not a challenge, just a 'something to do if it takes your fancy' thread

[butters]

choose a poem from a poet like Frost or Neruda or Keats anyone ''famous''... post it, but underneath add your own rewrite - the same poem but how you would write it in your own styling.

it's an interesting exercise for anyone who has the time

 

[greenmountaineer]

Although not a new poem, I have since edited it, so I thought I'd share the following parody of Fire and Ice by Robert Frost:

Fire in Eyes

Some say my end will be a gun,
some say with a knife.
When last I heard "Cy's found us, Hon!,"
it was a blade took my life.

Yes, it's true I perished once,
but then a nurse who had a rack
of fun bags quite miraculous,
Hallelujah! brought me back

despite the blood that I had splat,
and though it seems like arrogance,
I swear, I swear, it is a fact
she smiled when she unzipped my pants.

So if I had to perish twice
I wouldn't want the big guy sliced.
Trigger-happy angry Cy's
not so great
but would suffice.

 

[twelveoone]

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

as Lord Tennyson wrote it

as one of the survivours would have

so we went
us six hunderd
got decimated
thrice over
a bloody good show
but this is not war
now who gave the order
and what the fuck for?

 

[ishtat]

1201 should read Flashman at the Charge by George Macdonald Frazer. It is both hilarious and chillingly accurate at the same time.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: 10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, 20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
..............................................
Had a fight with the missus
so slouched off down the pub,
nobody about worth talking to
in my frame of mind,
so I cut home through the cemetery.
The daffs were in bloom
and I picked a fair sized bunch
carried them home to the better half,
and was forgiven completely
when I took her dancing.

 

[pensivepoet]

Stopping By The woods

Whose woods these are, I think
I know
his wife lives in the village though
don't think he'll see me stopping here
to pinch and snort a little blow
my one eyed dog must think it queer
to stop without a beer joint near
now near these woods, a frozen lake
where pissed I out the 13th beer
he gives his fleas a gentle shake
this worthless dog, I call Snowflake
the only other sound
is the creep
who followed me here
my stash to take.
His wife is lovely, dark and deep
I doubt she'll be his own to keep
her bed so far from where he sleeps
I share her bed, but rarely sleep
~R Frost

 

[butters]

enjoying all of these you clever, super-snarky bunch

i suppose i should make the effort and join in....

*wanders off to find a piece*

 

[pensivepoet]

enjoying all of these you clever, super-snarky bunch

i suppose i should make the effort and join in....

*wanders off to find a piece*

Snarky?
Hey, mine was pensive
Please stop lumping me with 12, who is busy writing "50 shades of snark"
I could never hope to attain his level of bitch slap
~but i do admire it

 

[butters]

Snarky?
Hey, mine was pensive
Please stop lumping me with 12, who is busy writing "50 shades of snark"
I could never hope to attain his level of bitch slap
~but i do admire it

i'd apologise but that would make me an insincere bitch

:halo:

 

[Trixareforkids]

Expostulation and Reply, Wordsworth

'Why, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

'Where are your books? -- that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

'You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!'

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

'The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

'Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

'--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away.'

****

Da fuck you sitting around
starin' off into space and reading
shit from peeps long dead?

Fuck, don't you have any thoughts
deeper than the next pussy?
Don't you wonder why?
Why da fuck we's here?
Well, I do.
Now, give me back my damn book.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

bumpety bump

 

[Piscator]

Its not something I do often but sometimes it fits.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.4981127.1560197696!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/gidimt-en-checkpoint-jan-7.JPG

Whose woods are these?

Whose woods these are I think I know.
They come not from the village though;
From ancient times abided here
Vouchsafed the land through fire and snow.

The other settlers think it queer
To stop a pipe where no town’s near
Between the mountains, sea and lake
In midst of climate crisis year.

They squawk their anger, heads do shake
Vow their livelihood’s at stake.
The only sound, the Mounties’ sweep
Of Indigenes and other flakes.

Though woods stand lovely, dark and deep
There’s much to do before I sleep,
And broken promises to keep,
And broken promises to keep.​

 

[29wordsforsnow]

For the last tree, lonely, who will weep
if there's no O-two underneath the ashen heap?
The alam set for the last human leap,
time is running; will we miss the beep?

Thanks, Piscator, for reminding a task at hand.

 

[Piscator]

My rift off butter's "cave paintings"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Kilroy_Berlin_Wall.JPG/220px-Kilroy_Berlin_Wall.JPG

We Paint Our Caves

Once lit by flickering torch light
with animal tallow mixed with ocher
daubed on subterranean rock walls
now lit by streetlights or LED headlamp
slashes of spray paint and magic markers
splattered on concrete bridge abutments,
boxcars, or walls of tenement ghettos,
but the message is the same
we were here.