Poetry Chess Game -- Brandon vs. Todd

[brandontoh]

Rowens: Sorry I missed your question. No she didn't put in the semicolon. =) What kind of dream about her, I wonder.

Todd: Yours is such a pessimistic poem. I especially like the first and third stanza, they have clear imageries that work well.

The next one is a sedoka! We done forms that must rhyme, now to a form the must not rhyme!

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/sedoka.html


Rh3

Why do people try,
When all hope abandoned them
And they know the fight pointless?

To go out in style;
To never stop your struggle.
This is what being human means.

------------------------------------
Oh wow, this poem sucks. Darn. I'm beginning to think that writing the moment I wake up is a bad idea.

[Todd]

Here's my shot at the form and my move:

One Flower Hidden in a Field

h5

Spirit of the rock,
a talisman for sickness
for those who fear the dark time.

This time is bright chrome.
We pray to actuaries,
as death might hear statistics.

[rowens]

Rowens: Sorry I missed your question. No she didn't put in the semicolon. =) What kind of dream about her, I wonder.

A bad dream.

[brandontoh]

That form feels like an extended senryu. I don't really like it though. It's quite a weird one. The next one is free verse, because I'm doing it on my iPhone.

Rowens: Do give us the details.

The March
g4

What used to be
The green canopy
And impressive velvet
Is now a mere shell scrape.

Not enough room
To stretch, to even stand.

They marched to make merry,
For their favourite child.
Wistful imagining
Removed bloodshed,
And made heroes out of them.

They then marched back to sleep,
Cramped in the bunk.

Until the veteran yellow is awarded,
And they keep warm with dust blankets.
The toy soldiers miss the march,
Wishing upon the light sliver

To tread ever so softly
On the green canopy once again.

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

This is more like a first draft than anything, now that I read it again. Written when I was feeling rather frustrated. Writing on the iPhone is not as easy or convenient as its supposed to be.

[Todd]

Its got some nice potential. I like it. Its worth developing and workshoping. I'll post something soon.

[rowens]

Rowens: Do give us the details.

I don't even know what I have to do with this chess game.

I'm out of place all over the place.

My younger sister liked Taylor Swift a lot, some years ago. I'm a quasi-smart man; so I contacted Taylor Swift, and filled her in on this idea I had for her to cut a single for Hallowe'en that had a cover of Roky Erickson's "Stand For the Fire Demon" as a B-side. Well, she thought that was pretty damn weird. They all do, they all do. No matter how sweet they are.

Well, I had this phantasy where I got Taylor Swift to come perform for my younger sister's birthday. And then, some how, she runs out of gas on the way out of town, and she comes back to use our phone, and I'm the only one here... and she decides she's too tired to deal with traffic, so you know...

So I guess that triggered a thought of her in my deeper thoughts. And I had this dream last night that Taylor Swift released this very sexually explicit album. And all her old fans got mad, and were destroying her records.

I have all kinds of dreams I have no business making public. But, hey... you asked.

"There is no subject, and he is its poet." The king is dead! Long live the king!

[brandontoh]

Now, maybe the songs in the album are about you. We all know Taylor Swift has a habit of writing songs regarding her gazillion ex boyfriends. So your subconscious is telling you how beastly a man you are.

[rowens]

I'm a good guy. I'm not some hardcore maniac like a Jonas Brother or the recent Kennedy. I'm a nice, clean cut southern boy. I could give her a good life. Then she can stop cutting records and start cooking dinner.

But in the words of Leanne, this has bugger-all to do with this chess game.

[Todd]

After reviewing your last move. I'm already dead. If you placed that pawn it was over. I thought to go through the motions, but I think its better to take the cleaner death. Nice game.

Here's my last act. No title for this one.

Black resigns

a cough of black smoke
ash drifts with bamboo blossoms
seeds wait underground


—--------
Fun game, we wrote quite a few poems. This has been one of my most creative activities in a long while. I hope you had as much fun with it as I did. Now to assess what we've written.

Best,

Todd

[brandontoh]

Darn. I was hoping to write more. Yeah I had lots of fun too. More than the chess game, it's the marathon style writing that makes it so fun. Give me an hour. I'll be putting everything on the first page once I'm home. We each wrote slightly less than 30 poems. The move count is a convenient way to tell.

[Todd]

Brandon, the edit you made in the first post is awesome. Seeing all the moves and poems that way really makes the game stand out.

Here's a weblink to an online chess board I used to follow along. It would be a good tool if anyone else wanted to do this or simply follow along.

http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php

[brandontoh]

I didn't use a board until move 13, then I set up a real board. Anyways, on to the poems! The ones I like most from you were 'A Spy’s Lament Upon Retirement', 'A Conversation with the Magician’s Rabbit', 'Newton's Cradle', 'Recipe For Escape', 'Happily Never After', 'Every Snowflake', and 'I Wrote My Suicide Note'. You wrote a lot of nice stuff here! One thing I realised doing this is that it'll familiarise you with someone's writing style. Whether that is good or bad, I don't know. Maybe it's neither.

[Todd]

Yeah, things like this would make you familiar with someone's style. I once read a collection of Charles Simic, noted his common symbols and themes and then wrote a poem in his style. It was just another way to stretch boundaries.