It's the 2026 Revise-a-Poem Challenge (Comments welcome!)

[SapioSexual9]

En

I got back into writing poetry and taking it more seriously a few years ago thanks to a class I took at my community college. I originally wrote this as one of my assignments and I always liked it and liked the idea of linking time going by and feeling faster to the seasons. I do think it was kinda rough in places though so I wanted to change a few things. Here’s the original.

An Elegy for Long, Colorful Days (original)

I often think back to when I
Was a child, staring at a clock
In the light of a warm spring day
Watching the seconds crawl by
Like the vines of a plant
Turning towards the sun over many hours

Every day seemed to last weeks
The years of summer felt eternal
And even on the coldest days
The snow felt friendly and playful
And shined with a beautiful iridescence
As it reflected the hope of blue skies

Now, in the deepening autumn
As the days get shorter and the years quicker
I barely see the changing colors of the leaves
I'm starting to understand why I've heard
The veil between the living and the dead is thinnest now
I recognize more faces behind the shroud

As the days get overtaken by the night
And all sense of time spirals outward
The longest days are fleeting grey wastelands
And the snow no longer shimmers with warmth
But is instead a black and brutal cold
How much longer till winter's end?

I wanted to even out the line lengths and keep to pentameter and just generally keep the same idea but rewrite it. I do think it’s an improvement but I’m sure I could revise it even further.

An Elegy for Long, Colorful Days (revised)

Often when I think of my childhood
Spring days in classrooms I’ll remember most
Watching the clock’s hands crawl by painfully
Slow. Eternities spent in hazy warmth
All the time wishing that class would end soon
Now all too aware how quickly spring ends

In those years it felt like days would last weeks
I didn’t think summer’s decade would end
I was too used to the hot sunny joy
To worry how time marches on always
I just enjoyed how even snowy days
Felt warmer than summers I’d come to know

Now in my autumn when I look around
Seeing leaves drained of color lying dead
On the ground, or piled in gutters I
Can’t stop thinking how nights come much sooner
Feel colder and bitter, and how many
People I’ve known slip away like past days

I know winter must come, nights must be long
And every years’ end always feels too soon
I just wish the chill weren’t quite so deep
And the nights more starlit when I think how
The fewer days left, though they’re more treasured
Still feel that much quicker every sunset

Enjoyed the complex imperfect rhymes.

 

[SpermFactory]

I got back into writing poetry and taking it more seriously a few years ago thanks to a class I took at my community college. I originally wrote this as one of my assignments and I always liked it and liked the idea of linking time going by and feeling faster to the seasons. I do think it was kinda rough in places though so I wanted to change a few things. Here’s the original.

An Elegy for Long, Colorful Days (original)

I often think back to when I
Was a child, staring at a clock
In the light of a warm spring day
Watching the seconds crawl by
Like the vines of a plant
Turning towards the sun over many hours

Every day seemed to last weeks
The years of summer felt eternal
And even on the coldest days
The snow felt friendly and playful
And shined with a beautiful iridescence
As it reflected the hope of blue skies

Now, in the deepening autumn
As the days get shorter and the years quicker
I barely see the changing colors of the leaves
I'm starting to understand why I've heard
The veil between the living and the dead is thinnest now
I recognize more faces behind the shroud

As the days get overtaken by the night
And all sense of time spirals outward
The longest days are fleeting grey wastelands
And the snow no longer shimmers with warmth
But is instead a black and brutal cold
How much longer till winter's end?

I wanted to even out the line lengths and keep to pentameter and just generally keep the same idea but rewrite it. I do think it’s an improvement but I’m sure I could revise it even further.

An Elegy for Long, Colorful Days (revised)

Often when I think of my childhood
Spring days in classrooms I’ll remember most
Watching the clock’s hands crawl by painfully
Slow. Eternities spent in hazy warmth
All the time wishing that class would end soon
Now all too aware how quickly spring ends

In those years it felt like days would last weeks
I didn’t think summer’s decade would end
I was too used to the hot sunny joy
To worry how time marches on always
I just enjoyed how even snowy days
Felt warmer than summers I’d come to know

Now in my autumn when I look around
Seeing leaves drained of color lying dead
On the ground, or piled in gutters I
Can’t stop thinking how nights come much sooner
Feel colder and bitter, and how many
People I’ve known slip away like past days

I know winter must come, nights must be long
And every years’ end always feels too soon
I just wish the chill weren’t quite so deep
And the nights more starlit when I think how
The fewer days left, though they’re more treasured
Still feel that much quicker every sunset

A clever writer with a clever name. Not sure what you could do to improve a poem like this?

 

[SpermFactory]

Referring to the brilliance of the classics does do heavy lifting for both poet and poem. I wonder how you will engage your reader with pop cultural icons we may not readily understand? Or know. Or like?

Feeling languidly lazy today. I would ditch the poem and keep the idea. Snap out lines followed by lines that evolve. Like an old school photograph. I really like that idea. Especially how it illustrates how you are approaching your writing in this poem. Thinking about your technique through combining lines in different ways that reinforce the poems subject matter.

On the other side of your lens: I was lost when reading this poem. I also wondered, why is it important to you or I? What makes me want to contemplate it? Or easily resonate with it? You need to take your reader with you (to quote you).

And, I am also repeating your advice to always simplify and make sure a poem is relevant as a first step.

Perhaps you, 42, got snapped writing backwards? The idea seems to be the technique with an after attempt to overlay a poem? Then loosely associated pop cultural theme?

I appreciate you often write like a big jungle cat. True to your vision. Very Manly. Doesn’t give a damn. Sexual self confidence. Unthreatened by other’s opinions. Or sexuality.

However, 42, Sapio is right in some respects. Perhaps reconsider your Lust Is… poem? Especially the second line?

 

[42BelowsBack]

Welcome @Waeponwifestre.

A request, could you explain your choice of punctuation? (I am curious is all), I feel the why is thematically self evident It would still be very interesting to ‘hear’ how you arrived at your decision: To start each line in all caps while leaving the ends of the lines punctuation free

Personally I think the punctuation works perfectly

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Oh gosh thank you for the lovely comments and lovely welcome!!

En

Enjoyed the complex imperfect rhymes.

Thank you!

A clever writer with a clever name. Not sure what you could do to improve a poem like this?

I’ve been on a medieval stuff kick for a while now and as a trans woman I was laughing when I was trying to come up with a username and that popped into my mind.

I am not entirely happy with the second stanza but I am also not entirely sure just what it needs - maybe it just feels a little weaker than the others to me? I may go back to it after more time away.

Welcome @Waeponwifestre.

A request, could you explain your choice of punctuation? (I am curious is all), I feel the why is thematically self evident It would still be very interesting to ‘hear’ how you arrived at your decision: To start each line in all caps while leaving the ends of the lines punctuation free

Personally I think the punctuation works perfectly

I hate to say it and break the illusion of clever intention on my part but honestly, I don’t really think too much about punctuation at the end of lines - I’ll throw a question mark or (rarely) an exclamation mark if the line warrants it but as far as periods go it’s kind of just however I’m feeling at the time. Sometimes I even just like to kind of leave it a little ambiguous.

Reading back over this though maybe I was intuitively trying to keep a sense of an unstoppable cadence that picks up more in the 3rd and 4th stanzas (which I did want to read faster and like it’s almost about to break out of the structure of blank verse).

 

[SmilingLez]

Now, in the deepening autumn
As the days get shorter and the years quicker
I barely see the changing colors of the leaves
I'm starting to understand why I've heard
The veil between the living and the dead is thinnest now
I recognize more faces behind the shroud

Now in my autumn when I look around
Seeing leaves drained of color lying dead
On the ground, or piled in gutters I
Can’t stop thinking how nights come much sooner
Feel colder and bitter, and how many
People I’ve known slip away like past days

As a lover of autumn, these lovelies hold my heart

 

[42BelowsBack]

Th

This poem needs a lot of revision to be anything.

An old school camera and a high powered riffling.

Outside city rain. Under an umbrella of multi-colored rain-coated streets.
Inside on a bed. Photographs. Fanning out. Hidden forms. Full polaroids.
O images swimming into view through potassium bromide, the agent
developing in a pita patter pattern of glassy matter.

I wanted snap out images. Outside city rain. V Outside rain. V City Rain. Outside.
And images to evolve in longer lines. Under an umbrella of multi-colored rain-coated streets.
In a hybrid twist vibe with the original BLADE RUNNER. Which would require color.

To create a narrative I am thinking…

All Day Every Day. Once upon a time. The beginning: character, moment, movement, tense, tone.

The MID-RIFT: tension, insight, spark, drive the message.

THE END: feeling, call to resolution or emotion? I don’t want to bow tie the poem off in a pretty little package. And the original BLADE RUNNER was messy, disturbing, dystopian.

(Why am I inspired by modern pop culture instead of the ancient classics? Or disinterested in writing all-full syrupy look at me poems?)

So I took much of your advice @sapio and @sperm.

The original

An old school camera and a high powered riffling.

Outside city rain. Under an umbrella of multi-colored rain-coated streets.
Inside on a bed. Photographs. Fanning out. Hidden forms. Full polaroids.
O images swimming into view through potassium bromide, the agent
developing in a pita patter pattern of glassy matter.

Rewritten. The objective being punching out lines.

PAWN. INSTRUCTION LABEL.

Pawn. Chess objective. Become a Queen. Cross the great divide.
Driven. Hunt down. Terminate the murderous. Pawns all self actualized.
Do. Not try. One square moves: Reach the other side.

I think a bit of further experimentation with the fundamental idea / technique will conclude this itch to scratch. Of course nothing I do hasn’t been done before. Ultimately I think it all leads to iambic pentameter (or a poem written in erotic panta-meter?) Grrr grrr iambic pentameter. Grrr probably spelt it wrong.

 

[Waeponwifestre]

PAWN. INSTRUCTION LABEL.

Pawn. Chess objective. Become a Queen. Cross the great divide.
Driven. Hunt down. One square moves. Pawns are self actualized.
Do. Not try. Terminate the murderous: Reach the other side.

I really like this.

Maybe it’s a touch too late, but I was actually just thinking about spondees today and trying to write something using them heavily and the minute I saw your poem I thought maybe you’d want to incorporate them heavily? I think a militaristic chessboard theme would have a lot of potential to utilize some of their slow, kind of violent sound. Just off the top of my head I see a lot of cool opportunities!

Chessboard. Rook’s stone . Knights fly. Priests kill. Pawns fall. Queens rule. Kings die. White’s war, Black’s brawl.

 

[42BelowsBack]

I was actually just thinking about spondees today and trying to write something using them heavily and the minute I saw your poem I thought maybe you’d want to incorporate them heavily? I think a militaristic chessboard theme would have a lot of potential to utilize some of their slow, kind of violent sound. Just off the top of my head I see a lot of cool opportunities!

@Waeponwifestre, thank you for your feedback. It’s never too late to share insight:

Spondees would be perfect for a poem about a game of chess.

I have this idea about writing a Cyberpunk poem inspired by the original BLADE RUNNER. The original BLADE RUNNER is underpinned by moral philosophies and philosophies of the mind: Within the context of classical Greek drama.

Of direct poetical interest, linguistically the original BLADE RUNNER draws on the poetry of William Blake.

BLADE RUNNER thematically refers to The Immortal Game, played in 1851 between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The Immortal game was played during the London chess tournament of 1851.

The Immortal Game symbolizes the struggle against imposed morality. Thus my poem PAWN. INSTRUCTION LABEL. Yeah I write shyte titles but let’s all get over that and consider it a unique gift that I have,

Perhaps a better title would be PAWN. The instruction label came about via the brevity I attempted to write with. Inclusive of sentence word counts: 1. word. 2. words. 3. words. 4. words. Further rendering into formalized basic rhythmic units would be more akin to chess, but, perhaps wouldn’t read dystopian Cyberpunk failed tech? Which I’m not saying I achieved.

Decisions decisions. A smart poet pays attention to their readers. Grrr spondees are worth a look. Primarily my focus is on technique. The poem is ancillary. I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks again for the feedback. Ps, I think you would write a fabulous poem about chess. Hint hint () so not dodging lol

Note: there are a total of 6 versions of BLADE RUNNER. The original screen play rocks the rest suck.

 

[SpermFactory]

@Waeponwifestre, thank you for your feedback. It’s never too late to share insight:

Spondees would be perfect for a poem about a game of chess.

I have this idea about writing a Cyberpunk poem inspired by the original BLADE RUNNER. The original BLADE RUNNER is underpinned by moral philosophies and philosophies of the mind: Within the context of classical Greek drama.

Of direct poetical interest, linguistically the original BLADE RUNNER draws on the poetry of William Blake.

BLADE RUNNER thematically refers to The Immortal Game, played in 1851 between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The Immortal game was played during the London chess tournament of 1851.

The Immortal Game symbolizes the struggle against imposed morality. Thus my poem PAWN. INSTRUCTION LABEL. Yeah I write shyte titles but let’s all get over that and consider it a unique gift that I have,

Perhaps a better title would be PAWN. The instruction label came about via the brevity I attempted to write with. Inclusive of sentence word counts: 1. word. 2. words. 3. words. 4. words. Further rendering into formalized basic rhythmic units would be more akin to chess, but, perhaps wouldn’t read dystopian Cyberpunk failed tech? Which I’m not saying I achieved.

Decisions decisions. A smart poet pays attention to their readers. Grrr spondees are worth a look. Primarily my focus is on technique. The poem is ancillary. I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks again for the feedback. Ps, I think you would write a fabulous poem about chess. Hint hint () so not dodging lol

Note: there are a total of 6 versions of BLADE RUNNER. The original screen play rocks the rest suck.

42. Very interesting. To readily link hidden ideas in ever line, I think The Immortal Game (linked) is the title. Further thought is needed to work in the BLADE RUNNER connection. If that is your intention.

Think about it. I know you don’t like bow tying a poem off. This poem would benefit from a bow tie.

Ultimately I still think you started off with an idea regarding sentence word counts and reverse engineered in the underpinning themes in Blade Runner. Which is cool. I think your super power as a creative is you start off sailing then spot the opportunity to ditch the boat and go kiteboarding.

 

[42BelowsBack]

42. Very interesting. To readily link hidden ideas in ever line, I think The Immortal Game (linked) is the title. Further thought is needed to work in the BLADE RUNNER connection. If that is your intention.

Think about it. I know you don’t like bow tying a poem off. This poem would benefit from a bow tie.

Ultimately I still think you started off with an idea regarding sentence word counts and reverse engineered in the underpinning themes in Blade Runner. Which is cool. I think your super power as a creative is you start off sailing then spot the opportunity to ditch the boat and go kiteboarding.

Name change done. Oh fun. I wrote an immortally needing revision poem. Bow ties, spondees and further thought. Whose idea was this revision thread!

 

[SmilingLez]

Below is s free verse that I wrote In the summer of 2025 after a bad date. Yes I was tipsy, I don't know if it can be revised. Found it in my journal, a singleton

Life begins
time races,
nights becoming days,
a burst of color.
days blur,
laughter and tears;
adventures waiting

Years pass,
time drags,
a weight,
thick syrup.
watching the clock,
tick tock
life's routines
swallow moments.

Memories float,
fragile petals,
a vibrant rush
a deliberate sigh,
Now, time lingers,
breathe,
feel,
remember.

I guess I could just condense it to

Tick tock
Life begins.
Years pass.
Tick tock
Memories stack.
Tick Tock
Life ends.
Tick tock.

 

[SapioSexual9]

I guess I could just condense it to

Tick tock
Life begins.
Years pass.
Tick tock
Memories stack.
Tick Tock
Life ends.
Tick tock.

You could but… your poem might read like a drive through as opposed to a life lived in lock step around the beat of a clock.

So many great lines. Some, many ideas could be further expanded?

a weight,
thick syrup.
watching the clock,

weight? The weight of watching the clock, thick syrup, tick tock, tik tok, tick tock.

 

[SmilingLez]

You could but… your poem might read like a drive through as opposed to a life lived in lock step around the beat of a clock.

So many great lines. Some, many ideas could be further expanded?

a weight,
thick syrup.
watching the clock,

weight? The weight of watching the clock, thick syrup, tick tock, tik tok, tick tock.

Thank you for your insight. I'm just going to have to forget that I was quite tipsy when I wrote it after a bad date. I went on the date too soon after breaking up with my ex. I will just concentrate on the theme, the passage of time

 

[42BelowsBack]

I guess I could just condense it to

Tick tock
Life begins.
Years pass.
Tick tock
Memories stack.
Tick Tock
Life ends.
Tick tock.

The real question is why? Why should you?

When you have descriptive powers that draw us all in and take us all on a journey through your poems?

When I read the shortened version. The Tick tock kind of speeds up as I read. I suspect it is the clipped in between lines that create that effect. I wonder if the content of the in between lines could enhance that effect? Is there an opportunity for that speeding up to become something more?

I return to my original reflection. Why should you? Well it is your poem. And a fun component of receiving feedback is —throwing it out.

 

[SmilingLez]

The real question is why? Why should you?

When you have descriptive powers that draw us all in and take us all on a journey through your poems?

When I read the shortened version. The Tick tock kind of speeds up as I read. I suspect it is the clipped in between lines that create that effect. I wonder if the content of the in between lines could enhance that effect? Is there an opportunity for that speeding up to become something more?

I return to my original reflection. Why should you? Well it is your poem. And a fun component of receiving feedback is —throwing it out.

It's just the back and forth of my mind, seeing the "bones", hopefully this will inspire me to give this "baby" the love they deserve. Right now in my 2024 journal, under this prose, I wrote "why?" almost immediately after writing it at the end of 2024. Perhaps the answer is to rewrite it. Just rambling

 

[Angeline]

I guess I could just condense it to

Tick tock
Life begins.
Years pass.
Tick tock
Memories stack.
Tick Tock
Life ends.
Tick tock.

I have two preliminary comments:

1. I love the poem you posted in Poem-a-Week yesterday. It's one of my favorite things by you I've read here. I know you have a direct, staccato style in your free verse, but I love how yesterday's poem opened up a little with slightly longer lines and more detail.

2. My style is more narrative but I'm conscious of not trying to push that on other writers. Everyone finds their distinct voice eventually.

Having said that I think you do your poem a disservice by cutting it back so much. I prefer your pre-revision version but that's because you're giving me, as a reader, more to work with. You could break it into three sections and flesh each one out some with an example (e.g., how does time race, how does it drag, what makes it fragile). I'd find that compelling to read.

Hope I've helped. Just adding my opinion to the mix.

 

[SmilingLez]

I have two preliminary comments:

1. I love the poem you posted in Poem-a-Week yesterday. It's one of my favorite things by you I've read here. I know you have a direct, staccato style in your free verse, but I love how yesterday's poem opened up a little with slightly longer lines and more detail.

2. My style is more narrative but I'm conscious of not trying to push that on other writers. Everyone finds their distinct voice eventually.

Having said that I think you do your poem a disservice by cutting it back so much. I prefer your pre-revision version but that's because you're giving me, as a reader, more to work with. You could break it into three sections and flesh each one out some with an example (e.g., how does time race, how does it drag, what makes it fragile). I'd find that compelling to read.

Hope I've helped. Just adding my opinion to the mix.

Thank you for your comment. I just have to get out of my mind that the poem's creation was immediately after a bad date. Don't even remember the date, I only remember I was tipsy because my writing was sort of "slurry"

 

[SpermFactory]

The real question is why? Why should you?

When you have descriptive powers that draw us all in and take us all on a journey through your poems?

When I read the shortened version. The Tick tock kind of speeds up as I read. I suspect it is the clipped in between lines that create that effect. I wonder if the content of the in between lines could enhance that effect? Is there an opportunity for that speeding up to become something more?

I return to my original reflection. Why should you? Well it is your poem. And a fun component of receiving feedback is —throwing it out.

I have two preliminary comments:

1. I love the poem you posted in Poem-a-Week yesterday. It's one of my favorite things by you I've read here. I know you have a direct, staccato style in your free verse, but I love how yesterday's poem opened up a little with slightly longer lines and more detail.

2. My style is more narrative but I'm conscious of not trying to push that on other writers. Everyone finds their distinct voice eventually.

Having said that I think you do your poem a disservice by cutting it back so much. I prefer your pre-revision version but that's because you're giving me, as a reader, more to work with. You could break it into three sections and flesh each one out some with an example (e.g., how does time race, how does it drag, what makes it fragile). I'd find that compelling to read.

Hope I've helped. Just adding my opinion to the mix.

You could but… your poem might read like a drive through as opposed to a life lived in lock step around the beat of a clock.

So many great lines. Some, many ideas could be further expanded?

a weight,
thick syrup.
watching the clock,

weight? The weight of watching the clock, thick syrup, tick tock, tik tok, tick tock.

Thank you for this attention to this matter. I will now respectfully gleefully ignore every thing on your behalf. The

 

[SapioSexual9]

Thank you for this attention to this matter. I will now respectfully gleefully ignore every thing on your behalf. The

Meh.

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Anyone else absolutely hate revising their poems? I always struggle coming back to stuff I’ve done, even when I feel like I can do way better with the poem later.

This is another poem I wrote for that community college class. I always liked it and felt like it captured a period of my life relatively well where I was living unsheltered outside - the repetition of the line “Over, and over, and over again” was something I really liked because I felt it captured how that time period felt like unending bleak sameness.

Here’s the original.

Over, and Over, and Over Again

December mornings spent on cold sidewalks
Hours of cheap coffee till a late sun
Rises with the wakening city's pulse
Another place to have nowhere to go
Over, and over, and over again.

New warmth comes, a new place to be opens
More days spent with books, rows of ignored books
Their lives and stories meaningless compared
With the joy of heating and a charged phone
Over, and over, and over again.

The setting sun signifies setting out
Back out into the cold, in search of a
Liminal space to be with nothingness
Before December nights on cold sidewalk
Over, and over, and over again.

Over, and over, and over again
The red line goes between the underworld
With its moment of silence, and toward
Pioneer Square, with its nights of screaming
Over, and over, and over again

I mostly liked it but I thought changing up some of lines and adding more repetition would really drive home how endless that time period felt. I also wanted to highlight the verb “to be” because when you’re in that situation it really feels like no one really wants you to exist in certain areas - often times my days felt like a quest to just find somewhere to exist in comfort and privacy for a little bit. Here’s what I revised it to.

Over, and Over, and Over Again

December dawns greet me on cold sidewalks
Hours of cheap coffee to mask hunger
The city comes to life. The city hums
Another day to have nowhere to be
Over, and over, and over again.

A new place to be opens. A scene change
Another day spent amidst many books
Their lives and their stories are meaningless
What I care about is a place to be
Over, and over, and over again.

The sun sets. I haven’t eaten all day
I have to find food and somewhere that’s warm
A soup line to start, the rail line to follow
An evening looking for somewhere to be
Over, and over, and over again.

Over, and over, and over again.
My days spent in places I cannot stay
Only to end each day where it began
Scared cold sidewalks are where I’m meant to be
Over, and over, and over again.

Week 2 Revised 1 Total 2

 

[woodsman44]

brickyard

a handful of houses
in pieces, in piles
different shades but all the same

driveways and parkways
in snowflake flats
stacked no higher than a man stands

a low steel fence
guards a gravel yard
where only dreams and memories remain

1

 

[SmilingLez]

Below is s free verse that I wrote In the summer of 2025 after a bad date. Yes I was tipsy, I don't know if it can be revised. Found it in my journal, a singleton

Life begins
time races,
nights becoming days,
a burst of color.
days blur,
laughter and tears;
adventures waiting

Years pass,
time drags,
a weight,
thick syrup.
watching the clock,
tick tock
life's routines
swallow moments.

Memories float,
fragile petals,
a vibrant rush
a deliberate sigh,
Now, time lingers,
breathe,
feel,
remember.

My revision


Life began.
Time moved quickly.
Nights faded quietly.
Days arrived before me.

Early years felt light.
Laughter came easily.
Tears flowed through me.
Time shifted, I did not.

Years collected slowly.
Time grew heavier.
Routines refused to leave.
Edges lost sharpness.

Memory sits heavy.
Old moments stay fixed.
Nothing comes back clean.
Time always wins.

 

[Waeponwifestre]

My revision


Life began.
Time moved quickly.
Nights faded quietly.
Days arrived before me.

Early years felt light.
Laughter came easily.
Tears flowed through me.
Time shifted, I did not.

Years collected slowly.
Time grew heavier.
Routines refused to leave.
Edges lost sharpness.

Memory sits heavy.
Old moments stay fixed.
Nothing comes back clean.
Time always wins.

I enjoyed this when I first read it earlier today, but the more I think about it the more I just wanna say how much I really enjoy that first stanza in particular. Between the parallelism and the somewhat paradoxical imagery of days arriving before you, I think it paints the image of time running away from you beautifully and with such an economy of words.

 

[Waeponwifestre]

New friends and fellow Literoticai - I wrote this poem today and it just flew out of me, which is always one of my favorite feelings in the world! And I’m actually quite happy about a lot of stuff with it, but after basking in the afterglow for a bit it occurs to me that it might be too fucking nerdy and jargon-y. So I come to the smut forums to present you with a poem about music theory and composition (but also death and overall not very sexy)

I was listening to this Arvo Pärt piece today, one of my favorite pieces by him, one that made me fall in love with classical music and one that I actually gave a talk about in one of my composition classes analyzing and I was struck to write a poem about it. And I showed it to some friends and there were some mixed responses - one critique was that it’s too full of stuff that would only make sense to a trained musician. And in retrospect I can kind of see how that is the case but I’d love some feedback and if you feel like the music theory lecture takes away from the essence of the poem.

Tintinnabuli*

A single bell tuned to the note of A
Is one of the most profound things I’ve heard
Three beats of silence, then slowly struck thrice
So every pair of strings** knows to begin
Their paired descents down Aeolian mode
One half plays straight down the A minor scale
The other, in counterpoint, a triad
A - C - E, rooting us in mourning dirge
All the while the funeral bell tolls
While the string sections dance through life and death
Each lower part echoing the higher
As above, so below the canon plays
The violins reach their endings quickly
The first pair reaches C and then ceases
They ring out their last notes till the song ends
And fade into the texture of the piece
All the while the funeral bell tolls
The second violins make it to A
In the grand scheme of things not much longer
Though they play an octave lower slower
All the while the funeral bell tolls
The violas follow, the cellos next
They reach their designated ends and sigh
Their last notes adding to a rich texture
All the while the funeral bell tolls
The piece starts to unravel. Contrabasses
Slow and powerful though their part is here
Cannot deny the composition’s end
They too reach their last notes in the canon
All the while the funeral bell tolls
And now we hear the last notes of the strings
Are an A minor triad. A - C - E.
The dark overtones of the bell’s tuned note
The inevitable cadence now reached
The funeral bell tolls its final time
And silence soon overtakes concert hall
Living only in the memories of
Those of us who heard for a few moments
Something of beauty that cannot last long.

*An Ekphrastic meditation on Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memorium Benjamin Britten

**Technically the violas aren’t paired in the composition because there must always be exceptions in life but I am claiming poetic license

Oh and if you haven’t heard it it’s really an absolutely beautiful piece, if you have an extra eight and a half minutes I highly recommend checking it out.