This week, since it’s what I’ve been playing around with, I’m throwing the challenge out to choose a favourite line, of a song, a poem, a play or a novel, and let it inspire you. You can change it, transform it or reproduce it in any poetic form you like.
We’ve been listening to a lot of Bowie, for obvious reasons, and I’ve used a few of his lines already. Here’s another one, in the form of a triolet.
The stars look very different today,
Their web of singing spangles glowing brighter,
I hope the colours falling stay that way.
The stars look very different today,
The blue Earth failing couldn’t make you stay,
But the universal dark is growing lighter.
The stars look very different today,
Their web of singing spangles glowing brighter.
Get out those old records and anthologies and be inspired! Looking forward to reading the results.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
That’s a great idea, Jane. I’ll keep that one in mind.
Have a go, Jean. Let’s make it a party!
Looking forward to this, Jane. As always, great prompt!
Hope you get inspiration, Carol 🙂
Fun idea.
Space Oddity is probably my favorite Bowie song.
One of my favourites too.
His star added to the greater expanse. Very nice!
I like this idea. I’m just home from traveling. I have some lines in mind, and once I settle in I’ll work on it.
I hoped you would 🙂
This one may be too easy, but for those who haven’t met me yet I’m re-posting it anyway: https://peterbouchier.wordpress.com/english-essays-and-poems-2/english-essays-and-poems/c-fever/ it is me reciting my own musical counterpoint to John Masefield’s classic Sea Fever. Hope you enjoy (again).
It fits the theme perfectly 🙂
You’ve tempted me..
That was the general idea 🙂
Ooooh… a line from a song ( not DB) came to me straight away! Wonder if I can make it work… can it be in any form?
Any at all. Whatever the line suggests to you.
Here’s my small offering, Jane, a tanka:
http://writinginnorthnorfolk.com/2016/01/21/songs-are-like-tattoos/
I took my inspiration this week from Robert Frost, Jane, and his poem, “Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening”. Also took the opportunity to try out a new poetry style. I used a simple chain style…repeating the last word or short thought phrase from the previous line as the first word in the following line. I want to practice this a bit more but this one didn’t turn out too badly.
Have a lovely weekend!
Kat
https://kmmyrman.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/into-the-woods/
Some Tom Stoppard:
http://elusivetrope.com/2016/01/21/were-entitled-to-some-direction-i-would-have-thought/
Wallace Stevens:
https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/thirteen-ways-of-looking/
I chose an oldie but it’s kind of an anthem to me.
https://writersdream9.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/angels-handsquatrain/
A good one 🙂
Thank you.
I enjoyed doing this, using a line (Burn slowly the candle of life) from Candle of Life by The Moody Blues, on To Our Children’s Children’s Children. The title is No Brief Candle:
Burn slowly the candle of life
Whether through good fortune or strife
For at times, time seems all we have
Make best use of its healing salve
Squander not the value of time
Consider it a gift sublime
Use it wisely in every way
No petty pace from day to day
Be not fain to see the morrow
Life’s more than a walking shadow
These times, when need for haste is rife
Make not a brief candle of life
https://rivrvlogr.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/no-brief-candle/
Here’s one from me, inspired by Imagine Dragons – Demons
It’s Where My Demons Hide
There’s a darkness deep inside
It’s a shell, the debris of me
It’s where my demons hide.
Their slick hands squeeze and I slide
under. It’s not where I want to be.
There’s a darkness deep inside
Which rots and will not be denied.
I tear at skin rice paper thin to be free
It’s where my demons hide
I let them in. Stubborn foolish pride.
I thought I was strong but I couldn’t foresee
There’s a darkness deep inside.
I am a survivor. I am Death’s Bride,
a shifter doomed to infinity.
There’s a darkness deep inside.
In the dying of the light
I come to life, reborn banshee.
There’s a darkness deep inside
It’s where my demons hide.
I hate how good you are at poetry! This is amazing, and they are an awesome band.
Lol… I’ll take that as a compliment? And yes, they are.
do it was meant as one ❤
Just teasing! 😊
Thanks Ali! Love it! I didn’t get a notification for this—just saw all the cryptic comments between you and Sacha. WP really has it in for us.
Lol! That’s weird. I often don’t get notifications from Sacha’s blog, for some reason. But its not consistent. Gremlins! Or leprechauns, maybe…
Maybe it isn’t just you and there are dozens of people who hate me because they think they’ve been snubbed.
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Lol! I seriously doubt that!
OKAAAAAAAAYYYYYY…… reluctantly I have posted! :p I wish I could write poetry like you and Ali, but I can’t. But anyways, here I go – taken from Glitter in the Air by Pink the line was: Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
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Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
Its twisting branches
All spine like and full of poison
Stir the carcass of my emotion
Making it swim in a river of lucid fear
I’m drowning
I’m sinking
I’m dying
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
Death’s rattle grips my sinewy muscles
Trapping me in a blackened tunnel
I see no end
I see no light
I see no hope
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
In the infinite moment of a pause
A diamond sparkles
Choice floats passed like a shining knight
I’m tempted
I’m enticed
I decide
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
My newborn arm
With Bambi’s grace
Stretches
And Pulls
And strokes
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
The silky smooth waters
Finally glide past
As one hand passes another after another after another.
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, “I just don’t care?”
I have.
I have.
I have.
Wasn’t too painful, was it?
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lol! It twinges! 😋😂
That means it’s working 🙂
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Yaaay! You did it! First of many, Sacha! The bug will bite you, I’m sure.
HI jane, this my first entry to the poetry challenge. Please take a look: http://wp.me/p6NQA3-3S
The Living Years (Mike and the Mechanics)
Don’t you regret
The words unsaid?
I’d rather forget.
I’d rather be dead.
Words so cheap
They hurt with ease;
Make flesh creep
Heart-eating disease.
When you’re gone
And only then
Am I your son?
Am I a man?
Untimely death
Acidic tears
Why waste your breath
In those living years?
Thanks Geoff. The staccato rhythm of these short lines is like a succession of punches in the gut. Hard-hitting, this one.
Thanks. The original song gets me that way too.
I don’t know it. I’ll have to you tube it.