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+--- Thread: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) (/thread-11319.html)
Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 21, 2021
The purpose here is to belatedly shield the Poetry thread (and the Lyrics thread) from the unconventional, the bizarre, the obscure, the baffling, the xeno-psychological, and various anarchical impulses to vandalize the structural templates of proper literature. (Especially with respect to the nuisance activity of Yours Truly.)
As noted via "prose" in the title, the topic is additionally receptive to blocks of ordinary writing. These can be descriptive snapshots of moods and commentary about whatever. They don't have to embody story-like narratives with sensible beginnings and endings, any more than poems and lyrics always reflect ballads and tale-like accounts.
Non-eccentric verse items can be deposited here as well, but remember that the aforementioned locations are available for those:
Poetry (thread)
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-2910.html
The song lyrics thread
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-10619.html
(plus) Quote of the day
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-3465.html
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - confused2 - Nov 21, 2021
My grandmother was born in 1896. In 1969 we watched men landing on the moon together. She said she thought her generation would probably have seen more change than any other - from horses to men on the moon.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 21, 2021
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Certainly looks that way. Even time traveling from 2021 back to 1960 surely isn't as radically a different shift in worlds as a person in 1960 traveling back to 1899. The year 1906 is still viable for a movie Western like Old Henry, and many have been set in years well after that.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 21, 2021
More of a first-step practice study in applying an ornamental style (reminiscent of say, Jack Vance) to verse. Functionally, however, it could be construed as allegory of 2020. But hopefully not the only interpretation that could be projected upon it.
Whenever possible, go for the rabbit or duck ambiguous illusion slash young girl or old woman cognitive switching approach. Or, like David Lynch, leave it hermeneutically open, when possible.
- - - - - -
The Aureole Prophecy
Quickly, quickly,
Pass through that day.
Do not touch the sickly
Nor falter for the stray.
Let mortals sun and succumb
As sprites flutter through the shade.
Let crowds prate about freedom
As their paladins parade.
Hearken, hearken,
The time is cursed
If the hill tribes bargain
And the trumpet pods burst.
Will the old gods intervene
When the dead's pyres are lit?
Will the meadows yet be green
When the imp assassins quit?
Hasten, hasten,
Reach high retreats.
The mad will chasten
Stragglers lost in the streets.
Eschew the fey jubilees;
And be deaf to frantic yowls
Of wretches crawling on knees,
When Pestis drains his bowels.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - confused2 - Nov 21, 2021
The old plathitudes are the best.
I struggled long and hard against posting that.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 24, 2021
Recruiting Middle Eastern folklore as metaphor for this common category of woe. Wanted to simply title it "Camasb's Fate", but he goes by a thousand different other names, depending upon the particular account of the tale. So Shahmaran had to be directly included as a signpost. (edit) Final revision.
- - - - - -
Shahmaran (Camasb's fate)
The brute shock,
And the extremity,
Of that queen slain for King's Remedy.
Now I am the next block
Cemented by his mute Bricklayer.
Wed to this sage, this wraith,
Her lover, who was her betrayer.
I weighed by misgiving,
But he haunted by his breach of faith.
Each day, this man's guilt is reliving
ache.
The calling
Of a cavernous space
Escalating, roiling in his face...
Soon he is withdrawing
To her realm, an ophidian place.
Scaly in the distance,
He dwindles from my biped existence.
Her bereaved subjects there
May damn him; yet a wry curse that leans
To anoint a Judas snake, as Queen's
heir.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - confused2 - Nov 25, 2021
Looking for the source of 'creepy kids' (CC?) turned up this page in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/feb/02/most-disturbing-childrens-poetry
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 27, 2021
My meager, "sort of" tribute to Fredric Brown.
- - - - - -
The Boding
Janie shook the hand of the new guy.
It was ropy and cold as decay.
There is sick leave time left, her mind sighed.
She ignored all the news the next day.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - confused2 - Nov 27, 2021
Murder
Is like unlocking the combination lock on a bike.
All the numbers have to match,
But the last number unlocks it.
Click.
Bang.
The last number unlocked it.
But all the numbers matched.
RE: Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) - C C - Nov 28, 2021
Didn't intend for a descriptive snapshot to gradually warp into a hackneyed, story-like account. But there you go -- "provocation by prose" -- one of the many perils one may encounter in the streets of Weekend.
- - - - - -
The Requisite Discontinuity in Irrational Iteration
Verna led Claire down to the metal door -- her flashlight illuminated that far less obscure, second barrier to the hidden basement. "I don't know how she kept this a secret all those years," she said ruefully.
Claire awkwardly pressed her back against the stone wall on one side of the descending steps, then immediately withdrew in reaction to the dampness. "You never explored around this place as a kid?"
"No," Verna replied. "They moved here after I graduated and left. Dad died a couple of years later. Then... mom told me that my nomadic Aunt finally got over her problems and reclaimed Amy. But she lied..."
"Why would your mother do something as monstrous as this? Are you going to open that door and finally verify that Amy's remains are even in there?"
"The police might not want the evidence disturbed." Vera said. "Besides, I don't have the means yet to unlock it."
Claire faintly snorted. "So you are going to tell them? No longer dreading the spotlight this will shine on your family..."
Suddenly, there was a loud thump as something seemed to hit the door from the inside.
Claire jumped back. "What the..."
"You see, that's the actual elephant in the room," Verna commented. "According to my mother's notes, she got fearful of falling, in the routine of coming down here. Stopped giving Amy food and water after the first few years. She decided to let her die."
Claire ventured: "It's just rats or something. Animals."
"I doubt ordinary vermin could do that. And if the walls are still as solid as out here... What else could enter there? Watch this. Listen." Verna rapped against the door three times. A repeat reaction occurred on the opposite side.
"That's impossible," Clarie remarked. "She can't be alive. If that was opened, do you seriously believe that we'd find a filthy, stringy-haired woman breathing in that stench-drenched darkness? Gone mad a thousand times over, to the point of assigning names to her accumulating turds and having conversations with them? Why doesn't she yell something right now -- at least scream or howl or mumble, if she can't remember speech."
"I don't feel it is Amy." Verna said. "At least, not anymore. No mortal could survive for months without nourishment, much less years."
Claire laughed. "Alright, you got me. Tell whoever your buddy is in there to come out. You do realize the only reason I accepted this up till now was because your mother was buried only a few days ago. Who would be inventing a prank like this so soon, that disparaged their own mother as wickedly deranged? Seems more like you're the one who..."
* * * * * * *
Was she still unconscious, or was the lingering nothingness merely due to an absence of light? Why couldn't she taste the thick, crusted syrup in her mouth? That had to be blood. That strange agony, as if some oral limb had been severed, surely had hemorrhaging associated with it. Where was the salty flavor?
"How could you not have bled to death by now from a missing tongue?" Claire mentally wondered. "Or choked on the gush of it, or something?"
A circus of other pains was converging on her -- from a bump on her head to scattered cuts and bruises. She heard unclear voices.
She crawled around on the concrete floor and against the stone-walled emptiness until finally encountering the metal of the door. Despite a ludicrous amount of weakness, Claire struck it with surprising vehemence.
Later, three wraps from the other side of the door ensued. Failing to yield to her mutilated condition, she returned the pattern, as if shouting for help with it.
Then a revelation -- an absurd revelation of abyssal magnitude -- unleashed its clarity upon her like a hurricane blast. "Oh, my God," she thought, behind the drizzling tears.