Gunsmoke

[unpredictablebijou]

Why is it always a gunfight and not, say, mud wrestling?

Now THERE'S an idea.

My thanks to Ange for explaining this whole thing, by the way. I just thought maybe Charlie was missing the woofing conflict that occasionally crops up in here. I'm always happy to pretend to have a slap-fight with somebody if it will amuse. Not as sure I'll be good at this poetry business though... we'll just have to see.

No mini-skirts for me, sorry. Legs are too long - I end up looking like a mutant giraffe.

How about tight red leathers?

Is there a bathing suit competition? Or a talent portion?

The shop is here and I am staffed and ready.

bj

 

[champagne1982]

Next time we can do mud wrestling if you like. Isn't the arena of imagination cool?

As soon as Bij is back we can go.

<pushin' my hat back and wipin' my brow> good thing we can start soon, I've 'bout polished the pearl right off'n my handles...

 

[unpredictablebijou]

<pushin' my hat back and wipin' my brow> good thing we can start soon, I've 'bout polished the pearl right off'n my handles...

Now there's a phrase...

I was thinking of you the other night, she said, while polishing the pearl...

bj

 

[champagne1982]

Now there's a phrase...

I was thinking of you the other night, she said, while polishing the pearl...

bj

Yeah, I know. Tee zed shows up and the thread takes a dive right through the toilet.

eta: we were sooo high brow before he came along.

 

[Angeline]

Now THERE'S an idea.

My thanks to Ange for explaining this whole thing, by the way. I just thought maybe Charlie was missing the woofing conflict that occasionally crops up in here. I'm always happy to pretend to have a slap-fight with somebody if it will amuse. Not as sure I'll be good at this poetry business though... we'll just have to see.

No mini-skirts for me, sorry. Legs are too long - I end up looking like a mutant giraffe.

How about tight red leathers?

Is there a bathing suit competition? Or a talent portion?

The shop is here and I am staffed and ready.

bj

You can wear a bathing suit and a cowboy hat. I'm sure Tzara won't mind.

Okay. We'll keep it simple.

The Form: A three-strophe Glosa. No metric requirement unless you want--if you want to write in iambic pentameter or whatever, mazel tov.

A Glosa uses a quote or lines from a poem or speech, whatever you like. The material you use must be divided into three parts, with each part beginning or ending the strophe. It could be three lines from a poem, three lines from a novel, a play. You get the idea. For example, if you used:

I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree

Your first strophe would begin or end with "I think that I shall never," your second strophe with "see a poem," and your third strophe with "as lovely as a tree." You can break the lines in your quote however you want, but they must begin or end each strophe.

You have an hour. For me that's 5:40 EST.

Draw.

(We need one more judge!)

PS: You have to say what your quote is from!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

OMGWTF okay I'm on it.

You wouldn't happen to have a link?

bj

 

[Angeline]

OMGWTF okay I'm on it.

You wouldn't happen to have a link?

bj

Here you go.

As you can see, I made it somewhat easier, but I hope the sample helps.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Here you go.

As you can see, I made it somewhat easier, but I hope the sample helps.

AUGH! Okay. thanks.

bj

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Yeah, I know. Tee zed shows up and the thread takes a dive right through the toilet.

eta: we were sooo high brow before he came along.

Don't talk about d'judge like that missie! Lesssen you want him to sentence you to a mud rassle.

 

[champagne1982]

There are 2 here. I like the first, but it's a warm up.

Glosa: from Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill

In the sun that is young once only,
...........Time let me play and be
......Golden in the mercy of his means

In the sun that is young once only
did the moments fall upon the shore
and sleep in torpor fall upon the stones

Time let me play and be
alone 'midst crested dunes
and mottled on the dappled waves

Golden in the mercy of his means
to celebrate the silvered plate
of babes upon the shore.

This is the bullet.

Glosa: from W.D. Snodgrass' Heart's Needle For Cynthia 9

..I get numb and go in
though the dry ground will not hold
.......the few dry swirls of snow
and it must not be very cold.
A friend asks how you've been
.........and I don't know

I get numb and go in though the dry ground
means the freeze has come with winter's
first flakes and if the sun appears
to warm this spot I shall melt and the dirt

will not hold the few dry swirls of snow
and it must not be very cold. Not cold
enough to ease the path scalded on my cheeks
against the hollow wind scything briars
to chorus carols that he will come but you...

A friend asks how you've been and I
don't know the answer. It's too long
since you've been here as if the sun
forgot to wipe away the clouds and the wind
the words to the carol that you'll come again
.....but I don't hope.

 

[Tzara]

Don't talk about d'judge like that missie! Lesssen you want him to sentence you to a mud rassle.

Just call me Judge Mental.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

*** aside, muttered ***

jesus f-ing batter-dipped christ.


i still got 8 minutes.
and she wrote TWO

 

[champagne1982]

*** aside, muttered ***

jesus f-ing batter-dipped christ.


i still got 8 minutes.
and she wrote TWO

I've done these before. And it's a clever ploy... Get 2 shots off real quick and set the jitters up in my opponent... you can't hit the broad side of a barn door now, can ya???

<hopes it's true>

 

[Angeline]

My clock is showing 5:41. Put your pens down and turn your exam books over.

Tesse? Wanna help judge? Please?

 

[unpredictablebijou]

fuck fuck fuck i am NEVER doing this again my blood pressure won't take it.

here's what I got.

Quote is from Anais Nin


Complementary

A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids
and in that mock fatality we see the waves
of subtle color made by our release
of sight into each other's fiercest gaze.
Eye upon bright eye, the way you see
me now is through the red and juicy haze
that is the vision of your cock's bright eye,
as pressing into me you burn like sun
as seen through my closed eyes, a shaft of light.



A foam of music falls over the ears.
The sight of you in arch and howl becomes
a sound, a wave break on the rocky coast
of bone and glass, the boundary of skin.
We are a choir, unison but split
by octaves, you a profound base and I,
the lilting sculpture of a high descant
as underneath me you support my rise
and accent my last crying with your own
Deep tone. It is a joyful chorus, yet it seems
also the song of mourners for the dead.


It is the gong of the orgasm.
As it sounds,
it tolls a final moment just before
we part again to be our four-staffed selves
and not the eight-winged soul before the fall.
It is the gong of death, as well, of sleep
in separate bodies, till we come again
to sing our sight alive in counterpoint
and in these visions recognize ourselves.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I've done these before. And it's a clever ploy... Get 2 shots off real quick and set the jitters up in my opponent... you can't hit the broad side of a barn door now, can ya???

<hopes it's true>

there's a barn there? with a door?

 

[champagne1982]

fuck fuck fuck i am NEVER doing this again my blood pressure won't take it.

here's what I got.

Quote is from Anais Nin


Complementary

A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids
and in that mock fatality we see the waves
of subtle color made by our release
of sight into each other's fiercest gaze.
Eye upon bright eye, the way you see
me now is through the red and juicy haze
that is the vision of your cock's bright eye,
as pressing into me you burn like sun
as seen through my closed eyes, a shaft of light.



A foam of music falls over the ears.
The sight of you in arch and howl becomes
a sound, a wave break on the rocky coast
of bone and glass, the boundary of skin.
We are a choir, unison but split
by octaves, you a profound base and I,
the lilting sculpture of a high descant
as underneath me you support my rise
and accent my last crying with your own
Deep tone. It is a joyful chorus, yet it seems
also the song of mourners for the dead.


It is the gong of the orgasm.
As it sounds,
it tolls a final moment just before
we part again to be our four-staffed selves
and not the eight-winged soul before the fall.
It is the gong of death, as well, of sleep
in separate bodies, till we come again
to sing our sight alive in counterpoint
and in these visions recognize ourselves.

This is gorgeous. I wish I knew some really good quotes! I can see your inspiration and I adore it.

 

[Angeline]

Crikey. This is not going to be easy. I count Champ's first Glosa as a warm-up (also I like the second more).

So that leaves Champs' second Glosa and Bij's one (but meaty) Glosa. They're very different in subject and style but both have some pretty amazing images.

I have to finish up this soup I'm making. I'll be back with my vote after I think about it a few more minutes.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

This is gorgeous. I wish I knew some really good quotes! I can see your inspiration and I adore it.

I must thank my quick nine fingers and Bartleby's on-line quotation reference. As soon as we got the assignment every quote I have ever known completely disappeared from my brain. I couldn't even remember any stupid ones.

You are clearly a seasoned professional at this. I've left a stipend in my will to buy a round at the saloon for you and the townsfolk.

bj

 

[champagne1982]

Crikey. This is not going to be easy. I count Champ's first Glosa as a warm-up (also I like the second more).

So that leaves Champs' second Glosa and Bij's one (but meaty) Glosa. They're very different in subject and style but both have some pretty amazing images.

I have to finish up this soup I'm making. I'll be back with my vote after I think about it a few more minutes.

LOL. You think you had it tough?

<sits down beside upbj and pops 2 T3's and wishes longingly for some whiskey.>

 

[unpredictablebijou]

LOL. You think you had it tough?

<sits down beside upbj and pops 2 T3's and wishes longingly for some whiskey.>

T3? Feh. Here, I got flexeril. Take two, they're small.
Me, I'll just be up-ending the bottle of vodka. It's all I got in the shop. It's for making herb tinctures. Honest.

bj

 

[Angeline]

No Champie. I didn't volunteer to write a poem. Making soup and cookies at the same time is easier.

Ok. I am giving the edge to Champ's second Glosa. Bijou's poem is amazing, an amazing piece of writing in a short time, but Champ's though seemingly simpler is also complex. I think Champ's needs less tweaking to be "finished." And yet Bijou's is absolutely beautiful; I just think maybe it needs some restructuring for the structure to meet the quality of the language. If that makes sense. It makes sense to me.

My vote: Champ by a mini-fringe.

 

[Tzara]

Geez Louise. Excellent job, ladies.

Both very impressive, particularly within the time frame, but I think I'll perhaps give just the tiniest little advantage to bj's poem.

Champie's texte compresses a multiline, rhymed stanza to three lines, which removes (or at least de-emphasizes) a critical element of the orignal poem to my mind. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but I think it diminishes the impact of the texte. She does a good gloss on the texte, though, and I particularly like the use of the word carol, as Turco lists the carol as another form of poem that includes a texte. The poem does a good job of conveying the melancholic tone of the texte as well.

bj's poem fits the form very well, I think. The texte itself is very dramatic and the gloss not only conveys a sense of the texte as a whole, each stanza comments on the individual lines of the texte. The poem seems to me to be a slightly better integration of texte and poem.

Awfully close, though. As I said, both quite good.

 

[champagne1982]

T3? Feh. Here, I got flexeril. Take two, they're small.
Me, I'll just be up-ending the bottle of vodka. It's all I got in the shop. It's for making herb tinctures. Honest.

bj

You're silly. I had flexeril when I first hurt my knee, since I hurt my leg and my back, too. I can't possibly take the little jelly-makers. I find that they dissolve my bones and my wakefulness. You should have offered before we started shooting.

 

[champagne1982]

Oh my. Is there a third judge or will upbj and I have to share a plot? ...