a just for fun challenge

[greenmountaineer]

Now, gm, you know....... twice in a single thread is showing off, don't you?

To channel Ogden Nash, can you be

Smart once, smart twice,
Seal the deal with smartness thrice?

I thought about Frost for the hat trick,
(That may not make sense on the west coast.)
But he always quarreled with the world.
I saw it written on his stone.

It even read he was a lover,
Although it was more a riposte.
So I don’t wanna get my ass kicked
In a nightmare by his ghost.

I actually have been to his grave site in the historic section of "Old Bennington" in Vermont, my home state, where there is inscribed on the gravestone his famous line "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

 

[BooMerengue]

Well, that's some kind of mystery, ain't it, m'dear?

Let's ask people, 'k?

Question, y'all (multiple choice, pick one): Why did Tzara pick Ms. St. Millay's sonnet as (pick the poem out yer ownselfs from me own original post, folks) a clone-yerself poem?

1. Tzara knows women's hearts; he has an almost wondrous ability to relate to women, to their innermost desires, their hopes, their dreams.
2. Tzara is cynical bastard who is very skilled at manipulating women to satisfy his own, quite thoroughly disgusting, means.
3. If you throw a basketball at the hoop often enough, eventually it will go in.
4. Tzara thinks like a girl.

No, I am not (yet) plunking down another poem, since that was not. Poem. Much.

Hey! There's a whole bunch o' you who haven't yet poemed.ed. Get yer act together, people. Like, now.

Tzara! You cheated! Admit it- you saw where I had posted that poem and October Gave A Party on another thread here recently! But thats good. It means one more person likes it as I do.

 

[ninianne]

ice-cream rag

Miracle Ice Cream by Adrienne Rich

Miracle's truck comes down the little avenue,
Scott Joplin ragtime strewn behind it like pearls,
and, yes, you can feel happy
with one piece of your heart.

Take what's still given: in a room's rich shadow
a woman's breasts swinging lightly as she bends.
Early now the pearl of dusk dissolves.
Late, you sit weighing the evening news,
fast-food miracles, ghostly revolutions,
the rest of your heart.

floating through the summer afternoon
comes the memory
in sepia tones
of ladies dancing in long skirts
with their gloves off
and sweat glistening on their faces
damping their hair
and smiles for their gentlemen
who dance with garters on their sleeves
flying feet and sure hands

and the piano man stands in his corner
breathing life into the keys
the dancers can continue until he
is ready to take a breath
‘cause it’s not time to pause
and the music rushes on

and fades as the truck rolls away
and I’m back in my air-conditioned present
wondering if the taste of ice-cream
would hold the memory
for a longer moment

 

[ninianne]

capricious muse

Sonnet XLIII
Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

No more will summer sing, farewell the day
that warmed my hands and galvanized my pen,
and I am left to wonder how and when
my poet’s blood dripped silently away.
In summer’s heat he promised me he’d stay;
he whispered secrets far beyond my ken
that sparked my hand to find the words again,
but as the autumn came I felt him stray--
and in the void he left I could not sleep.
My eyes were red. My phrases poor and drear,
my fingers still and stiff with winter’s cold--
And yet I could not stop. And now I fear
though in my veins unwieldy clauses creep,
my cringing hands still let the words unfold.

 

[ninianne]

healing rain

If there be grief, then let it be but rain,
And this but silver grief for grieving's sake,
If these green woods be dreaming here to wake
Within my heart, if I should rouse again.


But I shall sleep, for where is any death
While in these blue hills slumbrous overhead
I'm rooted like a tree? Though I be dead,
This earth that holds me fast will find me breath.

if there be love, than let it be a rain
and every prism drop should catch the light
to hint at rainbow dreams that fill loves’ sight
you fill my eyes, I’ll never see again

for we shall join together until death
two trees entwined together with one root
two diverse minds to grow a single fruit
two voices joined in one harmonious breath

 

[butters]

floating through the summer afternoon
comes the memory
in sepia tones
of ladies dancing in long skirts
with their gloves off
and sweat glistening on their faces
damping their hair
and smiles for their gentlemen
who dance with garters on their sleeves
flying feet and sure hands

and the piano man stands in his corner
breathing life into the keys
the dancers can continue until he
is ready to take a breath
‘cause it’s not time to pause
and the music rushes on

and fades as the truck rolls away
and I’m back in my air-conditioned present
wondering if the taste of ice-cream
would hold the memory
for a longer moment

i especially like what your lines below made me feel/see:

breathing life into the keys

wondering if the taste of ice-cream
would hold the memory
for a longer moment


also, that breaking of the lines ending v2 and starting v3 was inspired. nice one. thanks for joining in

 

[champagne1982]

Sonnet XLIII
Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.​

Sonnet To My Military Lovers

Where have my kisses fallen soft upon the day
and when and how? I dream a memory of your chest
beneath my cheek until I wake from napping rest
as the light strikes and I chase the ghosts away
Morning brings pain surcease and my heart weeps
no more for youths have fled beyond my dreamless night
unless I hold them close within my dawn's delight
and then the sensuous glow allows this joy to seep
through the sunbeams and thaw the icy rime
after winter's cold I stretch in new-roused heat
and bask in reminders of the world spread at my feet
when a forgotten lover kissed me in a different time
and I gave in to that sweet boy's pleading lips
to join him in gulping love instead of taking merely sips.

And here's another for you all to look at. I think reading Cohen is better than 50 Shades of Gray.. or of any shade of anything for that matter.

Poem 17 ("I perceived the outline of your breasts ...") from "The Energy of Slaves" by Leonard Cohen

I perceived the outline of your breasts
through your Hallowe'en costume
I knew you were falling in love with me
because no other man could perceive
the advance of your bosom into his imagination
It was a rupture of your unusual modesty
for me and me alone
through which you impressed upon my shapeless hunger
the incomparable and final outline of your breasts
like two deep fossil shells
which remained all night long and probably forever​