More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
13 September
A few days back, on an inspiration, I pasted in a poem from The Spoonbill Generator (to which I was one of the collaborators), and I thought that I'd just quote from my latest comment on that posting:
With perhaps one exception, I either knew all the contributors to that particular poem personally (one of them was the person who set up The Spoonbill Generator, which I urge you to look at - I believe that I have given a link to the web-site in my posting), or I knew of them through one of those people.
If you look at the whole of TSG, there are many poems that - one way or another - did not work, but this was a good mix of writers, many of whom had (as I had) long experience of The Generator and / or had written in a collaborative vein before.
It also just happened that the poem succeeded in giving rise to a common enthusiasm. Other poems are in TSG's Hall of Fame, and are marked out in the main listing of finished poems by five stars.
All poems were mediated through the webs-site, with each person participating - such were the rules - only able to add one line at a time, so one could think of a couplet, but never add it (except by telepathy!).
Sadly, The Generator has not been functional for some while...
Tweet away @TheAgentApsley
Showing posts with label The Spoonbill Generator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Spoonbill Generator. Show all posts
Monday, 12 September 2011
Friday, 9 September 2011
A tribute to times past : 'Big Custard', a multi-author work
More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
10 September
Big Custard
Warm in nutritious mulch, we germinate, [E Greejius]
And of ourselves we feed; some lesser fry [Roland]
Lie dormant still, by spring's alarm untouched, [P]
From summer’s bounty barred. Why, when the years [E Greejius]
Give notice of denial, may we not [Roland]
Like locksmiths turn our newest tumblers loose [P]
Upon the lawn, and, from a brimming jug [Roland]
Drown somnolence in alcoholic cheer [P]
And deep contentment? No; for when we strive [Roland]
To summon up the moon's most hoary face [P]
In stiff remembrance, clouded with remorse [Roland]
The merest hint of which would spell the end [The Agent Apsley]
Of time's imposture, all our withered shadows [P]
Die a-borning, pent beyond the veil. [Roland]
How best conjure, by faith, such fruitful yield [E Greejius]
When all around the land lies burnt and sere [TG]
with stagnant salt-pans, dearth's memorial. [E Greejius]
We strive, but striving know that we shall fail [TG]
In such endeavours as, when disavowed, [Roland]
Will tempt the feet of those who walk the waves [P]
In saviour's guise. Yet awe, in sighs of sleep [Roland]
Will cause our eyes to widen, noses flare [TG]
Like stallions in the dawn. Hope glimmers still [KT]
Though in another's eyes; and in defeat [Roland]
Our troubled curses make the sun turn pale [P]
Though not so pale, perhaps, as heretofore [Roland]
For, strengthened now by victims' blood, it turns [P]
In orbit caustic, shadowing a tryst [Roland]
A spiteful meeting at the coven's wrath [P]
Which heralds tragedy for this sad realm [TG]
Yet even so, the lily spares no scent [Roland]
Nor stints her sensual promise of cool joys. [E Greejius]
Not she, immune to treason nor to time [Roland]
And yet, still slave to him who comes to all [TG]
Forcing rash demands upon the soil [Grayman]
He warms, with finger gold and burnished thumb. [Roland]
When, through the decaying years, our barren [E Greejius]
Limbs upbraid the heavens' dial, and when [Roland]
Our weary hearts beat slower but beat sounder, [E Greejius]
Our shining, worn escapements lose their edge [Roland]
Keeping no glowing archive for our solace. [E Greejius]
This it remains, and the remainder thus [(trad)]
Itself engenders its own residues [E Greejius]
In sallow time's bewildered almanack [Roland]
Harbouring long-lapsed trysts to no good end; [E Greejius]
And when the key is turned, when all is known [Roland]
Of fecund or of sterile, quick or dead, [E Greejius]
When swings the final door, the fatal hinge [Roland]
Whhose groans betray the ravages of rust [TG]
Too long untended, and too far behind [Roland]
The reckonings of Tophet ... Ay! What then? [E Greejius]
Roof shall abase to floor, and floor to ground [Roland]
Before the pristine actuary-magus; [E Greejius]
His propehcy but piles of ruins [The Agnet Apsley]
Despite the ivy, ineffectual buttress; [E Greejius]
Tower shall slope to turf, pile fall to pond [Roland]
Leaf cling to leaf, concealing all the paths [TG]
Earth harbours; milk shall curdle in the byre [Roland]
Wine in the butt degrade to vinegar. [E Greejius]
In desolate lament , each lovelorn bleat [Roland]
Falls fallow on the thin unheeded air. [E Greejius]
And I, whom all betrayers have abjured [Roland]
In strict adherence to their solemn curse, [The Agent Apsley]
And thee, forever wandering, possessed [Roland]
By burden's knowledge of the ghost of time [P]
Dissembled quite; how shall we, sister, fare [Roland]
Together at the edge of temperance [P]
And on the very brink of sanity? [Roland]
I tremble quite, envisaging our doom [TG]
Swept, nameless, down the brackish torrent - yet, [E Greejius]
Some stain, by us impasted on the silence [Roland]
As 'twere th'embodiment of rime, [The Agent Apsley]
Shall print us immemorial as stones [Roland]
And when, at last, Time's palsied sands have run [TG]
Their paltry course, and 'neath the final dust [Roland]
The tigers of indifference repose, [E Greejius]
The muscled threat is but disguised [Grayman]
Anew, and rises yet again, an atom's breadth [Roland]
Away from penitence, the like of which [The Agent Apsley]
Was never dreamt by cranium of yore [Roland]
Even in ghostly ecstasy. Indeed, [E Greejius]
But for the haste of man, the tears would flow [The Agent Apsley]
In all-consuming torrent, washing out [Roland]
Life's thinnest crust onto the shore [P]
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
10 September
Nothing to do with the Festival, but anyway : 'Big Custard'
(A very unrepresentative sample from The Spoonbill Generator's 'Hall of Fame')
Big Custard
Warm in nutritious mulch, we germinate, [E Greejius]
And of ourselves we feed; some lesser fry [Roland]
Lie dormant still, by spring's alarm untouched, [P]
From summer’s bounty barred. Why, when the years [E Greejius]
Give notice of denial, may we not [Roland]
Like locksmiths turn our newest tumblers loose [P]
Upon the lawn, and, from a brimming jug [Roland]
Drown somnolence in alcoholic cheer [P]
And deep contentment? No; for when we strive [Roland]
To summon up the moon's most hoary face [P]
In stiff remembrance, clouded with remorse [Roland]
The merest hint of which would spell the end [The Agent Apsley]
Of time's imposture, all our withered shadows [P]
Die a-borning, pent beyond the veil. [Roland]
How best conjure, by faith, such fruitful yield [E Greejius]
When all around the land lies burnt and sere [TG]
with stagnant salt-pans, dearth's memorial. [E Greejius]
We strive, but striving know that we shall fail [TG]
In such endeavours as, when disavowed, [Roland]
Will tempt the feet of those who walk the waves [P]
In saviour's guise. Yet awe, in sighs of sleep [Roland]
Will cause our eyes to widen, noses flare [TG]
Like stallions in the dawn. Hope glimmers still [KT]
Though in another's eyes; and in defeat [Roland]
Our troubled curses make the sun turn pale [P]
Though not so pale, perhaps, as heretofore [Roland]
For, strengthened now by victims' blood, it turns [P]
In orbit caustic, shadowing a tryst [Roland]
A spiteful meeting at the coven's wrath [P]
Which heralds tragedy for this sad realm [TG]
Yet even so, the lily spares no scent [Roland]
Nor stints her sensual promise of cool joys. [E Greejius]
Not she, immune to treason nor to time [Roland]
And yet, still slave to him who comes to all [TG]
Forcing rash demands upon the soil [Grayman]
He warms, with finger gold and burnished thumb. [Roland]
When, through the decaying years, our barren [E Greejius]
Limbs upbraid the heavens' dial, and when [Roland]
Our weary hearts beat slower but beat sounder, [E Greejius]
Our shining, worn escapements lose their edge [Roland]
Keeping no glowing archive for our solace. [E Greejius]
This it remains, and the remainder thus [(trad)]
Itself engenders its own residues [E Greejius]
In sallow time's bewildered almanack [Roland]
Harbouring long-lapsed trysts to no good end; [E Greejius]
And when the key is turned, when all is known [Roland]
Of fecund or of sterile, quick or dead, [E Greejius]
When swings the final door, the fatal hinge [Roland]
Whhose groans betray the ravages of rust [TG]
Too long untended, and too far behind [Roland]
The reckonings of Tophet ... Ay! What then? [E Greejius]
Roof shall abase to floor, and floor to ground [Roland]
Before the pristine actuary-magus; [E Greejius]
His propehcy but piles of ruins [The Agnet Apsley]
Despite the ivy, ineffectual buttress; [E Greejius]
Tower shall slope to turf, pile fall to pond [Roland]
Leaf cling to leaf, concealing all the paths [TG]
Earth harbours; milk shall curdle in the byre [Roland]
Wine in the butt degrade to vinegar. [E Greejius]
In desolate lament , each lovelorn bleat [Roland]
Falls fallow on the thin unheeded air. [E Greejius]
And I, whom all betrayers have abjured [Roland]
In strict adherence to their solemn curse, [The Agent Apsley]
And thee, forever wandering, possessed [Roland]
By burden's knowledge of the ghost of time [P]
Dissembled quite; how shall we, sister, fare [Roland]
Together at the edge of temperance [P]
And on the very brink of sanity? [Roland]
I tremble quite, envisaging our doom [TG]
Swept, nameless, down the brackish torrent - yet, [E Greejius]
Some stain, by us impasted on the silence [Roland]
As 'twere th'embodiment of rime, [The Agent Apsley]
Shall print us immemorial as stones [Roland]
And when, at last, Time's palsied sands have run [TG]
Their paltry course, and 'neath the final dust [Roland]
The tigers of indifference repose, [E Greejius]
The muscled threat is but disguised [Grayman]
Anew, and rises yet again, an atom's breadth [Roland]
Away from penitence, the like of which [The Agent Apsley]
Was never dreamt by cranium of yore [Roland]
Even in ghostly ecstasy. Indeed, [E Greejius]
But for the haste of man, the tears would flow [The Agent Apsley]
In all-consuming torrent, washing out [Roland]
Life's thinnest crust onto the shore [P]
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