Julie Stoner wrote suggesting this Funexercise:

"Following your ekphrasis thread over on Musing on Mastery, I'd like to see original ekphrastic poetry from Sphereans--in a light vein, of course--posted on FunExcise.

For the purposes of this exercise I'll define ekphrasis pretty liberally: a poem closely based on a single work of art, which might be a work of visual or performance art or a work of literature.

Suitable poems might provide a plot summary of Mrs. Clinton's new book, or help us experience a live performance of a Grateful Dead song, or replay a television commercial..."

Sounds good to me! Didn't I run across a Stephen Burt "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sonnet somewhere?

Alicia

Just setting the bar low, in hopes of encouraging some other efforts...

Ode on a Greasy Shirt

Thou horseman blest to never shovel dung,
Thou strenuous but silent silhouette,
For ever panting, and for ever young,
What mad pursuit is this? Thou'lt never get
Thy charger's silken flanks to budge a thread.
Bold Player, never, never canst thou score.
E'en winning near the goal exceeds thy reach:
Thou'rt ball-less. "Beauty's easily misled,"--
That's all ye need to know, save one thing more,
O attic-destined shirt! I've spilled the bleach.

Julie Stoner

PS--after trying both &bnsp; (HTML code to insert blank space) and(the UBB tags to place around text to be indented), I must concede defeat and leave the above text unindented. GRRrrrrr! If anyone knows the proper abracadabras, I'd be grateful if you'd post them.




[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited August 12, 2003).]

.

Julie, I like your parody ...of one of my favorites, and as irresolute as I was in my studies, I'm always glad to see a reference I can recognise. This should keep that bar low:

"A Modest Endorsement"


As mentioned in most any forum,
everyone who knows me grants
I’m known for culture and decorum –
tres chic, as they say in France.

In fashion, cinema and art,
admirers want to know my choice.
Before they'll take a thing to heart,
they wait for blessing from my voice.

In music, as it's known my zest
is drawn to tones, slow, ripe and mellow,
where can this be witnessed best?
“Sonata for Bassoon and Jell-O”.

I love the woodwind’s mournful notes,
it’s plaintive drone is extra neat.
But what, above all, gets my votes –
you listen with a tasty treat!

Young Mozart showed such aptitude,
I marvel at his clever knack
to blend a chamber piece with food –
a fine tune AND a yummy snack!

But maybe they should change the name.
I'm sure I hear a violin,
or something that can rightly claim
to raise the hairs upon my skin?

But, that’s a quibble, on the whole,
just take it from this well-bred fellow –
get some headphones and a bowl,
for “Sonata for Bassoon and Jell-O”!

- Bugsy

<L>

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth...arry-night.jpg

Amid the darkened light there is a tree
whose pointed shape depicts the chapel’s spire
centered in the distant town below.
Above this province with its vale aswoon,
the wind is shown to have its own esprit;
it reels upon itself with mad desire,
traveling between the stars that grow
in self-concentric circles, as the moon.

The wind, the stars, and moon in painted plea,
encompassing the realm with midnight mire,
dream in lunacy; they mean to slow
the world entire -morning comes too soon.
The bedlam of this Starry Night is set
on canvas, dried, and dampened of its threat.



[This message has been edited by zbaby (edited August 16, 2003).]

You should workshop that one, Zita, it's promising, though I think it needs some major overhauling. I can't find a step by step logic to the anthropomorphisms and the conclusion. "Plea" seems contradictory with "overthrow". "Burgled" seems out of place. With "chapel" and "aswoon" "desire" and plea" you could turn it into some sort of seduction, rape thing. "soil could not impugn" though I can make it make sense---it's weird. I hope you haven't already workshopped this. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Nighty nite,
Greg

Hey, Julie,

This sounds like fun, although I'm confused about one thing. You indicated the ekphrastic should be about a single work of ART, right? Soooooooo...how does Hillary's book figure into that? Or did you mean to say, a single work of fiction? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif Seriously, I'll try and come up with something soon...hmmmm...let's see...Oh!


BILLARY

I knew a girl from Arkansas
Whose husband liked to roam and stray.
Each time it was, “The very last straw!”
Then changed her hair and mind in May.

Okay, okay, whatdaya’ expect for 10 minute posey, Peegy Noonan? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

Regarding the indenting. I know of just two ways to accomplish it, (perhaps there are more?) one is the, BANNED POST & n b s p ;

just make sure the semi-colon appears only once per indentation, e.g., just before the first letter of the word/line you're indenting, thusly:

& n b s p & n b s pBANNED POST;(begin indent here).

I've spaced the letters here so they don't disappear into the html code when you read this.


Or, if you don't mind the font changing, you can create your text in Word and then put the word "code" in brackets ,(no quotes) in front of the first letter of the text and then, "/code" in brackets after the last word. USUALLY that works fairly well, like so:


TJ



[This message has been edited by TeeJaay (edited August 22, 2003).]

Another thing to do is fill the indents with characters (like periods) that you surround by a white color code. Highlight the following line and see the "invisible" characters that create the appearance of an indent:

Hightlight these wordsIndented text.

Hello, Alicia. I’ll be in this!

http://www.globalgallery.com/images/esc-e7.jpg

Dag en Nacht (Woodcut by Maurits Cornelis Escher, 1938)
....

Day and Night

River facing river, silver confronts black;
Right reflecting left, fields become birds;
Night pierces day.

Yin and yang, female and male;
Inside–outside, inseparable;
Plus and minus, light and shade.

Tessellations and intertices
Interlock
Interstices and tessellations.

Shade and light, minus and plus;
inseparable outside-inside;
Male and female, yang and yin.

Day pierces night;
Birds become fields, left reflecting right;
Black confronts silver, river facing river:

Night and Day.

....

(In case it isn’t obvious, think “reflection”.)

The method described by Roger Slater is the best for indenting individual lines. The HTML nonbreaking space character doesn’t seem to survive through the preview process here. To indent a whole block of lines, enclose them between &lt;blockquote&gt; and &lt;/blockquote&gt; — which is how I did this block. This is usually not suitable for indenting single lines, since most browsers render the blockquote with extra space above and below.

....

Speaking of indentation, I suppose the best way to indent is whatever manner one feels most comfortable with in keeping with the task at hand. In that regard, I would add yet another method, one that has worked quite well for 'five space' indentations on ezboards, and appears to work equally well here, (now that I've recalled it), and that's the tried and true:

"dd" (without quotes) enclosed by < >, preceding the text one wishes to indent, and then termination of indented text with "/dd", once again, enclosed by < > . Each enclosed 'double dd' will space, (or indent) approximately five spaces. So if one wants to indent fifteen spaces then a series of three double dd enclosures pasted sequentially in front of desired text should do the job; then terminate by just one enclosed double dd.

TJ

Many thanks for the indentation advice! I can't wait to try out the various options. (Now no one can call me shiftless, heh, heh.)


Still Life by Pieter Claesz

The gent who recently was here
....and swallowed half this glass of beer
....and patronized the town's premier
....tobacconist for many a year
....and was prepared forthwith to spear
....these salty fish, with little fear
....of hypertension, that is clear,

has just dropped dead of stroke. Dear, dear.

Julie Stoner

[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited August 22, 2003).]

I like Peter’s word-palindrome on the Escher woodcut and the general idea of a poem mimicking the form of the other artwork. Here’s my ekphrastic take on John Cage’s 1951 composition 4'33".

....
4'33" by John Cage
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....

:)

A fine poem, Henry. Every bit as good as the piece. A word of warning, though - when performing this poem in public, take heed of the rules governing copyright.
Joan

LOL!

Love the "reflection" poem on Escher! Here goes another one with a visual trick to it:

"Woman With Chrysanthemums," Edgar Degas

Here's a huge bowl of them, loud, massing their
weight against her; see how one paw of flowers
nears her, but fails to move the woman not
straight in her listening pose, abstracted air.
What glance she lets us see will not meet ours.
Ours wants to know her better, testing what
air she breathes, how her lips demonstrate
not hardness but hard patience. If it nears,
flowers to speech, will it seem worth her wait
there, what she turns to, what she almost hears?

Twittledy - Twattledy
Dubya C. Doubleyew
Shows us a wheelbarrow
Glazed by the rain;

Chickens are added to
Juxtapositionally
Burnish an image that's
Rather inane.



[This message has been edited by Hugh Clary (edited September 17, 2003).]

Can't resist, just for fun http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif


Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Captain Ivan Danko, a Russian detective hot on the trail of Russia’s deadliest drug smuggler throughout the mean streets of Chicago...
xxxxxxx–- from a review of the 1988 adventure film “Red Heat”

Rotten Veektorrr, brigand, all-around skunk,
flees to the USA with his entourage
of crooks and rolls his new wife, stuffed in a trunk,
into the river, plunk!

He needs Arnie’s help to retrieve some junk,
tries to buy him off in a parking garage.
Buy off Arnie! I don't think so, punk!
Nyet! But talk about spunk!

'Cause Arnie’s tough and upright, clean as a monk,
kind of dweeby -- a celluloid collage
of Cold War stereotypes you know are bunk,
just made-for-movies junk,

but still you cheer him on. He’s such a hunk
and always ready to join in that next barrage
of righteous gunfun –- whoa! That Rooski’s sunk --
Yaaay, a slam dunk! --

For Arnie blows away what aggravates you
until he turns around and terminates you.


[This message has been edited by Susan Vaughan (edited September 11, 2003).]

I meant to say how much I have enjoyed the above poems. But I do feel that special mention must go to Henry's John Cage ;)


Just for fun an old poem:

Mr and Mrs Andrews by Gainsborough

Bored snobs pose against their stately park
Gainsborough can’t have liked them very much.
There’s malice in each delicate brushmark--
a playful caricaturist’s mocking touch.
See how he flaunts his territorial gun;
notice her nasty mouth then move away,
share in the laughter, join the painter’s fun.
Genius lets the elements win the day.

Gathering rainclouds dramatise the sky,
chiaroscuro lights the rustic scene;
coppices glower but pastures glow nearby
as menace amplifies the whole demesne.

Taffeta notwithstanding, soon the gods
will empty the bucket on these blighted sods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.dl.ket.org/webmuseum/wm/p...gh/andrews.jpg

Edited years later in the hopes that the picture will manifest.

Here's an extraordinary engraving by Breughel. Anyone want to try making a poem of this? If we get more than 5 distinct entries, I'll donate a signed original photograph to the "winner" as selected by some means of judging yet to be determined...

http://4.avatarreview.com:8084/pictu...ghelfishes.jpg

(robt)

Robert
I've got one but gather I must wait until 7 days have passed since I posted one in the Deep End. Do you have a URL for this one?
Janet

Janet,

I don't think the posting rules apply to the non-crit parts of erato like general talk, funexcise etc.

No, I don't have a url for that, it's on my hard drive sent as an attachment from someone who found it, but if you right-click the image itself you can see the url of my site, which is hosting it, and/or you can download it directly from here and save it on your computer.

You might wanna peek at the meadowstung site tho, it's amusing...

(robt)

btw people, the photographs from among which you may choose your prize sell for $250.00, and are archivally processed: they'll last at least 150 years. How about some entries?

[This message has been edited by Robt_Ward (edited October 02, 2003).]

Wail in Lost Muddle Earth Dialect


I waked up an’ t’ world were al smashed’n broken
Sea wus hoigh an’ fushes ariz a-spewin’
Men gone mad wus kullin’ n’slashin, pratin’
Of the end comin’

Skoy wus fulled with fushes an’ birds gone sully
Jesters casting rods in the bilin’ ocean
Headless fush-men stumblin’ al blind’n clumsy
Narry a wumin

Cold and seethin’ ocean coughs oop ald monsters
Satan sends his armies of fushy taunters
Nowt to do but doi before the torment
Blackens the vullage

Granny Sorgum warned us that bad wud follow
When we foired the vullage across the watter
She wus bornt and al the folks made t’ watch it
God uv our fathers

World has turned against us an’ we wull perish
We hev sunned’n now we will pay the divil
Lothar howls in kennel beside his chulder
All’v them taken

Priest is gone and nabody kens the prayin’
Feard’n bloind we turn al our een t’heav’n
Intercede for us pore fushermen someone
God uv our fathers


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 02, 2003).]

WHOO! God of our Fathers, indeed! That's extraordinarily inventive and original, Janet.

NOW can we please have 4 (at least) more entries? I'll give y'all until my Birthday, October 23. I will compile an anonymous jury from respected 'spherans who have NOT entered, and we'll do an anymous poll.

The winner will be directed to www.robtward.com to look at pictures (anyone can look) and will be allowed to zero in on an area ("That's a nice Rose, do you have any excellent Tulips?") and we'll work like this to select a photo to the winner's taste.

The winner may also "assign" his/her prize to anyone else.

The signed & numbered, archival photos sell for $250 retail. This is a very nice prize.

And it's a WONDERFUL engraving. Come on, poets, let's have a crack at it. I've done one myself, of course, but won't show it 'til after the contest.

(robt)

Yes, a nice prize, indeed, but what about the nice package Michael Cantor got? A homecooked Mexican meal with all the fixin's, followed by a photo session? Now THAR'S an incentive for you! http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Julie Stoner
(Still hard at work on my own fish story.)

[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited October 02, 2003).]

Great photographic trip Robert!!!
You would love New Zealand houses (the good ones.)
Janet
ps: I don't have a two button mouse. I have an optical mouse. is there some other way to access the site with the Breughel?
Got Meadowstung on Google ;)


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 02, 2003).]

Julie,

I'd extend such an invitation to any 'spherean who passed my "screening process" regardless of whether they won the contest or not, so consider yourself invited. (Yeah, you passed)

Janet,

You must be on a mac, eh? All PC mice have 2 buttons except the antiques, and optical/mechanical has nothing to do with it. If you're on a PC, then fagawdsake get one. If you're on a mac, you're on your own.

With a PC, when we right-click an image (or anything online) we get a long list of options that apply to that thing, which include printing it (the image alone) or saving it to our hard drive. I am sure there is a way to do this with a mac, I just don't know what it is...

I'll mail it to ya, though...

(robt)

The Boatman Speaks

Look! the fisher on the beach,
his catch is one and yet it yields
a hundred fold. Shall I beseech
his art? And see the knife he wields;
the mark upon the blade is clear.
What is the bait, the line, the hook?
I’m smelling something fishy here,
And I suspect it’s not a snook.




[This message has been edited by Renate (edited October 03, 2003).]

AH, so! TWO entries in, BOTH from Australia? Is it something about the antipodes that causes them to appreciate this fishy engraving?

Let's GO USA! Rack 'em UP, Britain/Wales/Scotlan/Eireland/France/Belgium/Sweden/Singapore/EVERYONE!

Hell, if we get TEN entries I'll give TWO prizes!

(robt)

MONA LISA

Perhaps it's just the eyes that smile.
The mouth does not participate
but sports a non-committal style
that might be love, but might be hate.

But then again, it may just be
the mouth alone that gives the sense
that she enjoys a mystery
and is amused at your expense.

Roger
Concise and clever. Only it's "Monna" short for Madonna--a repectful form of address in those times for ladies of quality. Mary was included and later took it over.
(Lisa is a better name for that face despite the excellent Nat King Cole.)

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 03, 2003).]

Carcass in the Moon

We batter it with breath, yet it dies on.
No gasp of air surrenders to our knife,
for time is but a carcass in the moon.
It eats the thing it feeds to us: our life.

Let us dig in to love! How sharp to think
of when we shall become mere pungent dishes,
all eking from a gaseous hole of stink
of fishes eating fishes eating fishes!

Though soon we shall be swallowed by the sea,
yet let us crawl across our heartless sky,
and swim into the selves we mean to be,
no more to lie and lie and lie and lie.

Ecce

"Now, lookee there. In life and fishin',
big 'uns gobble li'l 'uns, see."
The lad regards him with suspicion.
"Grandpa...get away from me."

Julie Stoner

I added a stanza and retitled it.

LA GIOCONDA

Perhaps it's just the eyes that smile.
The mouth does not participate
but sports a non-committal style
that might be love, but might be hate.

But then again, it may just be
the mouth alone that gives the sense
that she enjoys a mystery
and is amused at your expense.

But mouth and eyes together tell
that she has something to confess.
You feel you know her rather well,
although you could not know her less.




[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited October 05, 2003).]

Roger
Very nice and inscrutable.
(I'm not sure how much we are permitted to say in these threads but I am greatly enjoying the poems here.)
Janet

Having Seen the Fish Ingestion of 1556

The sea was rather flat
for what transpired therein,
the fish had swallowed all
the other lives, wherein
they’d swollen to their deaths
from drinking in their kin,
and not a one was left
that hadn’t one within.



------------------
zita z

Melting Clocks

Though time may pass without resistance,
I credit Salvador's insistence
regarding memory's persistence
for helping me ignore the distance
keeping now and then, for instance,
separate aspects of existence.

If a rewrite is OK I'd like to replace my above too-hasty posting with this one.
FWIW, personally I'd enjoy reading public comments on the entries. Maybe the judges would like the option of considering public comments in their decisions -- you know, like the apparently toppled Tipsy did :-(
___________________________________
We batter it with breath, yet it dies on.
No gasp of air surrenders to our knife,
for time is but a carcass in the moon
that eats the thing it feeds to us: our life.

Let all dig in to love! How sharp to think
of when we shall become mere pungent dishes,
yet soon eke from great gaseous holes of stink
of fishes eating fishes eating fishes!

Though soon we shall be swallowed near the sea,
yet let us wing across the heartless sky,
then drop into the souls that we shall be,
to lie and lie and yet no more to lie.

Wow there is some great work here.

The ideo of this made me chuckle... http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

David

"Excuse me sir, though I do enjoy your work,
I find it odd that I stand here without pants or shirt.
I accept your apology for the mistaken wine showering.
My garments have dried now I must be exiting.
I have other parcels to deliver before the sun sets.
Also, I'd apreciate not being sculpted erect."

pretty horible eh? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Since you mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is an early piece from my old BuffyBoard days:

[Medium pace]
Buff and Angel, cold and wet
from fightin' evil brew.
So they took consolation with some
Wang Dang Do

[Faster Pace]
They did the Wang Dang Do [whizz whistle]
Ya bet they did, they did the Wang Dang Do [Aaoogah Horn]
Some people like to court and spark
and others pitch the woo,
But they was in the dark
to have some Wang Dang Do.

[Medium pace]
Parker had just lost his dad,
Buff said I'm here for you.
He said then how 'bout slidin' me
some Wang Dang Do.

[Faster Pace]
He wanted Wang Dang Do [cow bell]
That's all he wanted was the Wang Dang Do [bicycle horn]
Buffy wanted true love
he played her for a fool
Cause all he really wanted was
the Wang Dang Do.

[Medium pace]
Buff and Riley this one time
in their old dorm at school,
they spent the WHOLE DAMN EPISODE
at Wang Dang Do.

[Faster Pace]
They wore out Wang Dang Do [DarDee Siren]
I's act-u-ally tired of Wang Dang Do.[Halloween Rattler]
They didn't do no ragin'
at monsters with Kung Fu,
they was all engagin'
in the Wang Dang Do.

[Medium pace]
Spike and Buff debatin'
on who was right for who -
they ended up a' "datin'",
as in, Wang Dang Do.

[Faster Pace]
They did the Wang Dang Do [Bike Horn]
It wasn't pretty, but it's Wang Dang Do [Whizz Whistle]
They got a little feverish
and things began to stew,
they opted just to share a dish
of Wang Dang Do.

We love the Wang Dang Do [Aaoogah Horn]
Ya know we do, we love the Wang Dang Do [Cow Bell]
Some folks may like to court and spark
and others pitch the woo
But me and you'll just park and have
some Wang Dang Do.

- Bugsy

Combining an appreciation of Keats' "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer" with an appreciation of John Berryman's most famous opus, done in the style of the Dream Songs and the form of Keats' sonnet (with a few differences in the rhyme scheme).

On First Looking Into Berryman's Dream Songs

That half-hid Henry sulks and whines along
and rattles Mr. Bones if he should feel
impermissible, or turns hard on his heel
& stalks off toward some other dream all wrong.
The three of them go chuckling like a brook
unseen which in a meadow sports a sail
at once a hat & hitting the head on the nail
but never letting you put down Henry's book.
And on and into more night than you thought
you owned following the ragged trio into morn
a laughing aloud — like Eureka! or maybe sex
and plenty of both, if that was what you sought
before you came away full (& forlorn
a bit) & everything else your life reflects.

My friend Seanan McGuire did a sonnet redouble on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5.