The give beneath
each pliant key
which ends
and sunders
suddenly
all sense of grace,
or wit, or will:
the cursor moves
but words are still.
miscast these
laughter lines
as sodden trenches;
But your
panache –
even past –
presents a
pitch-perfect
comedy
What matters context, save Perspective’s key,
When contemplating dull captivity?
For words would take unmitigated flight;
But knowledge binds them into black and white.
And so, ascribing malice to the spheres –
Expecting that to dry the convict’s tears –
May err in fact, while still remaining true:
His weeping may to other cause be due.
So in this case, the context is your claim,
And your perspective is itself to blame:
You sigh at fate, and pin it on the stars,
While he escapes by looking through the bars.
—
I wrote this piece in response to a #FieryVerse prompt on Twitter, using the following excerpt from The Canterbury Tales, beginning line 1083:
For Goddes love, tak al in pacience
Our prisoun, for it may non other be;
Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee.
Som wikke aspect or disposicioun
Of Saturne, by sum constellacioun,
Hath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn;
So stood the heven whan that we were born;
We moste endure it: this is the short and pleyn.’
The prompt used this translation:
For God’s love, take things patiently, have sense,
Think! We are prisoners and shall always be.
Fortune has given us this adversity,
Some wicked planetary dispensation,
Some Saturn’s trick or evil constellation,
Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn,
The contrary, so stood when we were born.
We must endure it, that’s the long and short.
The passage comes from The Knightes Tale (autocorrect is having a field day with Chaucer) and is spoken by Arcite, who seeks to console his fellow prisoner Palamon. [SPOILERS?] Palamon has just seen Emelya in the garden, and completely lost his shit because her beauty is overwhelming. Arcite hears the cries, assumes they’re the despair of incarceration, and tries to console his cellmate with the above cheery passage about predestination.
It was a challenge to shift from the more comfortable Shakespearean ABAB rhyme scheme to Chaucer’s rhyming couplet pentameter, but a fun one: would play again.
… the month of November
The characters, setting and plot;
When scribes of all ages put novels to pages,
Or (at least) give the challenge a shot.
However, whomever, you write this November,
It all boils down to the text:
Though resolve may diminish, you’ll get to the finish
With one word preceding the next.
Two days in, and I spent yesterday returning from a fantastic holiday and wedding in beautiful Queenstown (I should probably reverse those, but they’re chronological, not in order of importance). So I’m playing catch-up today, after working through a week’s worth of client enquiries and jobs (all done, clients!) collecting the dog and running errands.
This year, I’m breaking the rules if not the spirit of NaNoWriMo: I’m writing a novel that I’ve already started, the sequel to my Fallen Shepherd Saga. However, I won’t cheat, i.e. the first 6,314 words won’t be going toward my total.
That’s it for now, better get back to the characters, and hope I remember where I left them.
So Lisa and I came back from PAX Aus feeling all kinds of inspired about the creative scene in Australasia, and decided that we need to actually follow through on more of our ideas. Our first collaborative project (since the last murder mystery) is an Advent Calendar. Concept and art by Lisa, writing by me.
We’ll be updating it every day until Christmas, and asking for reader input as the story progresses – the album is public on Facebook if you want to participate.
Fatigue is but a word, so far removed
A shadow of the sweaty groans it brings,
When all I need is sleep, and yet unmoved,
I lie and fight his tugging at my strings.
My eyes are crumbling, weary mines of red,
And yet I cannot let the nightmare wake,
To sleep, perchance to usher in the dread,
I’m still aware. I’m vigilant… I break!
As silent shadows slink around my sight,
And blindness bids me stumble into sleep,
I lose my last connection to the light,
And all alone, in darkness do I creep.
And though I call them dreams, I know inside,
I sleep as Jekyll, but I stalk as Hyde!
This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #14. The challenge was a sonnet, with the prompts “fading light” and “discovery.”