A Poem/Rhyme

[Lady Serpent]

This flows best if read aloud.  It has a very specific flow to it.  Feedback and critique is always appreciated.  It came to me in the basement.  (Almost appropriately; surrounded by spiders and fursuits with teeth.)

-----------------


Marionetta,
a curl in your hair,
Why do you dally so?
There are rats in the cellar and a chill in the air;
and it's more than I care to know.
A-Hum,
It's more than I care to know.

Sweet charming girl with a spring in your step
and eyes just as bright as the moon,
Hurry on home through the wind and the wicket;
the witching hour's coming on soon. 
A-Hum;
the witching hour's coming on soon.

Follow the shadow-path cast by the moon,
and let not the stars lead you blind.
Be wary the Wolf of the yellow eye gleaming,
but moreso be wary of time.

Marionetta,
My eyes doth decieve me,
how young and how frail and how sweet;
to be fragile one instant and savage the next,
Pray tell, t'was the wolf you did meet?
A-Hum;
Pray tell, t'was the wolf you did meet!

Now she's a monster, as wild as they come,
with a hunger as deep as the night;
Oh Marionetta, my darling sweet girl,
Which one of us will last the night?
A-Hum?
Which one of us will last the night..

[Josiah]

Really enjoyed this one-- felt very much like an old traditional rhyme from some olden day (night?), you're very good with that. Definitely has a Sephren sort of style to it, though.

I caught the pacing of it easily and it all flows quite well; I like these lines in particular:

Follow the shadow-path cast by the moon,
and let not the stars lead you blind.
Be wary the Wolf of the yellow eye gleaming,
but moreso be wary of time.

to be fragile one instant and savage the next,
Pray tell, t'was the wolf you did meet?

Is the "A-Hum" just a sort of pacing mechanism? I notice its context sort of changes throughout... kinda neat.

Nice job on this for sure.

~Josiah

[Lady Serpent]

Thank you!  I'm glad it has an 'oldish' feel to it; I felt that very much while I was inspired to write it, so I tried to allow it to come through in the words and style.

That's partly the reason for the 'A-hum' insert as well.  I felt it was stylistically reminiscent of something like a nursery-rhyme, which I wanted this to ring of.  I suppose it doesn't hurt that I was bored the other day and read an entire kid's book of nursery-rhyme snippets (terrible thing; it left out half the good parts!), as well as being right near the end of the novel 'Plague Dogs', which has it's own fair share of jovially macabre poetry.

   Thanks for the feedback; always wonderfully appreciated.

[Lady Serpent]

Definitely has a Sephren sort of style to it, though.

Heh, heh.  I definately had a significant moment of thinking "This seems very 'Sephren'... should I put some kind of massive claws in there..? --No, no, I shouldn't."

[Josiah]

Hehe, I'm sure they wouldn't have felt too out of place though.

~Josiah

[Wotan]

My word!

  I think this is the most impressive thing I've ever seen from you, LadyS, and that's really saying something!
  I got a very strong Rudyard Kipling vibe off of this piece, and found myself singing it, rather than reciting it.  (incidentally, it was in the key of D minor)

  Also, major kudos from someone else, who was powerfully moved by 'The Plague Dogs'.  Taboo ta-bye ta-bollocky-aye, we're all for up the chimney...

  I consider it second only to Shardik for being Adams' best book.

  Adams' poetry style borrowed a lot from Kipling and Lewis Carroll as well.

 

 

[Lady Serpent]

*Purrrs deeply*

Thank you, Wotan; that is truly flattering.  It's really a great book.. truly moving at times and certainly a literary marvel throughout.  Some very unexpected and witty lines in there, too.. just wonderful stuff.  I can see where Adams draws inspiration from Kipling; RK's got a unique way of storytelling that seems to hold a lot of influence in Plague Dogs as well.

..I'm hoping they end up saying more about what happened to that poor monkey, though I suppose it might just be my own morbid curiosity rather than any actual desire to find out for the sake of the storyline.  That was one thing that really stuck in (and indeed, probably one of the major statements he's attempting to make with the novel); the idea that everything happening to those animals had in some way taken place already in some form of real-life experimentation, and it really does make one rather disgruntled at the state of the human condition.  Not that I'm any way aligned with the likes of PETA-minded activists, but some of the things we do in the name of science are certainly deplorable, and he doesn't make shy about potraying them bluntly in that novel.

Anyways, I do ramble.  It's a great book, indeed.  Even with any sort of socio-political statements aside, it's just an incredible read.



I do have a question for opinion. though:  I'm looking at the last line, and wondering if it might be better off saying "Which one of us lasts through the night?"  It seems to me to have a bit smoother of a flow.

Does that appear to be an improvement?

[Lady Serpent]

I should expand on that:  I feel there's an unnatural emphasis on 'Which one of us will last the night" that causes it to sound choppy when recited.  If changed, it doesn't change the sound of it, it just changes the words so that they seem to flow out in that beat more naturally.

[Josiah]

Personally, I would take your suggestion and shorten it further to "Which one of us lasts the night?" -- that seems to flow the best to me. Just my opinion

~Josiah

[Wotan]

I think you have a bigger problem in that you use the word 'night' three times in the final stanza.  I find redundancy far more jarring.
  Personally, I think I would change the 'with hunger as deep as the night' line to something like 'with hunger that has no respite'.

  And to smooth up the prosody on the last couplet, I might suggest: "only one of us will last through the night."

  If you read it as so:   * * | / * | * * | / * | * /  or:  only one of us will last through the night.

[Lady Serpent]

Wotan:  Ahh, of course.  I see how I missed that completely.  I do try to watch for that type of thing, but I played with that second line for a very long time before settling on 'night'.

Perhaps "With a hunger that has no respite".  I am also considering "And snarling a terrible fright."  I feel it has a bit more urgency to it, which was the intention in that section; to realise that she'd become the beast.


Josiah:  I do believe the line needs to be changed, but to change it to "Which one of us lasts the night" would bring it back to the beat of the very first paragraph.  In a way, that would be a nice closure; to bring it back to how it originated, but I can't help but feel that it doesn't feel quite right in my mind.  The first stanza starts slow, and the rest of the 'finishing lines' at the base of each following stanza all have an extra two syllables added to them, which to me adds to the urgency.

The first:

It's more than I care to know.

(Which seems to be 'softer' or 'slower' with only 6 syllables.)

The rest: (all with 8 syllables.)

The witching hour's coming on soon.
But moreso be wary of time
Pray tell, t'was the wolf you did meet!
Which one of us lasts through the night..

By changing the words but not the actual syllable number, the final line still seems to keep the same 'beat' that matches the rest of the paragaph.  But to remove the word 'will' matches it to the first paragraph, thus slowing it down again.  Not sure if that's what I would like to do here, but it's certainly an option.  Perhaps I'm not entirely open to it yet because I'm stuck on the one rythym for the moment, but I'll certainly revisit the idea when I'm fresh again.

Thank you both very much for the feedback. 

[Josiah]

Ahh, well both of you certainly know more about poetry than I, hehe. I'm sure you'll find what's best for it.

~Josiah

[Lady Serpent]

If you read it as so:   * * | / * | * * | / * | * /  or:  only one of us will last through the night.

If I'm reading it correctly, does that blend 'one-of-us-will' very tightly together, so it must be spoken very quickly?  I feel that that the extra 'through' in there (coupled with the two-syllabled 'only' at the start) adds too much bulk in that one, at least as far as I'm reading it.

If I were to remove 'through' from the version above, it still puts the odd emphasis on the words so that they don't seem spoken naturally.  ('will', in particular, when it doesn't feel that the word needs extra emphasis.)

..Unless you meant 'which one of us will last through the night?  Then, I think that could work.

[blue-vulpine]

I think this is the first of your poetry that I've read. It's really well written in the style, and the atmosphere is set nicely. Also great job on the flow!

I don't know much about poetry or the mechanics behind it, so I can't offer anything but compliments, not that this isn't deserving. ^^;
So here goes:

Woo!! Nice Job!

*Wishes he could be more like James Lipton*
haha Keep it up!

-TJ

[Wotan]

If you read it as so:   * * | / * | * * | / * | * /  or:  only one of us will last through the night.

If I'm reading it correctly, does that blend 'one-of-us-will' very tightly together, so it must be spoken very quickly?  I feel that that the extra 'through' in there (coupled with the two-syllabled 'only' at the start) adds too much bulk in that one, at least as far as I'm reading it.

If I were to remove 'through' from the version above, it still puts the odd emphasis on the words so that they don't seem spoken naturally.  ('will', in particular, when it doesn't feel that the word needs extra emphasis.)

..Unless you meant 'which one of us will last through the night?  Then, I think that could work.

  Lady S, you're right about the word-blending, but a little off with how I had thought it should be recited.

  The blending occurs at 'one-of-us' and then 'through-the-night'.  'will last' is said a bit slower than 'one of us'.  Try reading the line with that particular stress, and see if it sounds better.