Thursday, August 13, 2009

Theme Thursday - Festival


You love me like a game of chess
and make your plays
in a crackerjack way.

I take the bait,
fooled by some madcap move
and flank your knight
with simple love,

tangle in your circus lies,
blindly captured
like a pawn.

Our queens collide
on black and white,
with harlequin wit
of might makes right.

Blocked in stalemate,
"checkmate" will have to wait.
You are a festival of hate.



Willow, 2009



photo: Chess, by willow

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

62 comments:

  1. WOW.....WOW.....wicked poem....
    soooo wicked!
    S

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  2. wow! - fabulous! - congratulations, Willow :)

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  3. Oofah! A bit deep, a bit dark, a bit different...but I like it! "tangled in your circus lies" indeed! Happy TT, Willow :)

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  4. Ouch. That one hit home.
    And that's why I love it.

    You had me (no actually you nailed him) with the first line.

    That's what a poem should do - get you right there.

    yours in stalemate
    jm

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  5. Why couldn't it have been a happy game of "Life"? (pun intended)

    Your poetry amazes me....really! xo

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  6. Hello Willow

    methinks the chessbox holds some secrets...

    Happy days

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  7. A good'un. Kinda sensual and true.

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  8. A heartfelt, heartless game . . .

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  9. I have an imagination and I have guessed what I think this is about. You are quite a writer. This was very deep, but parts of our lives become deep and are scarred in the storms of our life.

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  10. Oooh indeed. you are very much a wordsmith. This is quite differnt for you. Branching out, eh?

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  11. BTW, Willow, the movie link doesn't work on your sidebar! :(

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  12. Interesting way to use descriptive imagery.

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  13. Wow! It all leads up to the last line, like a punch! I'll bet that's the first line that came to you ...
    A little Bob-Dylan-ish, too ...

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  14. Tell us how you compose a poem, Willow. Do you edit - write and rewrite? Or, the stream of consciousness thing perhaps? Does it come out all at once or does a line come in a dream or while taking a walk? Maybe you love the sound of a word...or the feeling it invokes.

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  15. Donna, well, all of the above, actually. Sometimes one will just flow and I like what I write down the very first time. Most times, like this one, a line comes to mind and I build around it. All week I've had the last line to this poem on my mind and had to write a poem around it.

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  16. Jen, yes! I just answered you in my comment to Donna.

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  17. Mmm, both movie links are working on my end. Sorry about that.

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  18. "Blocked in stalemate,
    "checkmate" will have to wait."

    Whoa, I liked this one. I even understood it. I'm making such progress on my poetry reading. Thanks for your post.

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  19. the photo and the poem give me the dark chills! But great reading.. :)

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  20. Yikes! I didn't see that last line coming at all. I loved that "make your plays crackerjack way". Heck! I loved it all!

    Kat

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  21. That is a fine poem and the last verse stimulates a lot of thought. Congratulations. It really is very good.

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  22. festival of hate!? WOW! Nice poem.

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  23. Great post (as always:)!!

    Happy TT
    xoxo

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  24. That last line is very powerful.

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  25. Painful, and yet, I have been caught in a similar web in my life, so also true to life. The last line turns it on it's head. Well done!

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  26. whew! is your opponent a bad loser?

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  27. Someone else said it, but it's truly a wicked poem!

    And I have a confession to make. Before blogging I rarely read poems; it's amazing what talent I've found in blogland that I truly enjoy!

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  28. Wonderful poem... when are you to be published widely? You must be! I so concur with your Mostly Martha review... I blogged about this movie too, lo these many months ago. Great stuff. :)

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  29. Dear Willow: You play for love, you play for keeps. All is fair in love and war. A scholarly checkmate leaves the mate wondering then begging for a rematch. Me defeated? Never! Only knows one killer chess move! Throughly enjoyed your poem playing love and games! Excellent! MORE poems please Willow!!!

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  30. BPG, maaaavelous new picture of you, daaaaling! When are you going to start posting again? I miss visiting your devine blog!! ~x

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  31. yowser!

    festival of hate

    I'll pass on that one

    powerful poem

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  32. I don't know about you, but one of the blessings of middle age is that I'm no longer interested in playing interpersonal games, oh no. Used to really get into it, but no more!

    Great poem, Willow!!

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  33. That was fascinating to read and re-read. Thanks.

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  34. Goodness me! Not sure what to make of this willow!

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  35. circus lies....how perfect is that?

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  36. Hello Willow,

    What I have learned from reading more and more blog poetry of late is how differently people see the same poem. This is powerful and well written as all your others. But I couldn't presume to know exactly what it is saying.

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  37. interesting. I wonder if the last line is necessary? otherwise quite evocative.

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  38. Suki, the last line is what I constructed the whole piece around. It's definitely staying! :^)

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  39. 'A festival of hate'.. now that does not sound like a good thing...

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  40. Really glad that match is over! But you're the winner, right? Yes!

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  41. Good poem--actually, I always feel that way about chess, tho I realize ultimately this is about something else.

    Say, great to see your currently obsessed with one of my all-time favorite film stars, Harold Lloyd!

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  42. Flank you knight.............

    Poignant!

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  43. That is one wicked poem.
    Truly.
    Thanks Willow.

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  44. Okay this is great..."a festival of hate"!

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  45. Howdy Doody.

    Blogging has just become way more work than I want to do. I enjoyed being outside today and digging in the dirt without oxygen. I deleted my archives and all the pictures on Photobucket. I am putting my cameras to bed. I got over 80,000 pictures now. How many pictures do I need, Patty asked.

    What I did today is on abelincolnblogs.blogspot.com/

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  46. OH! Willow! That was effin' GREAT!!! I loved it!!

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  47. I am oddly drawn to this poem....I love it. I especially love the last line. So provocative, in the best sort of way.

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  48. Too true, Willow. Way too true.

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  49. Love the way you started with the last line first then built the poem around it,i think that's what makes it such a sucker punch right at the end totally out of left field.Boy i could feel that one right on the jaw thousands of miles away. :)

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  50. Thanks, Eejit, if you like it, it's a great compliment!!!

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  51. ok sounds like folks are quite taken with the power of that line.

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  52. I think you've taken a coup;e of my pawns en passant! I think it is a terrific poem, though I have not fully assimilated it yet - maybe it was a Jungian slip that led me to mess up on commenting last time.

    It is a clever poem and one that has got its hooks into me. One caveat, though: I feel the fat lady to be a bit of an intrusion.

    You should be pleased with it - and thanks for letting me know that I had not commented.

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  53. Thanks, Dave, for coming back for a read. I'm always very interested on what you have to say. I'll be tweaking around on this poem. I tend to agree with you on the fat lady. She's maybe a bit too "Mae West" for the chess match. :^)

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  54. The Dark art Of Chess........

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  55. I missed TT this week as we were vacationing but I am glad I got to catch your take on it...MOST EXCELLENT!

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  56. You come to read this one so often. It must be your favorite.

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Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
― O. Henry (and me)