[Julie]

A number of you will be familiar with this challenge, but no giving it away.


What Katy did

I want to see what Katy
did when she, like a turtle,
dove into her shell.
Game scuttles under;
lies in safety.

Catch the sun's fire,
fly into a storm's craw,
fish with hooks so golden,
rods that snap.

Dragonflies are such unlikely fliers, double wings
span my palm in iridescent flash,
point to danger.

Us. We are the dragons,
slayers, and we hide,
bound by what we're seeing.

[Nigel Holt]

Er...wild guess time...is this an allusion to Shakespeare's The Turtle and the Phoenix?

Nigel

[Julie]

Nope. This isn't making any allusions that I'm aware of.

The challenge is contained within the the poem.

Julie

[graywyvern]

Crazy like a fox,
Fire off one quick rede:
Only memory's box
Din can check of the rain.

[Julie]

Yay!

Okay, graywyvern has seen and met the challenge. Who's next?

Julie

[Rachel]

I've been a little less straightforward, Julie, but hopefully you will consider this an acceptable answer to your challenge:


How can this child, this hollow wisp,
hurl smiles like a nor'easterly wind
breaks into a hermit's solaced house,
gusting hurly burly through the walls?

Flower stems can shatter stone,
deftly parting a sea of rock; her tiny,
captivating giggle can roar and swell
turbulently in my desert ears. I can't leave
her grin behind; it will not cease its chase.


Rachel



[This message has been edited by Rachel (edited June 27, 2001).]

[Julie]

Yay! Rachel met the challenge, and with a bit more subtlety.

Anyone else going to play?

Julie

[dragonfly]

I would, if I could even begin to figure it out...

[Tony]

Whirled Atlas

Cowabunga, dudettes! Never call me a pissant.
(Twerp, maybe: blame it on the foibles of Phys. Ed.)
Mint another Quasimodo pontifex for Mordecai—
Rowe v. Wade stands; the Court overturned our van.

Coo Verlaine or Mallarmé into a pretzeled hell;
sink e-mail spammers into bubbling pits.
Burgle the baubles of cut-rate crudité:
Ronald McDonald its varicose kingfish—
kill some spleen cells, dessicate your liver.

Pool your parasols to watch that westside chica
go tweak the duende; haven’t seen her since
a natty, nappy-headed out-of-work aviator
ontologically challenged by Twin Peaks
(Killington and Everest—not!) reversed the Big Bang.

Cocker-spaniel Cerberus makes Pluto’s short list
on bulldozed ardor, squeaky carousel of loss.
Vague isthmuses estrange them—does he row?
She marimbas his ribcage in Montego Bay,
rutabagas pulped in her carpetbag.
Daddy’s still her chief henchman and garrotter:
damned obsessed he was, cleaving white from yolk.

Aha, Matilda yammered to the boss
tin-eared in the towers of technocracy,
addled cranium pummeled a la Jake LaMotta—
whazzup from the land of succotash.
Kentucky Derby’s loss, he says, goading Mr. Ed—
in Borough Park or some such place—into a canter.

Bury all ear candy in the urge to overdub;
Linzer torte crumbs strewn from here to Oz,
lo mein on canvas, noodle famine wrecked ya—
victimized with string cheese in an espresso bar.
Say, loan a vet the whiskers of Yosemite Sam?

Are candy hangovers fatal? For a modest fee
Nixon will be flogged in effigy, leaving Agnew
your kids, kit ‘n caboodle to an alley cat.
Man, do I dig watching Vega and Deneb wane.
Osiris guffaws, fluffed into a lurching waddle—
a horrifying penultimacy. Quota ravin’ nunca mas.

--Tony Hoffman

[Julie]

Tony,

I think you win,
chester.

Julie