Art is not beauty, it is the lie that leads to it. - Leonora Carrington
Hey!, you people from the future: These Challenges are forever! Feel free to add something new.
For links to all the Challenges, just click the P.S. button below:
Challenge #1 - Cut Up Folktale can be found here.
Challenge #2 - Death by Words can be found here.
Challenge #3 - Utterly Mistaken can be found here.
Challenge #4 - Word Dog Run can be found here.
Challenge #5 - Queen's Dreams can be found here.
Challenge #X - Bucket Brigade can be found here.
The Queen's impressed with us, and informs us it's time for reflection and deep thoughts, time to
exercise the little gray cells. And what better way to accomplish this than a word dog run? It's a
run because we're not actually racing anyone. We're word dogs (ok, maybe a cat or two) harnessed
up as a team; heading out for a brisk, rollicking romp across the hyperborean expanses of Mother
IIcelandia. Pulling a mundane sled? Of course not. We're drawing a vehicle that befits our staturesque*
status: The Queen's well-anointed (hence lardaceously** lubricated), gold-runnered thesaurus-sleigh.
Challenge #4
Guidelines:
1. Have a look at the these four poems written by big-deal famous writers. (But don't let that put
you off, they're just writers.) The poems start short and they get long. But don't let the short one
fool you, it's got surprises.
2. After you get a feel for the poems (if you're feeling lazy, you can stick with the short ones), take
whatever strikes your fancy from any or all of them and freely and liberally cram some aspects
of one of them, or two, or three, or four into a single stand-alone, separate, and all-together different
poem (or poems).
3. Use the poems for inspiration, just like you'd use a painting, or a day at the beach, or a pair of
your old shoes. In other words: use the poems as ekphrastic objects. (Wikipedia article on ekhrasis
can be found here.)
4. And you don't have to make it complicated. If you want to, you can write about wheelbarrows***.
(Though the Queen is hoping that you stretch your gray cells a bit more than that.)
5. Use no fewer than 30 words.
and...
6. Feeling prodigiously productive? Feel free, if the fit strikes you, to post as many as you want.
(Though you might consider pausing for a bit after the tenth of July so you can take part in
IIce Conspiracy Enterprises' "Hot Shark Soufflé". )
*** Oh, wait, a lot depends on them... well, at least the red ones.
Those four poems by big-deal famous writers:
World Breaking Apart - Louise Glück
World Breaking Apart - Louise Glück
I look out over the sterile snow.
Under the white birch tree, a wheelbarrow.
The fence behind it mended. On the picnic table,
mounted snow, like the inverted contents of a bowl
whose dome of the wind shapes. The wind,
with its impulse to build. And under my fingers,
the square white keys, each stamped
with its single character. I believed
a mind's shattering released
the objects of its scrutiny: trees, blue plums in a bowl,
a man reaching for his wife's hand
across a slanted table, and quietly covering it,
as though his will enclosed it in that gesture.
I saw them come apart, the glazed clay
begin dividing endlessly, dispersing
incoherent particles that went on
shining forever. I dreamed of watching that
the way we watched the stars on summer evenings,
my hand on your chest, the wine
holding the chill of the river. There is no such light.
And pain, the free hand, changes almost nothing.
Like the winter wind, it leaves
settled forms in the snow. Known, identifiable —
except there are no uses for them.
Virgin Mule - Andrei Codrescu
Virgin Mule - Andrei Codrescu
The conversations of the French
Quarter mules in their stables
after a full day of pulling
tourists and voters over cobble-
stones is not espresso witty
and in their dark no TVs feed
them news of the ends of mules
elsewhere in the Middle East
and West. In our stables the ends
of others are a fact of atmosphere.
The yoyos on the mystery island
nextdoor are revving familiar tools
in backyard now gripped by failure
first of electricity than of
a meaner something that'll grow
into nothing we'll know in the A.M.
Once they were visitors like us
then they grew mulish in their
bubbles and pulled whatever
was put around their necks in-
cluding a banner that said, About
What Kills Us We Know Little.
On certain nights after a good
internal fight we hear the voice-
less others through the glass
fearfully sweet'n'soft like dough.
Oh let the monsters in. Help us
rise above our not seeing them,
may they let us into their eyes
as well. Banish the blindness
of these cobblestones, clop, clop.
But! Pffsst! Our notes are in-
complete. Loving you was
never on the agenda. Better
to sing as roughly as the stones.
On Memorial Day we had one
thousand hotdogs & counting.
Didn't visit a single graveyard.
We the Grant Wood folks scan
the sky for incoming missiles:
blips ourselves we understand
timing and touring in America.
The gilded dads in the portraits
sought the idealized continuity
now moving before us democratically
in showers of pixels and dots.
I'll go with the distracted mariner,
my lover, and we'll be in the world.
It will be late by then and dark.
We lyric virgin mules keep our
book of hours in a dream apart,
having stranded a billion turistas.
But we could not break the chummy hand.
Ready to brave the snow without a hat,
severe weather notwithstanding,
we merely nod and understand.
Power, The Enchanted World - George Oppen
Power, The Enchanted World - George Oppen
1
Streets, in a poor district -
Crowded,
We mean the rooms
Crowded, they come to stand
In vacant streets
Streets vacant of power
Therefore the irrational roots
We are concerned with the given
2
…That come before the swallow dares…
The winds of March
Black winds, the gritty winds, mere squalls and rags
There is a force we disregarded and which disregarded us
I'd wanted friends
Who talked of a public justice
Very simple people
I forget what we said
3
Now we do most of the killing
Having found a logic
Which is control
Of the world, 'we'
And Russia
What does it mean to object
Since it will happen?
It is possible, therefore it will happen
And the dead, this time, dead
4
Power, which hides what it can
But within sight of the river
On a wall near a corner marked by the Marylyn Shoppe
And a branch bank
I saw scrawled in chalk the words, Put your hand on your
heart
And elsewhere, in another hand,
Little Baby Ass
And it is those who find themselves in love with the world
Who suffer an anguish of mortality
5
Power ruptures at a thousand holes
Leaking the ancient air in,
The paraphernalia of a culture
On the gantries
And the grease of the engine itself
At the extremes of reality
Which is not what we wanted
The heart uselessly opens
To 3 words, which is too little
North American Time - Adrienne Rich
For Adrienne Rich reading 'North American Time' (7min 44 sec) on YouTube click here.
North American Time - Adrienne Rich
I
When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond borders
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies' usage,
then I began to wonder
II
Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history.
One line typed twenty years ago
can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint
to glorify art as detachment
or torture of those we
did not love but also
did not want to kill
We move but our words stand
become responsible
for more than we intended,
and this is verbal privilege
III
Try sitting at a typewriter
one calm summer evening
at a table by a window
in the country, try pretending
your time does not exist
that you are simply you
that the imagination simply strays
like a great moth, unintentional
try telling yourself
you are not accountable
to the life of your tribe
the breath of your planet
IV
It doesn't matter what you think.
Words are found responsible
all you can do is choose them
or choose
to remain silent. Or, you never had a choice,
which is why the words that do stand
are responsible
and this is verbal privilege
V
Suppose you want to write
of a woman braiding
another woman's hair—
straight down, or with beads and shells
in three-strand plaits or corn-rows—
you had better know the thickness
the length, the pattern
why she decides to braid her hair
how it is done to her
what country it happens in
what else happens in that country
You have to know these things
VI
Poet, sister: words—
whether we like it or not—
stand in a time of their own.
no use protesting I wrote that
before Kollontai was exiled
Rosa Luxembourg, Malcolm,
Anna Mae Aquash, murdered,
before Treblinka, Birkenau,
Hiroshima, before Sharpeville,
Biafra, Bangla Desh, Boston,
Atlanta, Soweto, Beirut, Assam
—those faces, names of places
sheared from the almanac
of North American time
VII
I am thinking this in a country
where words are stolen out of mouths
as bread is stolen out of mouths
where poets don't go to jail
for being poets, but for being
dark-skinned, female, poor.
I am writing this in a time
when anything we write
can be used against those we love
where the context is never given
though we try to explain, over and over.
For the sake of poetry at least
I need to know these things
VIII
Sometimes, gliding at night
in a plane over New York City
I have felt like some messenger
called to enter, called to engage
this field of light and darkness.
A grandiose idea, born of flying.
But underneath the grandiose idea
is the thought that what I must engage
after the plane has raged onto the tarmac
after climbing my old stairs, sitting down
at my old window
is meant to break my heart
and reduce me to silence.
IX
In North America time stumbles on
without moving, only releasing
a certain North American pain.
Julia de Burgos wrote: "That my grandfather was a slave
is my grief; had he been a master
that would have been my shame."
A poet's words, hung over a door
in North America, in the year
nineteen-eighty-three.
The almost-full moon rises
timelessly speaking of change
out of the Bronx, the Harlem River
the drowned towns of the Quabbin
the pilfered burial mounds
the toxic swamps, the testing-grounds
and I start to speak again.
Future Challenges, Dates and Timing:
Challenges will be posted slightly before 6am GMT which is 1am in New York City,
6am in London, 2pm in Manila, 5pm in Sydney, and 7pm in Auckland.
There will be 4 more challenges. The next (5th) challenge will be posted Monday Jan 22.
And the rest will follow, one every 3 days: Jan 25, 28, and 31.
* Root word is "stature", not "statue". Though, come to think of it, we're that too.
** "lardaceously" Ha! Cool word. Just learned it today and had to try it out.
IISZ Team:
rayheinrich: Head Chief Executive Head ( HCEH )
lizzie: Senior Executive Vice President for Creativity and Chaos ( VPCC )
quixilated: Executive Vice President for Narratives and Perplexity ( VPNP )
vagabond: Executive Vice President for Quonundra and Qwertyness ( VPQQ )
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
I'm glad it worked for you, vagabond. Thank you. The themes across the four poems helped though I did rely heavily on Gluck for inspiration (and a little bit of Rich).
If i catch myself
falling into a pattern
I perpetuate the means
for further falling. While
noticing simultaneously
occurrences of unpredictable
generation maintain continuace
immediately establishing a pattern.
Meanwhile potato, egg, and tuna
salad color the walls and cleaning
tomorrow and last week the chili
and if I didn't have to use my hands
and make him take them under
the family portrait in the hall purple
yesterday forever and again at noon
and again the egg, potato, and tuna
Tweet tweet Scratch scratch Thump ump
*sigh
When the lights on
on the vcr and eczema
flares force your hands
to battle brother flies
in the battle of Id
and ego on my leg
I still love you
Through Jesse's grimy window
a faded two-seater swing sleeps
under snowdrifts carved, must be
the wind's secret electric knife, the one
that only hums through deep distractions
or buzz saw nights, the green striped canopy
is caved in now, faded in splotches
of bird poop and sun.
He's buried in veteran's park
from diabetes and the drink. Ya know
he hammered and nailed the eaves, wired
the old church when it was new,
when our grandmothers painted murals
of Noah on Sunday School walls
before their Amazing Grace bells
were traded for a mineret and the muezzin call
and he built that shed better
than any man could:
Solid wood that still smells fresh,
windows now grimy
once one finger vinyls,
found framed in grey spider garland
and hollow cotton candy balls.
Oak leaves tumble on his stone in Autumn
as squirrels wrestle and dance on the fence nearby,
cousins to the ones who dare tightrope house to pole.
I can see him & Carl laughing at their circus,
sipping my worrisome lemonade from sweaty mason jars
because beer wouldn't get the job done.
Yes, I see them, Carl's bronze shoulders,
Jesse's red-round face,
his suspenders with a belt, just in case.
...must be
the wind's secret electric knife, the one
that only hums through deep distractions
or buzz saw nights, the green striped canopy
is caved in now, faded in splotches
of bird poop and sun.
I really like the phrasing and word choice in this sequence, Janine. You handle sight and sound well here. It's nicely done.
trained to overhear the preachers
and half-asleep i still will move my lips
along the choir´s songs.
it´s light and easy food,
some words turn emptier
with repetition.
but what i need´s a little why
and a tiny dose of how - so hard to use;
i don´t need whens and wheres.
the tv seems to let me choose
and sometimes fantasy and fiction
is worth more than news
and all the lies,
meant to aquire weight
with repetition.
inspired by 2 and 4 and probably some of my own undirected uneases
and now edited (11.2.)
(01-20-2018, 01:50 PM)Todd Wrote: ...must be
the wind's secret electric knife, the one
that only hums through deep distractions
or buzz saw nights, the green striped canopy
is caved in now, faded in splotches
of bird poop and sun.
I really like the phrasing and word choice in this sequence, Janine. You handle sight and sound well here. It's nicely done.
On a shelf in my workroom stand three shapes composed of sticks and cords that tie their ends together.
Some see polygons without faces— triangles described by stick- and cord-ends in the mind, not light or matter— with their relative positions set by tension and compression, by the saw and scissors which with forethought mathematics cut their length.
Then hands had to make connections, after which each figure stood strong in its interplay of strains and stresses, stable in configuration as stars in a constellation or the union of a flag.
(01-20-2018, 11:22 AM)nibbed Wrote: He's buried in veteran's park
from diabetes and the drink. Ya know
he hammered and nailed the eaves, wired -- really like this hammer/nail image coming right after mention of burial. Makes it seem like it's a coffin reference that's being conjured and then subverted by moving into memory of things constructed. This whole stanza is nice.
the old church when it was new,
when our grandmothers painted murals
of Noah on Sunday School walls
before their Amazing Grace bells
were traded for a mineret and the muezzin call
found framed in grey spider garland
and hollow cotton candy balls. -- beautiful images
Yes, I see them, Carl's bronze shoulders,
Jesse's red-round face,
his suspenders with a belt, just in case. -- I'm thinking that the belt was for corporal punishment, but I can't say for certain. Makes a strong ending for me, building on the foreboding from the broken down jungle gym, the spider webs, the grave.
Enjoyed the read
(01-20-2018, 06:04 PM)vagabond Wrote: some words turn emptier
with repetition. -- like the repetition of repetition
but what i need´s a little why
and a tiny dose of how - so hard to use;
i don´t need whens and wheres. Yessssss.
(01-23-2018, 05:50 AM)Tiger the Lion Wrote: Squall
Well, if it isn't a villanelle.
Solid choices for the repeated lines.
(01-20-2018, 11:22 AM)nibbed Wrote: He's buried in veteran's park
from diabetes and the drink. Ya know
he hammered and nailed the eaves, wired -- really like this hammer/nail image coming right after mention of burial. Makes it seem like it's a coffin reference that's being conjured and then subverted by moving into memory of things constructed. This whole stanza is nice.
the old church when it was new,
when our grandmothers painted murals
of Noah on Sunday School walls
before their Amazing Grace bells
were traded for a mineret and the muezzin call
found framed in grey spider garland
and hollow cotton candy balls. -- beautiful images
Yes, I see them, Carl's bronze shoulders,
Jesse's red-round face,
his suspenders with a belt, just in case. -- I'm thinking that the belt was for corporal punishment, but I can't say for certain. Makes a strong ending for me, building on the foreboding from the broken down jungle gym, the spider webs, the grave.
Enjoyed the read
Hi, Lizzie-
No, just to keep his britches from fallin'.
He was all tummy and no butt,
not a mean bone in his body that I ever saw, nor in Carl's.
Thank you for your kind comments to my poem!
-nibbed
(01-20-2018, 06:04 PM)vagabond Wrote: some words turn emptier
with repetition. -- like the repetition of repetition
but what i need´s a little why
and a tiny dose of how - so hard to use;
i don´t need whens and wheres. Yessssss.
(01-23-2018, 05:50 AM)Tiger the Lion Wrote: Squall
Well, if it isn't a villanelle.
Solid choices for the repeated lines.
The car park is pay and display now
and I know I'll say to someone
"it used to be free"
just to hear my voice
and watch my words disapate
in pretend smoke plumes.
I chose the old bench
it seems to fit the curve of my back
and I like the ruff crackle of green paint
splintering into that front door blue.
It reminds me of our hands.
The foundations have spread beneath
the rivers bend, the fallen millstone
flashes silver ghosts of breached wellingtons
and dog chased ducks. Drying socks.
The old stone bridge
trip trops an arc that frames
the fields beyond.
A heavy frost is hiding fleeced sheep
from my cold watered eyes.
I didn't get the hot chocolate,
Nigel would have asked
and I need the summer,
its back packed sandwiches,
its childish chase around the toilet block
and the dressed in all the gear
walkers, saying "we come here every year"
Yes
Nigel would have asked,
so I'll see you when it's warmer.
I'm going to wait and give someone
my ticket, and they'll say "thank you"
and I'll say "you're welcome"
If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
01-26-2018, 02:46 AM (This post was last modified: 01-26-2018, 02:47 AM by RiverNotch.)
1
There's the bright orange of the two lone lights
open in my room: the eye-glazing screen
and the power-sucking bulb; there's the darkness outside
pitted with brief lights
and the half-full moon inverted
over my voyeur neighbor's house; I'm naked but the aircon's
never cool enough; I suspect I'm not in the right country,
I think my phone is dead but say lobat,
I look out over the sterile snow
that suddenly turns to mist like
the rough bodies of those we
proselytizers and infertile
mothers loved, hands clasped
in the dark. No I will not succumb.
There is no night that will
not lead our eyes to close,
nor blidness when oracular dreams
refuse to answer Hineni, Hineni.
There shall be no turn.
Deus caritas est,
without excess. There's a voice
crying out in the wilderness
over the eternal fire-
works over Boracay,
over the sterile snow--
2
bullshit
broke my world apart,
bullshit cracked my voice
and made it darker,
they talked with a poet's voice
and I knew I lived in a book,
along the waves, on a screen
an unwanted leviathan's ass looking out
I thought real tongues were simpler
human lines
shorter, and us
a limited country
bounded by the sea
bounded by the edge of streets
full of tourists
bounded by hands that hold,
hands that grope
3
Sometimes I mingle memories
with dreams
but this one I remember
clearly, the elaborate
tatoo on her left arm,
her mousy face, her thin-
framed glasses and the piercings
on her nose, her ears
her half-American voice
my gaze shifting here and there
Sometimes I watch
her welcome me
in a foreign tongue,
toss away her four-
legged bag, and lift
her dress above her chin.
Sometimes I look
out over her shoulder
to the world passing us by,
raging over my choice
of thoughts, of words,
as if I had a choice.
Sometimes I close my eyes.
My goodness this challenge is tough. At the very least, I think this one shows effectively enough how I felt about the pieces, especially when one considers how I read them according to the sequence in the original post --- and how I wrote this getting (functionally, ie due to lack of sleep instead of abundance of alcohol) drunker and drunker.
Poets had better know what they're talking about before speaking those first keystrokes; words live on after we've moved on, after we've passed on. I want to believe
that this isn't the wild west, where they'd shoot from the holster spraying lead, that poets are Wyatt Earp conquering the lawless, the murderers and thieves with true eyes, sure aim— the boom and the smoke.
I wonder what you'd say to the inconsequential suburbs, or gravel roads— to towns that are merely a black dot on the map, not a prominent circle or star.
You're preaching to New York. If you can make it there, you become a legend. You're talking to yourself.
Also, I love you, and you're one of my favorites ever.
There's the bright orange of the two lone lights
still open in my room: the eye-glazing screen
and the power-sucking bulb; there's the darkness outside
pitted with brief lights
and the half-full moon inverted
over my voyeur neighbor's house; I'm naked but the aircon's
never cool enough; I suspect I'm not in the right country,
I think my phone is dead but say lobat,
I look out over the sterile snow
Sometimes I mingle memories
with dreams
but this one I remember
clearly: her elaborate
right arm tatoo, her mousy
face, her thin frame
glasses and the piercings
on her nose, her ears
her half-American voice
my gaze shifting here and there
Sometimes I watch
her welcome me
in a foreign tongue,
toss away her legged bag and lift
her dress above her chin.
Sometimes I look
out over her shoulder
to the world passing by,
then rage over my choice
of thoughts, words,
advances,
as if I had a choice.
Sometimes I close my eyes.
that suddenly turns to mist like the rough bodies of those we
proselytizers and infertile mothers loved, hands clasped
in the dark. No I will not succumb. There is no night that will
not lead our eyes to close, nor blidness when oracular dreams
refuse to answer Hineni, Hineni. There is no turn approaching.
There is a voice that cries
out over the wilderness,
over the eternal fire-
works over Boracay,
over the sterile snow--
hi river, "hineni" is a beautiful word in sound and meaning.. and personally it also reminds me of a leonard cohen song.
i wondered if you could write "nor is it deafness" instead of "blindness" concerning those oracular dreams.
![[Image: HuskyCat.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im20/HuskyCat.jpg)
