Butty's challenge

Chipbutty, you could highlight and copy a 'c' in your browser's 'edit' menu and then hit ctrl-V whenever you needed a 'c'. Or maybe your plot is more nefarious and you're trying to re-Germanize the English language and create a race of poetic Übermenschen to worship you as Priestess of Poetik.

i'm looking at my skreen and vonderink how i might do vot you haf suggested. (konfused fa-e)

i'll try swapping keyboards again later, and if the m, y and other missing keys are working i'll go in and edit. right now, in the relative pea-e and quiet, i'm getting my thoughts down while i kan :D

edit: okay, i'm editing :p
 
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On blueprints drafted before birth
you were planned and crafted
to be my compliment.
The silhouette of my profile,
the mend for my every flaw,
the finished form of this ragged prototype.
On blueprints drafted before birth,
You were created to complete me.
Carefully measured and laid on the cutting table,
every hair on your head
and thought in your mind.
Such perfection in execution
could never be left to fortune.

lucky i wasn't trying to type out this poem with this keyboard!

i liked the imagery you've brought to this write, bronze, particularly the line:
Carefully measured and laid on the cutting table,
an argument for intelligent design? :D
 
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Brooke Sheild's Eyelash Deficiency: Cured!
Thank you Jesus, whose miracles never cease

Brooke Sheild's Eyelash Deficiency: Cured! Thank God, your miracles never cease

Across blueprints
we stretch angles with elastic,
straighten psychic curves
into lines with LifeTime endorsed
pharmaceuticals. You
have seen them press against
the current of posterity. You have
seen lasers burn and chemicals foam
those follicles persuaded to grow
or die depending on location.

Fuck fate! Blue smudge erasures
cross mind and heart and adrenal streams
while clots thrown high in thigh get caught up
(elsewhere)
self suffocation you were stolen,
knees broken I lost you I lost you
I lost you.

But oh how these hips still sway slow and circle in tighter
circle in this primitive need for someone anyone to match my
movements balance all forces until as one
we are finally zero. For now. Was this
drafted before birth? This curse?
This magical motor hum that draws me to you
and to you? You, my habit, you my promise,
you my wired edge.


oh in case someone was wondering, this is no form, no meter, no corset or stockings.

first off, thanks for letting me know about the lack of form and stuff, hehe, and since it is a no stockings and corset affair i hope you don't mind me sitting here in bathrobe and fluffy slippers commenting on it :p

this write slips a sucker punch with these lines:
self suffocation you were stolen,
knees broken I lost you I lost you
I lost you.
such pain right there! it's hard, i think, to write it in a way that really hits the reader, to make them feel the vicarious pain, but you have accomplished that with such economy of language. a pain fit to take the breath away, tying in perfectly with the phrase "self suffocation". in fact, that part leaves me so breathless, what comes either side of it seems less important and fades for me.
 
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On downy head and glow of an angel
a mother's lips are pressed,
her tears baptismal through the pain
to wonder through the years ahead
which blueprints drafted before birth
should make him be this way.
A finger curls around her own, grasping
as if he knows this is the love
that sees not imperfections but
a loving heart, a joy, her son.
any parent who has known the grief of a seriously ill baby will understand this on a level beyond how it manages to affect anyone else. the religious overtones are well-suited for this, and i liked your use of 'tears baptismal' ... when an infant's at death's doors, any water serves to baptise in a religious context - a mother's tears are the most apt source of that water i can imagine.
 
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We all have a debt
To nature due
I've paid mine
And so must you.



On one hand, there's the scheme,
Blueprints and schemata,
Drafted by Mom and Dad,
Before oft dreamt of you. .............But then
Birth happens...

the two parts of this seem so different yet wrap around the other so neatly in their meaning that i am, as all too often, impressed. there's a brevity to this that suits the subject matter.

your use of the word 'schemata' (thank goodness for c&p) instantly brings the image of stigmata to the forefront of my thoughts, and i wonder how close a play on words are your intentions there ... would you care to elaborate at all? i found it a most interesting use.
 
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i'm looking at my skreen and vonderink how i might do vot you haf suggested. (konfused fa-e)

i'll try swapping keyboards again later, and if the m, y and other missing keys are working i'll go in and edit. right now, in the relative pea-e and quiet, i'm getting my thoughts down while i kan :D

You know how when you want to copy/paste you highlight and hit cntrl-C then cntrl-V to paste? Since you can't hit cntrl-C, highlight this -------> c

then click on 'edit' near the top of your browser and then click 'copy' in the edit menu. Then whenever you need a 'c' you can just hit cntrl-V. Just an idea.
 
fit, form, function
packaged precisely to scale
tolerance taken into account
lubrication provided as needed
sequence programmed to repeat
some assembly required
two person lift desired
fabricated for fit
self-test enabled
just press go
this is so different, i can't help but admire it. i particularly like the technical language you used, the blueprint's architect voice.
no flowers, no fluff, and all planning permission fully granted.
 
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You know how when you want to copy/paste you highlight and hit cntrl-C then cntrl-V to paste? Since you can't hit cntrl-C, highlight this -------> c

then click on 'edit' near the top of your browser and then click 'copy' in the edit menu. Then whenever you need a 'c' you can just hit cntrl-V. Just an idea.

thanks, i'll try that now -# usually to k&p i highlight and right klikk. so let me try this out:

c


YAYYYY!!!!!! ty!
 
On the first day he presented us with
blueprints, fine blue lines round misty shades
drafted by experienced eyes.
Before we had no conception of the
birth of our home but here
on white sheets smoothed wide
blueprints, ghosts of rooms to be.
Drafted, we believed finally in the forms
before us, Dresden lines on china-white a
birth of a dream, our dream.

i love how you control the language and imagery here, tying in the concept of the natal with the realisation of a dream, that starting to believe. it makes me see the thin blue line on a pregnancy test kit, white bed linen, all overlaying the blueprints of the house-plans.
 
the two parts of this seem so different yet wrap around the other so neatly in their meaning that i am, as all too often, impressed. there's a brevity to this that suits the subjekt matter.

your use of the word 'schemata' (thank goodness for k&p) instantly brings the image of stigmata to the forefront of my thoughts, and i wonder how klose a play on words are your intentions there ... would you kare to elaborate at all? i found it a most interesting use.

The quote is a popular one from cemetery gravestones. Death happens and often unexpectedly changing life plans for the deceased and still living. In the birth happens poem, I wanted to convey how everything's planned until the actual birth occurs and the unexpected becomes a part of everyday life, blueprints out the window. Often the child feels alienated, martyred when they don't meet the parental expectations. But I think it's a positive poem, it's about accepting what's out of your hands and not forcing too much of a scheme/narrative on your own or someone else's life.
 
On blueprints drafted before birth,
the galaxy a lonely sea
in ink and star, the newborn earth

of less or greater soul in me.
Before a word was ever spoke,
the galaxy a lonely sea

still blind and fingerless awoke
to know the world and seek her breast
before a word was ever spoke

or clamoured in the great unrest,
in strife and passion, endless need
to know the world and seek her breast.
aught
In moments after birth the seed
of memory begins to sleep
in strife and passion, endless need

to know again that velvet deep
on blueprints drafted before birth
of memory begins to sleep
in ink and star, the newborn earth.

i have to admit to being struck by the smoothness you've achieved here, Angeline. it has to be said, i sometimes find the line-breaks imposed by certain forms to be detrimental to a cohesive read-through, but you smoothed the way for the reader by using a fine ear and light touch.

overall, this avoids anything like the technical language of The Fool's previous piece, instead swirling me around and around like being caught up in a spiraling galaxy of words and images, eliciting empathy for that sense of becoming one again with the Void.

p.s i forgot to mention my favourite phrase was this:
still blind and fingerless awoke
to know the world and seek her breast
before a word was ever spoke
something about that 'blind and fingerless' part that lingers on ...
 
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The quote is a popular one from cemetery gravestones. Death happens and often unexpectedly changing life plans for the deceased and still living. In the birth happens poem, I wanted to convey how everything's planned until the actual birth occurs and the unexpected becomes a part of everyday life, blueprints out the window. Often the child feels alienated, martyred when they don't meet the parental expectations. But I think it's a positive poem, it's about accepting what's out of your hands and not forcing too much of a scheme/narrative on your own or someone else's life.

ah! i knew it felt familiar. ty :)

i believe you certainly did convey what you set out to. i always enjoy hearing about the thought processes involved as others write. it's fascinating!

and now my c is typing without having to do the other stuff, but as i type it the cursor jumps up to the top of the text. my pc is nuts.
 
Maryann feckin’ oirishes pushcarts
To dicker for some day old kale
And pullet eggs, two pennies saved
For hot cross buns on Sunday.

No Bowsie I, I look for work
And eat my oats by five a.m.
Like all the milk cart horses do
Whose shite I’ve shoveled once or twice
Not far from Greene and Washington
Where Da he works a factory
And got a job for Maryann.

Staying warm Chris sakes till March
Would make me think of girls again,
Though I’d never tell the priest
Whose church on Sunday warms my feet
Sweet Jaysus five degrees at least
Worthy of his five Hail Marys
He says to pray ten times at night
To chasten all those teenage dreams.

But dreams one time were little more
Than blue moods drafted before birth
Of footprints on an earthen floor
In a County Galway house
Himself and Mother talk about.

They say this doesn’t stink as much
With smells like Mother’s soda bread
Whose songs I hear at half past ten
Unless she says the rosary.

She’s goin’ for the ride tonight,
For Da brought home some pay today,
And Maryann will work next week
At the shirtwaist factory.

and here we get swept in a totally different direction, once again! how wonderful an experience to be along for the ride here, poets :D

strong, strong voice grounding this piece, that wavers (for me) in only one place and that's where the priest's words are being conveyed. it still threw me out a little, making me have to readjust mentally to the accent as i read on.

this is my favourite 'aside':
But dreams one time were little more
Than blue moods drafted before birth
Of footprints on an earthen floor

this poem places itself firmly in position and is full of life, of energy, and really leaps off the page/out of the screen for me.
 
These are the sheets we lie upon,
colourful and smooth, blue prints
of forgetmetnot buds are drafted
across where we loved before,
new to your love as in rebirth.

Nibbles at skin bring blue prints
of ecstasy, begging for me before
the need became too much upon
your senses, nipples from drafted
sighs erect, I seek inside rebirth.

I haven't reached this place before
nor has my mind and body drafted
such brilliant yet crazy blueprints,
bring into my life a yearning upon
which I must now call rebirth.

The sweetest breath has drafted
across my cock, your lips upon
the head teasing, touching before
licking softly down to blue prints
of veins engulfing, I moan rebirth.

And now my love we share rebirth
I move hard, erect and ready upon
your slender body, already drafted
for my desire, soft and open before
we blend creating new blueprints.

I think it's a form of my own making not quite a Sestina .... I may call it Annikey
and here we have the birthing of a form! how exciting :D or have you experimented with this format elsewhere, annie? if it's new here, how apt! lolol.

what would Lit be without its share of erotic poetry? and you've neatly encapsulated the erotic whilst playing with the original trigger. But this is more than mere erotica, it's a love poem. i'm a sucker for a sweet love poem.
fave phrase probably this:
before
licking softly down to blue prints
of veins engulfing, I moan rebirth
 
7 poems left to comment on, so it's time for a coffee break and some late breakfast. back shortly :cool:
 
On Blueprints drafted before birth


The light ebbs from their eyes

Darkness creeps into them after the transfer

They join me in fractured lines of thought

I savor being filled each time

Until it is time to hunt again


Evil some say

Others cry deranged or ill or sick

The worst are those who demand justice for my crime

Crime? There is no crime in me

and it is time to hunt again

I act

Alone
Subtle
Complete
Perfect

They are being built into me

Each time I hunt again


I am the taker of souls

I extract their light and fill myself with it

It is who I am

It is how I was made

The pathways if my mind were laid out on blueprints drafted before birth

Cry out against Father or Mother or God if you choose but you are wrong

I am the bringer of death and twilight is beginning in my brain

It is time to hunt again
hiya, Ryan Black ;D

your format choice, deliberate i know, works against the fluidity of this read for me. whilst it reinforces a slow, almost processional pace making for solemnity, for me it breaks the read too much. In most places the individual thoughts are punctuated by each double-space, but not in every instance - so we go from being forced to contemplate each pronouncement of this voice to trying to recoup the continuity of a single phrase uttered over the gap of that double-space. Others might read this differently, but for me it creates an ott unwieldiness that works against the pull of this write.

having said that (in my best Simon Cowell voice), there are certain phrases here that ring out for me:

They join me in fractured lines of thought
I am the bringer of death and twilight is beginning in my brain
i also kinda like the hard A sounds you've adopted throughout to help with that cohesiveness this piece is requiring.
thanks a lot for joining in, especially since this is not one of your usual haunts here at Lit. :rose:
 
a3xxs.jpg


Cyanotype as Myth

The sheet shows nothing but your outline, traced
along one drift of hip in Prussian blue.
Your silhouette is blank, in no way true
to anything but shape—the way you placed
your breast curved on the paper, turned your waist
to draw this line, this sinuous tattoo
of pure abstraction. Beauty's always new
in Aphrodite's eyes—just not this chaste.

So now, my Galatea, rise unbound
from this flat, photographic surface. Be
a Woman and not Art, with Love be crowned!

Pygmalion thus to the picture talked.
The miracle, though, wasn't meant to be:
this blueprint wasn't birthed, but simply stalked.




Cyanotype by Trabucco Mumi
Form: Italian Sonnet
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q...ent=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
Cyanotype: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotype


this write
knocks me sideways.
 
on blueprints drafted before birth


she told me after the fact,
as she often did,
but seeing the telltale marker
on the white plastic stick
slapped a smile like, well,
like nothing else in the world

much later, when it all came
crashing about my head,
evaporating like dew under
sunlight, I knew the truth of it

machinations,
manipulations,
I was always susceptible to a
fluttering eye and a set of
rounded curves
-----
:cool:

another write with a world of hurt ensconced within its words.
it's a very direct communication between author (or poem's voice) and reader, but makes no attempt to rely on maudlin or excess wordage in order to seek sympathy. it just states the how things are but allows me to see that smile, that pregnancy detector gadget ...
 
on blueprints drafted before birth

pen poised the artist
lays the finger on the page
and presses down with the nib
to create the archetype of curve
and lines twisted in the spiral frame
Circular Amazing Tantamount Great
to become the drawing spread
against the universe that spawns
the unique ONE of you.
makes me see the convoluted and brilliant spirals of DNA ... the act of creation artists of any genre undertake as something god-like

there's also an ambiguity in that first line brought about by lack of punctuation that strikes me upside the head - do we use our tools, or do the tools use us as their medium of expression ...
 
We were the unwanted ones
dispatched to the lower forms.
Given the greenest teachers,
easily rebellious, resistant to punishment,
abandoned as hopeless, our future
on blueprints drafted before birth.
We swam against insurmountable tides
and only in adulthood as the manacles of
modern schooling slipped off did we flower.
Artists, architects, writers,
designers and entrepreneurs,
on the blueprints drafted before our birth
there are no directions, no hints
of things to come.
yes, i can relate to the voice in this write, though count myself fortunate in having an excellent english teacher once, at probably the most formative years for me when it came to growing to love and maybe understand a little more about literature. had it been all down to the others, i might well have never seen a bud open!

for many strongly creative types, the establishment's leaning towards academia was a negative force, stifling a lot of originality. don't know how much that can be attributed solely to modern schooling, though.

for many of us here, this idea that the creative are blank canvases they alone can fill in when the time is right, with no sheet of instructions or formulae to guide us, is one we can empathise with immediately.
 
Okay, fine, damn you, I can't resist your temptation:


On blueprints drafted before birth
I knew what I was
upon a time past
cushioned by lust
and now I'm but dust
of lovers desire

a very interesting phrase, that,
cushioned by lust
. original! the short nature of this piece underlines the brevity of passion and what is held dear to us. everything changes.
 
In blueprints laid out before birth
both parents scientists – chemists
soon I shone, nature and nurture.
I found physics, geophysics and geology.
Liberal and open minded, yet strict Catholics
boy wished marriage, wife's death, priesthood -
if lucky at death all seven sacraments.
Young man lost his faith, kept those principles.
Girl-shy guy found a girl, fears led to lost love.
Sometimes wine with a meal, responsible drinking.
Alcohol help me forget her, pulled me down.
Not my parents plans, nor mine.

for anyone interested or unsure, the seven sacraments are: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick.

blueprints can get smudged, lost, burned or even stolen.
architects have been known to rewrite their plans.
so it is with life - we adapt our drawings or get trapped, each of us trying to become our own architects.
 
okay, please everybody continue to voice your opinions as to whose you liked best and why.


reading these entries has taken me to so many different places, it's like i've been witnessing a tour de force from the comfort of my armchair on mother's day! what better way to spend it can there be? for me, none at the moment. it's been brilliant. thankyou, everyone for taking part and creating art. what it's all about, no?

my favourite three poems might well be different from your own choices, but they are:

Tzara's italian sonnet - Cyanotype in Myth
greenmountaineer's - Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
and Tzara's - 2/46
 
and here we have the birthing of a form! how exciting :D or have you experimented with this format elsewhere, annie? if it's new here, how apt! lolol.

what would Lit be without its share of erotic poetry? and you've neatly encapsulated the erotic whilst playing with the original trigger. But this is more than mere erotica, it's a love poem. i'm a sucker for a sweet love poem.
fave phrase probably this:

I looked at the words you had given us and there weren't enough for a Sestina and they didn't fit for a Tritina either so I thought what the heck I'll write my own. I've got Lauren giving it the once over so unless I hear different it's a new form!.
Not so sure now about setting my own challenge although I would love to see what other people would write using it but the thought of critiquing all the poems fills me with horror! Even stating here which of these poems I like the best has made me shy away!
 
I looked at the words you had given us and there weren't enough for a Sestina and they didn't fit for a Tritina either so I thought what the heck I'll write my own. I've got Lauren giving it the once over so unless I hear different it's a new form!.
Not so sure now about setting my own challenge although I would love to see what other people would write using it but the thought of critiquing all the poems fills me with horror! Even stating here which of these poems I like the best has made me shy away!

i think it's great that you've given us a new form (not that i'm au fait with loads of others :eek:) and you need to write more to firmly establish it! :D

why does saying which piece touches you most inspire the wibblies, annie? it's not like people can say you're wrong! if you like something then you like something. are you afraid of maybe hurting others' feelings :confused:
 
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