Thread: A romantic challenge

A romantic challenge.
.
Dear God, the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still !
The image seems normal to us now, through familiarity, but presenting the City, probably the largest artificial object he knew of, as an organic, living thing was radical, romantic thinking in Wordsworth’s time.
The aim of the romantic poets was to reveal the charm and novelty of the prosaic and every day in new and different ways.
The challenge is to awaken wonder and surprise and to create revelations which present something everyday in a new light.

I told you Ox,

The one bar radiator, a modern miracle.

Part of the sun came down from the sky
In three great buildings placed by the sea
There is, in a bunker of concrete and steel,
Light you can’t look at, heat you can’t feel
Driving a turbine with steam to make power
That courses lines, strung between towers.

In a squat in a city, in a room with no door,
He put up a curtain and covered the floor
By-passed the meter, found a one bar fire,
Got close as he could to the glowing wire
Marked with black where he lit his fags
Or warmed up a spoon for a ten quid bag

Not much more than a temporary camp
In penetrating cold and insidious damp
Where drizzle and fog must be held at bay
By a single bar fire with a single bar ray.
Part of the sun has come down from the sky
And is giving the junkie a chance to get by.

(Erm...the device that records the quantity of electricity consumed, and the unit of measurement that equals 39.37 inches, are spelled differently...unless of course you're Amurrican, in which case your wrong every which way)

Thankyou, spell check can't catch everything. I like that Aussie ethic, no comment on the morality of it, only the spelling.

Nice challenge, Olly! It's ironic that "to awaken wonder and surprise and to create revelations which present something new in an everyday light" was also the prime aim of the Russian Formalists, who viewed themselves as rallying against earlier Romanticism. There was really quite a lot of similarities with what they were trying to do.

Geekiness aside, I love that you've written a poem about a one bar radiator.

I'm feeling the urge to write about socks.

Wet woollen socks'd be better.

The more time spent with her,
The more that I thirst.
Her fragrance spells my doom,
Once pretense has been burst.

She's the salt of my earth
Her taste makes my heart run
Her kiss forbidden fruit,
I can't have just one.

She moves with crepetation
Yet her sound is still sweet
She's A visual beauty
She looks good enough to eat.

I savor each curve and ripple
With a touch of my lips.
She's not just all that,
She's an actual bag of chips!

Lamp.




Its light begins with the touch of fingers ,
The bright electric glow fills your eyes,
It kills the night time’s bloody, twisted smile.
No surprise that there’s shivers down your spine,
Jitters during bedtime, waltzing of heart;
Shadows haunting your overcrowded mind.




That's all i'v got for now. Not exactly an original take on lamp but was fun regardless

obi_have: I thought it was the revelation of the subject at the end that made your poem humorous and I tried writing one the other way round, maybe it is simply the subject has inherent humor.

My bag of chips,
Has sharp sweet sauce
To bring colour to my lips,
And salt, of course.

I pluck forth a pair,
Straight as new bamboo,
Like legs dangling in the air,
Luxury in twos.

Or, hold them upward,
“Victory will prove them liars.”
And after, greasy paper’s good
For lighting fires.

Nice one! I didn't get the "straight as new bamboo" until until reading the "greasy paper" bit, then it dawned on me... You are writing about something I call french fries, while I was writing about crispy wafer thin potato chips, of the Frito-Lay variety. But I think you are on to something, there must be something inherently funny about anything potato related.

I tried another, but it doesn't fit into the 'romantic' box so I posted it in structured verse, it has got a bit of structure.

My first wife came from Japan, she said European's legs were straight as new bamboo, there was near starvation in post war Japan and a lot of rickets.

we are ten-thousand hearts
rumbling in the echoes
as lights that flit and dart
revel in the throes

of undulating eminence
the holy clarion
the raucous, rampant penitence
of rails we ride upon

we are rhythm
like a train station
each quiv'ring hymn
uttered in placation

to gods of steel and steam
new and fierce and wrought
with hands and mortal dream
with lives and mortal thought

The Chalkboard


The lights are on; my teacher stands,
The coffee cup in her left hand.
A sip is taken. The day begins.
The chalkboard, now a mural of words,
Is witness to bobbing brows and chins,
And crowds of questions, unspoken, unheard.

new romanticism:

Computer

White Light flickers from the screen.
Pulsing, waving words: Serene.
Tell me at once that you are still here.
Lest I forget and succumb to fear.

A memory chip will not enhance,
The victim of such circumstance.
Call to me, oh God...My Debt!
I'm at the end of the internet.

Etheric brains, Unite at once!
Release the ego, the liar, the dunce.
Plug me into the universe.
Electro-magnetic waves hum a verse.