William's Poetry Request Line

I request a light-hearted, whimsical verse where there is no mention of death, urine, cigarettes, castration or post-nuclear devastation. Oh, and no one gets stabbed in the eye, either.

Too tough?

I request a Beat-esqe ode to a cold night out in the city without any cash.

I would like the exact opposite of screenmom.

based on this amazing story in St. Louis tonight.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=110821

I can think of a few themes it would lead me to, but I suppose I would let you draw your own theme if you think it is a topic that deserves a poem.

I'd like one esteeming the attractive qualities of darkness, loneliness and chill winter nights.

I've had a migraine for two days... I'd like something maniacal and minacious please.

An epic poem telling the story of the rise and fall of Standard Oil.

I request that you attempt to translate a foreign poem that is in a language you do not know.

William Haskins said:

since the mods have been kind enough to offer me the inaugural term as absolute write's poet laureate, i figure the least i could do is write some poetry for you folks.

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I have a question first. Just what does a poet laureate do all day? And just how does this new designation differ from royalty? Do I need to curtsy when you come around?

a poem about Spooky. *shudders*

Gimme a poem about dem bones, William. Any ol' bones.

Rattlin' bones,
Shakes and groans,
Hear 'em moans,
Them rattlin' bones.

*goes off tapping his foot*

Sorry. Pick and choose the others first, please.

can i have a sweet little children's story? with rhyme? about a pink-collared she-pig digging for truffles?

A poem about me.

Thank you for offering, William.
I'd like to request a nature poem, absent of humanity.
Please.

Couldja make me a poem about people who never read poetry? (It's okay. They won't find out. Kind of like doing a TV show about Amish people.)

ltd.

I request a poem about Aardvark Love.

Restrictions:

You may not use the words aardvark, anteater, or love.

One aardvark must be blue. The other green. There must be a jealous aardvark (pink) and (s)he must perish in a dramatic fashion.

You must (in the poem) use the phrase "dance to the quasi-cosmic sounds"
You must (in the poem) additionally use the phrase "pause and reflect, regretting."

The poem must have an obvious rhyme scheme and meter.

One of the aardvarks must curl his/her fist and curse Neptune.

Requests - how thoughtful.


Two mirrors face to face reflecting infinity -

with your brain and my brain caught in between.

Let the sparks fly.

Unique said:

Two mirrors face to face reflecting infinity -

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That just blew my mind, man!

I'm sorry.

I'd like something about puppies, kittens, and sparkly unicorns, in sonnet form and punctuated with smilies.

If that's unreasonable, pretty much anything you write amazes me anyway.

Here's one to think about. It centers on paradoxical words. My favorite is pulchritude, which is about as ugly as words come, but it means beauty and sex appeal, but sort of in a buxom, bygone era way, not the anorexic super-model way. Another paradoxical word is monosyllabic.

What I propose is you write a poem on anything in your experience or your imagination that you see as paradoxical, but use (some) paradoxical words or paradoxical phrases to express it.

I tried to do something similar in a recent poem in the Poem Critique forum, titled Paralytic Paralipsis, where I used the rhetorical quirk of paralipsis as a vehicle in the poem. It was great fun.

By the way, I stumble on these fun word thingies with a wonderful new thesaurus that has more than just synonym lists: Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus (hardback, ~1,100 pages). I got it on sale from Oxford for around $25. I recommend it.

I already requested a poem in another thread.

With all these requests, I think William might be regretting that he made himself the Jack-FM call in line of poetry.