Ah! Silence, solace, solitude--
I learned from the old woman
By the half-opened window
Watching the yellowing leaves,
Touching the lost gust of wind,
Waiting for long-gone Autumn.
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Ah! Silence, solace, solitude--
I learned from the old woman
By the half-opened window
Watching the yellowing leaves,
Touching the lost gust of wind,
Waiting for long-gone Autumn.
Thank you for the entries! This was very difficult to judge. I enjoyed all of them.
cacian: The "o" sound in your poem hypnotized me and made me read it multiple times. I felt the last word should have been "rose" rather than "flows" to tie this back to the beginning, but that might have broke the spell. I counted the meter as five lines of iambic tetrameter in each stanza after the word "autumn" regardless of the line breaks.
Dark Muse: I could feel the melancholy in the last stanza and yet peacefulness in the portrayal of the shroud made out of all the shades of the sun.
Pendragon: This was a nice sonnet. I liked the idea that autumn never caused harm. It is one of my favorite times of the year.
tailor STATELY: I remember seeing trees drop their leaves almost overnight in some cases which your poem reminds me of.
prendrelemick: Being unfamiliar with the geography of England, I looked up Yorkshire and Lancashire after reading this. I see the wind must blow from east to west in that area. Nice portrayal of place.
moonbird: I liked the idea of the leaves being lips that softly kissed the earth.
miyako73: The "lost gust" and "long-gone" sounds pulled me into this poem along with the "s" alliteration of the first line.
These were all very nice and I could see a good reason to pick each. Thanks for submitting them!
Since I was enchanted by the sound that kept me wanting to reread her poem, the winner is cacian!
Congratulations!
YesNo thank you so much I am so glad you enjoyed the piece.
I see exactly what you mean by ROSE and so I put it back instead of FLOWS to tie it back. It sounds much better.
OK the next subject is:
ART
Good luck:seeya:
On the walls of this cave
In the dark let me place
A red sign from my heart with my hand.
May these halls show we're brave
Like this mark, like my face.
All is fine. Till we part here we stand.
Self-Portrait
Charcoal pencil is used to sketch the outlines
Of the points of central focus in the painting
I am designing. The pencil moves quickly, creating shadows.
I leave the paper white in areas I intend to highlight
As the work progresses. Slowly, surely the picture gains definition.
I love abstract surrealism! It makes the viewer decide.
Blush is best for the first gentle wash, before I decide
More fully on the colors that I will need to outline
The image. Painting is like photography in resolution and definition.
The correct color choices and technique—and is it a painting—
Or a photograph? The shading and the highlights
Must, of course, be perfect: Not too bright and yet not too much shadow…
A medium grey is what I almost always choose for shadows—
The world itself is far too dark. One must decide
On a method of proceeding from shadow to highlights:
Back light? Front? Side? Diffused? This will determine what part of the outline
To darken, and what part to leave alone. Each and every painting
Must have something that catches the eye, a defining
Characteristic of its own. In color, some art seems to defy definition.
Perhaps it would be better rendered in black and white, to focus on shadow.
But one artist should never criticize another’s paintings.
What we disguise as “criticism” is truthfully and decidedly
Merely professional jealousy! Ah, the painting has begun to emerge from the outline.
It is a self-portrait in shadows! Now for the highlighting!
Banana-cream is a color I like to use for the purpose of highlights.
It mixes well with the shading, and brings forth real definition!
The places I left white in the charcoal outline
Become gloriously shiny; the others softly fade into shadows.
There are not quite enough shaded areas, I decide.
I pick up another brush and turn back to the painting.
My pallet is a rainbow of colors, though few are required fir this painting.
Grey, white, blush, sepia, blue, and of course banana-cream for highlights.
That’s about it. The eyes of my portrait stare at me as I decide
Whether or not they need to be a bit more clearly defined.
No. They are sad blue-grey orbs, surrounded by dark shadows.
But the face in the painting is mine, ever outline.
Self-portrait. By definition, then, the man in the painting
Is me. A pale, sad face outlined by very heavy shadows.
Perhaps, I decide, turning back one more time, just a little more highlighting…
Pendragon
Copyrighted Material
The History of Art in Words
The colors melt
down the walls,
fading, loosing focus,
realigning, sharpening,
obscured, twisting
into new dimensions,
shapes emerge,
redefine,
hover, collide,
appear and disappear,
hard edges,
smoothing out,
organic,
geometric,
a face,
a distortion,
mismatched,
nothing but lines,
loopy, sweeping,
graceful
or ragged and bitter,
as tears upon a canvas,
a hidden grim smile,
beauty,
grotesque,
masquerading
truth and lies,
revealing and hiding
evolving.
Art Reflection
Art is a lark -
a creative park
of mind expanding
subjectivities
Spin-dizzy or melded
forms glazed
and fired
Ming, Qing, and
Dave the Slave
Splashing colours
or dots Seurat whatever
canvas' imagine;
challenges:
Lillies on a pond, faces,
textures - Dali spectres
rampant form
Literature with or without
poetics: creations evoking
mimsies and whimsy momies:
Invoking Sapphic prose to
Dickinsonian poems
Keat me, beat me
with Milton and His
monstrosities; Shelley
comes to mind...
Don Quixote upon
a rampant thesaurus
Quilts and rag-a-tug rugs;
patches and threads
warp weeping wefts
Need a clew ?
Weave me a tapestry
to stain my walls
Acetylene hardened
plasmas or blobs of liquid
cooling glass -
creations of fire; and
sculptures formed
of building up and
or tearing down -
a gnarled hand: with hammer
and chisel,
rock, plaster, wood, and steel
noble wetted cardboard
Smokes sting the eyes
turn the nose
Tongs
Wires walking on air; mobiles -
life in the balance...
with wings!
Chimes ching-a-ling
sing with a voice
that can make one sigh
Curlicue notes
denote and ascribe dance or tap or cry
blues zep adele-like yo-yo ma
Psychedelic lyrics: songs
kaleidoscopic fly and
linger
Wagnerian plays
entertain cats and fools
Verde: the green master
Comedy and tragedy
intertwine
Ballet
Art: A reflection,
a celebration, of life well
trodden - a dance amidst
strife and laughter
and light
12/27/2012
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Ok I must admit all three entries are delightful and interesting reads. It is been a difficult choice to make for all three are worthy of winning but there is only one winner and it is this time the winning goes to PENDRAGON!! . The piece is entertaining and simply smooth floating to read.
Congratulations PENDRAGON and thank you all for posting such great poems:smile5:
Thank you, cacian
The Next subject will be "Legends" Anything from Bigfoot to Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill to Mothman. The word "Legend" must appear in the poem! TWO WEEKS. Good luck
in a world of legends
nothing stands a pagant
against
a name
defiant
famously painted
drastically fainted
through pages densely
a mind is waited
over a history
that's long gone hastly
We found ourselves some enemies
To justify our hate.
They lived within each one of us.
Their deaths would make us great.
Unfortunately they became
Our neighbors one bright day
And we attacked them as we ought.
They all have gone away.
They left because they had to hide:
Our weapons were too strong.
We chased them till they reached the rock
And then we did them wrong.
The legend told us what we did,
Why on the rock they died:
They got to show us how our hate
Unfortunately lied.
The Girl Who Loved the Man From Far Away
It was on a day like today
with gray skies
and the wind blowing in from the sea,
that she would sing her sweetly sad laments
of legends from long days of yore,
with eyes full of mystery and remorse
she told the story of the man she loved,
though he had died long before she was born.
He lived and died on war torn fields,
among the blood and bodies,
shattered bones, strewn limbs,
slept to the sound of battle cries,
mighty his sword danced
to cleave his enemies in two.
She was breathless as
she told this story,
imagining the man she was destined for
though fate dictated never should they meet,
in all the glory and splendor
of his heroic strength.
She became silent for a moment
which felt like eternity
gazing into the vast faraway,
as if searching for a glimpse of him.
Then her eyes swelled with tears
for she knew what came next
and she could only manage a whisper
of his death when at last even all his greatness
was not enough, and the gods
no longer watched over him,
he faltered, and fell
until the blood on the ground was his own.
A scarf caught in the wind drifting by
caught my eye, it was the sort of thing
she would wear, now only but a memory,
she will always be a legend in her own right,
the girl who carried to her grave, an impossible love.
But perhaps
in the end she had found him
after all, and he died
only waiting for her to arrive.
The artist works.
His brush dips
The pale pinks and blues
Soft as babies' clothing,
Then drifts
Lazily
Like a horse's dragging tail
To its waiting canvas.
The hand hesitates,
Not nervous
But simply musing
Before its brush kisses the paper
With the tenderness
Of the gentle mother
Who strokes the fragile head
Of her sleeping babe.
The piece
Is begun.
I must say I truly enjoyed all of these entries. But one stands out
DarkMuse, I think you must live with legends to write so powerfully about them. Well done, and you're up!
Congratulations DarkMuse.
Thank you very much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pendragon
I will have the new subject up soon, just have to think of a good one.
Ok your next subject is Fear
What Is It?
What is it that comes in the dead of the night,
When everything is calm and still;
And lingers close, yet out of sight,
And sends through your body a shivering chill?
What is it that comes when you’re out all alone
And find you must pass the lonely churchyard;
And you think that you glimpse it, but lo! It’s gone!
Your heart skips a beat and your breath comes hard?
What is it that comes when the moon is full,
And the shadows outside are long and lean;
And you think that you see it, but your senses are dulled,
And you want to, but find that you cannot, scream?
What is it that comes in the gathering gloom,
And with icy fingers claws at your heart;
Then each tiny sound voices coming doom.
Each tiny movement gives you a start?
What is it that moans in the gnarled trees,
With eyes like two lanterns in the darkness aglow;
And suddenly you find you have wobbly knees
As each mournful note seems to bring you more woe?
What is it that causes you to shake and to shiver,
At each tiny rustle of unfamiliar sound;
That seems to rise in the mist from the river,
The gloom of the forest, the shadows on the ground?
What is it?
FEAR!
Pendragon
Copyrighted Material
fear of here
from now on
is gear
to rear and weir
to get it steered
faster then tears
towards the near
ether and mere
The markets tank. The asteroids fall.
The virus spreads to kiss us all
And love us wildly though we try
To kill it. Yes, we all must die.
In the end it's death we fear
Assuming it is always near
Though mostly it stays far away
Surprising us some sunny day
Or drizzly morn when sick in bed.
We thought we'd wake up, but we're dead.
Depressing, yes, that's how life goes.
The optimist, though, thinks he knows.
He lets his serotonin start
To giggle up a failing heart
And turn the lights on in his brain
Although outside there's only rain
The kind that makes one cold and wet
But doesn't let the mind forget
That death will be here sharp at eight.
And death is what we truly hate
Since it requires dying to
Be done. There's nothing left to do
And when it's done, they say that's it.
How would they know? They've never quit
This life before until right now
When angels laugh as we go, "Wow!"
Dealine Feb. 15
This one is due.:)
Thank you all
cacian: I rather enjoyed your inventive use of language and the play on words with your use of rhyme. It was a clever poem.
YesNo: I loved the way in which the opening of the poem played upon much of the paranoia that exists in the world today, and all of the fears that people seem to have these days. I also really enjoyed the truth in this one, ultimately it is the fear of death (the one great unavoidable) that drives so many of four other fears. A very reflective and spot on poem that speaks to our current culture.
And the winner is......
Pendragon: I really enjoyed this one. The use of questions in poetry I find can at times be hard to pull off but I thought you did a splendid job with it here. It had a great flow, and I loved the atmosphere of the poem. It read almost like a dark nursery rhyme. It was both macabre and playful.
Thanks, Dark Muse
Subject: Imagination
Cit off date: March 17.
When you haven't a clue, pretend.
That's what all the children do.
They play and soon the truth shines through
To help them with their early years,
Too young to waste their time on fears
Since guided by a friend.
Imagination
"... that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude"
- William Wordsworth (from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud")
On a woodstove once
uniformly black
Now aged on its sides
to gray and lesser grays
amoungst the black
There abides (easily
conjured up by the
imagination) the image
of a rabbit in twilight
before a great hole -
gazing upon runes
Sometimes I'm the rabbit
contemplating the unknown;
other times, like Alice,
I follow into a world
already created, or soon
to be, separate to mine own
3/1/2013 r.3/2/2013 r.3/12/2013
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ix_resized.jpg
let the imagination
fly
it should encounter
high
and when it comes back
down
it will enchant me
with
its voyages of shere
eternities and
still be
my companion will
to free my self to real
wihtout it I am
hill to mountains
highest tiers
OK
YesNo: Loved the opening line
"When you haven't a clue, pretend."
Tailor:
This is great!
"Sometimes I'm the rabbit
contemplating the unknown;
other times, like Alice,
I follow into a world
already created, or soon
to be, separate to mine own"
cacian:
Love this transition:
"and when it comes back
down
it will enchant me
But in the end there can only be one:
Drumroll:
Tailor STATELY congrats! That sometimes Alice sometimes the rabbit was brilliant!
...yes, congratulations tailor stately!
I thoroughly enjoyed your poem along
with the rabbit image on your wood stove.
Fun to see the image that sparked your
imagination, ultimately leading to an
awesome last stanza
tailor STATELY congratulations!!
Thank you all !
Next subject: Spring
Deadline April 15
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
The Shades of Spring
I can see the colors
of the sound of rain
in various shades
of blue and green,
muted gray, and sprigs
of yellow like dandelions,
which make firecrackers
as the waters burst open
upon the ground.
I can taste the tingle
of new life, the earthiness,
something soft and wet,
small, indistinguishable
microscopic raptures
which break forth from
the darkness.
A fragrance stirs
within the air,
it is subtle, yet undeniable,
at times even overwhelming,
and I feel myself falling
amid the daffodils,
cast adrift upon the sea
of green valleys.
I touch the very air,
beneath my finger tips
at first it is hard-edged,
it is sharpened steel
but it tempers into warmth,
it is malleable, even soft,
it becomes feathers
that I may dissolve into.
Another chance to make things right
The rush of spring delights to fight
While patience once more has to wait
And trusts this dissipates old hate.
Hope is what spring stands upon.
The past at last is winter-gone
And buried fertilizing those
Who rise above last winter's snows.
Life moves freshly over ground
Summer warms with lively sound.
Autumn harvests stand mature
Judging hopes for love impure.
Winter's isolation brings
Loneliness to cover things
With white what once was springtime's best
When winter lays what's spring's to rest.
Phenomenal stuff, YesNo. It is going to be hard to compete with your poem but here goes...Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
O! Justice to Javert at the River Seine
by ©Adol09
One preached "a cube"!, Physics retorted "a sphere"!
Morality teaches a view, judges learn not to hear
I am akin of Javert on the River Seine
Fishing for truth on the great divine
From what branches of justice do ethic's fruit spring?
From what crystal chords, do angel's lungs sing?
So many questions need answers in so little time
So willing am I to cast doubt from a pole with no line
---
How the heck I just came up with that, I have no clue. Maybe writing while tipsy can work wonders :p.
springs imagines
suns of athens
goddesses of Florence
and singapors of pageants
turn hither to salute
in vigour the Nile
to river
from flowers of tannin
to colours of saphires
birds in satins
to choir in matin
the atmosphere is
melic
springs imagines
the world is magic
and
history
is lavish
Tiny fragrant flowers, bright colored birds
The feeling that Spring brings is superb
Soft warm rain, a rainbow sky
It comes in a flash then says goodbye
So I listen to birdsong, smell the lilac
Inhale the aroma of newly mown grass
Enjoy the showers, the warm spring sun
Because summer is hot, and it's next to come
I think time is up for this contest. :)
Yup. Back with the results asap.
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Dark Muse -andQuote:
I can see the colors
of the sound of rain... and sprigs
of yellow like dandelions,
which make firecrackers
as the waters burst open
upon the ground.
Fanciful and surreal; all the senses come alive; and daffodils!Quote:
... becomes feathers
that I may dissolve into.
and dandelions!
YesNo - Your rhyme scheme worked well throughout.
Enjoyed this:Adolescent09 - I found these lines memorable (note my small edit):Quote:
Winter's isolation brings
Loneliness to cover things
With white what once was springtime's best
When winter lays what's spring's to rest.
andQuote:
From what branch of justice do ethic's fruit spring?
From what crystal chords, do angel's lungs sing?
tickled my sensibilities. Seine/devine grated on me a little; funny that time/line did not.Quote:
One preached "a cube"!, Physics retorted "a sphere"!
The last line reminded me of a time of depression when I went on a fishing
trip just so I wasn't alone, but declined to bait my hook - negating the bother
of catching anything. O! Javert, thou racked with double-bind torment unto death.
cacian - I found this surprising, and quite charming (note my small edit):
Pendragon - Loved this:Quote:
to choir in matin
the atmosphere is
melic
spring imagines
the world is magic
Your poem made me wax melancholy for some reason.Quote:
Tiny fragrant flowers, bright colored birds
The feeling that Spring brings is superb
Soft warm rain, a rainbow sky
It comes in a flash then says goodbye
My lilacs are intoxicating - near in full bloom. I've found delicate blue
flowers only millimeters in size hidden in the green grasses - their fragrance
lost 'cept to a pea pod fairy.
Amazing poems from all: and the winner is after much deliberation: Dark Muse
Congratulations to all !
Thank you very much tailor STATELY and congratulations Dark Muse :)