Poetry Challenge for First Week of May

[Epmd607]

You have until May 7th to rewrite a fellow Lit Poet's poem of your choosing. Don't just be a tedious editor of the poem, give it new life, say something original with their core idea. It used to be called 'In the Style of' by A. Pope and all them guys, but this is about using someone's ideas in your style. So far you can choose from the poems of:

AnnaSwirls, EPMD607, PandoraGlitters, UnderYourSpell, EroticOrogeny, ChipButty, Tristesse, Tzara, PablaN

Anyone I missed or anyone who wants to add their name go ahead and add it, maybe even add a link to your page. I hope everyone but me does the challenge. It's about finding a good poem, not making something better, but making something different.

 

[Tzara]

Re-imaged from a truly wonderful poem by Tess:


Andromache Comforts Hector
Exuet haec reduci clipeum galeamque resolvet
excipietque suo corpora lassa sinu.
—Ovid, Heroides XIII ¹

He reeks of blood, for his job
is to slaughter Greeks. Her occupation takes
that wet armor away,
to wipe it clean and polish
up its savagery.

She bathes his body, salves his wounds
with her soft breasts. Her light and pleasant thighs
caress his corded ones, clench
the damaged torso to her,
even as she sheathes
that one fragility that no warrior fears,
so vulnerable when soft,
so more vulnerable when not.

Even Hector, valiant prince, succumbs
to her rocking ministrations. Leaves
her straddled form for sleep, and another day
of necessary butchery.

She knows, of course, how their story ends, must end,
betting on the wrong gods—
death and slavery and Ilium burnt
like the sacred oak at funeral.
Yet for one more night she holds some bit of him inside,
before she calls a page to clean and edge his blade.



¹ "For that one returned she will strip him of his shield and will unfasten his helmet, and will take in his exhausted body with protection."

 

[bflagsst]

I'm gonna play. You can mess up my poems if you want.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=1039704&page=submissions

 

[butters]

here's the link to my thread where i've been cataloguing all of mine i can still lay hands on ... i lost quite a few, some of my best maybe they'll inspire someone, maybe not. we'll have to see


http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=683066

 

[Tzara]

I know. I have too much time on my hands.

This one is based on a lovely and mysterious little poem by Ms. Swirls. I just took a couple of images from her poem and wrote something else. Hope that works in terms of the rules for the challenge.



Scut

If I could read Demotic, I wouldn't have to trace
the hawk-head bodies and writhing snakes
bitten into the gray stone
of your intentions. I could orient
by more than stars and a moistened finger
held aloft in your feathery breeze,
as if that ever tells me anything,
which it does not.

I'm no Champollion or Young
and only guess these hieroglyphics
mean just there or slower or yes please, now,
and however much I can divine

is surely more biology than reason,
just trying to keep up with a doe
scudding left and right through a pathless forest,
racing to where she wants to be.


.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Is a week long enough to pick the bones of so many poems?

 

[champagne1982]

Feel free to grab a bit of mine. Here.

 

[bflagsst]

I close my eyes to your madding hush
your madding sighs and maddening flush,
once you were an untimely crush,
but time gave you your essence due.

My hungry spirit yet continues
pursuing that which makes its menu,
perchance I had the wit to win you,
you'd soon find love in other venues.

............................................................
Source: chipbutty

spirit

it's when i close my eyes
close out the madding crush
allow the hush to come
it's at these times
these quiet, hungry times
i feel you

 

[The_Fool]

Feel free to use mine. Links to posted words are in the two links in my sig.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Oh drat I'm not very good at this I made a start on one of Chip's and it's come out pretty much the opposite I think. Will see what I can do but with this being a holiday weekend I'm not sure what peace and quiet I will be able to snatch!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

His smile an innocence
that his body belies,
understanding not the tug of manhood.
The girl pulls from his ardent embrace,
only a greeting but underlying passions
simmer as yet unknown.
This man in a boy, face crumpled to tears
looks away and slips into himself,
where life is always beautiful,
and adulthood once more sleeps.

......................................................
Source: chipbutty

the somewhere other-looking boy

with filthy hair and mis-matched shoes
eyes soft-focus dreaming blues
this boy is somewhere other-looking

with the mind of a child
and the body of a man
he only knows pleasure
in the palm of his hand
he walks like a sleeper
a smile coasts his lips
and he's treading on water -
a silence in his fingertips

 

[The_Fool]

Carrie: Awoke

Chinese

Sometimes you remind me of a Chinese Dragon
with your ability to move in a sinuous motion
that is undulating and sensual and sexy.
As that dragon you have an arrogance,
impart a sense of danger,
exhude immortal decadence,
manifest a fire deep within your soul
that if released would incinerate all it touched.
Knowing you as I do,
you collect those snapshot memories
of erotic encounters to fuel your desirability.
No man could look upon you long and not feel
the fierceness of your passion.
But you keep that shielded beneath sultry eyelids
half-closed, half-open,
closed enough to hide, open enough to see all.
I know how to caress the dragon
in such away that those shields snap open
and offer dazzling eyes of animal intelligence.
Hands guiding my touch, my taste
to please you into audible lust.
But it’s only when I probe your inner nature
that truly touch the fiery dragon.
That is where you hide the treasure trove.

 

[The_Fool]

Anna: wholly to be a fool


another fool

I can’t say we’ve never touched.
We have, but not in a way
that sparks feelings and desires
and speaks those words best left unspoken.

When you cried that day
I longed to brush them away
first with fingers and then with kisses
but instead led with furtive backrub

and innocuous words.
I could see the words play
the word play within my dreams
but trembled myself awake

and away from you,
so you could not see the secret spot
I’ve hidden from you deep
within my soul.

Now I must hide my eyes,
my words,
so they cannot be taken out of context.
(Before the syntax lies to you, to me

since it’s you that offers my life
all its meaning.)
I must turn to that soft doubting place
where you can never be,

you can never know,
how much words mean so little to me
unless spoken softly by lips
pressed tight in that first kiss.

 

[The_Fool]

for Mike


feet sunk in mud
grasping at stars
the poet does
all he can

to build a bridge out of words

there's dirt on his hands
a sheen on his brow
his belly's full of acid, meat and dreams

born with that need
to embrace it all
he's torn -
inhabiting some desperate place

So reaching out I grab
that person
dragging them close.
“See there? There I say!”
But find them more interested
in the dirt beneath my fingernails
or the place I missed while shaving.
Trees…Forest…Dreams
Yes they see it all and understand
and acknowledge
but never wonder.
They smell the sweat,
but never sense the wonder.

 

[butters]

awesome "awesome thread" potential!

 

[The_Fool]

UYS: He steals her purse anyway



The missing face


A scattering of faces,
twenty or so,
that have visited us
as guests.
Some stayed for years,
most stayed for days
or weeks.
The frames sized to fit the face
not the length of stay.
One stands empty in my mind.
What might have been,
if he had not stolen money
from the purse of a girl.
She had so little.
He lost so much.

 

[butters]

from UYS's Ares Vallis Log 2623 dust storms
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=425789

Global dust storms are unheard of
this time of year
and the asparagus beds will suffer
choked for want of water ice,
no hope of replacements with supplies
and messages from home eight months away.
We were supposed to have more work force
on the last transporter but red tape
even reaches this far
to the worlds farthest outpost.
Nothing to do but wait it out underground
through meandering eerily lit passages,
pounding out the second mates
idea of music from some ancient archive.
"I can't get no satisfaction!"

dark passages


okay, so you took me by surprise
again
throwing dust in the air, in my face,
my eyes, throat and hair
choking me blind with sullen tales
of how the tip of your aphrodisial spear
dripped
butter to smear their lips -
leaving me begging for water

and there's no hope of help
red tape binds me tighter than rope
or blood
and i'm left wandering dark passages
lost in twilight
no ball of string
mating a dusty affair
no satisfaction.
guaranteed.

 

[butters]

i hope to get to play with lots of you guys soon. most likely during Sunday

 

[CharleyH]

Great challenge, Epm! I am never sure how Tzara is so brilliant, but damn, he always is! to Tzara. PS- I will have my poem to you by the end of the week!

 

[Tzara]

I am never sure how Tzara is so brilliant, but damn, he always is! to Tzara

I make daily use of

http://www.ellises.org/brilliantine.jpg

of course.

 

[Remec]

You have until May 7th to rewrite a fellow Lit Poet's poem of your choosing. Don't just be a tedious editor of the poem, give it new life, say something original with their core idea. It used to be called 'In the Style of' by A. Pope and all them guys, but this is about using someone's ideas in your style. So far you can choose from the poems of:

AnnaSwirls, EPMD607, PandoraGlitters, UnderYourSpell, EroticOrogeny, ChipButty, Tristesse, Tzara, PablaN

Anyone I missed or anyone who wants to add their name go ahead and add it, maybe even add a link to your page. I hope everyone but me does the challenge. It's about finding a good poem, not making something better, but making something different.

I will see if I can find the time to come up with something, but feel free to peruse my stuff for potential source material. Who knows? Someone's reworking/reimagining might kick off a needed bit of inspiration around here. *g*

 

[The_Fool]

I've got one written for one of bflagsst's postings. Haven't decided where I hate my rendition enough to delete it or not. For some reason I am finding his work more difficult to steal from. His stuff seems so crystalline that it is difficult for me to find a variation.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I will see if I can find the time to come up with something, but feel free to peruse my stuff for potential source material. Who knows? Someone's reworking/reimagining might kick off a needed bit of inspiration around here. *g*

I will never look at you the same again since I just read what you do with faeries!

 

[Epmd607]

I've been reading the postings and stuff from the back pages thinking about poems I'd cop and rob if I were writing a poem. Someone wrote one with a first line that I misread as "...yesterday's beard"(which may have been "bread") and now I can't remember who. Author of said poem, remind me, please.

 

[Tzara]

This one was inspired by an older poem by Champie. Like my Anna variation, this is more riffing off some images and themes than anything like a rewrite:


Baptism for the Dead
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead
if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?
—I Corinthians 15:29

Because even the dead want to dance,
if only in some conga line
led by a Bergmanesque guy with a scythe
and no sense of rhythm. Because they remember life,
its wild complexity, its chaff, as more interesting
than the dull plod of decomposing
into nothingness, like another dopey song
that has no beat.

Sure, they once had a life, though it was often short,
well before cellphones and Survivor,
a game they often had to play themselves

while working on shit dust bowl farms
or building pyramids for glamoristas
down from Memphis to catch the Giza rays. I would even splash
my atheistic self with water, if that could bring some jazz

to one poor, thin ancestor, stuck in the onion skin of limbo,
that flaky, outer edge
that Dante glides on past as if the homeless
are unworthy of his narrative in verse.

I don't know if Mormons dance,
but I know they should, submerged
in the basements of their white stone temples,
pulling plenty willing partners from the earth.


.