Croesus from a hilltop scans his plains
And ponders what a walk at break of day,
On new cut grass, is worth: regale away
About the trappings bought with wealth, they're stains
Compared to nature's free delights; they're pains
In light of what the season gifts come May.
True, the strengths of gold may often play -
But aren't all sodden, equal, when the rains
Descend? My money can't oblige the leaves
To hang around come fall; a poor man suns
Himself as does a rich, no need for sheaves
Of cash. What dazzling gem outshines a breath
Of Gaia's freely-given air? - what runs
To worth for men a gasp away from death?

.

One more for the bitumen.

Looking Higher

A red-tailed raptor, noiseless, scans the plains
for snacks that scoot and scurry through the day.
Yet does she ever point her eyes away
to marvel at the clouds the twilight stains?
Or think of looking higher, taking pains
to spot that coruscating dot which may
appear at dawn or dusk and likes to play
hide-and-seek, whose dense umbrella rains
sulfuric acid? No, she never leaves
her habitat to ponder far-off suns
cocooned in insubstantial cosmic sheaves
or space-time maws that munch on space-time’s breath
or think how, as she wheels, existence runs
hawk-silent, without rust and without death.


Alt. couplet:

nor pause to look within at that which runs
hawk-silent, without rust, and without death.

or:

nor see within herself The All, which runs
hawk-silent, without rust, and without death.

Oh how fun - Bouts Rimés! I usually host, but now I can play. :rolleyes: Pondering my lines...

Eventuality
 

I avoid that problem by not looking at the thread (beyond the competition spec itself) until I've either completed my own attempts - or else feel sufficiently convinced I'm not going to enter this time. Then I can browse others' sallies without risk!

It’s something that each packet now explains:
That every smoke subtracts (an hour? a day?),
Eroding remnant health and life away
And carbonising lungs with tarry stains;
Harsh coughs betray cells’ harsher inner pains.
Benson, Hedges, Lambert; (Bryant, May);
Some seasoned Players in this tragic play.
A crop of doom, it grows by blessed rains
Towards a harvesting of woesome leaves,
Then dries beneath the smiling summer suns…
Till human lives are gathered in as sheaves,
Long habit having robbed them of all breath.
Dry butts, from you a bitter river runs!
Tobacco trade: a sale of lives to death.

[I then altered the first seven lines to read as follows...]

Such ads! (‘Marlboro country’: glowing plains) -
But every pull subtracts (an hour? a day?),
Eroding remnant health and life away
And carbonising lungs with tarry stains -
Harsh coughs betraying harsher inner pains.
Benson, Hedges, Lambert, Bryant, May,
Are among Players in this tragic play.

[...which version reads better?
Also, I had realized on checking that Bryant & May is a brand of matches, not of cigarettes (though of use in lighting cigarettes); does their inclusion along with the more culpable names seem amiss, or is it fine? ]

Graham,

Both are good, but I prefer your second. "Marlboro Country" is an icon of cigarette advertising, and "plains" works well with it. Maybe you might consider substituting "Western" or "cowboy" for "glowing". Or, perhaps, "(Marlboro Country's Western plains)" ?



And, getting that pesky word "May" in as a proper noun ought to score you some extra points with the judge. It seems that match manufactirers are part of the smoking - industrial - complex.

Cheers, Douglas! (I had thought maybe the first opening made the subject and thrust of the poem clearer sooner?) I still like "glowing", which I used because it suggests praise-filled testimonials, and it fit with my memory of the US vistas in those ads (recalled as sunny or sunset or sunrise) - and (I now note!), aptly, matches the tips of lit cigarettes.
Thanks for your thoughts!

Fighting Dog

No fighting hound in all the world complains
while braving cuts and bruises. Battle day
has come around and now he brawls away,
grappling with fangs, fur flaunting crimson stains,
paying no attention to the pains
in leg or neck or head. Perhaps he may
again be victor — ordinary play
for one who’s used to quarreling till it rains
like cats from dogs. His wounds too grave, he leaves
lamer than Hephaestus. No more suns
will ever rise for him. Official sheaves
will store his name. Some other pup’s first breath
is luckier this time. She romps and runs
and grows and gets to live before her death.

Martin, I like those two alternatives. I think they are very Ted Hughes!

Neanderthals Succeeded
 

We’ve scoured these plains
Day after day
Till we’ve worn all the beasts away
To hides, bones and their spilled blood’s stains;
Now we are gnawed - by hunger pains.
Will New-Ones help or kill us? May
We join with them? Or will they play
The role of hunting us? Mild rains
Fall, and the former snow now leaves.
Tall, slim, from lands of brighter suns,
They talk of unknown things, like ‘sheaves’
And ‘planting’, with their foreign breath.
I fear our rugged race now runs
A losing pace, pursued by death.

Graham,

I like your Neanderthal poem quite a lot. Not just because of the interesting theme, but also the tetrameter, which is not easy to pull off. But you did!

I wonder if it would sound better with the definite article ("the") before "New-Ones."

"Will the New-Ones help or kill us?" That would mess up the rhythm a tiny bit, however.

Thanks for mentioning which couplets you like best in my "Looking Higher." That's quite helpful. I think I prefer

or think how, as she wheels, existence runs
hawk-silent, without rust and without death.

because it's more visual. You can picture her wheeling high in the sky.

Whereas the other one is a bit more abstract. But then again, I'm not entirely sure which is really more interesting.

Martin