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fandom sonnets
A couple of months ago I was on a Shakespeare kick and offered to write fandom-sonnets for people. While in Mooloolaba I finished almost all of them, so this is going to be a long long post of personalised iambic pentameter. YAY. Huge apologies to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
genarti and madbonnycaptain, the only two whose requests I haven't filled yet. I'll get there! (Though, Beth, if you'd like to request someone other than Lear, I'll get there...sooner. I've only read the play once. Um. Some other fandom, maybe? I am slightly Shakespeared-out.)
Comments on your own sonnet and/or anyone else's would be appreciated. I've never written this many poems in such a short time before and I'm still leery of the quality. Most of them are second-person because apparently I am incapable of writing any other POV at the moment.
I'll kick off with the original sonnet that started the idea, too.
Juliet
Step one: the soothing circle of the gun,
circumference of something-small-times-pi,
pressed into temple's niche. Here ends step one.
(Remember this; you'll need it by and by.)
Step two: a love whose hot and rabid flame,
whose ev'ry arcane kiss, each stifled moan,
will make the poets name (what's in a name?)
you misadventured - pitied - overthrown.
Step three: remove from heat and stir in rage
and calumny. Sobs tear apart your breath.
And then (please see step one) your empty cage;
your star-cross'd fate. His face is calm in death.
No birds, no doves the blast will agitate
(too early to be heard, and found too -
~
War - fordopplegl
Your cheeks are sunset, reeking blood, all flush
with healthy death and treachery and fright
and all those things that dwell in shell-shocked hush.
You're every boy, his fingers turning white
around the handle of a flimsy sword,
his mother's voice still singing in his head
of peace and love and life. (And then you're bored.
And then you laugh, and then the boy is dead.)
You're Armageddon dressed up in a suit
and killer smile, the gift that never gives.
You're war-songs, heartbeat, scored for drums and flute;
a gun; a weight; the hopelessness that lives
in muddy trenches all throughout the world;
a boy's thin corpse, the fingers now uncurled.
~
safe as houses - Mercutio, fornextian
Queen Mab is no mere midwife to the court
of fae and Delphi mist; each night you dream,
each night you wake all drenched in fears unsought.
In sleep you're killed and yet you never scream,
and Romeo puts on a mask to say:
I see you now as though you were a ghost
before the ball begins. You dance away
and you are lost; him, found; the crowd, engrossed.
You dream your death in gorgeous bloodied youth,
and just as all the dreams start to disperse
you turn and see a sudden perfect truth:
Verona's own must bear their given curse.
(On you the dreaming, frightening and vague;
on Montague and Capulet, a plague.)
~
Tybalt - fortahira_saki
The County Paris nods and smiles, not far
from where you stand. You barely bow. And that's
all that's expected, knowing who you are:
one Tybalt, nobleman and prince (of Cats).
Behind your eyes sparks helpless jealous lust
for she whose hand he takes. Thoughts wild, impure.
But Juliet is young and she will trust
her kinsman's word; for that, you will endure.
She thinks you're good for nothing, though, but war;
her Capulet blood spilled out through your veins
(inside you're raging: useless fucking whore)
and turned to mud. And yet. Yet there remains
none that you love quite like your father's niece,
and nothing that you hate so much as peace.
~
Parenthetical - Guildenstern, forvillainny.
You tell yourself it's just one simple thing
to say. And so: "Lord Hamlet, are you mad?"
He sighs, looks down, as though remembering
his father's death. (It's really rather sad.)
"More wine, good Guildenstern?" he says instead.
(Why not?) "I like the game but not the rules,"
he says; the wine is rushing to your head;
the two of you are questing blind, like fools.
When Hamlet leaves, you groan. "We were to quiz
him on the past," your tongue feels odd, "divine
the ver- vera- the truth. This madness - is
it feel or rake?" Room spins. He whores more pine
(dear Rosencrantz!), he waves his arms. "SURPRISE!
He's mad!" "He'ssnot. It's all a lack of pies."
~
Madonna - Caliban, forunravels
Miranda's hair is windswept in the gale,
all wild as her disdain. The moon's in wax
and she is scared of me; it wanes, she's pale
with hate. "Trust not a maid," said Sycorax,
who did speak true (though now she's silent, trapped
in bark). Miranda sits beneath that tree
and watches all her father's arts. Quite rapt
and dull she seems, though all is plain to me:
she's cleverer than Prospero can ken,
a wilder magic filling her from eyes
to smudged bare feet, and growing. Now and then
I itch to hold her, shake her, taste the lies
of this new witch whose cruelty is yet young
and subtly hid, her power yet unsung.
~
hithering - Puck, forloki013
You lived by luck and tricks aimed to disarm
until you met one Oberon, called King,
whose power drew you near. "You've quite the charm,"
he said, "a tart and flimsy little thing."
His voice was soft and eyes were dark; your luck
could aid you none and all your tricks fell short.
"Such games I have for you," he said, "my Puck -
I'll have you race the winds, fell trees, consort
with fae and sprites." Now, servitude has ne'er
become you well, but when he spoke your name
you thrilled and thought perhaps this yoke I'll bear;
for him, I'll play along. This, then, the game
of Oberon and Puck: to play at slave
and lord, to laugh at fate, and misbehave.
~
Feste - forschiarire
The sounds of love are no great music to
my ears, and even less my heart (if such
an organ resonates, hums through and through
with song - its pipes are veins, its bloody touch
through pulse and never pedals). I may sing
of lovers: boys and girls and girls as boys
and all the touching stories life can bring
into my hands, but in the end these joys
are endless only in the words and notes.
True love is finite, merciless and strange;
all fictions set aside, true love denotes
a sacrifice that may not weather change
but changes as the weather. Search in vain
for love - trust rather in the wind and rain.
~
Ophelia - forcrazylittleme
Sing roses, love, sing heather-fronds and leaves
of green and slender thorns, sing bloodied hands
and Gertrude's mouth, which trembles as she grieves
for Hamlet's mind. (He shouts and makes demands
of you, but then weaves pansies through your hair,
all gentle-kind.) Sing flowing streams so deep
they swallow you and strip your heart quite bare,
sing tangled slimy weeds, a bed to keep
you safe from biting petals, Hamlet's rage,
the cloak-and-dagger halls of Elsinore.
Sing bitter cups of wine and herbs, of sage
and lemon thyme. Your brother's hands (the gore
consumes). Sing death, sing one day I'll be free
to paint the skies, and gather rosemary.
~
as we know it - Jack Harkness, forliminalliz
(Please note that in my accent, 'arms' actually does rhyme with 'palms'.)
Last night you didn't sleep, you dreamt (like in
the song!). You dreamt the past, a distant night
when - shiny happy people - you poured gin
and bubbled like the stars, drunk with delight,
three laughing musketeers of time and space.
From here the dream turned dark, grew warped and sour:
a memory of kissing him (your face
drawn tight with fear), and of that crowded hour
in which you died. A breath. A swooping kind
of sound, a box made of translucent blue.
This fading light then twisted in your mind
and formed the outline of a shape you knew:
a smile that spanned the breadth of suns; two arms,
two legs; two hearts that beat beneath your palms.
~
Narrative Imperative - Lee Adama, forstars_like_dust
A mortal Artemis has split your lip
again - the second time this month, you'll swear
to her, but she'll just laugh (too loud) and flip
the bird (her bird) right in your face (midair).
To walk a myth requires faith (in her;
not in yourself, nor in the gods, nor laws
of any kind). You won't let it deter
you - sun-god missing grass and normal doors
and life that's lived outside the myth - her smile
is worth the risk (and your tight lips still bleed;
but every god and man must see his trial
through to the end, and that means blood). Your need
will wait her out; for her you'll fall, undone,
Apollo's myth reworked around her sun.
~
Bonus sonnet! Also written in Mooloolaba, though if it's for any character it's for the narrator of one of my original pieces.
Dynamic Logic
I find myself in urgent need of some
neat synthesis; this dialectic, drawn
too far, now wants for middle ground. I'm numb
with watching you, your graceless joy, and torn
between my jealousy and its not-quite
negation; my irrational fear, disgust,
and long-determined stance to never bite
that bullet, taste dependence, swallow trust.
My Hegelist approach dictates the flow
into a compromising state, but I
can't think of any way that this could go
that doesn't end as such: I will deny
that John Donne's lack of islands sets us free,
and every bell that tolls will toll for me.
genarti and madbonnycaptain, the only two whose requests I haven't filled yet. I'll get there! (Though, Beth, if you'd like to request someone other than Lear, I'll get there...sooner. I've only read the play once. Um. Some other fandom, maybe? I am slightly Shakespeared-out.) Comments on your own sonnet and/or anyone else's would be appreciated. I've never written this many poems in such a short time before and I'm still leery of the quality. Most of them are second-person because apparently I am incapable of writing any other POV at the moment.
I'll kick off with the original sonnet that started the idea, too.
Juliet
Step one: the soothing circle of the gun,
circumference of something-small-times-pi,
pressed into temple's niche. Here ends step one.
(Remember this; you'll need it by and by.)
Step two: a love whose hot and rabid flame,
whose ev'ry arcane kiss, each stifled moan,
will make the poets name (what's in a name?)
you misadventured - pitied - overthrown.
Step three: remove from heat and stir in rage
and calumny. Sobs tear apart your breath.
And then (please see step one) your empty cage;
your star-cross'd fate. His face is calm in death.
No birds, no doves the blast will agitate
(too early to be heard, and found too -
~
War - for
doppleglYour cheeks are sunset, reeking blood, all flush
with healthy death and treachery and fright
and all those things that dwell in shell-shocked hush.
You're every boy, his fingers turning white
around the handle of a flimsy sword,
his mother's voice still singing in his head
of peace and love and life. (And then you're bored.
And then you laugh, and then the boy is dead.)
You're Armageddon dressed up in a suit
and killer smile, the gift that never gives.
You're war-songs, heartbeat, scored for drums and flute;
a gun; a weight; the hopelessness that lives
in muddy trenches all throughout the world;
a boy's thin corpse, the fingers now uncurled.
~
safe as houses - Mercutio, for
nextianQueen Mab is no mere midwife to the court
of fae and Delphi mist; each night you dream,
each night you wake all drenched in fears unsought.
In sleep you're killed and yet you never scream,
and Romeo puts on a mask to say:
I see you now as though you were a ghost
before the ball begins. You dance away
and you are lost; him, found; the crowd, engrossed.
You dream your death in gorgeous bloodied youth,
and just as all the dreams start to disperse
you turn and see a sudden perfect truth:
Verona's own must bear their given curse.
(On you the dreaming, frightening and vague;
on Montague and Capulet, a plague.)
~
Tybalt - for
tahira_sakiThe County Paris nods and smiles, not far
from where you stand. You barely bow. And that's
all that's expected, knowing who you are:
one Tybalt, nobleman and prince (of Cats).
Behind your eyes sparks helpless jealous lust
for she whose hand he takes. Thoughts wild, impure.
But Juliet is young and she will trust
her kinsman's word; for that, you will endure.
She thinks you're good for nothing, though, but war;
her Capulet blood spilled out through your veins
(inside you're raging: useless fucking whore)
and turned to mud. And yet. Yet there remains
none that you love quite like your father's niece,
and nothing that you hate so much as peace.
~
Parenthetical - Guildenstern, for
villainny.You tell yourself it's just one simple thing
to say. And so: "Lord Hamlet, are you mad?"
He sighs, looks down, as though remembering
his father's death. (It's really rather sad.)
"More wine, good Guildenstern?" he says instead.
(Why not?) "I like the game but not the rules,"
he says; the wine is rushing to your head;
the two of you are questing blind, like fools.
When Hamlet leaves, you groan. "We were to quiz
him on the past," your tongue feels odd, "divine
the ver- vera- the truth. This madness - is
it feel or rake?" Room spins. He whores more pine
(dear Rosencrantz!), he waves his arms. "SURPRISE!
He's mad!" "He'ssnot. It's all a lack of pies."
~
Madonna - Caliban, for
unravelsMiranda's hair is windswept in the gale,
all wild as her disdain. The moon's in wax
and she is scared of me; it wanes, she's pale
with hate. "Trust not a maid," said Sycorax,
who did speak true (though now she's silent, trapped
in bark). Miranda sits beneath that tree
and watches all her father's arts. Quite rapt
and dull she seems, though all is plain to me:
she's cleverer than Prospero can ken,
a wilder magic filling her from eyes
to smudged bare feet, and growing. Now and then
I itch to hold her, shake her, taste the lies
of this new witch whose cruelty is yet young
and subtly hid, her power yet unsung.
~
hithering - Puck, for
loki013You lived by luck and tricks aimed to disarm
until you met one Oberon, called King,
whose power drew you near. "You've quite the charm,"
he said, "a tart and flimsy little thing."
His voice was soft and eyes were dark; your luck
could aid you none and all your tricks fell short.
"Such games I have for you," he said, "my Puck -
I'll have you race the winds, fell trees, consort
with fae and sprites." Now, servitude has ne'er
become you well, but when he spoke your name
you thrilled and thought perhaps this yoke I'll bear;
for him, I'll play along. This, then, the game
of Oberon and Puck: to play at slave
and lord, to laugh at fate, and misbehave.
~
Feste - for
schiarireThe sounds of love are no great music to
my ears, and even less my heart (if such
an organ resonates, hums through and through
with song - its pipes are veins, its bloody touch
through pulse and never pedals). I may sing
of lovers: boys and girls and girls as boys
and all the touching stories life can bring
into my hands, but in the end these joys
are endless only in the words and notes.
True love is finite, merciless and strange;
all fictions set aside, true love denotes
a sacrifice that may not weather change
but changes as the weather. Search in vain
for love - trust rather in the wind and rain.
~
Ophelia - for
crazylittlemeSing roses, love, sing heather-fronds and leaves
of green and slender thorns, sing bloodied hands
and Gertrude's mouth, which trembles as she grieves
for Hamlet's mind. (He shouts and makes demands
of you, but then weaves pansies through your hair,
all gentle-kind.) Sing flowing streams so deep
they swallow you and strip your heart quite bare,
sing tangled slimy weeds, a bed to keep
you safe from biting petals, Hamlet's rage,
the cloak-and-dagger halls of Elsinore.
Sing bitter cups of wine and herbs, of sage
and lemon thyme. Your brother's hands (the gore
consumes). Sing death, sing one day I'll be free
to paint the skies, and gather rosemary.
~
as we know it - Jack Harkness, for
liminalliz(Please note that in my accent, 'arms' actually does rhyme with 'palms'.)
Last night you didn't sleep, you dreamt (like in
the song!). You dreamt the past, a distant night
when - shiny happy people - you poured gin
and bubbled like the stars, drunk with delight,
three laughing musketeers of time and space.
From here the dream turned dark, grew warped and sour:
a memory of kissing him (your face
drawn tight with fear), and of that crowded hour
in which you died. A breath. A swooping kind
of sound, a box made of translucent blue.
This fading light then twisted in your mind
and formed the outline of a shape you knew:
a smile that spanned the breadth of suns; two arms,
two legs; two hearts that beat beneath your palms.
~
Narrative Imperative - Lee Adama, for
stars_like_dustA mortal Artemis has split your lip
again - the second time this month, you'll swear
to her, but she'll just laugh (too loud) and flip
the bird (her bird) right in your face (midair).
To walk a myth requires faith (in her;
not in yourself, nor in the gods, nor laws
of any kind). You won't let it deter
you - sun-god missing grass and normal doors
and life that's lived outside the myth - her smile
is worth the risk (and your tight lips still bleed;
but every god and man must see his trial
through to the end, and that means blood). Your need
will wait her out; for her you'll fall, undone,
Apollo's myth reworked around her sun.
~
Bonus sonnet! Also written in Mooloolaba, though if it's for any character it's for the narrator of one of my original pieces.
Dynamic Logic
I find myself in urgent need of some
neat synthesis; this dialectic, drawn
too far, now wants for middle ground. I'm numb
with watching you, your graceless joy, and torn
between my jealousy and its not-quite
negation; my irrational fear, disgust,
and long-determined stance to never bite
that bullet, taste dependence, swallow trust.
My Hegelist approach dictates the flow
into a compromising state, but I
can't think of any way that this could go
that doesn't end as such: I will deny
that John Donne's lack of islands sets us free,
and every bell that tolls will toll for me.
no subject
(I still think you ought to watch the show Slings & Arrows and then do one for Geoffrey Tennant, but that's a bit intense as research goes for a single sonnet, I admit.)
... >_>
Can I get one for Thom?
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1) Okay, see, that's hot, which rather fails, actually, to surprise me. Not sure whether that reflects on you, me, or Thom. Maybe all three. Regardless: ♥.
2) How about Midsummer's Nick Bottom, for someone actually Shakespearean?
no subject
Check out the moon pics I took the other night (my first astrophotos) they're full of mooney goodness.
http://kcdl.livejournal.com/56781.html
no subject
Those are gorgeous shots! Keep posting your photos, I'm always interested in that kind of thing.
no subject
Beside I'm far to tired to read, or more importantly appreciate, your work at the moment. Your work is always good though. I hope you find time before, during or after your career in medicine to publish something, no joke.
...and yes I a shameless self-promoter, who else is going to it :P
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HELLO JI.
*crawls over and shares chocolate*
no subject
*partakes of chocolate*
no subject
*passes chocolate over and wanders off into the far-too-hot night*
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On the other hand, I'll also be out the door.
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I am so envious of your ability to rhyme and seamlessly enjamb. I can never manage to avoid neat little packaged lines.
no subject
For you, Tempest music (http://www.box.net/public/3yab6bi7nm)! This is one of my favorites.
no subject
Which is to say, hooray sonnets! Marvelous et cetera, I am too mired in schoolwork to wax eloquent about them, but they make me wish I could. ♥
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These are all awesome. I marvel at anyone who can write a competant sonnet, and these are ever so much more than just competant. *rereads happily*
no subject
or possibly just Mal/River, which makes more sense. Maybe I'll shut up now.These are still the most beautiful things (except for Fortuna Fugit) ever.