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A recent challenge on another board:
Take one of Shakespeare's sonnets and write your own, using all of his end words. My effort: Based on WS's CXXXI On seeing Art sans Paul, or Paul sans Art, I shudder. How could two men be so cruel And leave us naught to listen to but Heart, Or Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion, or Jewel? While in a record store, I still behold Collected works; but I must staunch a groan. For I have heard them all, and nothing bold, Or new now has them both. They sing alone. And to be sure I play them still, I swear. He still leaves 'Celia just to wash his face. And perhaps it would be much to bear If he came back and no one took his place. One song? One harmony? Such minute deeds Spur art, and lift the pall that now proceeds. |
Here's a two-minute drill:
After Sonnet 130 (with apologies to WS and Rod McKuen) That day we both awoke beneath the sun, our bodies baking on the beach, skin red and wet with sweat, we rose to have some fun. I poured cold beer upon your sizzling head. You peeled aside your shorts to show me white thin crescent moons that haloed your sweet cheeks, and I bared mine, much to your delight. But then we cried as one: “Your body reeks!” We plunged into the ocean, as you know, and poached in briny broth without a sound, and reddened more before we had to go. You ran through sand, sprawling on the ground. I followed you, and we made love so rare the rareness of our flesh could not compare. ------------------ Ralph [This message has been edited by RCL (edited November 23, 2001).] |
BANNED POSTKismet (129) Facing the real light afterwards, glaze-eyed, shame Doesn't apply. We were absorbed by a lust To grasp the inexplicable, and blame More than the executioner of our trust. Again and again, from diff'rent angles, straight As rarely things run here, it dived and had Blazoned itself before we knew the bait Would poison us and drive us starkly mad. And now, though glad pretence would have it so, There WILL be no return from such extreme Viewership. We're lost in epic woe And all the world must undergo our dream Sciamachy, till the final well Has filled the sky with metaphors of hell. [This message has been edited by graywyvern (edited November 09, 2001).] |
The Forbidden Pronouns (116)
We press too close, though neither of us minds, In bed the anodyne of married love. Afraid, as of'en now, but not from finds; Our issues, changed to bonds at one remove. And Djuna, though you still are quick to mark My least and thoughtless truancy, seem shaken Free of some dark certitude. The bark That used to scrape and urge despair, has taken A homely turn. I almost rub his cheeks And laugh to see with what droll pranks may come A pest of other days, ago but weeks. And when we flew, your relatives mouthed doom But paid no heed to what our returning proved, Cassandra being the only role they loved. |
Easter 1960 (sonnet LXIV)
The shapes of Buddhas by the world defaced A most particular portrait of our age; And when our hopes, like towers, have been razed There's left to lift the ashes with our rage. Call it a test, task, a trade to gain Other than prowling stooped on the triage shore. I was a child when one such legerdemain Began to promise flying cars in store, I watched the image-whirl construct a state, I wonder fearfully at its decay As if a waking. Deserts ruminate Where men cannot. I'd follow dreams away, Were any swift conveyance mine to choose On the stumble-way to where all choices lose. |
Hazmat (29)
The mutinous affliction of my eyes Has changed in ways most difficult to state My whole response. A flock of night-heard cries Hovers, with the threat of similar fate, And in this fog i now can only hope By more and further thwarts to be possessed. Grazing the mottled pavement, shorn of scope And clarity, i tremble at the least Occurrence, both admiring and despising Those who’ve coped by cleaving to the State. At last, i swear off all despairs arising Daily from a closing of the gate That represents for me what struggle brings: One lonely checker slid to the last rank kings. |
The Return of Music (146)
When was there ever frith to last, on earth? So soon are we returned to disarray, And yet rail at the apparition of dearth As if a glitter momentarily gay Were stone and cave. But dwelling on a lease As surely we do, and earning but to spend, I still would rather suffer love’s excess Than coldly pass an unremembering end. Braver clad in the panoply of loss And somewhat resigned to standup at the store Oh let me fit my career of sorting dross To times that need decision even more. The haze withholds an abode for gods, not men. Nomads lower their wind-torn voices then. |
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTSeven Heavens (62)
A master killer flees from ev’ry eye And finds no place of rest in any part; And though will then no ultimate remedy For death ensue, his one may cheer the heart Of millions. Meanwhile, children tempt the mine And journalists with a grating buzz account For nothing; poets struggle to define Just exactly what they can’t surmount. The Winds of Change ruffle the fields indeed. Fads unknown to sage antiquity Will spawn (along with bugs--), and we may read Of armies, stars, and rare iniquity; Or quietly sit beside, and silently praise One i’ve been faithful to for all my days. [This message has been edited by graywyvern (edited November 14, 2001).] |
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