| the sky was dark, but you were clear |
[Dec. 19th, 2009|12:42 am] |
I don't tend to post my writing up online apart from this journal and the occasional other spot, but I've had an itch for poetry lately so I revisited an old writing site at which one of my uni friends is a moderator. I reviewed a few other pieces, and figured I'd toss up one of my own.
This one, actually: http://errantwinds.livejournal.com/8980.html
A fellow commented as follows (these are excerpts):
You suggest that I have managed to have hung my life around my neck.
Well, I used to hang a stethoscope around my neck, but it wasn't my life.
You have hanged metaphor on metaphor,
and similie on metaphor so determinedly that you have no actual
subject, and that on top of that, you've got me running around with
about a ton and a half of various metaphorstied to my neck and chest.
So,if you changed your running metaphor to representing the immediate present,
and you dropped all of those not only cliched, but actually imposible metaphors
and simliles; and you wrote it so it made sense; I think you'd have a very
nice poem.
Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. Oh, and... ouch. I don't claim to be an excellent poet. Heck, I don't even claim to be an especially good one, but I'm pretty sure I'm not all impossible metaphors and cliche similes. |
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| never knew you, never thought I would, never thought I could |
[Dec. 18th, 2009|12:15 am] |
Silence
In the dark, thick like water,
my fingers traced across your chest;
a splinter of moonlight illuminated
the ragged paleness of your scars.
I saw you anew, then–
your years mapped out so starkly before me;
and as I kissed your shoulderblade,
it came to me
that we might have no need of words. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 17th, 2009|04:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | oh dear | ] |
| [ | music |
| | my name's lancelot, i breakdance a lot, rolled up in my caddy to camelot | ] |
So earlier this week, the world chose to remind me of the fact that I had a LiveJournal. “World!” I exclaimed, with something akin to horror. “Surely, this cannot be! Why, in that case, it hasn’t been updated since…” And then I realised how frighteningly familiar that sentence was, and had to apologise profusely to the world for being so ditzy and forgetful, and, really, that LiveJournal? It was going to become my new BFF. When I actually took the time to log in today, I noted with some horror that it had ended on a slightly ominous note, with me hoping against hope that I wouldn’t contract a strange disease in faraway climes. Fortunately, I returned unscathed from my travels! My friends, however, were not so lucky. Wait, allow me to explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up!
( summer days, drifting away )
( the (almost) bachelorette pad )
( yo, ring the bell, school’s in, suckah! ) |
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| the miles just keep rolling |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|03:48 pm] |
'Drifter'
I have no claim on your affections
but if you're so bitterly determined,
you can post them to me
or just send the pawn ticket
next year, in the rain |
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| while careless winds swept from the sea |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|11:55 pm] |
I've been reading Tolkien's 'Lay of Lethian' recently, with its impressive flow of rhyming couplets and its haunting images. I've always been fond of epics and laments and stories told in verse, so here, in miniature, is a small one of my own.
It's about a character called Rohwyn, who returns to the town that she and her military company swore to protect, only to find that it's been destroyed by an invading army.
==
Lament of a Guardian
She stood amidst the crumbled eaves:
the charréd huts all strewn with leaves,
the hollow shells of cot and byre,
the ravages of glaive and fire
lay all around her in the dale.
Her breath was drawn, her cheek was pale;
the stench of corpses heavy fell
over the scene, 'twixt older smells
of battle. And there on the ground,
the body of a brindled hound
lay sprawled beside a mangled child.
With shoulders firm but eyes deep-wild
she tucked her kirtle, bent her knee
while careless winds swept from the sea.
She softly touched the tousled brow,
her voice a whisper, bent and bowed;
'I swore to keep thee safe from ire-
thy people, farm and cot and byre.
Oh, would that I had kept my vow.
Oh, would that I had died, not thou.'
And long upon the blackened sward
she knelt and spake no further word;
she thought of faces she had known,
the people she had made her own.
So thus she witnessed Southshore's lot,
the wrack and ruin Death had wrought.
Yet in her deep eyes no tear burned.
At last she straightened; silent, turned;
rejoined her men upon the hill
and gave her orders, quiet still.
They had no time to keen and weep
with graves to make and watch to keep;
yet well she knew, with foresight's spark,
in years to come 'twould haunt her heart;
for with the lives of Southshore's folk
her hope had gone, in fire and smoke. |
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