Same Title Challenge: "Sheep May Safely Graze"

[Lauren Hynde]

Driven by the words of James Wright posted by Tzara, by the definition of to pander posted by twelveoone, and by a recent overdose of vintage Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, I thought some might be interested in a new Same Title Challenge.

Submit your poems, of any form and length, by Sunday, 9.October.2005 to appear on the 10th, or simply post it here, in this thread, on the 10th. Title:

Sheep May Safely Graze​

Double points for the use of irony.

 

[Guest]

Bump while I think aboudit

 

[wildsweetone]

sheep on an erotic website? you're kidding, right?


*whistling*
i don't know whether to laugh or roll my eyes.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Out with the filthy thoughts.

 

[Liar]

sheep on an erotic website? you're kidding, right?

It's you guys down under that got all the sheeps, not I.

*ducks*




Good title. I've got some ideas. We'll see.

 

[Tzara]

Ironically, I have one done already. <sheepish grin>

 

[wildsweetone]

i am soooo not saying another word

 

[Lauren Hynde]

i am soooo not saying another word

You still need to write a poem. It's the law.

 

[wildsweetone]

just written mine in the last 10 mins, which isn't bad considering i had a brick wall in the way. can i have a month to edit it?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I want to see something on the 10th.

 

[Zanzibar]

Sheep may safely graze

They rounded up the cowpokes
Those riders of the plains
No more watching sunsets
Of misty purple haze
No more will we hear their songs
Of a cowboy's lonely pains
But there is one benefit, now
Sheep may safely graze


<You can moan now>

 

[wildsweetone]

Sheep May Safely Graze

He’d followed the gang,
pride of place in the centre-rear
when they’d driven beat-up bombs

to street-race the main drag. Joined
in with their revelry as they’d hooned
cul-de-sacs, top guns buzzing
the tower. Accepted the cigarettes,

roll-your-owns, thin and weedy
that caused a seedy feeling
to well up
inside. But when he slinked home,
he heaved the fags over the fence.

 

[Liar]

I want to see something on the 10th.

It has been a little slow submitting these last weeks. At least for me, there has been 2 or 3 days waititng.

So post 'em here directly, is what I say.

 

[bluerains]

Sheep May Safely Graze

Chipping chains away,
we flourish in chasm depths
so sheep may safely graze
in seasons of sleepy meadows.


Collective energy of inspiration
now, but shrouds of ashes
left in angelic dust
to be sown by destinies final outcome
or buried in seabed's carnivorous mouth.

Fate,a truth yet to be discovered
in wind swept fields of creation.

Its chained reaction still
cloned in silence while
we await coded uplinks
for mission ignition.

Hibernating in fleeced eyes,
mutants awaken the flock....

 

[Tzara]

Sheep May Safely Graze

A Pastorale for Secular Cantata BWV 208

O great Kapellmeister, now put aside
that grand cantata lately we have sung
and think not of the past and fields
where sheep did safely graze in sun,
but instead look, Bach, to the future
and mutton lightly braised with plums.
It's dinnertime! Come and fill your tum.

 

[WickedEve]

I missed out on the sheep poems. I should have done a sheep. A sheep poem. I think someone in my family was very, very close to a sheep.


Okay, completely off the top of my demented head:

I hate the mommies.
You know the mommies.
Skinny ones, PTA ones.
Those organized, cookie baking ones.
"I gave painful birth to an A+ Student" bumper sticker mommies.

When I'm with a herd of them, I'm awkward
like a childless lump of skin and meat
clothed in a hippie shirt.

I'm not a sheep.
I don't attend the home interior parties with the rest of them.
Where was I for the last cakewalk?
I'm not a sheep.

I hate those mommies, and I want to smash them with my hot, red car.
But I won't.
Sheep may graze safely.

 

[champagne1982]

To cheer our rhyming fiend fried friend, Uncle Pervy, this one's for you.

Sheep May Safely Graze (actually, rams can...)

He walked out to the paddock
in his homespun plaid and gum boots.
Black-toothed gums split his lips
as a smile spilled from the root
of his nasty brainstem, farting
tuneless hymns and mindless toots.

The bumper sticker said, I fuck sheep!
and the pastor promised a prayer or two,
but the shepherd only smiled and stepped
out through the clover and the morning dew.
"Tis fine of you to be concerned," ole Uncle Pervy said,
"The bumper sticker's got it wrong, not all sheep...

"ONLY EWE."

 

[cymry]

Farmer Brown did wear a frown
for there was a wolf among his sheep
in haste he took his trusty gun
to shoot the nasty creep.
He took aim to save his game
and defend his frightened flock
but what he saw through the sight
gave him a mighty shock.
Twas a youth long in tooth
having a go at his most prized ewe
and Farmer Brown couldn't help but think
it was a most amazing view.
The daft young man with dick in hand
was ashamed as he could be
for getting caught buggering sheep
and turned his tail to flee.
But Farmer Brown knocked him down
and said "Stop your wicked ways
for on my farm you'll do no harm
so the sheep may safely graze."

"Here in Cheatham county, where men are men...and sheep are scared."
Sheriff Doris Weakly

 

[Lloyd2004]

http://www.freeimagelibrary.com/images/Lloyd2004/Sheep.jpg

Sheep are nice,
Sheep are cute,
Sheep have lots of wool,
Shot the Dingoes,
foxes too,
and Sheep can safely graze!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

It has been a little slow submitting these last weeks. At least for me, there has been 2 or 3 days waititng.

So post 'em here directly, is what I say.

Good point and good poems everyone. I'll be back shortly with mine.

 

[Remec]

Here we go...<g>

Sheep May Safely Graze


I wander the early morning fog
through the fields and pastures
that mark the easiest path into
the village below our hillside home,
and whistle a melody to match the
steady clop of shoes and crook as
they echo across the vale and back
once more. A song at first, the
swiftly rising cacophony becomes
many different tunes--prominence
derived from distance and personal
favoritism towards whistle, crook and
shoe, or echo. No worry is given to
drawing out wolves, lone or in pack, as
they have long since been cried
away; leaving the land open and free
and safe for all roaming within it.
If only I still had a flock to tend here.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Sheep May Safely Graze

Words, sweet baby.

When they crash
between strata of sleep.
And sand. Decimated
by that mercurial lucidity
that suspends them
over blades,
horoscopes, lamellas
of histological stars. Well,
what do you want: more
trees in the world? More
sacred formulae?

Venous vessels
like strings. What will we say
of who weaves
such powerful cloth; so
probable; or else any
sundry word
aqueously heard. Almost
a prospect of rain. And only
a sound of steps
already weightless
against the metal of the dunes.

But hush, sweet baby. Sheep
may still safely graze.​

 

[Liar]

Sheep May Safely Graze

The sum of all phantoms,
is a constant left to battle,
free market mechanics,
draining one well
to fill another.

Out of sight and range
of conscience,
we pray, ashamed.

While we hide in holes
and cut our losses,
knowing of course
the tangibility of a
domain in bloom.

But also of a realm
where our pathos won't venture,
distant dots on the horizon
that could be smoldering ruins
or gently grazing sheep.

So we opt for the latter,
seal up the entrance
to our cosmos,
and sleep.

 

[The_Fool]

Hands bleed on razor wire
Peering within
At sheep turned out to graze
On pastoral paradise

Free from predation
Both secular
And from those
With higher calling

Yearning eyes
Are filled with fear
As heads whip round
And spy demon wolves

Screams cut short
Growls and tearing of meat
Bent grass and bloody barbs
The only signs of dreams

On certain cue
Placid sheep turn
Make their way home
To paradise and slaughter