UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

Inspired by the awesome duels with words from pages 9 and 10 of a previous thread ( https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ), I thought it might be fun to start a poetic duelling thread. Now, don't get me wrong, the point is not to fight to the death or leave other poets in a pool of blood, it's just to cleverly answer back with verse - doesn't have to be rhyming. I'll post the first one and see how it goes.

Like rapiers
Which cut and thrust
And flash like streaks
Of spotlight-sparkled silver,
And whoosh
And swoosh
And leave us
Gasping at their wit,
So words,
In rhyme
Or not,
But still in verse
Can make us
Laugh or cry or curse,
Let's have a thread
Where poets slash and dash
And delicately pink
In duels of words.
(LL)

The point has snapped off my wit.

my wit is sharpened
and weighted with pencil lead
but I write with blood

Francis wrote: "my wit is sharpened
and weighted with pencil lead
but I write with blood"

And bloody words
Last longer than in lead,
For they can never be erased.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "The point has snapped off my wit."

When your witty point has snapped
And words inside your pencil trapped
Then find your sharpener, for, you see
A new point - and your words are free.

ephemeral blood!
eternity's my canvas
time erases all

Francis wrote: "ephemeral blood!
eternity's my canvas
time erases all"

And thus, between two poets,
A new verse is written.
Who would have thought,
In so few words,
Amidst the blood,
A new life would be born.

And sealed with the wax of ages

And who will hold
This newborn child
by the feet and slap
Till the crying wild
sounds in realms untold?

Jim wrote: "And who will hold
This newborn child
by the feet and slap
Till the crying wild
sounds in realms untold?"

A child? What child?
If its father deny
That it is his,
Then why should I
Take it to my home?
Shall we leave it in a cave
All wrapped in wool
To keep it warm?
See if some fool
Will take it in?
Or shall we,
Steeped in our own sin,
Come creeping back
And claim it as our own?
This hybrid child,
With parents who have flown.

Loretta wrote: "Jim wrote: "And who will hold
This newborn child
by the feet and slap
Till the crying wild
sounds in realms untold?"

A child? What child?
If its father deny
That it is his,
Then why should I
Take ..."

And it may be that, as it grows,
Its life unfurled in verse and prose,
Like Beowolf, will a saga be,
So watch it grow, and wait, and see...

a clock awaits me
let another strip my child
of its ignorance

You see!
See how its 'fond father'
Washes his hands of the poor mite,
All cleansed now and hid from his sight.
And why should I be held guilty?
For I did not know him,
He took my verse
And with a sword, brought blood
And made this child.

(PS, this is turning into an epic. I'm having such fun.)

Narrator:

See here, oh peasant eyes.
The masters and mistresses of verse
So deft of phrase yet wise
Walk to the stage and the audience behold
A magic line yet untold

And the mystery they present?
A new birthing, a strangled cry,
Words to sell, love to rent.
Hush now, my friends, and suffer the cold
And listen well, as the tale unfolds...

There was a young poet from Slough
Desired to be famous right now
He penned his first sonnet
His skill lavished on it
The critics - they slammed it, and how!

A poet, from Slough
Skills lavished on betterment
dead cherry blossom

So sweetly this now
The change from verse to Haiku
Senses rush onwards now

Stage Manager:

And Gingerlily,
Puck-like, takes the stage,
While life around
Goes on, and tumults rage.
While others make like Shakespeare,
Wise and slick,
She breakes the mood,
and wrings a limerick.

But wait - how fares the youngster now?

The poet from Slough hung his head
And retreated with tears to his bed.
But then his sweet muse,
And a skinfull of booze,
Brought new rhymes to write epics instead.

with Swiss precision
I sing the hours of my life
to my forlorn heart

I can't write
Haiku, because I
Always forget to count the syllables on the last line

Its time for dinner.
I'll go and look in the fridge
for inspiration.

(I'm often told off for counting syllables. I do it because I enjoy doing it, but occasionally I deviate. What you have there would make a nice meta-haiku.)

I walk a tight line
my high perch precarious
and I cannot fly

I would fly,
If I could fly.
Indeed, in my youth,
I took a particular delight
In flying.
Up and up I soared,
My eyes fixed on the clouds above me
Until I found I was not flying
But merely projecting myself
In a sort of flightless flight.
My eyes wavered,
My arms grew weary,
And I landed,
Face first in the mud.

a black-scaled dragon
I leapt from hell's deep shadows
and soared into flight

look not at my wings
a passing echo! for I
fly faster than light

Oh, but to fly so high
With the warmth of the dragon
Beneath my thighs
A breathless air
I gasp. look down
The world beneath my care

Oh, but to soar so high
My winged friend smiling
Her twinkling eye
Carry me onwards
Cross battled worlds
A fantasy of life so hard

Oh, but to dream so high
Joined in love, dragon and rider
With the end so nigh
We must to land
The dream is gone
And fight on we, hand in hand.

(Guess who has just written a pile of dragon books?)

once I was alone
mistress of all I surveyed
my will uncontested

what use possessions
without a companion
to share my riches?

To share is not to know
To know is not to understand
To understand it not to see
To see is not to love

What use is love, if not to share?
What use are possessions, if not to touch?
And without a companion?
Not even loneliness can be shared...

(too dismal?)

my heart in pieces
I searched the world for fragments
love is a jigsaw

Take one piece, place it
On the table of your need
Take a second, wait

And see if but one other piece will fit;
Ah, then, thus, two pieces fit together.
Two pieces, yes, just two,
May mend your broken heart.

However... pieces one and two
May crave for number three
And drown your voice with their frail cries
And then where would you be...

Why, back then, to that child,
that lost, unwanted, hybrid child,
whom none would claim.
But mayhap, now, with parents whose cold hearts
have warmed towards the babe,
it finds a home. And perchance
with that home,
a fourth piece of the jigsaw soon will follow.

In a basket they laid it
as a duck lays an egg
and it rolled across the waves
with a musical rock-a-bye
to crack upon a far shore
the closest of shaves

Words
Crafted into pleasing shapes
Verse
Finding virtue in the patterns of chaos
Poets
Crying pity in a pitiless world
Words
Crying
I shall smile and walk away
Before the poet under my skin awakes and calls loneliness my brother

No, stay,
don't walk away,
and we will share a drink or two
and laugh, not cry,
for even poets
feel the joy of life.

though oft we bottle it
mix with vinegar
pack and pickle it
we thrive on acidity
love with bitterness
cry with lucidity

Not I,
I like to laugh and smile at life.
No acid in my wine,
I like my dark clouds lined with rose
and silks,
my tears all those of joy.

tears in silk... alas
that such fine material
should be pulled apart

Tears for the tears,
silk thread for them,
amd we shall mend them so
they are not seen,
and all will seem as good as new.
So, raise a glass of cheer with me
and throw your gloomy thoughts
away. Cast them off, lay them down
on railway tracks.
Let them be crushed beneath the wheels,
no more to haunt your waking dreams.

I have made my bed, and will lie in it
like a thousand other sleepers
caught between ballast rock
and hard parallel steel

Clear thy tears, O, maiden fair.
Cry not at the foot of the stair,
but in a bucket, safely sat
in your high backed chair.
The wolf that prowls
returns to his lair.

A smile, a sweet caress, and wolves may be tamed.
But what of the cheerful poet,
whom no one understands.
Are they to be cast out?
Exiled to other lands?
And all just for the sin
of mirth?

Quietly lurking and so enjoying spending time amongst such talented wordsmiths.

Ah! An audience!
As one, we cease our wild words
and turn, smiling,
to front of stage,
bowing and waving,
sated in the pleasure
of your applause.

As merry minstrels, we take our bow,
your applause rewards the sweat on our brow,
but better work it is than to bend and milk a cow.

But, applause dies,
and our craving for the sustenance
that feeds our souls,
sated for now,
we go back to the cut and thrust of words
- no cows disturb our stage
demanding milking.
No, we squeeze out words
into our buckets,
to pour into your
brimming glasses.

my words are simple
but lay them in a cavern to mature
for a hundred years
and what endures will be pure

Soft, what light at yonder window breaks.
Sorry, that was stolen from Shakespeare's pen.
Four hundred years dead, but still his words wake applause,
now to return to my milk cow chores.