The best play is take a bit of verse or prose that's in bad words you can't read,* and put it in good words. If you're good at this, you can make your verse still rhyme; if you're way good, you can keep the beats of the line; if you catch the sound, the sweep, the tune, of the old verse -- well, I bow down in awe, Dude. Here's a stab at what I mean:
To His Coy Miss
by Drew Marv.
Had we but all the world, and time,
These coy ways, Miss, would be no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the East Ind stream's bank-side
Shouldst find red gems: I by the tide
Near York would moan of love. I would
Love you ten years ere came the Flood,
You should say "No," if you should please,
Till Jews to Christ go on their knees.
My love like an old herb should grow
To some great state, and still more slow;
Five score of years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy brow should gaze;
Twice that to dwell long on each breast;
A Great Year's span to all the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Miss, you should be loved in state,
Nor would I love at a fast rate.
But at my back I seem to hear
Time's wing'd and horse-drawn cart run near;
And there in front of us lies this
Dead plain of all the time there is.
Thy good looks shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy stone-carved tomb, shall sound
My much-sung song: then worms shall raid
That long-kept state which you call "maid,"
And your quaint good name turn to dust,
And burn to ash shall all my lust:
The grave's a fine and well-hid place,
But no one screws in such a space.
Now thus, while youth's first flush and hue
Sits on thy skin like the dawn dew,
And while thy soul now still wills forth
These quick, hot fires through all thy pores,
Let's fuck like minks while yet we may,
And now, like lust-crazed birds of prey,
Rip all at once to shreds this hour
And not be gnawed in his slow power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
We have that's sweet up in a ball,
And tear what comes from rough love strife
Through these steel grates hedged round our life:
Thus, though we can't make our old sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
As you can see, names are hard, too. We used to play this game on an old board, long since dead. I've got a page of works in words of one beat and an Oft Asked Things that gives the rules in more depth (with notes on such words as "power"). If you want to play, feel free to post here (and let me know if you want me to add it to the page). Or if you think folks would take part, we could start a group L.J. to play in.
* The way we played it, if you used a word with two or more beats, we could not "see" the word -- it was a hole on screen, as it were.
E.T.A.: I note that there is a
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
wordsofonebeat group L.J. now. Needs some work to make it look nice, but I'll get to that in a bit.---L.
- Reading:The Wrong M. Wright, P. Bray
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
lnhammer- some guy named Larry
- my pretty good home page
Page Summary
- matociquala : (no subject) [+6]
- pnh : (no subject) [+2]
- kateelliott : (no subject) [+1]
- casacorona : (no subject) [+4]
- pnh : (no subject) [+6]
- athenais : (no subject) [+1]
- tabouli : (no subject) [+1]
- tnh : When I have fears that I may cease to be [+3]
- xopher_vh : (no subject) [+1]
- xopher_vh : (no subject) [+2]
- spacecrab : (no subject) [+6]
- elflet : Filled with hope [+1]
- i_am_stillwater : (no subject) [+2]
- novalis : (no subject) [+3]
- janni : If I Had Lots and Lots of Big Bucks [+2]
- xopher_vh : (no subject) [+6]
- ellen_fremedon : Here via Making Light, [+7]
- communicator : (no subject) [+5]
- kip_w : (no subject) [+2]
- kip_w : one more from Will the Bard [+1]
- paulakate : New group [+1]
- altariel : (no subject) [+11]
- (Anonymous) : My first try [+5]
Comments
---L.
---L.
I grow old, you know, I grow old. I shall wear the ends of my pants all rolled.
---L.
Wow.
---L.
---L.
Blow your horns, winged ones, and rise up
Rise up from death, you great past all we can count, of souls
And to each your own corpse, spread out, please go!
All whom the flood did and fire shall turn
All whom war, death, age, hard heart, brute force
squashed down, or who by law or chance are slain;
And you whose eyes shall see God
And not now or then taste death's woe
But let them sleep, Lord, and me cry a while
For, if on top of all else, my sins rise to a high point
It's late to ask You to give your grace to me in full
Now that we are there
Here on this low down dirt
Teach me how to be small, for that's as good
As if you'd stamped and sealed and proved me
With your own shirt.
---L.
---L.
Ere I can write out all that's in my brain,
And print it out in books (don't spare that tree)
Like barns stuffed with a full year's crop of grain;
When I look up and see on night's starr'd face
Strange signs not known to me, fate's song-and-dance,
And think I shan't live so long as to trace
Their shapes and forms in words--no, not a chance;
And when I fear, sweet rose bud of an hour,
My luck won't stretch to look on thee once more,
Nor taste, nor drink my fill of that fey power
That's love that counts not cost;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand, just me, and think
Till love and fame to dust and ash do sink.
---L.
Who rode on the back of a 'dile;
But when they got back,
The poor croc said "Ack!
To a 'dile the Nile girl tastes vile!"
My first shot. That IS hard. And it's sad I had to be bad and cut one word down. I'll try and try 'til I get it right.
There's a dearth of smut in this game, I must say. We should do more of those.
---L.
There's a sad face on bad me.
---L.
I am the true real form of such a mod prime do-it-all type guy;
I've got the whole scoop down for plant, or beast, or rock, and then, see, I
can tell the name of each Brit king, and quote their old time fights
real fast
From "long-time race" to "Nap's end place" in list that's flat from first
to last.
I'm tres hip, too, to stuff that's full of 1's and 2's and 3's; I swear
I grok the sets of "this is that" both on-the-line and "take-it-square."
About those a-plus-b's you'll find I'm full to brim with lots of news
And scads of up-type facts on the squared line that all those Greeks
confuse.
---L.
to make bold the few wee words
found, shy and hid,
in the realm of their long kin.
Yet I shall try, and try,
lo the knack will come.
---L.
Er... just thought that would have been a great exercise to make catchy big band music. I'd like to try it out myself, make a poem and such with that, and then make embellishments... It's like making Rap music in the 1930's methinks. :)
---L.
On worms
The worm drives its way round and through the wood
And does not know the dust left in its bore
Once made the show case strong and whole and good
and with a bang the lead glass hits the floor.
Ants wend and weave their ways back to the nest.
They write their tales of scent on rich brown earth.
The names of those we love and all the rest
Could be you will not miss them. There's the mirth.
All that there was winds down. That's how it's made.
But thoughts of youth are all we have to lose;
And though some of the old flames have to fade,
Do not think that you'll get the chance to choose.
By the time you wish you had not, you did;
Say what you mean. The truth can not be hid.
May I post that in the One Beat Book of Verse? With your name, of course.
---L.
I'd buy you a house (I would buy you a house)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you things to sit on in your house (like a big couch or a foot rest)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you an old car (an old car that would not break down)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks, I'd buy you love
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
I'd build a house in the tree out back
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
You could help it's not that hard
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
I think we could put an ice chest in there
That would be way cool
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you a fur coat (but not a real fur coat that's cruel)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you a pet from far off lands (like all those lands down way far south)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you that tough skinned guy's old corpse (All them weird bones from his corpse)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks I'd buy your love
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
We would not have to walk to the store
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
We'd take a long car cause it costs more
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
We would not have to eat Kraft meals
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you a green dress (but not a real green dress that's cruel)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you some art (some art in paint or Art in song)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks (If I had lots and lots of big bucks)
I'd buy you a big ape (how long have you dreamed of a big ape?)
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
If I had lots and lots of big bucks
If I had lots and lots of big bucks I'd be rich!
And, yes, you'd be rich.
---L.
Some say in ice.
From those few licks I've had of lust,
I'd vote for flame (and ash and dust).
But if it had to croak off twice,
I think I've known the face of hate,
And if you want to bust things, ice
Is just as great,
So roll the dice.
May I post that? Please? With a fruit on top?
---L.
Here's my contribution. The other stanzas may follow, since I can't sleep:
Lay your sleep-caught head, my love,
On this arm that let you down.
Time, the flush of heat, these may
Burn off what makes fair each lone
Care-filled child, and the grave prove
Him more weak with each fast-flung year.
But in my arms till break of day
Let him who breathes here all night lie,
Death-bound, sin-trapped, but to me
In each part and in whole most fair.
(...and is it just me, or did that come out sounding more like Hopkins than Auden?)
Soul and flesh, these have no bounds:
To those who love, as they lie on
Love's free-to-all and thick-spelled slope
And swoon in ways that all men swoon,
Grave, to them, the sight She sends:
To heed the world's law not, and feel
As one, in world-wide love and hope;
While not seen is the sight that wakes
Hard joy, in fields of ice and rocks,
In men that lone and stern there dwell.
I sail off by Yeats
That is no land for old men.
The young in the arms of the young,
Birds in the trees
- birds that are born and die - and sing -
The red fish jump the falls,
The grey fish crowd the seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, praise these long days
All that is born, and lives, and dies.
Caught in that song of sense all turn from me,
No praise for mad old men you see.
An old man is a kind of joke,
A coat of rags raised on a stick, but if
The soul can clap its hands and sing, sing out
For every rag that's in this stick-raised coat...
Nor shall we learn to sing but if we look
On great things of the past that we have done.
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To this old town called
er... Byzantium
oops
---L.
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is dead, yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
Yeah, it's a cheat, but it's a great one. I did not change a word. Next time I'll do a real one. Do the Goog on a line to find out more on the guy who wrote this.
Eve
The day is past, the sun is set,
And the white stars are in the sky;
While the long grass with dew is wet,
And through the air the bats now fly.
The lambs have now lain down to sleep,
The birds have long sing sought their nests;
The air is still; and dark, and deep
On the hill side the old wood rests.
Yet of the dark I have no fear,
But feel as safe as when 'tis light;
For I know God is with me there,
And He will guard me through the night.
For God is with me when I pray,
And when I close mine eyes in sleep,
I know that He will with me stay,
And will all night watch by me keep.
For he who rules the stars and sea,
Who makes the grass and tree to grow,
Will look on a poor child like me,
When on my knees I to Him bow.
He holds all things in His right hand,
The righ, the poor, the great, the small;
When we sleep, or sit, or stand,
Is with us, for He loves us all.
---L.
As I first told you, were all but wraiths and
Are now mixed up with the air, with the thin air;
And, like the whole cloth made up for this mute act,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the proud sun-kissed great halls,
The hushed halls of God, the great Globe per se,
Yea, all which it hath to keep, shall melt off,
And, like this grand march of ghosts, shades and dim shapes
Leave not a rack or crumb. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our wee bit life
Is smoothed off with a sleep.
---L.
---L.
That month ere May is worst, it blooms
In the dead land, it blurs
Once-thought and wish-thought, it stirs
Dull roots with spring rain.
The long dark kept us warm, it cloaked
Earth in blank snow, it fed
What's left of life with deep dried corms.
The heat caught us, it fell on the peaks and the lake
With a shock of rain; we stopped in the shade of stone trees,
And went on in the sun, to the court,
And took tea, and talked for an hour.
Ich bin nicht Russe, ich bin Nord, echt deutsch.
And when we were young, guests of the arch-duke,
Blood of my blood, he took me out on a sled,
And I was scared. He said, May,
May, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the heights, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south at the fall of the year.
---L.
by Bob Frost
I know who holds the lien on this field
His house on our town does yield
He will not see me halt right here
To see his woods with cold flake fill'd
My wee horse must think it queer
To stop sans a barn or house near
'Tween the woods and iced-up lake
Cold as it gets for all the year
He gives his gear straps a shake
To ask if this the course I mean to take
The sole sound left is the sweep
Of light wind and soft blown flake
The woods invite me, dark and deep
But I have vows that I must keep
And miles to go ere I sleep
And miles to go ere I sleep
Please be kind to a non-poet!
---L.