61
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Jubal's poems
« on: March 29, 2012, 09:06:04 PM »
Good one, and nice historical reference.
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
62
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: March 29, 2012, 08:30:08 PM »
I am too happy these days. Happiness is not good for a poet!
Banquet for a Muse
Misery feeds the muse a bitter banquet,
A more nourishing meal than joy.
Madness is a curse, but be sure to thank it,
It gives your tongue and pen employ.
Banquet for a Muse
Misery feeds the muse a bitter banquet,
A more nourishing meal than joy.
Madness is a curse, but be sure to thank it,
It gives your tongue and pen employ.
63
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: March 22, 2012, 10:31:03 PM »
Snare
I'm pawing at the snare, caught around my neck,
Tugging at the tightened wire, stuck in the trap you set.
I know I can't escape, but nor is that my will.
I'm straining just to make your hold even tighter still.
I'm pawing at the snare, caught around my neck,
Tugging at the tightened wire, stuck in the trap you set.
I know I can't escape, but nor is that my will.
I'm straining just to make your hold even tighter still.
64
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: March 15, 2012, 05:00:20 PM »
I have a number of incomplete ballads in progress, it's just finishing them that's the trouble. 
But in the meantime, here is another one about a bird for you!
Zebra Finch
By the exotic aviaries' kaleidoscope hexagon,
I watched the labour of a captive zebra finch,
His clown face make-up offset by that 80s print,
Gauding his patterned tail feathers all along.
I watched him try to drag a ragged stalk of hay
Four times his length, pulling it across the dirt,
Obsessed with what a nest he could gain for his perch,
Desperate to achieve some lift, to carry it away.
It made me think of a zebra ignoring all the herd,
And hauling a tree trunk across the savannah all day,
To build a log fortress, to keep hungry lions at bay.
Such an image of mad fancy seemed no less absurd,
No less vain than this feathered dandy and his dreams
Of haystack mansions for his clown-faced finch queen.
But in the meantime, here is another one about a bird for you!
Zebra Finch
By the exotic aviaries' kaleidoscope hexagon,
I watched the labour of a captive zebra finch,
His clown face make-up offset by that 80s print,
Gauding his patterned tail feathers all along.
I watched him try to drag a ragged stalk of hay
Four times his length, pulling it across the dirt,
Obsessed with what a nest he could gain for his perch,
Desperate to achieve some lift, to carry it away.
It made me think of a zebra ignoring all the herd,
And hauling a tree trunk across the savannah all day,
To build a log fortress, to keep hungry lions at bay.
Such an image of mad fancy seemed no less absurd,
No less vain than this feathered dandy and his dreams
Of haystack mansions for his clown-faced finch queen.
65
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: March 08, 2012, 09:00:24 PM »
Ritual
Pour the poor young milk on your sacrifice of flakes,
Feed the greed of the beast inside who now awakes.
Glean the last dark beans from the bottom of the tin,
Command yourself to stand and summon morning in.
Pour the poor young milk on your sacrifice of flakes,
Feed the greed of the beast inside who now awakes.
Glean the last dark beans from the bottom of the tin,
Command yourself to stand and summon morning in.
66
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: March 01, 2012, 06:04:29 PM »
Drums in the Mirror
Crack the mirror that sees into the past,
And leave that haunting man behind.
His fleeting lust for you could never last;
He'll drown in memory and blood wine,
As the mirror's shards leave red wounds,
And you'll be born anew from that cut womb.
Bury him deep, deep in a bloody tomb,
With no companion but the sound of a drum.
Undeserving of a hand to hold or have,
The ceaseless beat will echo through
All the caverns of his voidish grave,
As he curses himself for losing you.
And in the scarlet chamber of your heart,
Where he lies buried, we will forget him,
As the quavering hide of the drum's raw skin
Pounds its new embrace.
Crack the mirror that sees into the past,
And leave that haunting man behind.
His fleeting lust for you could never last;
He'll drown in memory and blood wine,
As the mirror's shards leave red wounds,
And you'll be born anew from that cut womb.
Bury him deep, deep in a bloody tomb,
With no companion but the sound of a drum.
Undeserving of a hand to hold or have,
The ceaseless beat will echo through
All the caverns of his voidish grave,
As he curses himself for losing you.
And in the scarlet chamber of your heart,
Where he lies buried, we will forget him,
As the quavering hide of the drum's raw skin
Pounds its new embrace.
67
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: February 23, 2012, 04:00:08 PM »
Liquid Skin
I feel like there's liquid in the place of my skin,
A massive melting glacier, slowly caving in.
My bones are mazed with crazy paving,
And my remaining nerves are paper-thin.
I feel like there's liquid in the place of my skin,
A massive melting glacier, slowly caving in.
My bones are mazed with crazy paving,
And my remaining nerves are paper-thin.
68
Food Discussion - The Jolly Boar Kitchen / Re: Meet a Condiment - Ketchup
« on: February 20, 2012, 03:28:43 PM »I only have Tomata Sauce on eggs.
No offence but I prefer your rarer cousin worcestershire on my eggs. But my tastes are strange.
Who puts things on eggs? I put my eggs on things.
69
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: February 17, 2012, 10:14:03 AM »
Wikipedia is your friend. Or a textbook on ancient Egypt. 
But to put it in very basic terms:
Ka: one of five parts of the soul, the 'vital essence', which travels to the afterlife
Khepri: Deity of the dawn/the dawn aspect of Ra
Wadjet: Cobra guardian of Lower Egypt, the one you see on the pharaoh's crown
Ankh: The symbol of life, often seen held in the hands of gods
Ptah: Creator god, who gave life to the world
Maat: Goddess of justice, whose feather is significant in the afterlife
There are many more references that you won't get unless you know about Egyptian mythology, but it is essentially funerary imagery in reverse, combined with a dawn metaphor.
But to put it in very basic terms:
Ka: one of five parts of the soul, the 'vital essence', which travels to the afterlife
Khepri: Deity of the dawn/the dawn aspect of Ra
Wadjet: Cobra guardian of Lower Egypt, the one you see on the pharaoh's crown
Ankh: The symbol of life, often seen held in the hands of gods
Ptah: Creator god, who gave life to the world
Maat: Goddess of justice, whose feather is significant in the afterlife
There are many more references that you won't get unless you know about Egyptian mythology, but it is essentially funerary imagery in reverse, combined with a dawn metaphor.
70
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: February 16, 2012, 04:00:09 PM »
Reawakening the Son of Ra
My face is reflected in the glass, while you stare through basalt eyes.
No pupils within the lines of kohl, no cheer in the sculpted smile.
My image reflected in the glass meets the lines of a dead king's face,
So that I see my own curious gaze, staring back and into space.
In cold, dark eyes, silent and deceased, my own beating heart shines through,
Placing my ideas inside your head, and reading them back from you.
Where your striped nemes headdress rests, my mane falls in the same place.
Where your twice false carved beard hangs, living hairs spring from my face.
The lines of shadow and mirror blur, until I can hardly see between,
And one quiet face looks back at me, a ka summoned from reed-field dreams.
And in your lined face, in my face, I see tired cracks emerge;
From brow to nose, from eye to lip, temple to jaw, they all converge.
Where time has played its mischief, eroding all the dignity and calm.
Imprisoned eyes cry from the void, jagged cracks lit by the morning star.
Startled eyes afraid to feel again, as my nerves tumble into your skull.
Dead eyes ignite with Khepri's light, rising from your deep millenial lull.
The dawn-flame stirs the sleeping Wadjet; the cobra guardian springs to life,
Tearing the ankh from deep within me, spitting fire into my eyes.
From my open mouth comes the breath of Ptah, carried to your lips on falcon wings.
Maat's feather strokes the ancient scars, and awakes the fossil king.
My face is reflected in the glass, while you stare through basalt eyes.
No pupils within the lines of kohl, no cheer in the sculpted smile.
My image reflected in the glass meets the lines of a dead king's face,
So that I see my own curious gaze, staring back and into space.
In cold, dark eyes, silent and deceased, my own beating heart shines through,
Placing my ideas inside your head, and reading them back from you.
Where your striped nemes headdress rests, my mane falls in the same place.
Where your twice false carved beard hangs, living hairs spring from my face.
The lines of shadow and mirror blur, until I can hardly see between,
And one quiet face looks back at me, a ka summoned from reed-field dreams.
And in your lined face, in my face, I see tired cracks emerge;
From brow to nose, from eye to lip, temple to jaw, they all converge.
Where time has played its mischief, eroding all the dignity and calm.
Imprisoned eyes cry from the void, jagged cracks lit by the morning star.
Startled eyes afraid to feel again, as my nerves tumble into your skull.
Dead eyes ignite with Khepri's light, rising from your deep millenial lull.
The dawn-flame stirs the sleeping Wadjet; the cobra guardian springs to life,
Tearing the ankh from deep within me, spitting fire into my eyes.
From my open mouth comes the breath of Ptah, carried to your lips on falcon wings.
Maat's feather strokes the ancient scars, and awakes the fossil king.
71
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Jubal's poems
« on: February 16, 2012, 10:56:49 AM »
Love it! Great ballad. 
72
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: February 09, 2012, 06:26:11 PM »That one turns from very happy to very violent imagery quite fast, which is interesting.
Forgot to reply to this before, but I just want to mention that this was intentional. It is a sonnet, albeit one not following the traditional metre. You may be familiar with the 'volta' which is when, to quote Wikipedia, "The third quatrain introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic 'turn'". That's what I was doing there, so I'm glad it worked.
Anyway, new poem.
Fragment
When my rose-tinted spectacles, you've taken, wrecked, and smashed,
It's so much easier to see the truth of you relected in sharp glass.
To leave me like a jagged mountain standing abandoned and alone,
What a sculptor you must be, to carve a heart from shapeless stone.
73
General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Workshop Booze Up IV - This one's got a V in the number!
« on: February 08, 2012, 07:36:10 PM »
35, you say? What an a-llama-ingly high number.
74
Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Andalus' poetry
« on: February 02, 2012, 04:00:18 PM »
Crowns
A temple and a crown is found
On every man and woman's head.
Why then should either bow their brow
To any king or priest instead?
A temple and a crown is found
On every man and woman's head.
Why then should either bow their brow
To any king or priest instead?
75
General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Workshop Booze Up IV - This one's got a V in the number!
« on: January 26, 2012, 05:01:20 PM »
Then his rule would be so excellent that Portugal would never have to explode again and their economy would thus collapse.