Boutes-Rimes!

[MorpheusSandman]

For those who don't know what it is: HERE or, simply, someone writes down a list of ending words that rhyme and the poet has to make up a poem using those words in that order. For instance, the rhyme scheme breeze, elephant, squeeze, pant, scant, please, hope, pope are submitted, and the following stanza is the result:

Escaping from the Indian breeze,
The vast, sententious elephant
Through groves of sandal loves to squeeze
And in their fragrant shade to pant;
Although the shelter there be scant,
The vivid odours soothe and please,
And while he yields to dreams of hope,
Adoring beasts surround their Pope.

Let's start:

pen
hole
ten
bowl
kill
still
steam
dream

Each successive poet should provide a new list of words.

[March Hare]

They put me in the pen
They threw me in the hole
They gave me five to ten
Because I like to smoke a bowl
I did not rob, rape or kill
Yet they locked me in here still
Youth vanished into steam
Chained even when I dream

[MorpheusSandman]

Very nice! I guess I should have mentioned that each successive poet needs to provide a new list of words.

[March Hare]

Very nice!

Thanks. Pardon the corniness of the last couplet. Steam and dream, for some reason, don't lend themselves to lightheartedness.

Do I stick with the same rhyme scheme? How about...

take
show
shake
tow
free
knee
core
more

[MorpheusSandman]

You don't have to stick to the same rhyme scheme, but you can.

Should I take
You to the show
And buy a shake
With fries in tow
It won't be free
But on my knee
I'll bear my core
And beg for more


Next, a bit tougher;

Geranium
Pepper
Leper
Titanium
Cranium
Gear
Leer
Fear

[balehead]

I wasn’t quite sure if I was allowed to add endings to the words; so mine may not be quite right, and my lines are a bit long, but her it is anyhow...

She walks down the street in a hurry, clasping her precious bundle to her chest - Geraniums.
The bright red flower petals, so carefully nestled against her bosom, are bruised as rain peppers
Down upon her, and the tall metal buildings lining the street seem to shut her out, like a leper.
Blocked in by the insanely corrugated walls of choking titanium,
She hurries on her way, desperate thoughts swirling around inside her cranium,
She has to turn her speed up a gear -
She starts to run when as she becomes aware of a stranger dogging her footsteps, a stranger with a leer.
Her feet now drumming along the street in time with her pursuer, her heart is held in the cruel grip of never-ending fear.

The next words are:
Bower
Mare
Pair
Flower
Tower
Lay
Ray
Bay

(Very unimaginative, I know, and I apologise)

[MorpheusSandman]

Very interesting! The lines are a bit long, but I like what you did with the words.

Under the green and shadowed bower
Stands the sad and gentle mare
I'll join her there; we're quite the pair
I'll court her with a sugared, honeyed flower
And build this brick affair into a tower
Out on the greens we'll lay
Under the sunbeam's ray
To keep our grief at bay

Next:

Guilt
Steel
Ocean
Built
Feel
Potion
Singer
Bringer

[MorpheusSandman]

bump; no takers?

[qimissung]

As snow covers the remote hills, so guilt
blankets my hopless heart; steel
sky resolved to hold me in contempt and the ocean;
is that the drowning deep on which our love is built?
my feet can't find you, nor my heart feel
An I fear I've drunk a poisoned potion
O sky, O heart, a sheep a flock, be thou the singer
An I, I will be the shepherd and the bringer

Next:

reap
quail
mead
barkeep
wail
frenzied
pier
fakir

[MorpheusSandman]

Good gravy quimi... not only is this an excellent Boutes-Rimes poem, it's a phenomenal poem period! It has a very neo-classical feel to it that is sometimes a bi-product of the form yet you make it work beautifully. Superbly done!

You "sew what you reap"
Quips the quail
"I need my mead,
My burly barkeep"
I weepingly wail
Frazzled and frenzied
As I stand on the edge of a mile high pier
Could I have just bought it all from the local fakir?

Lol, I dunno if that makes sense at all; but that's part of the fun I guess.

Next:

bovine
elixir
divine
fixer
periphrastic
mixer
fantastic
No!
elastic

[qimissung]

Thank you Morpheus! That made my day.

These words were tough! This poem is not so good; if you think Georgette Heyer you'll be on the right track (sorry, but what are you going to do with bovine, mixer and periphrastic? Have you been drinking peppermint schnappes!!!!? )

That one with her long face and wide set eyes is merely bovine
I do believe I perfer her, the one sipping punch as if it were elixir
To be the first to break her heart would be quite divine
I much prefer that to being the one who comes after, the fixer
In all matters of the heart, I fear I am quite periphrastic
What a grand joke God played by pouring us all into this mixer
The jaded, the naive, the country mouse, the young at heart-fantastic!
I'll not partake, conniving mamas irritate, but, those violet eyes.. No!
In matters of love, it seems, my heart is not elastic.

Next up:

quarrel
tranquil
choral
shameful
mistral
arbor
chamber

[MorpheusSandman]

Hehe, I actually quite liked it. Yeah, sometimes it's fun to come up with a set of words that you can't imagine one could put together in a coherent poem. I think you did a great job considering those words.

Oh why, oh why, must we endlessly quarrel?
I much, I much, prefer a life more tranquil;
A place to embrace a Bach-like choral
Instead we must fight and it's too, too shameful
But after, just after, we'll endure this mistral
I'll quietly, softly, repair to the arbor
And after, like always, we'll head to our chamber

Locus
Error
Focus
Bearer
Street
Fleet
Merry
Jerry

[firefangled]

OK, I'm game.


Preternatural expectations, locus
heaven-made and hell-bent with error,
and I the child you forced to focus
on the wounds and not the patient bearer
of each haploid slip on a twisted street
from and leading everywhere, or like a fleet
of purposes sunk in the blood, like merry
drunks pissing on the floor before the jerry.


***
couplets if you please:

wretch
fetch
knife
life
lorry
story
commode
abode

[qimissung]

You're on, firefangled. Here goes.

love, that fitful wretch
bowed down, threw me a bone to fetch

then, sly wench, pulled out a knife
and took my life

midday. London. in black and white I grab a lorry
midday. London. dancing down the street, I'm in a Julie Christie story

take my fury and my anger, shove them in a French commode
and love, too-that's your're new abode.

Q

immanent
grievous
nascent
lotus
stormy
fig
blithely
renege

[MorpheusSandman]

Oooh, I loved both of the last pieces. From the dark and evocative piece of fire's and the witty whimsy of qimi's.

The moan was meant and immanent
A lament for the grizzled grievous
God who sees humanity nascent
Like the lily and the lotus
But the onus is on the stormy
Weather, as water drip drops down the fig
Could you blindly see and blithely
Feel for a God that did renege?


Shoehorn
Corporeal
Memorial
Born
Leg
Log
Fog
Beg
Isis
Crisis