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The lights are on in no-one’s pome
and all the cats have gone to play --
lock up before the rats come home.
Let slip the dogs in disco foam
as ravers rant the dark away;
the lights are on in no-one’s pome,
says Cleopatra, when in Rome
a bare asp makes the party gay
(lock up before the rats come home)
With two blind mice and one fat gnome,
they lit the blue boy’s stack of hay;
the lights are on in no-one’s pome.
An end awaits in monochrome
where all the hollow men are grey --
lock up before the rats come home.
We’ll renovate the pleasure dome
and wait where bottoms softly bray --
the lights are on in no-one’s pome,
lock up before the rats come home.
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There should be a contest to name every allusion.
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Just trying to catch up to Eliot, via the silly villy.
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"We’ll renovate the pleasure dome
and wait where bottoms softly bray"
You should be feeling appreciated. Right.... about.... NOW!
(Said the braying bottom.)
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
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Braying bottoms are the most poetic kind.
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I'm with Milo on the allusions. It reads quite smoothly, I think the tetrameter might work better than pentameter because it connects the rhymes quicker.
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(07-19-2013, 09:51 PM)Brownlie Wrote: I'm with Milo on the allusions. It reads quite smoothly, I think the tetrameter might work better than pentameter because it connects the rhymes quicker.
you are correct in that tetrameter is the best choice for this poem. Leanne takes her silly verse very seriously so she picked tetrameter because it automatically lends a sense of fun and whimsy to this vill. This was the author's choice and it was calculated and deliberate.
You might do well to try a couple of silly vills to help you learn the form, they are great.
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Tetrameter's the rock and roll meter
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(07-20-2013, 06:49 AM)Leanne Wrote: Tetrameter's the rock and roll meter 
true rock uses ballad meter:
"Just sit right back and you'll here a tale . . ."
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(07-20-2013, 07:52 AM)milo Wrote: (07-20-2013, 06:49 AM)Leanne Wrote: Tetrameter's the rock and roll meter  true rock uses ballad meter:
"Just sit right back and you'll here a tale . . ."
segmented 4/3 heptámetron
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(07-20-2013, 08:27 AM)rayheinrich Wrote: segmented 4/3 heptámetron
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Yeah, you could look at it that way, but... nope. No sense complicating what has been known as ballad measure for at least 500 years.
Although that's only true if the songs use iambs. Take Stairway to Heaven, for example -- mostly alternating anapestic tetrameter/trimeter... now, if only Jim and Bob had tried a villanelle now and then, they might have stayed in obscure poverty like the rest of us true geniuses...
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(07-20-2013, 08:34 AM)Leanne Wrote: (07-20-2013, 08:27 AM)rayheinrich Wrote: segmented 4/3 heptámetron
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Yeah, you could look at it that way, but... nope. No sense complicating what has been known as ballad measure for at least 500 years.
Although that's only true if the songs use iambs. Take Stairway to Heaven, for example -- mostly alternating anapestic tetrameter/trimeter... now, if only Jim and Bob had tried a villanelle now and then, they might have stayed in obscure poverty like the rest of us true geniuses...
yah, at least no one questioned that the theme to Gilligan's Island is the standard to which all rock should be measured, then we'd have a fight!
Realising that true "ballad meter" or "common meter" is always iambic, what do we call 4-3-4-3 anapestic? Just segmented anapestic heptamatron 4/3?
I tried to write a tersa rima like that. It came out . . . strange.
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I used to always write sonnets in heptameter. I still like them better that way.
Rules are for breaking -- as long as it's obvious you're breaking them, not just ignorant of them.
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yeah true, it's shit compared to leanne's well written piece which carries more than the face value message, that said, so are most others.
the bugger of it is i love it, not because of the quality but because you tried to do one. plus it's in the for fun section
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yeah and an inspiration for others. i'll be trying to do something later on after a bit of golf
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(07-20-2013, 12:34 PM)trueenigma Wrote: I like your villanelles Leanne, silly or not. Here's an example of how much better they are than mine:
When we rock out, the stadium crowd
always tears the proscenium down --
while we shout out these songs against guitars so loud,
so distorted with feedback, that people have vowed
that their ears did so bleed from the sound.
When we rock out the stadium crowd
with our gladius swords, all the stands overcrowd --
like the old coliseums of Rome -- they all pound
on the bleachers while shouting our lyrics out loud.
Hey man, rock to the roll! Get up! Dance! Make us proud!
You have got to get up if you wanna get down
when we rock out the stadium crowd.
It is silly, this vill I am writing aloud.
it is more than just silly as bringing in clowns
while we shout out these songs against guitars so loud
I can't hear from this ear anymore. I have cowed
myself, quit. I can't finish it. Dammit. I frown
when we rock out the stadium crowd,
while we shout out these songs against guitars so loud.
Oops, three footed refrain. Lol
Made me laugh... job done
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