| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| alf |
Posted - 27 Aug 2005 : 03:27:45
Write a poem using the following words:
text
set
stage
wine
hunger
wrong |
| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| alf |
Posted - 09 Sep 2005 : 15:19:27
MAGNETIC
"…I would like to write a poem about a pencil in love with music” – Charles Simic"
In pencil I would write with a music like a poem about to love,
a woman who sees in elephants the image of her first heartbreak,
ten thousand tadpoles screaming for democracy in a garden puddle.
Begonias lusting after organ-pipes spark a fashion trend in ochre.
Biographers of saints assaulting creationists with fossil relics.
With chalk set a dance for playwrights in the outback, loincloths provided.
Fashion from crayon a sonata with grudges against cuisine, commiting
hate crimes on seafood with clefs and staffs; a motif of knives,
a cacophony of spatulas. I long to photograph the pianist on stage
sitting down to a feast of black scarabs in white bone sauce,
on his left, a wine made from the severed lips of editors, the audience
wildly applauding, completely naked apart from bibs and spoons.
Of all the novels I hunger to write, perhaps the one where the body text
rises up and slaughters the printers, takes over the machines
in a frenzy of reproduction, declares a fundamentalist religion.
The pen I’d use (if I’d still use a pen) might sweat ink, turn red, corroborate.
Threaten me quietly at ballpoint. Ask me if I believe God is the Word.
Illiteracy is Heresy. Before things go wrong, the music slipping
me a note for the pencil, apologising for her muteness, urging him
to find something else to write about. The food. The scenery. The poem
eyeing him from the corner, always trying to get to know him better. |
| ssgan |
Posted - 09 Sep 2005 : 12:43:00
BORROWED TUNE
“…I would like to write a poem about a pencil in love with music” – Charles Simic
ABOUT A PENCIL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC
My life as a pencil is to write.
If I am sharpened well
I can coax beautiful text
Out of my tip
That my master may begin to believe
In his abilities.
Serenade me with music
And with the other hand hold a glass of wine
And I may even be able to sneak
A sentence or two
Out of Future.
It is wrong to press me too hard
To make an impression
For you will break me.
Rather, inscribe me softly
And I am set for voluminous work.
I will never be past the stage
Of reminiscing where I used to be –
A tree in a jungle
Where I hunger after the quiet, robust kind of music,
Of insects copulating
And the ants’ rhythmic hurrying about.
Pencil death is silence
Scribbling away.
|
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 09 Sep 2005 : 11:01:02
Dead Bird Considered as a Misunderstanding of Lacan
To collide, as you have done, with the unbending text
is beyond me. It would take a blindness, a certain set
of mind and jaw to smash that mirror stage
of our faces shining from the wine,
full of purpose and a hunger
for all that's real, and beautiful, and wrong. |
| tweedlesinpink |
Posted - 08 Sep 2005 : 00:59:18
(ASIDE)
Hm fencing classes, and french? My thoughts head straight towards a certain dashing Nicholas Fang.
(/ASIDE)
I think the food adds an amusingly absurd twist to the prose. |
| Hsien Min |
Posted - 07 Sep 2005 : 23:57:20
I don't think one really has to know all the French to understand the piece, but nevertheless, here goes:
selle de veau aux lentilles = veal saddle with lentils... I made this up.
caneton à la goutte de sang = (lit.) duckling with the taste of blood, or basically wild duckling in blood sauce. This is in fact the dish La Tour d'Argent is famous for. No no, I'm sure it's duck's blood.
Hélas, etc. = Alas, sir, our establishment is unfortunately full.
poulet de Bresse à la crème = Chicken from Bresse in cream sauce. Offhand, I think Bresse chicken is the only one in France with its own appellation d'origine contrôlée - kind of a trademark for chicken from a specific geographical location bred following strict rules - and one of very few in the world (one? two? more AOC-style chickens in Japan).
Garçon = Boy (as you probably know).
Le Tout-Paris = All Paris (or, really, everyone who matters, with the implication that everyone who matters is in the room).
Cheers,
HM - who really wants to dine at La Tour d'Argent. Even if it means taking fencing classes. |
| tweedlesinpink |
Posted - 07 Sep 2005 : 15:44:05
quote:
Originally posted by Hsien Min
...because your reputation is deserved, your table is reserved, and, most important of all, your dinner is served.
Lovely piece of irony, although my french is sorely lacking. Ha, oh well. (: |
| alf |
Posted - 06 Sep 2005 : 02:36:33
Duckling in Blood Sauce
Ha ha I like! Nice piece of prose poetry, really, if you want to think of it that way. |
| Hsien Min |
Posted - 05 Sep 2005 : 23:48:28
And in the spirit of the Forum, here's my response to PC#4 for other forummers to critique. Started writing it as poetry, but then quickly decided it was better turned into prose - what do you think? Also, I don't really have a title for it (it was almost "The Perils of Fine Dining in the 18th Century"... and I think the current title layers the blood sauce on too heavily...).
Duckling in Blood Sauce
"To get a table [at La Tour d'Argent] a cavalier might pull up his horse, walk in, challenge a diner to a duel, and kill him to take his place." - Joseph Wechsberg
Imagine, if you will, that you were a cavalier, riding in to the city from Chantilly or Beauvais. Having passed the porte Saint-Denis, your thoughts begin to turn from the discomfort of the saddle and the mutterings that the people are unquiet to the memory of a dream of a selle de veau aux lentilles, or, indeed, the famous caneton à la goutte de sang. You who haven't had the taste of blood for a few months now, you switch your horse across a darkened alley, towards the monastère des Bernardins and the quai de la Tournelle. At the forecourt you have one boot off its stirrup even before your horse has skidded its hooves to a halt on the gravel, and after you toss the stable-boy a sou for a bag of oats, you strain to keep your dignity as you stride towards the door, but the maître greets you on his front step, saying, "Hélas, m'sieur, mais notre maison est, malheureusement, complète..." but by this time your momentum has grown into compulsion. If hunger is good for the soul, then you have earned your sainthood as a junior officer on the fields of Rossbach, and this is the time to trade off some of your eschatological currency for the intensity of a present pleasure. You sidestep the maître, taking care not to bump into him, and burst into the ground floor dining room, as beautifully ornate as the theâtre and filled with the distinguished faces of French high society. In a moment you are beside the young man in the corner, whose own face is as pale as the poulet de Bresse à la crème before him. He is a writer whose latest texts have the aristocrats talking of a long career; your critical faculties tell you they are wrong, and you slap him with your riding glove. "Garçon," you say, "will you come outside, or will you be skewered in your seat?" Le Tout-Paris gasps, less from shock than from expectation. The youth can barely stand, his lady swoons, a gentleman helps him outside and presses a sword into his hand. It is over in two passes; you slash his face with the one, and run him through the heart with the other, whereupon you flick your sabre to dry it, return it to its scabbard, and stroll back to the dining room. There is a fresh glass of 1740 Lafite on what is now your table, a perfumed napkin, and a clean set of silverware, face down. You swirl the magnificent wine red as arterial blood, you await the arrival of the roasted duckling, and when it comes you take up your fork and knife and carve it expertly, breathing in its aroma and pushing your taste buds to the hilt with the blood sauce. If it will be days before the people go on to stage their revolution, you do not have the stomach to care, because your reputation is deserved, your table is reserved, and, most important of all, your dinner is served.
Cheers,
HM
|
| Hsien Min |
Posted - 05 Sep 2005 : 23:22:21
Hi,
For a start (imo) you need to decide whether your punctuation will be regular or absent. (I'd suggest leaving it in, but smoothing out the "so long / so long" bits, because some of the punctuation does really well, e.g. the reversal at "with our plates; / with her plates".) Also, some lines don't pull their weight ("our toes to the edge of / Something") or assume too much (the sentence beginning "But here in / our marbled court...").
Cheers,
HM |
| tweedlesinpink |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 00:42:58
quote:
Originally posted by Hsien Min
...a little editing.
A little? ;p
What works/doesn't? |
| Hsien Min |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 00:37:01
I found this rather interesting, fwiw, even if it could do with a little editing.
Cheers,
HM |
| tweedlesinpink |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 00:32:23
In all our glory
Perhaps we—
No. Perhaps not.
Sometimes the thing
Is to stop, and cling by
Our toes
Our toes to the edge of
Something. Some rock
Monotonous slate,
Not the colour of our
Sets
And props: their
Bright lights were
Out too soon and gone
So long
So long, we never saw
Our tracks in our
Mud, our prints
All over each other in
Glorious hunger—
We ate, we ate us
On every stage and
Cleaned up before
We noticed. Mother
Said to wash up
After I was done
With our plates;
With her plates you
Never saw the sparkle
Of expectation,
No fervent wine for
Her. But here in
Our marbled court
I lay my text
Open for you, for
Gorgeous consumption.
No wrong, then
To thirst for more:
But—I don’t know—
No more either.
No. Perhaps not.
*
Does this work? First draft, freshly rolled off the press, all that stuff. (: |
| ssgan |
Posted - 03 Sep 2005 : 09:09:59
… Assuming the other voice
Verily, Verily I Say Unto You
You are always so wound up.
Like the old grandfather’s clock
Obsessed with constant chiding
Hour by the hour.
Can’t you see?
A kiss is a kiss is a kiss…is just a kiss.
You like to read too much into the plain text of our acquaintance.
I have served you with the good wine of companionship
Any gentleman would offer.
But it is a case of the finest pinot,
To be slowly savored.
You are wrong to guzzle them
Like some cheap cartons of tiger beer.
If only the swing of the pendulum
Can be arrested
And the tick tock tuned out.
We could re-set everything
Clear the stage of any misunderstanding.
Hunger is simply excess gastric juices churning
On an empty stomach;
A chemical reaction leading to delirium really
No fault of yours.
Shall we meet again?
I promise to bring more than wine
More solid food to chew on.
|
| ssgan |
Posted - 27 Aug 2005 : 06:43:38
The Desperate Girlfriend
It’s all your fault you know
I haven’t done anything today.
Each time I begin on something
Text of your SMS would creep into my mind
And before I know it
I am set for a day of mindless wondering.
We have come to the stage
Where we have drank too much wine
Of each other’s company.
I hunger for the married life
Is it wrong
To ask that of you?
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