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Winners Announced Here.
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CONTEST:
Begin with a favorite line from another poem, (or other literature) and “take off” on it in a different way.
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PRIZE:
$100. (You must have Paypal if you live outside the United States in order to collect your prize.)
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SUBMISSION FEE:
None.
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WHERE:
Post your submission in the comments section below. Include your full name and location. Example: John Smith, New York. One poem per poet.
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DEADLINE:
Sunday July 18, midnight EST. (Winners announced July 25.)
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WHO:
Anyone. Any age.
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JUDGE:
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EXAMPLE FROM THE JUDGE:
“Across the pale parabola of joy” from P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Leave It to Psmith
Across the pale parabola of joy,
Beyond the fountain spouting youthful streams,
Beneath the universal truth of dreams,
Eluding even Everyman’s envoy,
And looping past the point where paradox
Is juxtaposed on marrow meeting bone,
Beyond the tyranny of ticks and tocks,
The Answer lies—or stands, or sits—alone.
There, where the questions quake outside his gates,
The crux of time’s eternity awaits.
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I wandered lonely as a cloud,
A mushroom cloud of toxic gas.
I wish I’d died within that shroud,
As energy equates to mass
When multiplied then by the square
Of the velocity of light.
If you had warned me: please beware!
I might have saved us from our plight.
If I’d not set the world alight,
If only I might have foreseen
What I might do to put it right,
A plumber I wish I had been.
That summer in 19-oh-5
I wish I’d never been alive.
Pure genius, Peter. What would the world be like if he had chosen plumbing? It’s all relative.
Cynthia or Mike,
May I please amend my entry to make it a regular tetrameter? As below? Sorry about this: if it is breaking all the rules please withdraw my entry.
Many thanks.
I wandered lonely as a cloud,
A mushroom cloud of toxic gas.
I wish I’d died with all that crowd.
Equating energy to mass
I multiplied it by the square
Of the velocity of light.
If you had warned me: please beware!
I might have saved us from our plight.
If I’d not set the world alight,
If only I might have foreseen
What I had done and put it right.
A plumber I wish I had been
That summer’s end, 1905,
I wish I’d never been alive.
Thank you Mike. I would probably hold a Desmond in flux-brush analysis and a DPhil in the utilisation and functional propensities of the servo-assisted left-handed pipe wrench by now.
A salesman told me that a servo-assisted left-handed pipe wrench would do half my work for me, so I ordered two! Maybe if I got a flux brush capacitor I could slip the bonds of time.
“If I should die, think only this of me” from Rupert Brooke’s poem,
‘The Soldier’
If I should die, think only this of me:
Her words ignited skies that cradled stars
In ebon swathes of midnight’s symphony.
They melted opal moons and marched with Mars
Through thunderclouds, then bid the dark adieu.
They trilled their treetop buzz in daybreak’s flares.
They praised then bruised in brazen shades of blue.
They blazed with tangerine and lemon airs –
The zest that caught the senses unawares.
She gazed in glee and gasped in giddy awe
At odes of bards of old casting their spell.
A burning tyger and a raven’s caw
Illumed the DNA of every cell.
She had a yen no clock could ever quell.
She craved to conjure mariners at sea,
Those lesser travelled roads and trips through hell;
And now Death’s stopped to keep her company,
Her words are flirting with eternity.
Marvelously conceived, lyrically beautiful, and, as I would expect, copiously clever. A gourmet entree seasoned with the herbs and spices of enough literary references to pose a threat to Bartlett.
I shall assume, of course, that flights of angels sang her to her rest.
James, thank you so very much. You have made my morning with your wonderful and marvelous poetic comment. I’m all for those flights of melodious angels – how lovely.
As for your entry – what an atmospheric delight… and the sharp shock of the ending… I’m off to get a tissue. Great stuff!
Superb, Susan!
Susan,
What humbling virtuosity, added to the readiness of your literary references. But most of all, this poem speaks of sheer joy in words and their power of expresssion. “She” will be holding tournaments with Dante, Dickenson, Rupert et reliqua.
“There sandy seems the golden sky”…from Robert Frost’s
poem “A Cliff Dwelling.”
There sandy seems the golden sky
where seas of winded bluebells flow.
The forest lends a winded sigh
as peace of misty morn drops low
into the shadows of the wood
before the rising of the sun
that warms my vessel for the good
that God prepares this day begun.
David Watt, Canberra, Australia
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.
I had too much to drink. What have I done?
If I were to compare her to a fairy,
I’d say her underarms were twice as hairy;
And lips she has, but not the kissing kind:
Last night, somehow, I didn’t seem to mind.
I’ve gladly greeted many newborn days,
But now, I curse the sight such light displays.
Though, who am I to judge on looks alone?
She has a car, a flat, and fancy phone;
And I am clearly not a Romeo.
What’s that she says? “Relax a while. Don’t go!”
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving! We’ve just met.”
This girl of means may grow upon me yet.
Utterly hilarious, David. Sonnet 130 is one of my favourite Shakespearean sonnets. You may well have surpassed the bard with your quirky version. Bravo!
“I did not care what it was all about.”
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Tombstone
I did not care what it was all about.
Two men like others I have seen in smoke-filled bars
Were loudly cursing one another out,
Surrounded by the stench of whiskey, sweat, and cheap cigars.
A push, a shove, then angry punches thrown
As each man bobbed and weaved and did his level best
To knock or throw his adversary down,
The larger man held the advantage, as one might have guessed.
The smaller man was beaten, bruised and bleeding
When from behind he pulled a large concealed knife.
The other man threw up his hands while pleading
To stop the fight, and hoping for a way to save his life.
I did not care what it was all about
Until I turned indifferent eyes upon the one
Who held the knife. I heard the barkeep shout—
And shoot—and realized the man who fell had been my son.
Please note that “Tombstone” is the title of the poem–not where I live–which is in Long Beach, Washington!
I’m glad you cleared that one up, James – I was just going to send my flight of angels your way. 😉
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
Returning year after year
All was over with a bullet that took away
The President
Who gave so much to the United States?
Who made the slave to flee the horrors of slavery?
Who could have changed the way it was by making?
The rich plantation owners
Pay them, let them keep their jobs,
Just pay and share the profits.
Instead, they opted to fight in a Civil War
That burned, destroyed them
Southern lifestyle
Gone with the wind were the ashes
That burned the southern states
As lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
Year after year.
Forgot to put where I am from California
Lines from Walt Whitman When lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
“The words were summer on the tongue” from Ray Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’
The words were summer on the tongue.
The winter-dazzled city lay
prostrate before us,
all was young,
arranged
in perfect
disarray,
the angels’ chorus
echoed the strummer
with downward—upward
sweep of sound…when words were found.
Sasha A. Palmer, Maryland
(forgot to include location, sorry)
Well written Sasha, and it’s good to meet another Bradbury fan!
Thank you, Dave, it’s such a great book, isn’t it?
These were all so enjoyable. I’m convinced the greatest art is produced under some constraint–such as, the parameters given for this contest.
I agree Gail. All very enjoyable!
“The Holy Scriptures I”
from George Herbert’s “The Temple”
Oh Book! infinite sweetness! let my heart
rejoice whenever I am lost in grief
or intimate relation falls apart
like castle of cards or a deadly leaf.
Oh blessed elixir of eternal youth,
my panacea bequeathed from the past,
with each turn of a page I find in truth
that my old wounds unhealed be soothed at last.
The smell of a well-thumbed small book calls back
the night I was long sleepless in my childhood
for cruel nightmare, by a pile of firewood
my grandma told tales from this leatherback.
Its inks and pages have faded in color,
old story still redeems me from my dolor.
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane… —Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)
SHADOW OF THE WAXWING
By Roy E. Peterson
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane.
I was the sheep that forgot how to bleat
When the wolf approached in the snow and sleet.
I was the owl that should have given hoots.
I was the hunter found without his boots.
Long ago I heard one’s silence was golden.
They didn’t say that makes me beholden.
I was playing games others played for keeps
Taking us to hell while our country sleeps.
I felt I could take anything they gave.
I could have been the lifeline that would save.
I could have kept the blind men from the fall;
My voice was stilled and silent through it all.
Conor Kelly, West Clare, Ireland
SECOND COMINGS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The roller-coaster goes higher and higher.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,
Since Playboy ditched its naked centrefold.
The ceremony of innocence is drowned,
Yeats has taken lessons from Ezra Pound.
The darkness drops again but now I know
The electricity was bound to go.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Is now the media’s iconoclast.
“In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,” – Amy Lowell’s “Patterns”
In my stiff, brocaded gown
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
To sit all day
Close to fainting
Posing away
For a painting.
In finery
I am arrayed
To be vividly
And best displayed
In brightest hues
And perfect strokes.
I am a muse
Who moves and evokes.
A beauteous object.
A painting’s subject.
“Time present and time past”
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Intergalactically Impossible
Time present and time past,
I loved him,
With every bare fragment,
Of my blackened soul,
Lingering beneath a false facade,
Visually perfect,
Astronomically doomed,
That is him and I,
Imperfection swallows me whole,
Brushing him aside,
Until our stars never align,
Counting flaws like constellations.
Time caresses my tear-stained cheeks,
In this endless wait of our
Intergalactic impossibility.
Jeff Eardley, Leek, England
If you can keep your head,
When all about are losing theirs,
You could start a revolution,
Like that rascal Robespierre.
I’m sure we’re due another one,
We’ve waited quite a while.
“Egality,” “Fraternity”
Are words to make you smile.
You’d saunter round the Louvre,
In a fancy velvet cloak.
The hero of the working class,
Those peasant, country folk.
Then climb up on your soapbox,
At the Place de la Concorde.
Preaching hate and venom,
To the manic Paris hoardes.
Then abseil down the Eiffel Tower,
With camera crews in tow,
To post yourself on Instagram,
So everybody knows.
A national celebrity,
You’re having lots of fun.
Your father’s words come back to you,
“You’ll be a man my son.”
But if you get the message wrong,
You’ll know what “danger” means.
When you’re keeping your appointment there
With Madame Guillotine.
You cry out for atonement,
For the words you might have said.
As the shining steel descends,
To part your body from your head.
As the moderator, I can’t enter this interesting contest, but I’ll throw a poem into the ring anyway. I’m using the first line of ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. I’ve also stolen some of his rhymes.
The Lane Not Walked
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
Or was it green or maybe both.
I was alone, or not… I stood,
Or sat, and wondered if I could
Machete all the undergrowth;
I turned around, it wasn’t fair
That I’d been sent here, it’s insane,
Because I was chill with naught to wear;
I’d rather have been almost anywhere…
No road, it was really more a lane.
I shan’t be walking, that’s not a lie.
Somewhere two or three years hence:
Or now when lanes diverge, yes I—
I’ll take them both, or travel by,
My car has made all the difference.
Mike, this is brilliant. I hope your car is battery-powered and fitted with the latest flux brush capacitor.
Thanks, but no, Jeff, no self respecting Texan is gonna be toolin’ around in a woke mobile. I am a pure petrol head. No battery powered vehicle can survive the demands of air conditioning a vehicle. However, I am with you on the flux brush capacitor. I’ll order one from Peter Hartley.
Mia Panayi, UK
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How Do I Love Thee
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love your hands, your voice, your grace,
I love the way you glide,
Sprinkling stardust in your stride.
I love your zest for life, your charm ,
I love thee just as the earth and sky and seas,
Long for the sun throughout winter’s icy path;
In frozen wastelands I long for your embrace.
I love thee with a love that binds me to you
Through the misty veils of time and sorrow
Vivid memories dance and bring you to me,
Casting a glow that makes your soul
The blazing hearth of my eternal home.
I post without waiting long enough for it to sort of ‘marinade’
just a couple of changes. Another great exercise/ challenge
thank you . Hopefully this is an improvement..
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love your hands, your voice, your grace.
I love the way you glide,
Sprinkling stardust in your stride.
I love your zest for life, your charm,
I love thee just as the sea and sky and land
Long for the sun throughout winter’s icy haze,
In frozen wasteland I long for your embrace.
I love thee with a love that binds me to you
Through the misty veils of time and sorrow
Vivid memories dance and bring you to me,
Casting a glow that makes your soul
The blazing hearth of my eternal home.
D.G. Rowe, Buckinghamshire.
“From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through
a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine”
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Nephelidia.
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn
through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
The singer asleep surrenders his soul to the merry
muse that makes him mad.
When the bottle of brandy bursts his brain, with lashing words
loquacious and lippy, deliver licentious lines;
The group all gathered at Houghton’s house guffaw and gag at
what is heard and had,
That even Burton’s big brass balls squeal and squeak in shame.
COLERIDGE – WELL(S) MET
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
And in this Subterrania
Lived Morlocks with a mania
For breeding Eloi innocent
As source of Morlock nourishment.
But then The Traveler through Time
Arrived and made that downward climb
To show the Eloi they need not
End up in Morlocks’ stewing pot.
And in this future chose to dwell,
Believing here he might excel
By teaching Eloi of the past,
Forgotten since the global blast.
Hilarious. I’m a great fan of H.G. Wells – and Rod Taylor would have loved this.
A fun fact. Years ago I spotted similarities between H. G. Wells’s ‘The Sleeper Awakes’ and Woody Allen’s ‘Sleeper’. Finally I contacted the H. G. Wells Society and (drum roll) ‘Sleeper’ IS based on the H. G. Wells novel.
Forgot to add location – Frederick, MD, USA.
Whose woods these are? Oh, do not mind;
His house is what I left behind.
He will not see me stopping here
Watching his woods fill up with sheer
Rain and ice and snow and sleet
(I’m longing for a bit of heat) .
My little horse is sad and sullen;
I urge him on, but no, he ‘wooden’
Move an inch, but shakes his head,
He means, ‘I hate these woods; wish I were dead! ‘
But I cannot be stranded here
In these horrid woods, all dark and queer.
The blizzard hits with icy rain
(Both horse and I endure the pain);
Fully soaked, I feel the chill;
Pneumonia’s something no one will
Contemplate on an evening trip
(I know I sound like One Big Drip)
Made through woods with spindly trees
(I think I am going to freeze!)
I wish I had remained at home
(I feel the chill enter my bones)
And did some cooking on my stove,
But poets love to drift and rove
Through haunted woods with eerie trees
(And here I give out One Big Sneeze!)
My horse is drowned in snow and sleet,
And I am dying on my seat!
(The Frosty poet succumbed in ice.)
I think this poem will suffice
To warn us against journeys in snow,
Which conclude in hypothermic woe.
I think that I shall never see ..
Along this road I roam ..
A barren Wasteland tragedy ..
That masquerades as poem ..
Nor Cancel Culture comedies ..
Where Sheeple Howl with glee ..
And graze in wanton gluttony ..
On Grass – or faux pourri ..
No Wayfarer shall tread upon ..
The road from tyranny ..
This mystic mix of dusk and dawn ..
In the land of poetrees ..
Winds past a lake where daffodils ..
Sway gently – whilst the breeze ..
Nudge lonely clouds that wander still ..
O’er a kingdom by the sea ..
‘Twas many and many a year ago ..
Hearts ached for Annabel Lee ..
And miles to go – and miles to go ..
To meet serendipity ..
Through snowy woods on a winter’s eve ..
Looms a furrowed path forsaken ..
Do follow it – should you believe ..
In the hallowed road not taken ..
Around the bend a carriage rests ..
Abandoned in the night ..
As death seeks out another guest ..
For hope has taken flight ..
Cry not – her fruitless search for love ..
And immortality ..
A lofty perch awaits above ..
In perpetuity ..
The pantheon of bards hoards dreams ..
Envisioned by one’s muse ..
The Belle of Amherst reigns supreme ..
Ensconced in somber hues.
“I fell in love with melancholy” from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem Introduction
I fell in love with melancholy
In its songs I found
The darkened light of youthful folly
Which raised us from the ground
To feel a cracked and broken sigh,
To sing a funeral song,
To gaze upon a darkened sky,
And know it won’t be long
We’re held together by shattered glass,
The glue, a soft and lumping mass,
We’ll walk this dark and blue-ish pass,
Until it narrows in
Each heart belongs to swollen earth,
We may stare at the sky with mirth,
But She does lead our new rebirth,
We’re learning how to sin
As children taught to do no wrong,
We’ve fallen down from grace,
We drag our innocence along,
We won’t pick up our pace
If only they could see us now,
So many years since our last bow,
For if they chose to break their vow,
What good is ours alone
What good is it to be a child,
If wise old age is only mild,
We spend our time destroying wild,
Reduced to flesh and bone
I want to be a girl again,
So that I can be wrong,
Back before we all were men,
And knew the word belong
But down the dusty road we walk,
We’ve lost our daily need to talk,
Our hands are of a ticking clock,
Our life is far too long.
this is my full name and location, sorry about that!
“Some sign, o divine will; and every obedience is assured nearly before your” a deleted line by Arthur Rimbaud, trans by Wyatt Mason
Some sign, o divine will; and every obedience is assured before your thought becomes action. Signal the beginning, and the effort will set a flawless overture to life; breathing, aching, swooning; dragging to the surface the grace of soul, the invaluable worth of developing an intellect into a dedication, tenaciously testing elements long lost to abuse and neglect—with one sign, no longer lost! No longer will the naive love the darkness, thrive on its excess! Long for the caress of lust! No longer compressed! A single sign could set off the endeavor infinitely repressed!!
A SLIGHT DEVIATION FROM THE CANTERBURY TALES
(After Chaucer’s Prologue and other poems)
When that April with his showers sweet
Made mud fields out of every field and street
And caked with blackest moss each flower pot
As made our hero grumble “Out, damn spot!”
So did the West Wind make our hero leery
That date night might become a midnight dreary.
Wont to argue, would his date dispute
Of man’s first disobedience? – And the fruit
He bought to woo and win her went to rot
(Cheap-purchased off some lady from Shalott.)
Our hero met his date. Alas! Dismay!
For she was more rough wind than buds of May!
Although she walked in beauty like the night
She had a scolding tongue – a waspish fright!
Lilacs in the yard withheld their bloom
When she complained – the very voice of doom!
They walked till evening spread against the sky
But strayed. She mocked him with a glittering eye.
Foul-mouthed in the frith, her anger grew.
Whose woods these were he truly thought he knew
But he was wrong. Well, better to be lost
Than loved, he thought. This date packed too much cost!
They argued underneath a poison tree.
Two roads diverged. The best was not to be.
There was no help and so they kissed and parted.
Free! Our hero was not broken-hearted.
The vales rejoiced! No albatross in sight,
He ambled gentle into that good night.
I love it, Brian, even though I’m sure I’ve missed a few of your allusions (as also in Susan’s). The placement of the Thomas reference at the end somehow reminds me of the last line of Dehmel’s Verklaerte Nacht, “Zwei Menschen gehn Dutch hohe, helle Nacht.”
There’s a parallel in music, you may know, to what you and Susan have done; the most famous example is the final of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
Oops! I forgot to rein in in the spell checker. “… durch hohe, helle Nacht” (sorry, no Dutch treat).
Paul Freeman – Abu Dhabi
Based on ‘Daffodils’ (Apologies to William Wordsworth)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
of flatulence whose pungence spills
into the world, announced aloud,
and finds a space its essence fills –
like elevators, locker rooms,
or closets for the mops and brooms.
So in my home, each room I try
(if cabbage or baked beans I’ve scoffed)
to ape that overpowering sigh;
and once my dorsal portal’s coughed,
Life’s pressures ebb and I’m relieved,
though wife and kids are greatly peeved.