Crazy Pissed Off Guy in Storm

[Brownlie]

Thought this would be better in the fun section.

He jams his hungry fork from out the sky,
and offered lights amidst the primal dark,
With fishing snakelike jerks the patron bites,
Absorbing feathered signs that dared embark.

I say he’s laughing, playing darts.
He jams his hungry fork from out the sky,
To add some spice to careless moon-lit larks.
I think he burns his passion far too bright.

He drops us crocodilian tears tonight,
and someone somewhere cries to build an ark,
He jams his hungry fork from out the sky,
Perhaps the king has heard that last remark.

No matter, slash, we may just hit our mark.
We’ll take our formless foe before he smites.
Well I’ll be damned I hear another spark,
He jams his hungry fork from out the sky.

[Erthona]

What is this a Pantoum, no a Villanel? Sort of like both but it is neither. Regardless, this does not seem artificial, which usually seems to happens with these repeating line type poems. You do well with it. Is this a take off on Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night?"

"Because their words had forked no lightning they"

"He jams his hungry fork from out the sky"

Seems a bit satirical.

Two of my favorite lines are:

"To add some spice to careless moon-lit larks.
I think he burns his passion far too bright"

A fun read,

Dale

[bena]

I'm confused about the form too--perhaps you just invented the Brownlielle, and if so, congratulations!

With no matter of form, I love the repetition of the strong line because it has wonderful imagery, and I did notice how you moved it from L1 to L2 to L3 to L4 in position of the stanza which I thought was rather clever. Lots of vivid imagery to jam a fork into in this one, and I enjoyed the read.

[ellajam]

Mercedes pointed the arrow by posting in The Quatern practice thread, thanks.

I think your refrain works well.

[Brownlie]

Thanks for reading and posting. There are some pretty cool poems in the Quatern practice thread that you might want to check out. I used iambic pentameter with an abab rhyme scheme which I had to alter to fit the moving refrain, though I think iambic tetrameter would serve a little better to reinforce the rhymes a little better. Dylan Thomas has that line about lightning and Emily Dickinson also wrote this famous poem:

"The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed."

If you'd like to meet her, she's always at the Barnes and Nobles sipping coffee with her peers. She's a very composed woman, she rarely moves...

[Erthona]

Thanks, but I've already met her. I went to visit her at her home before she got famous. She does make a good cup of tea.

"She's a very composed woman, she rarely moves... " Rarely moving tends to happen after one dies, but I would think she would be a decomposed woman, rather than a composed one

Well leave it to Leanne to find such an obscure form as a "Quatern". It's one of the type of French poems that has a repeating line. I've always disliked those forms as they generally come across as too mental (not in this case). Regardless, they are good to practice on.

Dale

[Brownlie]

Thanks, but I've already met her. I went to visit her at her home before she got famous. She does make a good cup of tea.

"She's a very composed woman, she rarely moves... " Rarely moving tends to happen after one dies, but I would think she would be a decomposed woman, rather than a composed one

Well leave it to Leanne to find such an obscure form as a "Quatern". It's one of the type of French poems that has a repeating line. I've always disliked those forms as they generally come across as too mental (not in this case). Regardless, they are good to practice on.

Dale

According to Wikipedia's entry on the villanelle:

"With reference to the form's repetition of lines, Philip K. Jason suggests that the "villanelle is often used, and properly used, to deal with one or another degree of obsession"[24] citing Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song" amongst other examples. He notes the possibility for the form to evoke, through the relationship between the repeated lines, a feeling of dislocation and a "paradigm for schizophrenia."

"Rarely moving tends to happen after one dies, but I would think she would be a decomposed woman, rather than a composed one"

, if I were more clever I'd come up with some statement she made about death in a poem.

[bena]

Here's a death quote by sylvia:

At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.

[Brownlie]

Here's a death quote by sylvia:

At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.

Well, I know she has that Lady Lazarus poem, and she is associated with suicide.

[bena]

Yes she attempted suicide many times until she got it right.

[Erthona]

Good for her.


Dale