[A. E. Stallings]

Okay--I'm getting jealous--all these sharp and witty rondeaux you people are tossing off, making it look easy--actual poems, even! I have to admit, I share nyctom's aversion to the French forms--they mostly seem too fiddly to do much in English. But then there is always Hardy, making real poetry out of cloth as flimsy as a triolet.

Part of the key seems to be getting the right two rimes.

Back to the drawing board...

[Susan McLean]

I decided to take the rondeau challenge. I have never written one before. At first, the best I could manage was a roundel, which I have tried before, but I kept working at it and finally got the form. (I'll workshop it later. I currently have another poem I am workshopping).

Susan


mmmmmmEt in Arcadia

The frozen mango pie had just been placed
in front of me, but as I went to taste
it, suddenly the rainy tropic sky
went dim. Then the horizon went awry,
and tables, chairs, and people were erased.

Was this, I thought, the ending that I faced,
passed out in a fine restaurant, disgraced,
unable to explain, never to try
mmmmthe frozen mango pie?

A doctor staying at the hotel raced
to take my pulse. I was as white as paste,
he said. He helped me up, then made me lie
flat with my feet up. So I didn't die
that day. And yet it seemed a shame to waste
mmmmthe frozen mango pie.


[This message has been edited by Susan McLean (edited January 25, 2005).]

[Mike Alexander]

a trifle, but as long as we're at it...

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTaubade

Come back to bed. To bug-eyed jays
leave quotidian hymns of praise,
for dawn-brought daylight, love, & food.
We needn't share the gratitude
of early birds for early days.

Don't be in such a rush to raise
the curtains, love; lie back & laze.
I'd learn you how if only you'd
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTcome back. "To bed,"

such a many-splendoured phrase,
can be applied so many ways,
I hope it won't be misconstrued.
But while the morning is yet nude,
a drowsy love to lover says,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST"come back to bed."

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Went to a goth club last week, for the first time in a long while, and saw Jill Tracy. Had a great time, and was wanting to do something gothy anyway, so this is a good excuse to play.


Gothique

Like tattered lace, old cobwebs lie
On cuff and collar. Yet we cry
For tatty furs, moth-eaten silk,
Worm-riddled wool, for while shops bilk
Us dry, they’re truth, and youth the lie.

Tres chic, gothique, we swoon and sigh
And suck on cloves, and while we try
For Byronesque… Well, still, our ilk
Like tattered lace.

Egyptian kohl around each eye,
We’re incubi and succubi,
Fair Lilith’s children, pale as milk,
All changelings filched from fandom, filk,
And mundane lives. Torn fishnets fly
Like tattered lace.


[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited January 26, 2005).]

[Michael Juster]

Thought I'd tack on my take on the first poem of the thread, which, despite its title, would be considered a rondel today:

Rondeau

Springtime has shed its heavy gear
Of wind and frost and freezing rain,
And dons embroidered clothes with grain
Like sunlight, beautiful and clear.

No beast or bird bombards my ear
Without a gloss on this refrain:
Springtime has shed its heavy gear
For wind and frost and freezing rain.

The rivers, springs and streams appear
In splendid garments that attain
The brilliance of a silver chain.
All decked out for another year,
Springtime has shed its heavy gear.

[Janet Kenny]

Michael, that's delightful. I think this one is mine.

The winter tossed aside its cape
Of wind and icy-cold and rain,
To wear embroidered robes again
And shimmer in the fair landscape.

Each beast and bird of every shape
Cries in its dialect to explain:
“The winter tossed aside its cape
Of wind and icy-cold and rain.”

Now rivers, springs and streams all drape
In uniforms of golden grain
Or silver beaded twisted skein,
New clothes make all creation gape.
The winter tossed aside its cape .

[Roger Slater]

Just to demonstrate how the same poem can be translated less successfully, here's mine:

Spring

The world has doffed its winter clothes
of winds that weave the frozen rain
and wears embroidery again,
a wonderous wardrobe sunlight chose.

Every beast and bird well knows
to blend their song in one refrain:
"The world has doffed its winter clothes
of winds that weave the frozen rain."

Rivers, creeks, and all that flows
put on new garments without strain
that undulate like silver chain,
as everybody's wardrobe shows
the world has doffed its winter clothes.




[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited January 30, 2005).]

[Janet Kenny]

Roger, bravo. I remember a lovely one from Rhina and a fine one from Susan and Marion and probably others.
Janet

[Michael Cantor]

This is in response to the frozen mango pie roundel that Susan McLean posted at the Deep End.


If God had wanted mangoes served like ices,
She would have grown them already froze -
a product of Antartica (in slices) -
if God had wanted mangoes.

The punch brunch munch bunch somehow never knows
that rum and frozen mangoes cause a crisis,
as Susan's sudden illness clearly shows.

Your mango should be laced with tropic spices
but served au natural, so nectar flows.
There'd be no more Zamboni cooking vices
if God had wanted mangoes.

[Janet Kenny]

Michael,
And my culinary roundel on the same theme:

God wanted mangoes; they just fall around
on footpaths where I plan to go and live.
They lie with soft effulgence on the ground.
God wanted mangoes.

The fleshy thud is so evocative,
as juicy bodies fall, I love the sound.
The sensuous shape is most provocative

Divine munificence alone can give
such golden pleasure. If one must astound,
cointreau icecream is more intuitive.
God wanted mangoes.

Actually, just some cointreau or curacao and vanilla icecream is unbeatable.

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited January 29, 2005).]