A new challenge

[Guest]

'I'm jus blown away by all of these poems. They're all a joy to read - including yours, homer.

Ange - my technique in similar situations is to imagine all of them sitting there in their underwear. Works for me.

 

[Linbido]

Yeah, I'll keep my Pisces too. I'm actually pretty satisfied with it. Among the other poems here it sticks out like a sheep in wolves' clothing though.

 

[Angeline]

'I'm jus blown away by all of these poems. They're all a joy to read - including yours, homer.

Ange - my technique in similar situations is to imagine all of them sitting there in their underwear. Works for me.

lol. that too--though contempt is a great equalizer, lol.

 

[Cordelia]

eep... okay, here you go

I went a different direction. I hope it'll fit.

~~~~~~~

what’s your sign?


I'm a Libra

so slip
interpretation
into mixtures of word blend bubbly magic
and ambivalent optimism

rigid to the touch
but, like scales,
twist
so it fits any jut of hip
any mood
you may flick from
the end of your
style

cover me in the
lacquered lust you call romance
your emotions gleaming
more
than they really do

create a scaffold for
the facades I’ve grown
to ease the shrinking feeling

catch the vapor of my maybes
smothered in the ivy
of interpreted yes

so place your palm pulse-wise
and determine
better than horoscope

balance


~~~~~~~

Cordelia

 

[Cordelia]

Heh.

Stop me before I change it again!

Okay. I know it's late for most of you all. But it was only 9 Pacific Standard time when I posted it.

I'm just glad I am not the last one.


Cordelia

 

[WickedEve]

Sorry the goat's late coming. You know how goats are. There's a slight mental clog getting unstopped at the moment. (god, what gross imagery.)

 

[Angeline]

Sorry the goat's late coming. You know how goats are. There's a slight mental clog getting unstopped at the moment. (god, what gross imagery.)

The mental image of a goat unstopping a clog of any kind is, well, icky, but then goats are not known for manners. But you're an extremely well-manned goat. Uh, wait--that's not what I mean. You're not a goat--well yes and no....(See Geminis get themselves into trouble cause they never know when to shut up.)

 

[Guest]

For the sake of convenience I've gathered all the poems here

Sign Language


The Moon in Aries a *roundel by jthserra

The moon in Aries – aspects of the sun
A light reflecting salient apogees
To guide each independent Arian.
The moon in Aries

Emotes the flame to burn in effigies
A martian fire, a seething overcome
In motion: only ceaseless energies

Can quell the heat, the fury once begun.
Ascendant hearts may only soothe the pleas
Of one trapped deep within this phenomenon:
The moon in Aries.

* A poetic form of 11-14 lines where the first two lines are repeated in the middle and at the end, and that have only two rhymes.

Taurus ~ Daydreams in the Night by *Catbabe*

Humid air drapes
over me
on a windless eve
in May,
grassy blades
tickle my cheek,
a fragrant pillow
alive
with a chorus
of crickets,
who sing
to falling night.

Unseen spoon
slowly stirs the sky
swirling clouds
shifting forms,
become
what I make them,
my eyes
define and reveal
my vision,
a world
I create
alone,
in daydreams
of fluff and fantasy.

Light fades
uncovering
the night sky
speckled
with luminous dots,
linked to reveal
ageless ancient
creatures.

Twinkling tableaux.
cloak me in comfort,
the fierce bull
with his steadfast stance
has been,
and always will be,
a symbol
of what we share,
virtues and vices,
humanity captured
in the heavens.

These are not mine
like my clouds
beings of the light,
but shared
with all who
raise their eyes
and see the stars
not the spaces,
the hope
not the holes.

We are
never alone
daydreaming
in the night.


Gemini by Angeline

My idiot tale is twice told.
Sound, fury cascade constellations
of curiosity like mist dissipates,
elusive. Every thing engages me.

Learn! Know! I feel analysis
is all I have, thought flutters
easy from elaborate constructs,
charm dazzles like candy floss
spun sweet but melts to loss.

The core wants contact needs
solitude. There is no core. Change.
Wax. Loony clarity absorbs
its own omniscience. Wane. Clouds
storm in and passion reigns.

Oh anguish is frustrated tears!
This knowing hurts sometimes.
Such troubled intellect burdens,
raging at all in its path, yearning

to wrap its mercurial limbs,
to merge with a heart to know
love is to divine humanity,
to recall oneself.

A Little More Than Cancer a *triolet by Homer Pindar

Can’t you see, it’s eating me up inside
and there is still more that I want to say
not that I’m giving up, or want to hide
can’t you see, it’s eating me up inside
even as I try to reach far and wide
really, this shell doesn’t get in the way
can’t you see, it’s eating me up inside
and there is still more that I want to say

*an eight-line stanza having just two rhymes and repeating the first line as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eighth.


Leo by echoes_s

restless savannas
where tousled winds
whispers cross
golden coat grazed then swept
with pride
and within

the same
spiraling unruly flames
of deeper mane
noble coronet
bespeaks my way

at dusk
at dawn
on roaming terrain
I reside
a sentinel
of my habitat
vigilant should you stray

this panthera leo
piercing guise of eve
hunting with ease
carnivorous passion
cartilage rumblings
burly and lean

stubbornly refusing to give
way to game
to let go
until I succeed
honing my prey
proud and conquering


Virgo by Lauren Hynde

No. Let us just kiss,
This warm summer night.

Hide
your heart from pain

Hold me
in a tight embrace,
Your hands, white as snow,
Your lips, light caresses.

Why do you cry, love,
Reading, dressed in white,
That endless book of hours,
The intricate shadows before you?

The night's mist descends
I hardly recall the colour of your hair

Why do you cry tonight,
What do you pray for, in silence,
What dreams do your hands hold?

You are flame and ice and riddle,

Please,
Be the kiss I so much seek



what’s your sign? by Cordelia

I'm a Libra

so slip
interpretation
into mixtures of word blend bubbly magic
and ambivalent optimism

rigid to the touch
but, like scales,
twist
so it fits any jut of hip
any mood
you may flick from
the end of your
style

cover me in the
lacquered lust you call romance
your emotions gleaming
more
than they really do

create a scaffold for
the facades I’ve grown
to ease the shrinking feeling

catch the vapor of my maybes
smothered in the ivy
of interpreted yes

so place your palm pulse-wise
and determine
better than horoscope

balance


Scorpio by annaswirls

Tell me the truth
not the surface,
the deep and dirty truth
sand worn under it all truth

Jointed tail curves silent,
frozen under desert sun
eyes hypnotize waiting
I fear that moment before the sting
more than the moment of or after.
That moment I lose control to Scorpio,
it is already too late.

Under silent mountain it waits.
the moment magma becomes lava
you are mine.


Sagittarius ~ The Archer by Tristesse

In a time when fire
was the stars' only competition,
before man flooded the skies with
incandescence,
he feared the eyes of light
that watched in the night.

Imagination drew lines
joining the shimmering points
and cold stars created a hunter
who strode across the ebon sky,
drawing his bow to take aim from
deep space.

"He is a guide" they told their children,
"to The Argonauts."
Or ~ "he hunts the damned
as they strive to escape
the fires of purgatory."

Did man fear his fiery arrows
as they split the sky,
streaking, jagged, to the earth
in winter storms?

As time passed he stitched
Such dreams to the stars,
attributing the constellations
with powers
that foretold and shaped the future.

Sagittarians
were strong and daring,
made ardent lovers
faithful friends,
their skills, many and varied.

But when the weapon in The Archer's hands
and the rhythm of his hooves
turned war-like
awesome was the Sagittarian's anger,
and callous their carelessness,
a scathing tongue
sharper than any hunter's arrow.


Capricorn


Aquarius by Liar

for what it's worth
when flames are fought back
barriers broken
into the smallest common fractions

and all your actions have faded to footnotes
corroded down to nothingness at last
I will carry on

igniting no beacon nor singing your gospel
with unsooted lungs I don't have

but doing what I can
to keep this patch of existence
clean

walk an extra mile for you and your futility
when you poisoned your neighbor's river
not caring that you lived downstream

not singing your gospel
but stitching the rifts it caused

so I carry on
try as I might to still
the only cravings left

for hope, water, and somewhere
where we just might dare
to start over


For Pisces by Linbido

Drifting from another day
a smaller time, a simpler way,
swimming came the rhyme.

Shards of broken mirror
in unison dancing delightful
like a mimic of world
and a shadow of word, lost in time.

   Blowfish,
   go fish!
   One fish two,
   the me and you fish,
   tumbling in the sea.

   Sea kids,
   spree kids.
   Just like me,
   so silly glee kids,
   bouncing on my knee.

And no telling now
if this shoal of hum-dum herring,
gleaming beneath
the sunlicked commotion
is just my deja-vu,

or a surfacing dream
that glitters in the sun,
breaking through rippling surface
that you stir, little blowfish.

You fish, go fish.
And up here I wish
that the ocean you tumble
so merrily through
will have room for us all.
So I save this shimmering shoal
of riddle, fiddle rhyme
just for you.

(I added the descriptions because - as a new arrival here - I was at a loss when other, established poets talked about the differnt forms and thought it might help new arrivals. The information came from here, an interesting and educational site.)

 

[jthserra]

Wow... looking good....

and Homer, wow I hadn't noticed it before. Nice Triolet!


jim : )

 

[Angeline]

Re: Wow... looking good....

and Homer, wow I hadn't noticed it before. Nice Triolet!


jim : )

Let me second that WOW! We need a chapbook--this is one seriously good group of poems. Now where the hell are that goat and virgin? Hmmmm?

Sincerely, I am so impressed by the quality of each of your poems--this is worthy of any good literary journal, imho.

And here's a big (Liar, take note lol) for Tess, who had this wonderful idea.

 

[Guest]

Yikes! I forgot the virgin slot - and don't go making anything out of that......


*hurries back to make a space for Virgo.*

Angeline ~ (I thought I might get ambushed and spanked for coming up with this idea but the poems are so good across the zodiac that I feel vindicated.)

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting so long... I have been in a weird place with regards to poetry, lately. Feel it just under the surface, but refuses to show its head. I'm posting this tentatively. Might come back with an edit once I'm awake.


Virgo

No. Let us just kiss,
This warm summer night.

Hide
your heart from pain

Hold me
in a tight embrace,
Your hands, white as snow,
Your lips, light caresses.

Why do you cry, love,
Reading, dressed in white,
That endless book of hours,
The intricate shadows before you?

The night's mist descends
I hardly recall the colour of your hair

Why do you cry tonight,
What do you pray for, in silence,
What dreams do your hands hold?

You are flame and ice and riddle,

Please,
Be the kiss I so much seek-

 

[HomerPindar]

Thanks for the upbeat folks! being a leo/cancer mix I have my self doubts every other day, well, hour, or well something like that

(It was also going to be a mixed form, Acrostic/something, but then I found that the triolet fit WITH the acrostic, um, sorta. so it's a half acrostic/triolet. Us cancers have a tendency to build really complexe shells like that about ourself.)

HomerPindar

 

[Guest]

I saw it was an acrostic and a 1/3 - should I label it as such or do you trust folks to recognise it?

Now - where's that goat?

BTW - if any one would like to critique or suggest edits of any kind now's the time.

 

[echoes_s]

I hope it's not bad news, echoes. No problem, we'll collect all the signs here. Yours will be safe.


Bonne chance.

Thanks Tristesse, and everyone.
My calendar was still on February...things are calming down here some now, enough that I think I can start writing and frequenting my computer and the boards again.

 

[HomerPindar]

I saw it was an acrostic and a 1/3 - should I label it as such or do you trust folks to recognise it?

Now - where's that goat?

BTW - if any one would like to critique or suggest edits of any kind now's the time.

Naw, it's a half-ass acrostic, at best

but I'm glad'ja noticed

HomerPindar

 

[Guest]

An acrostic and a triolet isn't that easy, don't be so bashful, Sneezy.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

BTW - if any one would like to critique or suggest edits of any kind now's the time.

If anyone can think of anything to help me improve the Virgo poem, I would be grateful. Really not feeling the muse, these days...

 

[Guest]

If anyone can think of anything to help me improve the Virgo poem, I would be grateful. Really not feeling the muse, these days...

I see nothing wrong with your poem, Lauren, it's a pity you are dissatisfied with it.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

 

[Guest]

Okay! Maybe the ending......

(Bear in mind I'm sure I'm about to tell my Grandmother to suck eggs....old English saying.)

Why do you cry tonight,
For what do you pray in silence,
What dreams are held in your hands?

You are flame and ice, a puzzlement.
Oh, please!
Be the soft kiss for which I yearn.

 

[Guest]

Where - oh where is Wicked Eve
Did she just decide to leave?
Capricorn is waiting yet
But did Eve just forget?

The Poets all want to know
Where - oh where did sweet Eve go?

 

[jthserra]

I have been meaning to ask

Tristesse, is your AV your own artwork?


jim : )

 

[Guest]

Re: I have been meaning to ask

Tristesse, is your AV your own artwork?


jim : )

Yes, it's a sketch I did for a class using mirrors to do self-portraits. Just to be a cuss I did my back. It took two mirrors and gave me a stiff neck. lol.

 

[jthserra]

Re: Re: I have been meaning to ask

Yes, it's a sketch I did for a class using mirrors to do self-portraits. Just to be a cuss I did my back. It took two mirrors and gave me a stiff neck. lol.

wow... I was impressed with your work of the trees, I am even more impressed now. You have many talents... truly.


jim : )