Lit Holiday Poem Swap

[Angeline]

It's that time of year when a plethora of holidays descend on so many of us. Yes there's another challenge and Tzara is mulling a fiendish voice thingy for the new year, but we can handle a little holiday poem action right? (And thank you Trix for graciously sharing the challenge space!)

People have gift and cookie swaps, but all we have here are poems. Your challenge in this thread is to write a poem for someone else on the forum. Now here's the important part: Don't say who the poem is written for. What you write is up to you, but no names! Maybe people will figure it out, maybe not, but y'all know we love guessing.

If you are up for the challenge, write one poem by December 31st. You can write more than one poem if you want. You can start posting poems in the thread anytime.

This is something you can accomplish without looking for a parking space, wrapping odd-shaped objects, or spending an evening with your crazy aunt. Are you in?


Don't be like this misanthrope!

http://clipartmountain.com/clip5/kwanza8.gif

http://www.caccioppoli.com/Animated%20gifs/Christmas%20lights/lux071.gif

http://askthecards.info/images/dreidel_spinning.gif​

 

[butters]

 

[Angeline]

If you can. I know you are working like crazy.

 

[HarryHill]

If you can. I know you are working like crazy.

Oh no, the holidays again?

 

[Angeline]

Oh no, the holidays again?

I'm afraid so. Care for some cocoa with peppermint schnapps?

 

[HarryHill]

I'm afraid so. Care for some cocoa with peppermint schnapps?

Hmmmn? *begins to speak, then hesitates* really?

 

[Angeline]

Hmmmn? *begins to speak, then hesitates* really?

Yes. Here. Have a drink. I'll have one too. My daughter just talked me into getting her very expensive (for me) boots. And as I was lecturing her to take good care of them I realized how much I sounded like my mother. *Gulps cocoa.*

 

[butters]

If you can. I know you are working like crazy.

working loads, but i have a whole 3 days off over xmas - i plan on lounging, cooking, eating, more lounging, and writing a poem!

 

[Angeline]

working loads, but i have a whole 3 days off over xmas - i plan on lounging, cooking, eating, more lounging, and writing a poem!

Sounds wonderful. I've missed reading you here, girl behind the straw hat.

 

[lubricant]

delicacy

what could i gift you
more intimate than a box of chocolates
(and even that implies
at times a kiss)?

certainly perfume rests too close
to your body, lace
implies a glimpse of perfect skin
espied though the opened knots of fabric

indeed the word, from lacere, speaks my intent—
"to entice or ensnare"
what I do and do not wish for

so I will simply gift you these words,
ones perhaps a little warm
but also distant

some few meager things you always can crumple at will

 

[Angeline]

If I said you have become
a sort of patron saint, muted
but hovering still over these loose
threads connecting us,

that sometimes your name
is even written as if a plea
were made to Poetry Gods
for words or a path
to elusive understanding,

why you'd laugh deep
and long because every bone
in you was ticklish for delight--
you were equal parts passion
and whimsy. Let's dance

you said and Love
and Happiness shook us
free of distance. You could
talk me into anything.

At 4 am you walked
the icy field behind your house
just so I could hear you
rustling among tall grass
by the river.

Some people say
I only talk to ghosts,
but really what else
can I do?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqAnjY2Rmo

 

[champagne1982]

If I said you have become
a sort of patron saint, muted
but hovering still over these loose
threads connecting us,
<snip>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqAnjY2Rmo

Sonnet for SP

Amidst the agony there is a place,
That sets the shadows free,
Twilight mellows the harsh lines of light,
And blurs the edge of destiny.
You've gone away, to have come so far
This monstrous thing to bear,
The endings of beginnings
The next doorways to nowhere.
A simple man would have stayed away,
Far from this frightening face
But death's mask is also peace
Looked down on from a higher place,
And sorrow marks a setting free
Of a soul in flight, pure majesty.

 

[Piscator]

Quantum poetry

Such is the stuff of history,
butterfly wings and mystery
when the act of observation
affects the observee.

If Schrödinger's cat
comes up to bat
imagine that
fastball, curve or slider?

Kilroy was here
or maybe not
if you know the speed
can't fix the spot.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Don't Argue with Sol or Sammy

They opened their doors for you at eight,
but you weren't there to buy a dreidel,
and at fifty cents on the dollar, Mary,
you get from Klein's or Macy's
the latest fall fashions that didn't sell
making your kid feel like Christmas
is Christ Almighty! the Promised Land
you came to this country for

and you've got enough dough left over
for pot roast again with potatoes
on Sunday with Father Murphy
who runs the chapel at Fordham
where you pray at mass that Jimmy
some day may go to college there.

Things are looking up, Mary.
That walk up on Decatur's empty
after the Laubers moved to New Jersey,
and it's only on the second floor.

Why just the other day,
the sweater you bought with the zipper stuck
you paid two bucks ninety-five for,
Sol sits you down, hands you some tea,
and Sammy hands you three from his pocket:

"Buy some Kool Aid for Jimmy, Mary,
No, no, the nickel's yours,
Sol's a wiz with thread and needle;
new zipper, give him a week,
for you two fifty; it's in the drawer,
just in time for Christmas.
Mary, what are friends for?"

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Does this have to be for someone who is here now or can it be for someone who no longer posts?

 

[Tzara]

Does this have to be for someone who is here now or can it be for someone who no longer posts?

That's Angie's call, but my interpretation of champ's poem, and possibly Angie's, is that they are addressed to smithpeter, who was a highly influential Lit poet who died before I first posted here.

So I would say you're good posting a poem about someone who is no longer here.

 

[Angeline]

That's Angie's call, but my interpretation of champ's poem, and possibly Angie's, is that they are addressed to smithpeter, who was a highly influential Lit poet who died before I first posted here.

So I would say you're good posting a poem about someone who is no longer here.

Yes, you are right. I should have responded sooner. People can write poems for any forum denizens, current or past. The only rule is that you can't name the recipient of your poem.

I love all your contributions thus far: please, if you have time, keep them coming.

 

[butters]

larger than life
he disappears within shadows
shades at his windows
a voice behind closed doors

a cheshire cat smirk
hovers in the blank space
just past the witching hour
0-666 in 60
though demon is too strong a word
more imp on a bender
that's just a face for the camera

behind the scenes
a sensitive
wandering inside a mind
floor to ceiling books
and exquisitely poised
to see the beauty in life
despite all its ugly

in his hand a rod
to beat the wilfully stupid about the head
'count this!' he'll say
bloodied crown perched sardonically
ducks awing
whilst, in his eye, ice-crystals form
and he's lost in golden lattices
gentled mists
purpled rains

 

[champagne1982]

Yes, you are right. I should have responded sooner. People can write poems for any forum denizens, current or past. The only rule is that you can't name the recipient of your poem.

I love all your contributions thus far: please, if you have time, keep them coming.

I added my poem, written ages ago, it seems, as a guess on Ange's poem. I haven't written a new one for the challenge yet.

 

[todski28]

larger than life
he disappears within shadows
shades at his windows
a voice behind closed doors

a cheshire cat smirk
hovers in the blank space
just past the witching hour
0-666 in 60
though demon is too strong a word
more imp on a bender
that's just a face for the camera

behind the scenes
a sensitive
wandering inside a mind
floor to ceiling books
and exquisitely poised
to see the beauty in life
despite all its ugly

in his hand a rod
to beat the wilfully stupid about the head
'count this!' he'll say
bloodied crown perched sardonically
ducks awing
whilst, in his eye, ice-crystals form
and he's lost in golden lattices
gentled mists
purpled rains

Damn good butters, damn good, apt descriptive and wistful tone, that I felt, at the absence of one of the most colourful and interesting poets (even though he claims he ain't one)I have had the pleasure of meeting.

 

[butters]

Damn good butters, damn good, apt descriptive and wistful tone, that I felt, at the absence of one of the most colourful and interesting poets (even though he claims he ain't one)I have had the pleasure of meeting.

had to get the ducks reference in: duck soup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Soup_(1933_film)

 

[Tzara]

Portrait of the Artist as Marilyn Monroe

It’s like this skirt she’s wearing, demure
so that it’s only shin she’s showing
to the guys in the bar across the street.
But when she steps onto the grate
and its steam lifts the fabric up toward
her face, that upper thigh tattoo,
those few notes in treble clef, writ
like Prez trailed his finger down her leg,
well. Even as she shoves her clothing
down, I’m now humming Stardust.

 

[Angeline]

The Confession

I have loved you quietly and
true as the fact of sky but

carefully through a prism of if,
so big like any dream expressed

in words that almost never
lie, but small enough to rise

graceful from my morning cup
and disappear. You might not

know it was ever here. But
do I love you? Yes. I do confess.

 

[champagne1982]

I have heard your words for longer
than I remember the whispers
and the smiles drawn like butter
up from the flesh dipped
into that sizzling heat and sweet
leisure of layering the savoury
melting all along sensation.

I remember the cold press of hard
windows in November tasting metal
ice from a lip caught too tightly
in strong, white teeth clenching
back low groans of passion
vibrating along the spine strong
and flexing in concert with snowed
gusts around the corner.

I know that even so now that my ears
sing tinny tunes and scars
striate my body there is still time
for sneaky presses and slippery
passes through cold Wisconsin winters
and hot Alberta summers flip flopped
fantasies and todays that are yesterday's
tomorrows left over from then.

 

[Tzara]

Decaf Flat White, with
Room for Opinion, Please

I’d like to meet you, over chess
In a bar in south Vergennes,
Where you’d defeat me easily—
In Fool’s Mate. That Fool is me.

But we might talk of other things,
Like calculus or chicken wings,
Or Kant, or Adam Smith, or, gee,
How much we both like poetry.