Proko-poetitudes Redux

[cookala]

heya Geoff! Just Blow Me - the title made me scoff and wonder what it was all about. I felt Ns pain and hurt after reading it. good line break at the end, too, and the unexpected last line a surprise, but a nice one.

[prokopton]

THanks cookie,
I am glad you found the humour.
I do like to tease my readers now and then.

I was away over the weekend as I knew I would be -
racing Iron Man Taiwan Triathlon.
I finished in 16:53:00
Back at school teaching on Tuesday stiff and creaky.
Whole bunch of tests this week too. One is a Lit test - they must compare and contrast Ozymandias and Travel, remember doing that one?


Ready to post some of the scraps I drafted on my trip - no computer where I was
had to concentrate on the race.

Cheers,
Geoff

[kristalynn]

"Just Blow Me"-clever! Glad you are back from your computerless weekend. I look forward to reading some of your "scraps."

[prokopton]

Rubble Rouser

Were I adrift in ageless sands
blown across the wasted strands
of ancient deserts trodden flat
by camels, Arab horses and all that
I could no more be lost and found
there than in a sultry Saxon mound.

I dig for bones and shattered pots
seeking truth amid amphorae
broken down but not destroyed
the shards can easily tell us lots
each one of them has got a story
each one savored and enjoyed.

I seek the answers in desert holes,
in mountain caves and ancient tombs
there is no dusty relic I won't explore
in seeking things like Dead Sea scrolls
or chipped mosaic tiles in gaudy rooms
hung with silks and sundry wild decor.

[5th column]

I have to add to the chorus of approval for Blow Me, what line break. Sultry Saxon mounds. Seems as though you're continuing the theme Congrats on the time btw.

[Andrea345]

much to like in "Inferno". I loved the use of the word "lymph" and the idea of finding a rhyme for the word "orange," although it kinda jarred me with the reference to Beaudelaire.

I also enjoyed the phrase "all Sylvia Plath" in "Blow Me" - which is my favorite so far.

The end in "Easter" was lovely.

[prokopton]

Hey kristalyn,
thanks for your kind thoughts.
I am scrap-booking as we speak.

In the spirit of Les Epaves.

all the best,
Geoff

[prokopton]

Thanks 5th,
you have a sultry mind,
I like that!

Time exceeded expectations, given the spontaneity of my entry,
I had no training of which to speak, just recreational riding and jogging,
no paddling at all. But all's well that ends well, someone said.
cheers,
Geoff

[prokopton]

Andrea!
nice to hear from you.
You like lumph? Lymph-r-us then!
I will take the challenge of working it in again before Napo is done.
We need a Lymph challenge around here!
Enough with the frogs and rabbits and cats, I say!

cheers,
Geoff

[prokopton]

Vampire Metamorphosis

She drained the crimson, fluted chalice
and bared her fangs to me before admitting
her darker past and, without a hint of malice,
her intention to cause my end, of splitting

my marrow, chewing on the fresh,
succulent blood pulp, and revelling
in the joy of ripping warm, ripe flesh
from my reluctant bones, had me shrivelling.

I saw first her innocent curls, angelic lips
and sullen look along the riverbank below
the Ile de la Cite and chanced a greeting
in hopes of making her a cheery bedfellow.

My horror rose before the moon had gleamed
upon the Seine, but when it did, the world broke.
As the change came upon her I screamed
but from my throat came nothing but a croak

I gazed transfixed, her curls had turned to ash
her lips to worms, her mouth an evil gash.
I learned she was undead and of her evil power;
and to her was enthralled in a single midnight hour.

Her lightning blow - a backhand to my face,
inflicted a bruise. She turned aside her nails.
I wrestled with my bonds to no avail.
I feared an unsavory end in her embrace.

But some Holy happenstance prevailed,
was there an angel who learned of my imperilment?
For at dawn I surfaced from my swoon and beheld just
a withered corpse, a dry husk of my vampire captor - dust.

[prokopton]

Jewels


Naked but for jewels draped between her breasts
looped about her scrawny neck as if the gems posessed
a magic spell which might enhance her bovine pulchritude,
this Moorish whore contrived while wallowing in the nude,
to seduce a likely swain.

Her sin of pride, and coveting, had consigned her to this fate,
though none could know the truth until she'd gained her task,
- to win the heart of one, blind enough to love her back,
who could ignore the grotesquery of this masque:
the slackened skin and wrinkled mien,
her shrivelled teats and bony hips,
her squinted eye and narrow lips.

If such a man should happen by and overlook her
flabby form, her rheumy eyes, and love her even so,
if he could see beneath the wizened visage
to the golden heart below

and in his wisdom, love
her, the sentence would be served
and his reward, and hers,
would be the jewels she had coveted
and their shared love, if love it be,
and her restored beauty from now until eternity.

[prokopton]

To One Who Is Too Gay

The ladies who stroll along the boulevards
and drink tea in shoppes at mid-morning
have censured your frivolity, your display.

They shun the masquerade, the suits,
the Homburg, and wide lapels, the striped
pants and dapper shoes; they say you are too gay,

too butch they mean. They cannot abide
the sheen of your oiled hair slicked back
and your face bereft of rouge and lipstick.

They are bemused by your smoking of cigars,
the way you roll them between your narrow fingers
and smack them so rudely, with your lips.

I, who can perceive the leanness, the hunger
in your stance, and laugh amusedly at their chagrin
know all too well what happens in your pants.

I smell your heat when you express disgust
at the unfairness of society's distrust
of a cross-dressed woman with a healthy manly lust.

I sympathize completely with your manly appetites
for suspenders and cigars and similar delights,
I wholeheartedly agree that intolerance fairly bites.

Yet I am confident in my enduring admiration
for your rudeness and persevering consternation
that in the end you will receive consolidation

as a man or woman or whatever gender nomination
you so choose despite societal condemnation
and I hope to be invited to your celebration.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

"Rubble Rouser" is fun. Shades of Ozymandias and Arab thematic traditions.

"Vampire Metamorphosis" is even more elaborate, and works well.

"Jewels" - you had me a "bovine pulchritude".

You're doing well with the rhyming drafts. For future revision, the main issue might be to look at how better to make the meter complement the rhyme.

BrianIs AtYou

[prokopton]

Yeah, Brian, that's right on.
I work through the metric until my patience / time limit is reached
then have to post and move on. Later, we will revise.
Thanks for noticing and reading and commenting.

btw, if Rubble Rouser echoes Shelley and Stevenson, it is because
only yesterday I set those two poems for my grade ten lit class's mid-term.
And you saw it!

cheers,
Geoff

[prokopton]

Lethe

Sunlight passing through tinted glass
- and miles of Shanghai pollution, makes
her skin glow like burnished copper.
I move to bury my face between her sweated thighs,
to inhale again the musk
of our passion rising from her loins.

What day is it?
A seeming century ago,
We dined on fresh crusty bread, salted butter
and three kinds of cheese, and wine.
Cool silk of the darkest blue lies crumpled beside the altar
of our shared lust like the cloths of heaven
though bereft of jewels, just midnight pure.
The flakes of bread crust cling to her back like petals
of a different sort of flower,
dry, light tan, she is dappled like a fawn.

My thirst is born of satisfaction,
I would lie here and drink
the waters of the Lethe, and watch the bloody sun,
go down on her forever.