not really ready just to fall apart
I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South
I know how it feel when nobody needs ya
But you are as lovely as the Queen of Sheba
I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South
Do you think that you might find a place in your heart for me?
It's been a long time since I felt the tugging of my heartstrings!
Time is swiftly passing, it may be too late
Another tender feeling crushed by the hand of fate
But I still need you, nameless Woman of the South
I see you there as I drive away
Maybe I will return some day
Still needing you, nameless Woman of the South
Pendragon
12/28/2014
Keep 'em coming LitNetters... Only thirteen days left!
Southern Fried Naugahyde
There she sits, with buttered grits,
cornbread crumbs stuck to her thumbs,
that nameless woman of the south.
Her big hair mane holds firm against the rain,
lacquered strands from aerosol cans,
that nameless woman of the south.
She fills my dreams, in quilted seams,
black-eyed peas in fatback grease,
that nameless woman of the south.
Every morn the corner booth she’ll adorn,
inside my diner, there’s nothing finer,
that nameless woman of the south.
She’s gone to Tupelo in a Faulkner snow,
her chicken fried steak still warm on the plate...
“I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x3vEjHl390
Southern Rose.
O nameless woman of the south,
I wanted you, t'was plain
Till I heard by word of mouth
That Rodney was your name.
A Rose by any other name, OK,
But a rose that has a prickle?
I swear I'll never swing that way
Or my name's not Prendrelemickle
I have badly neglected this thread and the deadline is long passed. Time to make amends.
Prendlemick, yours was a tight and amusing comic take on the subject, and the levity made me smile.
GG, I almost heard the late great Phil Harris, singing your offering, the refrain almost mimicking, "That's what I like about the South." I almost expected to see a possum in there, but you spared us that one :D again, a humorous take, at least I thought it was. If it wasn't meant to be, then... Oops.
Pen. Again it feels like a sort of torch song, perhaps not surprising, given the nature of the quote, but I think it works.
Y/N. You were the first and as they say, the first shall be last, but only as we're running in reverse order. A very strong poem I felt, but I'd have liked fourteen lines... But the bard produced a twelve line sonnet, so I guess it can still count as one. So, on this occasion I'm going for the serious take. You win! Take it away Y/N...
Thank you, Hawkman!
The next line is from Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love":
Come live with me and be my love
The full text of the poem is here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173941
The deadline will be March 1, 2015.
Thanks for the comments and the heads up on Phil Harris, I was not familiar with that song and his name was only a foggy recollection, but now you have me you tubing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
EDIT
Hold on, now I remember, he's the voice behind Thomas O'Malley...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRET1vsfiJM
Well done Yes/No and I'll quote the next challenge to keep it fresh...
Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
By way of bumping this thread, I thought I'd contribute a non-entry to the contest since it is Valentine's Day:
Valentine’s Day Offer
Come live with me and be my love.
Forget that guy you’re dreaming of
Although I know he’s nice and strong
And with him you could not go wrong,
He’s with another sweetheart, dear,
Who doesn’t like to share, I fear.
I know life isn’t over fair
And in the end it doesn’t care,
But all those stars that shine above
Are saying, “Stay and be his love.”
….
I didn’t think you’d want to stay.
I thought I’d try though anyway
And that’s OK. I think so, too.
We both have better things to do.
Just a reminder that this contest is open. Write something with the phrase "come live with me and be my love" in it.
Vulcan Heat
All our yesterdays* doth stir barbaric passion,
inflamed emotions, contrary to your future code.
The grainy glow of Technicolor cheeks, Neanderthal fashion
would perforce hold you fast in her cavernous abode.
On her mammoth fur rug, entwined in push and shove,
held in Vulcan grip, her loneliness begins to thaw.
Zarabeth* pleads; “come live with me and be my love”,
green blood boils and hands begin to crawl.
Destiny is defined by logic and a nagging doctor’s word;
“You belong on a ship that sails 5,000 years hence.
And remember nurse Chapel, now there’s a lovely bird!
Forget your yesterday’s and find love in the present tense."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ymspEhBOA
*Title and character from Star Trek episode. Credit Roddenberry, et al
Thanks, Gilliatt Gurgle! I will leave this open for one more week until Saturday, March 7th. There is still time for others to enter!
The passionate Lothario to his love.
Come live with me and be my love
Or better still my turtle dove,
Put your mother in a home
Turn your son outside to roam
Give your cats some euthanasia
Send your ****su back to Asia
Then to prove life's pleasures' true
I'll come and move in with you.
Thanks, prendrelemick! Now this is a contest.
Anyone else? Deadline is this Saturday!
Time is up!
Gilliatt Gurgle: Nice one on Vulcan love, replacing emotion with logic and boiling green blood.
prendrelemick: Also a nice one stating the conditions on which one will move in.
The winner: prendrelemick
Thanks y/n
Try this one.
"Nobody heard him, the dead man."
From Not waving but drowning, by Stevie Smith.
Nobody heard him. The dead man
Had nothing he wanted to speak.
His fear was now gone.
What lingered stayed on.
What lingered was no longer weak.
Elegie to His Corpulent Generosity, the Benevolent Ernie Gorge
Robust in girth and giving,
his banquets did supply
to excess for the living.
(He preferred a catfish fried)
Chompers missed a prickly bone,
wherefore he choked and died.
Six feet under a clover clad dale,
a portly roast wrapped in clay.
Earthly guests pass through shale,
to feast on Ernie’s last buffet.
“Nobody heard him, the dead man”,
the poet Smith did say.
Though death be silent from above,
beneath the lawn is a chorus.
The murmured gnawing of fleshy cud
(fishing looks good come August)
Let us bow our heads in prayer,
as the worms work in dead earnest.
Landfall
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
as bloated he floated face down;
the tether securing him under the waves
rotted and broke, so they said.
So up to the surface he bobbed, like a cork,
missing for weeks, and then found,
released more by accident than by design,
they dragged him out onto the shore.
Fish-nibbled lips, that glisten and twitch,
as the sunshine tries lightly to dry them,
unnoticed by saviours who come much too late,
form words that emit not a sound.
What prayers do the dead mumble into the air,
do deities listen or mark them?
Are they heeded or granted; is anyone there?
But the silent reply is profound.
just messing around
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
Though Hamlet claimed he had.
"He told me many, many things,
And sounded like my Dad."
"He sounded like my Dad, he did
Oh list, oh list, oh list,
He told me many dreadful things
And sent me round the twist".
The porches of my ear is full,
And so 's the vestibule,
With tales of horrid murder,
Most unnatural and cruel.
Now we've all been shuffled off,
With poisoned knife and drink,
Though we kept it in the family,
What will the neighbours think.
The rest, they say is silence,
But no one told my Dad,
And still he stalks the battlements,
In his old armour clad.
Another week I think, then I'll decide.
Man of Mystery (Chapter 3 of 1)
Nobody heard him,
the dead man had left
as unceremoniously as
he had arrived; only with-
out aid and evidently
not hindered by locked
doors and windows
He would awaken in the
distant past - his failsafe
programmed for just such
an event; sub-molecular
processors managing trans-
time as easily as one might
fall asleep
Trans-time. It might just as
well be trans-dimensional,
not that dimensional travel
was possible, but what good
was trans-time if it only
served the past ? Not being
dead for one he mused
He now moved about in a
new reality, an identity
forged in mystery, a man
immortal - consigned to
progressing haphazardly
forward to his own time -
knowing all was lost
3/28/2015
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Thanks to all who took part.
There were several highlights, and many good things, but with special mention to Hawkman for "as bloated he floated face down;" I declare Gilliat Gurgle the winner for his witty, clever and irreverent poem.
Congrats Gilliatt Gurgle !
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Thanks mate and Mr. STATELY, nice entries all around.
For the next line I'll borrow from Sir Edward Dyer's poem, My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is; both title and opening line.
Oh yes, that ^ is the line to use for the next round.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/engl...yer.1_2.tp.pdf
My mind to me a kingdom is
That keeps sweet peace or heats up war,
That understands or fails at this,
That’s satisfied or grabs for more,
That hits its targets when it will
Or lets them be remaining still.