Ballet Rehearsal - Gypsy

[waxwings]

Your playfull smile, your lovely face

spoke of a chance I would not miss

while music lingered on in space.

 

I went along at headlong pace

and did not see the artifice

beneath that smile upon your face.

 

The dance was fire, your cool grace

a challenge I could not dismiss

while music banished time and space.

 

Your castanettes made my heart race;

they tolled my fate, my Nemesis,

that taunting smile, that dazzling face,

 

a deadly flame wrapped up in lace.

To hold you was a treacherous bliss

while music sobbed and filled the space

 

and left my heart an empty place

for you lured someone else to kiss

that playful smile, that lovely face

while music lingered on in space.

[worm]

a vivid portrayal of this ravishing rehearsal. It reads musical. There are many wonderful lines:

 

The dance was fire, your cool grace

a challenge I could not dismiss

while music banished time and space.

 

a deadly flame wrapped up in lace.

To hold you was a treacherous bliss

while music sobbed and filled the space

 

that playful smile, that lovely face

while music lingered on in space

.

 

I finished the reading, but music still lingering on, the enchanting scene is replaying.

 

a beautiful poem waxwings.

Edited March 27, 2010 by worm

[Lake]

Heya waxwings,

 

Ah a villanelle! It shows your masterful grasp of the form, rhymes and meters (meters which I think is more difficult to master than rhymes. It's not that one doesn't know what meter is, but to find the right word to fit the meter is challenging). Sometimes I read "villanelles" with rhymes but totally off meter ( that's how I started with it :icon_redface: )

I tried one before, and never do it again.

I'll definately come back and read it in more detail. Right now, I'm off to my Saturday... thingy.

 

Well crafted.

 

Lake

Edited March 27, 2010 by Lake

[dr_con]

A whimsical and yet 'real'moment of seduction and rejection- a masterful piece- lovely and sure... Well done WW!

 

DC&J

[waxwings]

Thanks all for the kind notes of appreciation. It is a transformation/widening of a triolet I wrote in Latvian and has a real though perhaps partly imagined experience of ballet school I attende in my teens.

 

Shows you that it is easier to write a poem that is triggered by some epiphany.

 

Dear Lake, meter becomes internalized after one has, for years, heard and written in that mode. I strongly recommend thinking that utterances in normal speech have enough rjythm without being overly metered. I am also a total believer that the better poem springs from a genuine reaction to strong emotional experinces: observations/events/happenings.

 

Now I am waitig to hear pointers from all to places where my good but hardly perfect English has come a cropper. Yes, I have become a better hider of my errors than a poet, and challenge you to find loci where the grammar stinks..

[badger11]

ww

 

You seem adept at writing light, flowing poems, with a music that brings this reader to re-visit and enjoy again.

 

badge

[goldenlangur]

Hi waxwings,

 

On first reading I was reminded of Bizet's Carmen. I know little about the poetical form and can offer no technical pointers. However, I found that there is a repetition of imagery giving the impression of the poem laboring the theme. Of course such repetition might be the requirement of the form you've used and I may be well off the mark here.

 

A couple of tiny nits:

 

Your castanettes made my heart race;

they tolled my fate,

 

Reading this out aloud, I wondered if castanets ... tolled work in terms of the sensory image?

 

 

I also stumbled here:

 

a deadly flame wrapped up in lace.

 

But I love the drama of this line:

 

... music banished time and space.

 

 

As ever, if you find that my comments are of little help, please do ignore them.

 

 

Thank you.

[waxwings]

Thanks badge. That I may be, but isn't there the peril of light tending toward lightweight? I think gl's comments are apt but telling. A penny for your thoughts.

[waxwings]

I shall regard all comments to be of help. As you may know the bitter part is if one cannot find a truly decent way to fix those small weak things. I would dearly love to get rid of "upon". Is it too much of poetic license (for it is) to say that castanettes instead of graveyard bell tell of forthcoming diappointment/doom? And I suppose I could say "lovely flame" wrapped up in lace. It did strike me that way. It was a girl from Barcelona there to rehearse for a performance of a ballet for children. But I was already skirting good taste using absolutes.

 

I would be most thankful if you were to expound in detail on your take re belaboring the theme. I may be to close to the poem/experience to give the theme a name. Thank you for all and whatever you care to add.

[goldenlangur]

Hi waxwings,

 

I'm glad that my comment was taken in the good spirit it was intended.

 

Here's an example of the form you use where the narrative takes twists and turns and ends on a note of poignant sense of loss and hopelessness. I have made bold the turns and twists the poem takes from the first incidence of hiding to capture, to imprisonment, to physical humiliation and abuse to political background and closing with the boy's complete lack of hope after all he has been through as suggested in the burying of books

 

 

 

 

 

* Rock, Paper, Cynic's song, "Run, Boy, Run"

 

Waitin' on the river that your hot feet never found,

Hidin' in your shadow while the sun burns out the day.

Run, boy, run your tired heart into the ground.

 

Caught you readin' history and put you in the pound,

Carried chains to New Orleans, left life in Santa Fe

Waitin' on the river that your hot feet never found.

 

Traded inky scribbles for the barkin' of a hound,

Chickens scratched in prison yards, and everybody say,

“Run, boy, run your tired heart into the ground.”

 

Workin' on the line, son, sweat don't make a sound,

Tuck your teeth behind your smile, tongue get sealed away,

Waitin' on the river that your hot feet never found.

 

Words came out of everyone before the king was crowned,

But the coronation nation asks a price you'll never pay.

Run, boy, run your tired heart into the ground.

 

Draggin' dreams to water, boy, where every whelp is drowned,

Bury books in riverbanks, bake words into the clay,

Waitin' on the river that you hot feet never found.

Run, boy, run your tired heart into the ground.

 

 

In your poem I felt that once the attraction to the woman and her artifice were juxtaposed in the first two stanzas, the poem plays this out with little twists and turns. The reader can almost see the inevitability of the outcome and so when the closure comes, the sense is not of Wow! or My God! but of So what?.

 

The repetitiveness of the imagery seems forced by the rhymes in the lines I have put in italics:

 

Your playfull smile, your lovely face

spoke of a chance I would not miss

while music lingered on in space.

 

I went along at headlong pace

and did not see the artifice

beneath that smile upon your face.

 

The dance was fire, your cool grace

a challenge I could not dismiss

while music banished time and space.

 

Your castanettes made my heart race;

they tolled my fate, my Nemesis,

that taunting smile, that dazzling face,

 

a deadly flame wrapped up in lace.

To hold you was a treacherous bliss

while music sobbed and filled the space

 

and left my heart an empty place

for you lured someone else to kiss

that playful smile, that lovely face

while music lingered on in space.

 

 

Re the point about the sensory image I made in connection with this stanza:

 

Your castanettes made my heart race;

they tolled my fate, my Nemesis,

that taunting smile, that dazzling face,

 

 

There is a predominance of a and e sounds here and the sudden injection of o in tolled, which is quite a strong sound, seemed a little out of kilter to my ear.

 

 

I absolutely agree that one must push the boundaries of language and if you're happy with tolled here and the line: flame wrapped in lace, then please trust your instinct and ignore my comment.

 

 

I don't know if any of this makes any sense and as a novice to these poetical forms I might well be barking up the wrong tree in the points I've made about the repetitiveness of imagery and the rhyme forcing the meaning and images.

Edited March 29, 2010 by goldenlangur

[badger11]

That I may be, but isn't there the peril of light tending toward lightweight?

 

No. I read poems for many reasons, perhaps I'm superficial, but 'entertaining' scores high on my card. I simply derived pleasure from this read.

 

badge

[waxwings]

That I may be, but isn't there the peril of light tending toward lightweight?

 

No. I read poems for many reasons, perhaps I'm superficial, but 'entertaining' scores high on my card. I simply derived pleasure from this read.

 

badge

 

I hope there is not a slight misunderstanding. By "That I may be...." I made reference by your seeming admiration for my ability to write this kind of poem (I forget your exact words), and had no such thing in mind as you being superficial. I am glad you were entertained and you saying so makes me feel great. I would expect any my poem to do at least that if not more.

 

Your faithful, etc. ww

[worm]

Thanks all for the kind notes of appreciation. It is a transformation/widening of a triolet I wrote in Latvian and has a real though perhaps partly imagined experience of ballet school I attende in my teens.

 

I hope I'm able to do it, if not near, far future.

[tonyv]

Lots of great discussion taking place here around this poem. I'm afraid I won't have a whole lot to offer.

 

The form suits the content with tetrameter being the right metrical choice to set the pace. You maintain the iambic rhythm well throughout. I'll put forth just a few thoughts:

 

 

Your playful smile, your lovely face--------------I know you use "could" in the third stanza, but

spoke of a chance I could not miss------------here, at the beginning, I want to read "could"

while music lingered on in space.-----------------also ... to reinforce the wistful tone.

 

I went along at headlong pace

and did not see the artifice

beneath that smile upon your face.

 

The dance was fire, your cool grace--------------Though these lines scan as iambic tet, I think

a challenge I could not dismiss.--------------------there needs to be a definite pause after "dismiss."

The music banished time and space.-------------If not, then I think a one-syllable word like "charm"

------------------------------------------------------------------should be followed by "that" in lieu of "challenge"

Your castanets made my heart race;-------------(e.g. a charm that I could not dismiss.)

they tolled my fate, my Nemesis,

that taunting smile, that dazzling face,

 

a deadly flame wrapped up in lace.

To hold you was a treacherous bliss

while music sobbed and filled the space

 

and left my heart an empty place.

For you lured someone else to kiss --------------I'm not sure if it's okay to start this sentence

your playful smile, your lovely face! -------------with "for," but I think these slight alterations

while music lingered on in space.-------------------would help to improve rhythm.

 

 

Music, dance, beguiling smiles, space, and seduction all make for a winning combination. My favorite line:

 

while music sobbed and filled the space ....

I'm not sure if any of these ideas are helpful. If not, please disregard them.

 

Tony