Journal Interrobang's Journal: The Courtly Lovers, Yet Another Foray Into Poetry 10
Did Tristan and Isolde pass their days
With salon tongues, or did
Romeo and Juliet converse like old friends
From more than balconies?
No! They knew the language
Of love, of old
They understood the blazon
Of hair, of eye, of face and form,
The subtle speech of gesture and touch.
Thus the pavane went on.
You and I, partners,
Know the old tongue
We reach with hands outstretched
To each other in a magnificent slow bransle
We who know the old, silent, salient speech.
We catalogue each other
In the ancient blazons
As mute supporting charges
We can hold each other
In silence.
We never touch,
But like calls to like
In the simple old dialect of love.
Where Percival and Blanchefleur went
Were they wreathed with words
As many as the crosses on his shield?
They had the gaze, the touch, the clasping pose
The courtly purity of the old ways
And that was enough
For all of their their brief moments;
Star-crossed, even as we
Came together in a brief unspoken time,
A mise-en-abime, diminishing a summer,
Drowned out forever by words, words, words.
If I listen, I can hear the silence still.
With salon tongues, or did
Romeo and Juliet converse like old friends
From more than balconies?
No! They knew the language
Of love, of old
They understood the blazon
Of hair, of eye, of face and form,
The subtle speech of gesture and touch.
Thus the pavane went on.
You and I, partners,
Know the old tongue
We reach with hands outstretched
To each other in a magnificent slow bransle
We who know the old, silent, salient speech.
We catalogue each other
In the ancient blazons
As mute supporting charges
We can hold each other
In silence.
We never touch,
But like calls to like
In the simple old dialect of love.
Where Percival and Blanchefleur went
Were they wreathed with words
As many as the crosses on his shield?
They had the gaze, the touch, the clasping pose
The courtly purity of the old ways
And that was enough
For all of their their brief moments;
Star-crossed, even as we
Came together in a brief unspoken time,
A mise-en-abime, diminishing a summer,
Drowned out forever by words, words, words.
If I listen, I can hear the silence still.
Geez (Score:1)
Songs of yourself (Score:2)
Know the old tongue
We reach with hands outstretched
To each other in a magnificent slow bransle
We who know the old, silent, salient speech.
We catalogue each other
In the ancient blazons
As mute supporting charges
We can hold each other
In silence.
reminds me of a short story from Island, by McLeod [amazon.com].
I challenge thee to a duel (Score:2)
As though they were more
Than bombast and thunder
Signifying nothing
Vituperative verbal volleys
Of thrust, parry, and counterthrust
Have triumphed over old lethargic broadsides
Those layers of fat and peeling skin
That listless aged pervs
Thrust onto tongues of lovers lithe and shiny
Now is the iron age
Let go of bronze
Cast off your stone shackles
Don't dress your prose in simile
When worldly wit
Brings smile to the face of gods
Let dead tongues lie
Or something.^
Okay, you're on! --whack!-- (Score:2)
An old code pursued just for fun
Like punchcards in an endless run --
A batch job hardly elegant
But suited to the task at hand:
Describing arms, describing signs
Graphic, or tender, designs.
Those blazons from that timeless land
Serve to speak the words of love
For those who lack the social skill
To pursue courting with a will
And method of the sort heard of
In meat-racks and pulp fiction trash.
For those who speak the language well
It serves to make our passion swell,
Yet we
My Poetry-Fu is Strong (Score:2)
Saw fit to spread like marzipan
Upon their naughty dialogues --
The vedas for upanishads --
Means little in this day and age
For world has burrowed from its cage
And freed its might from foggy bounds
To flex indeed its brain profound.
To freeze oneself in wordy prose
Would only make one more morose.
One cannot second-guess progress
Or seek to hide away sun's zest
Beneath the cover of a cloud
Or steal the gurgling of a brook
Within a bulging concrete nook
To drown out sound lo
You're no match for an eloquent Villanelle! (Score:2)
Who cannot hear the pleading of a heart?
What ancient writers knew we strive to teach.
When modern pleading flies from each to each
At the speed of light, though we're apart,
Who can ignore silence when dressed as speech?
When modern loves proclaim with strident screech
The courtly lovers play a silent part.
What ancient writers knew we strive to teach --
And as we always practice what we preach
When living by that ancient rule of art,
Who can ignore silence
Re:You're no match for an eloquent Villanelle! (Score:2)
You are tres leet
And the villanelle is neat;
Randomly enough, you win Crete*.
* Minotaurs not included;)
Re: (Score:2)
lovely. (Score:2)