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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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COVID and Travel,
From Shakespeare’s play Richard III, I, i
‘Now is the winter of our discontent’
Stretched out through spring, to summer, likely fall.
In masks and social distancing we’ve spent
Over a year, and now we’re facing, all,
Arm twisting at its finest to get tested
And vaccinated not just once, or twice,
But more. Refuse, and we may be arrested,
Or fined, or both; all that may not suffice.
For instance, travel has for months been hard.
You want to board a plane or cross a border,
It’s “Oh, but you don’t have a vaccine card.”
Patience and options, too, are growing shorter.
The train?—nix! Next, they’ll take your car by force.
Then might you beg, “My freedom for a horse!”
Greece, NY (far from Bosworth)
Georgia Slavec, Minnesota
From “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson
Taurus
Hope is the thing with feathers,
so what could have stricken that sea?
raining down jeweled constellations,
what symbol could come of such grief?
That same sun will see us someday,
out of this place;
I’ll send, in flight, my pain
to its destiny’s martyrdom tame—
my hubris of man,
by its synagogue, slain—
Though in waiting forever,
I’ve grown used to the weather
of my underground labyrinth confine—
anew lightning of day striking heat to my may
melts those feathered hopes wary of change;
But too late I’ll realize that to what I’ve been prey,
of some sick and elusively maze-like a game—
it was me all along, the bull charging my trail;
I’m the Taurus ensuring destruction prevails.
S.A.Todd, UK
Opening line from the immortal classic ‘Humpy Dumpty’ (traditional), progressing into a piece I call ‘Spent Shells’…
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty, sick of it all.
His death-leap was marvellous –
all the King’s men
(despite the poor landing)
still scored him a ’10’.
S.A.
The original poem may be immortal but poor Humpty clearly was not. I doubt that this short prequel to “Spent Shells” will last much longer than did Mr. Dumpty, but if nothing else, it succeeded in making me laugh–which is, of course, not nothing to laugh at. I look forward to reading what comes after. Please post more and again.
From: I Have A Little Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson
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My I-Pad
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me.
It’s very like my laptop, and as far as I can see
I didn’t need another, but the salesman said you might
Keep one within your car, the other tucked in bed at night.
Suppose your neighbor’s pipes break one sub-zero night, he can
Awaken you at three AM to borrow a big pan
To catch the burst. And if a plane has just gone down in Spain
You’ll want to be the first to know; not be left out again.
He made sense. Driving, I amuse myself with little games.
When on a date, it’s easy to be tweeting other dames.
What fun to multi-task, send smutty pictures, anything!
If I don’t like what someone says, I speed dial, let it ring,
Then leave a call back message, tell the first I have to go
Accept an urgent message, and nobody has to know
I set it up, How smart I am! I never am alone
When on my bed or in my car, I have my little phone. .
I’ll Shut My Eyes
Villanelle on a line by Sylvia Plath
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”
I read those words when I was young– and brave.
It was a line that echoed in my head.
I rushed beyond mere words that I had read,
and lived my days for spending. Who can save?
Or find another way to live, instead?
Age whispers now, “Regret that life you’ve led,
recall the times you’ve watched commitments cave
and choked on promises you left unsaid.”
Like Plath, I waltz this dirge inside my head
and feel the heavy traction of the grave.
Is someone done for, Sylvie, as you said?
Who whispers close? “Oh, that is only death.
in my blank ballroom [direst dancers…..] baton waves
to summon us to measures we will tread.
I’ll shut my eyes! I’ll feel my way ahead–
along this passage where my one life leads.
I will see out this poem to its end–
rewrite these lines that echo in my head.
The other version of this poem was an incomplete draft! I’m sorry that I posted it by mistake!
What follows is the draft that should have been posted. Again, I apologize to all for the error.
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I Shut My Eyes
Villanelle on a line by Sylvia Plath
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”
I read those words when I was young– and brave.
It was a line that echoed in my head.
Rushing beyond mere words that I had read,
I lived my days for spending. Who can save?
Or find another way to live, instead?
Age whispers now, “Regret that life you’ve led,
recall the times you’ve watched commitments cave
and choked on promises you left unsaid.”
Like Plath, I hear a dirge inside my head
and feel the heavy traction of the grave.
Is someone done for, Sylvie, as you said?
Who whispers close? “Oh, that is only Death.
I knew his cold caress along my nape.
I trod, my love, a measure that he led.”
I shake her voice out of my aching head.
I will not dance that way down to the grave.
I will write out my poem to its end.
I shut my eyes. I feel my way ahead.
Phil S Rogers, Texas
First line from Christabel, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
and fitful dreams, sleep doth unlock.
Gothic dreams that meander throughout the mind,
and pleasant visions there to find.
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
blackness pervades and spirits knock.
Ethereal shadows, forgotten bowers,
oft return in the darkest hours.
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
vivid demons, like humans walk.
Likewise tutelary gods, and spirits kind,
melange of shadows in the mind.
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
thoughts good and bad together flock.
A reliquary of sundry thoughts to deem,
all jumbled in one livid dream.
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
seraphic spirits slowly stock,
those accursed shadows in our mind entombed,
ensure that they can be exhumed.
‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
bad thoughts, good spirits now do block.
Ephemeral souls sing paeans in the night,
gone from our minds by morning light.
“We were fishermen”
from Chigozie Obioma’s novel The Fishermen
We were fishermen:
we went off to the river
after the roosters had woken the world to consciousness;
had we falcons harkened to the voice of the falconer
turning in the widening gyre,
then we would not have been here.
But what had we to fear?
We knew the river from its cradle,
we loved the river calm and gentle,
we cherished her offerings large and little.
What had we to fear?
we were heroes,
catchers of big dreams,
the unstoppable fishermen.
But that was until yesterday,
before they uprooted the sacred tree
at the centre of the river path
before the market was set on fire & things fell apart.
Yesterday,
we harvested the corpse of a woman,
her breasts & eyes were missing;
the limbs of history were dismembered.
Now the court is seated
beneath the oak tree at the market square,
the witnesses have been asked to come forward,
on the lips of the adulterous pastor’s wife
lingers a well known ditty;
there are fishes that should never be caught.
The lunatic has been given a revelation;
a prophecy sits at the tip of his tongue;
the widow is one foot away –
from bearing false-witness
& these fishermen are an invocation away
from becoming baits for the biggest catch of their lives.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” .. This burden I have carried all through my life , feeling of loneliness with no end insight . Making my way through life everyday fighting a fight that seems to never go away. Why was it me I ask myself? Why do I have to keep loosing myself? I did not ask for this burden from you. You forced it upon me and ripped my heart in two. Two hearts I have one full of love that can never be let out because your your hate you scared it away. The other heart is cold and full of fear that’s the heart I have learned to keep very dear. When will this burden set my heart free ?Will anyone take this burden from me?
“As I Walked Out One Evening“ by WH Auden
The Last Walk
As I walked out one evening,
On my two tired feet,
I couldn’t help but notice,
The people in the street.
I know that I was crying,
In the dark evening red.
All the Earth was dying,
Inside my weary head.
Strangers who did not wonder,
At this obvious sign,
Walked on like they were blinded;
Walked on like I was fine.
I know that I was dying,
In the dark evening sun.
All the Earth was crying,
And my time sadly done.
Strangers who did not wonder,
At my tear-stained face,
Walked on like I was nothing;
Like I was a disgrace.
As I walked out one evening,
To see the end of light,
I couldn’t help but notice,
The people in the night.
The dark was now upon me.
The sun was now asleep.
I found myself in my home,
Where I could hide and weep.
I know that I had been crying,
On that fateful day.
All the world was dying,
As I had flown away.
Forgot to leave my location! I’m from Texas.
A Homage to Poetry… from Leisure by W.H. Davies to John Donne via…..?
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to sit and pore?
No time to read our favoured piece,
Grow faint with joy at thoughts
So exquisitely rendered into verse?
What is a poem? Well may you ask!
Whate’er its mystic root, each grows
In unique form the reader’s soul
To illumine. Its warmth to cause
Flutter in hearts believed frozen.
Inspired musicians pen angelic chords
To accompany agonized lines of bards.
If music be the food of love, play on –
But sing! For true words make up love’s essence.
Poems lie hid in unexpected places
In crafted phrases to spring from dull pages
To surprise the casual eye. So ask not
For whom it was placed there – it was placed for thee.
The Farmer
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But then he has a big harvest to reap.
Being distracted will really spoil it all.
And one needs to ever hear Duty’s call.
If the chap goes gallivanting around,
His wife will have him verbally bound!
And he may be really denied his dinner.
May often be called a very bad sinner!
Pied Died
I hate all things that spring up after rain,
Like spring, spring fever, and each spring song sung,
Nor praise I one small fallen finch’s pain,
Nor glory I in dappled dried cow dung;
I loathe all things yet counter, things all strange,
All things original, and things all spare,
From some pained plow horse dying from the mange
To germ warfare to every good lord’s prayer;
Hooked rainbow trout for dinner I protest,
Malignant moles and freckles still despise,
The fatal chestnut allergen detest,
And sprung sprung rhythms smoothly satirize;
While who knows how to best end writer’s block
But any god whose beauty dead things mock?
Janett Wawrzyniak, Florida
July 2, 2021
“How Do I Love Thee,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Love and joy always ascending is realized,
Source frequency is recognized.
To higher Light Source,
For every age ascension frequency draws,
Setting your coding’s course.
Into the highest frequencies, love rises in unity
With Source Light through eternity.
The silent advance is in new levels of ascension.
Those striving in silent details feel and sense.
Invisible communities assisted by individuals in balance,
Continue onward in the physical.
From the Universe vibrating at higher frequencies,
Divine Eternal Light through guidance,
Brings Freedom, from lower densities.
David Whippman, UK
From “If” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
are taken with some passing PC cause;
if you can let bandwagons leave without you,
and stay quite still, and speak the truth that’s yours…
and won’t keep silent when the mob’s demanding
that you don’t talk about the wrongs you see;
if you can be concerned and understanding
yet never grovel on your bended knee…
if you oppose some trendy leftist fashion,
and yearn for peace, yet are prepared to fight;
if you believe with logic, yet with passion,
then stand your ground, for you are in the right.
Diane Puterbaugh, Jackson, TN
Bernadette Mayer’s “Grey”
I see nothing
But the usual locusts and maples
At the tree convention down the street
The sugar maple says
“Let’s not throw our coins in the fountain, let’s plant them in
the reeds by the river bank.”
The silver birch adds
“I do not want to be a money tree, but a forest of promises.”
The pin oak concurs
“All in favor, raise your branches.”
Nice and enjoyed your words.
Rayne Affonso – Trinidad and Tobago
Based on W.H. Auden’s poem, “Musée des Beaux Arts”
About suffering they were never wrong,
those pesky, brilliant minds,
for not a guest walks past my hutch
without remarking on the shine.
There I flaunt my greatest losses –
a callous display of my grief –
then my companions stay for dinner,
and drink my wine in disbelief.
I own a Persian rug, a Fabergé,
a Goya sent from Spain,
yet still, the thing to catch their eye
is my polished wall of pain.
The last man that I took to bed
could not bear to stay the night,
said the glare woke him from slumber
when my greed caught the moonlight.
He asked me how I stand it,
if I ever suffocate of shame –
bless his heart! – that one frivolity
I can’t afford to maintain.
For my failures do not plague me,
and they make for such unique décor.
They are my greatest luxury –
I will, no doubt, own more
“Always, Booking for A Beauty Is A Call for A Wondrous War”
“I’m thinking of beauty again, how somethings are hunted because we’ve deemed them beautiful”
— Ocean Vuong in his novel – “On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous”
I’m thinking of beauty again, of how somethings are hunted because we’ve deemed beautiful,
& I’m here for the boneless creatures.
I’m here for the doll conquered by flowers
& I hope you see it. I hope you see me
aiming for the higher places where glitters
are milked by the shadows of the blades
pulling wonders through my tongue. You can
see my borrowed hands knifing goals, flipping
pages. You can see my eyes casting stars,
gathering night skies in them. You know all these.
You know how I trapped a pupa in my palms
just to show how much I can hold innocence
so dear. I held my breath, silenced my slope.
I did these for loyalty because I believed that
the cost of vanishing into light is a step to
conquering gloom & that the grace of blooms is the
truest resemblance of godliness, but it’s clear now
that beauty does not guarantee safety— it gifts
us as preys to be hunted. I’m falling into
this charm & life is busy kicking me out like a
burnt tongue exiting a love song. Entering into it
will be perfect but I never knew that the same song
can be an asylum & also a jail— a two-faced coin.
I tossed it & I swear it’s flipping me
to the wrong side.
“The sea is calm tonight” from Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach”
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide ripples an aquatic lullaby. On deck
Jimmy cries a baby’s tears. I tell him one light
envelope gets you a broken arm. Two, your neck.
Three, a trip on the ocean with your feet
set firmly in a bucket of cement.
“Jimmy,” I say, dropping anchor. “You didn’t meet
your obligations.” He sobs worried about his ultimate descent
to the sandy floor where so many bottom feeders eat.
I stand him up. Not a tall man, Jimmy’s a slave
to his passions, chained to his gambling vice.
The horses are a bitch, I tell him. “Man up and be brave.”
He pisses himself silly when he sees the ice-
cold water. “Give me another shot,”
he says. “I’ll get you the money. I swear to God.”
I smile, a consolation to his dire predicament.
“Think of it this way, Jimmy. I could have sawed
you into pieces. Now your intact, a testament
to my goodwill.” And with that I push him overboard.
Ah, Jimmy, we must be true to ourselves!
Whether we bet or collect
the world spins the same for each of us. We delve
into our souls for introspection. We can’t deflect
what we know to be certain. And as sure as the sun
sets at night, there is no respite for the weary,
for people like us who know nothing of fun
always searching for meaning in the theory
of the long shot, cursed to be
trapped in a race that only horses know how to run.
Isabelle Wann, Central Coast of NSW
“Take me on a trip” from Bob Dylan’s “Tambourine man”
Take me on a trip, upon you magic swirling ship,
To the salty blue waters of the sea.
To get away from all the folk that blow and breathe the same old smoke,
Take me to a place I can be me.
Anyone who passes watches, with the same light in their eyes,
Make a judgement or correction through the veil of their own lies.
Take me on a trip, upon your magic swirling ship,
For now I’m not a stranger nor a friend,
But maybe if we swirl away
Into some other place,
Where everyone is strangers and we can be one of them.
I can sit alone for a while, but I just want one smile,
From anyone, and that’s just what a stranger will give.
Take me on a trip, upon your magic swirling ship,
To somewhere we’ll not be reached, even by a bird,
To a place I know is there, even if I don’t know where,
We won’t need a map, and if our knowledge overlaps, we’ll onyl need to go by light and Word.
“Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,”
Phillis Wheatley, On Imagination
Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
But we cannot recall your tormenting tears.
This queen seeks racial equality.
Skin is permanent and so is the pain of hatred.
Can our hearts heal and love spread?
Or will we not bring refuge for the dead?
I pray with wilting hands wishing for a world of “WE”.
Colors of the rainbow run away from all fears.
The universe redefines the idea of humanity.
Scars are fatal and so is the foundation of words.
To observe the soul of this queen, it should not be absurd.
Reflect and reject what you have heard.
Beauty and bounty live in the hive of this queen bee.
She strides and sometimes hides her hurtful gears.
May the queen embrace her own personality.
Each experience shares in her triumph over doubt.
The queen moves, dances, and continues to shout.
Remember to reach for love in and out.
“When I have fears that I may cease to be” from John Keats “Terror of Death.”
When I have fears that I may cease to be
struck down by invisible contagion.
An evil virus we did not foresee.
Deadly beyond our imagination.
New variants increase in virulence,
defying efforts to make a vaccine
offering all global deliverance
from this malignant pandemic obscene.
Its origin obscure, its object plain:
wipe out humanity if by nature.
Or if by man, help those with most to gain
leaving no guilty nuclear bomb crater.
What or who opened this Pandora’s Box
with a key the balance of power unlocks?
Men at times are masters of their fate
The fault belongeth not in the depths,
Nor in the heights;
The fault lines don’t run across seas and mountains
But across cities and towns
Which are man-made and
Not God-breathed.
In our moments of innovation
We created and destroyed at the same time,
For in as much as we birthed weapons
We spoke a message of death
Inviting the Grim-Reaper
To carry bodies through the gates
That divide realms and multiverses
So indeed the fault was never in stars
But in ourselves, for we are underlings.
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky, Flemington, New Jersey
“Time to plant tears, says the almanac,” from Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina”
“Time to plant tears, says the almanac.”
She reads every word as if a child
but wearily, too, like a grandmother.
Setting the kettle on the stove,
she doesn’t hide her motherly tears.
Outside is raining down on the house.
It’s warm and it’s dry inside the house,
apart from the days that the almanac
forecasts another harvest of tears.
It’s then she remembers being a child,
her own mother stirring a pot at the stove.
And standing beside her, her nodding grandmother.
All of it ends and starts with her grandmother
teaching her mother about a house,
its wearying work: the diligent stove,
the dictates of the almanac,
the crayon schedule of every child,
the stars and the moon and the sweat and the tears.
And meals that could move any man to tears!
All of it starts with the hands of her grandmother
tenderly helping to raise each new grandchild
as she is planted. The growing house,
a world that is ruled by an almanac,
the household by mother and the stove.
Without any nourishment from the stove,
rain would tumble like cold hard tears.
She pages across the almanac,
imagining flowers—a flourishing grandmother
growing a grandmother inside the house—
and hears the small singing of a child.
“Is it time for tea?” asks the hungry child,
who wonders what’s simmering on the stove.
A tremor of thunder may trouble the house.
As mother she soothes as she stirs, and dries tears
inscrutable as an old grandmother,
then turns to consult with the almanac.
Each crayon house that is drawn by a child
is an almanac. Upon every stove,
a kettle of tears sings of grandmother.
Amrita Valan Bangalore India
William Blake : “And who shall bind the Infinite with an eternal band”
And who shall bind the Infinite with an eternal band
Reach out and smite eternity with immortal hand
Does he know the sacred ground upon which he takes his stand?
Who can limit or constrain what he may not understand?
Every point in space time begins the end of existence
Each and every moment is predestined coincidence
Zero dark hour an eternity seen, through midnight’s lens
Reining infinity the high risk game of sentience.
Hard limits don’t apply to conditions beyond our sense.
Be content O traveller through cosmic temporal plains
What you observe is false, truth lies always, beyond your ken
Do not open this Pandora’s box of Schrodinger’s then.
Let sleeping dogs lie and fey cats live nine lives in heaven.