Minimalist Poetry Contest

[tailor STATELY]

Reading Greek: Homer slays me - Achilles

Angst, an Homeric brush

toppling a near display

No recompense enough

owed on a Grecian urn

9/6/2013 r.9/10/2013

I had originally used "an": an Homeric, but yielded to "a", briefly; the archaic def. for an = "and if" or "if"

The ambiguity amuses me. If anything is archaic, the original Greek is.

With forethought,
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[chirpy]

Oh Helen – beware your gifts
I have read
of Troy

[DieterM]

What makes me feel
at home:
a merciless sun
on my coconut skin,
the perfumes of souvlaki
and ripe figs,
the periptero woman shrilling,
"Ti kanis simera,"
and the word ΤΗΛΕΦΩΝΟ
on the telephone booth

[Hawkman]

The deadline having passed, it is now incumbent upon me to thank all the participants who have graced this thread with their labour, before passing judgement. It’s a pity that one has to choose a winner because it always implies that everyone else has lost! Therefore, brothers and sisters of the pen, Think not that you are losers; consider instead that your efforts have been inscribed on a round table, that ceased revolving and came to rest with one to the fore directly before the hawk.

Since you have all gone to the effort of entering the fray I think it only right that offer some observations:

Pen: The first out of the blocks, always an eager participant! The rhyming couplets are fun, though the associations are at times obscure. Alpha Omega Beginnings and endings? Well I guess Vegas qualifies for that; Delta & Gamma are both forms of radiation to which Vegas might have been exposed owing to the neighbouring atomic weapons program; Delta Zeta well, I start having problems here, though the first is a brain wave rhythm, but I’m not so sure about Zeta - Theta would have qualified here ) but the significance of Epsilon Phi with parting lost me a bit. I am left with an impression of a frat house, though sadly not my favourite: TOGA!!!

Y/N: Although you gave us an epigram, we had to read a Greek quote to get the point. A novel approach, putting the onus on the reader to read Greek, rather than making the poem about Reading Greek. A cunning ploy.

Melanie: You certainly embraced brevity, although I do feel that you took it a little too much to heart and chose a well worn path.

cacian: what can I say? This was so you!

DM: both you and melanie latched on to the enigmatic theme, favouring brevity, whereas I’d like to have seen yours developed a bit. I feel minimalism should not be defined by reduced length alone, though yours was certainly effective.

TS: I must confess I rather liked your preamble though the poem itself had me thinking of an old music hall joke: “I say, I say, I say; what’s a Greek urn?” “About five bob a week, I think.”

chirpy: This too, was brief and to the point, though one does not have to have read Greek to read of Troy… Nice idea though.

Dieter: If I’m brutally honest I’d like to trim your poem a bit. There are one or two elements which border on excess, but as a poem it is very evocative.

Gosh it’s is so hard to choose…

And the winner is – Dieter, because the poem took me somewhere. So Congrats to you and thanks again to everyone else for making my choice so taxing.


Live and be well - H

[cacian]

Hawkman thank you and Dieter congratulations!!! a well deserved win.

[Melanie]

What makes me feel
at home:
a merciless sun
on my coconut skin,
the perfumes of souvlaki
and ripe figs,
the periptero woman shrilling,
"Ti kanis simera,"
and the word ΤΗΛΕΦΩΝΟ
on the telephone booth

I loved your poem Dieter! Applause,applause!
Could you translate lines 8 & 9 for us?
(and your avatar is also a winner)

[DieterM]

Wow, thanks Hawkie, or as they would say, evcharisto poli! @Melanie, the periptero is a stand where cigarettes, papers, candy and other such things are sold. The periptero woman is asking, "How are you today?", and the last word means telephone.

For the next round, let's have a go with this line out of a Beth Gibbons song (and do try to find it on Youtube or any similar site if you wanna get a better feeling of what I'm thinking of):

autumn leaves

Deadline is oct. 4th (I'll read on oct. 5th in the morning, Paris time-uhm, Paris, France, okay?).

[cacian]

great topic Dieter!


through the forest
the wood
the solace
i catch a glimpse of the fall
crimson red gauntlets
yellow stark portraits
a perfect autumn leaf
crisp crackles so to speak
i am but haught.

[Pendragon]

I think people are over thinking my poetry. It was a simple rhyme, just for fun. There's a song out there that gives places, something like "Aruba, Jamaica, girl I want to take ya." etc. Same thing here.

The leaves fall
Soar on the wind
Back to the ground
Where they began
The roots drink deep
Of the natural compost
The leaves reborn
Return from being ghosts

[YesNo]

Pretty while they last, but then they're gone, those autumn leaves.
Memories hold fast and linger on for one who grieves.

[Melanie]

Thank you Dieter, for the translation above.

autumn leaves

hither, thither
leave's autumnal dither
in indian corn hues
of a jackson pollock
on sky blue winds


Jackson Pollock


Indian Corn

[Dark Muse]

Memoir of a Leaf

For only a whisper in time
the beauty of death
bursts into awe inspiring vibrance,
but too soon it already
ebbs away into gray.

[jajdude]

Autumn leaves gather near the uncared for shed.
Days shorten, winter comes.
They're just leaves.

[DieterM]

Awwwwwwwrrright, six fantastic submissions so far. And still one week to go. Who wants to participate? C'me on, ladies, c'me on, guys, don't be shy, we of the Minimalist Poetry Contest don't bite (unless asked to)!!!

[DieterM]

It's Friday evening, still two days left for your submissions—thought I'd bump this thread up so that you don't forget!