&
I came across this little game on my friend Enbrethiliel's blog (well, I seem to remember she prayed for me at least once, which makes us friends, even if that mostly consists of me stalking her on her blog :P). The rules and original post are here, and the latest round was posted last week.
The general idea is that each participant puts a word and a question into a virtual hat, and then gets one of each in return. Then, everyone writes a poem that uses the word and answers the question.
So, without further fanfare and adieu (yes, yes, I know), I give you:
Matrix Analysis
Always planning everything
Chasing notions round
Never doing anything
Staring at the ground
Thinking through the angles
Rhymes and imagery
And decision matrices
Trying to untangle
Every little signal
That I'm sending with a word
Plotting looks and tones
And drowning out the drone
Of voices saying "overthinking
Is all you ever do"
But know that simpler, pretty verses
Spring from moments unrehearsed
And in an hour, maybe two
Thought fades into beauty
And ponderous soliloquies
Of what is, and ought to be
Are tossed aside for hope, and you
Did you know it's social protocol to tell me it's wonderful and you can't wait to read more of my poetry? Really, it's what you do when you have a friend who's proud of something they really suck at!
I will award points for the first person to correctly identify: what that last paragraph was a reference to; what my word was; what my question was. These are fiat points, and like cloth money, they have no intrinsic value, but they're fun.
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteIt sounds very angular . . . and futuristic! Or am I unduly influenced by your title? =P
But the last seven lines are much softer. I think they're my favourite part of the poem.
Since I already know what your word and your question are (and have no idea what your penultimate paragraph is referencing!), I guess there won't be any fun points for me!
Thanks for playing this week, Dauvit.
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteAnd it took me the longest time to figure out why you used the pictures you used. *facepalm*
Brilliant, Dauvit! Brilliant!
I wish I had thought of it . . .
I won't say what it was, but I recognize my own word quite easily. As for the question, I don't know... am I over-thinking this?
ReplyDeleteE
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like the same part of the poem that I did. It occurs to me that there could be many more layers of symbolism in the whole thing than I intended when I wrote it (about one and a half of the three or four were intentional, God forbid any AP English teachers get a hold of it...).
And yes, I was quite proud of my notion. Maybe moreso than the poem itself.
Bat,
Wait... was that question intentionally meta?
And I loved the word, though I hated it at first, once that line came to me, I knew what I wanted to do.
+JMJ+
ReplyDelete"Soliloquies" is abstract enough to suit this poem. Can you imagine what you would have had to do if you had ended up spaghetti? Or worse, snakeskin?! I'm very impressed at what Ellen did with the latter. I think I would have jumped out of the window, if I ended up with a word like "snakeskin"!
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteOoops! I just gave the word away, didn't I? =(
Dauvit, feel free to delete that post, if you want other visitors to guess some more!
Tsk tsk. Nah, I'll let it stand. Matrices and soliloquies were the two obvious possibilities, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think I could've done snakeskin fine as long as the question was also my question (remember that was the word I gave you... maybe next time I'll pick based on something other than Clapton songs). I liked what Ellen did with it, though.
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Oh, Dauvit, I didn't mean to insult your choice of word. (After I randomise and assign everything, I consider them filed away.) So that makes two faux pas I've made in your combox, in a single day! A record, even for me!
I think you did a wonderful job with a word like soliloquies, I think I'd have ripped my hair out if I had gotten it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so often "meta" it doesn't make much sense to distinguish when I'm not... take all my pseudonyms, for example!
ReplyDeleteE,
ReplyDeleteHaha, I didn't take it as an insult; you're fine :). It wasn't an easy word, I'm glad Ellen did well with it.
Sullivan,
Thanks, I did fret for a while, but it worked out.
Bat,
Ha! All of them? I've only the one (though I have a few filed away for future use, I guess...).
yes, if you were the sort to dig through stale 'bloggery, at Null Epistolary you might notice something like
ReplyDelete"
cat <<eof >>/dev/null
Here's a note I want
to be able to refer to
for my own silly purposes
later...
signed, Belfry Bat
eof
"
which other people might have set up explicitly as "note to self: ..."
Further poking around would reveal that /dev/null's email address (=P) starts out qnoodles, q being for Quincy, not quantum. Mr. Noodles can't get enough ... respect? ... anyways.
And we're all "some guy on the street", accross (or over) whom you may have run before.
Sorry, I haven't checked your blog in a while! Social protocol or no, this was a great poem!
ReplyDelete