EXERCISE: a poeting we will go, a quotation to start us...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 21:18:00 -0400

So there are no more words and all is ended;
The timbrel is stilled, the clarion laid away;
And Love with streaming hair goes unattended
Back to the loneliness of yesterday.

So There Are No More Words, 1924, Joseph Auslander

take a few moments and read these four lines.  What do they call to your mind?  Does the timbrel (a tambourine by any other name?)  remind you of anything?  What about the clarion (an adjective pretending to be a noun?  aha, that's merely a confusion by the Oxford American Dictionary, the OED has a shrill-sounding trumpet with a narrow tube, formerly used in war.)  Anyway, what does that call to mind?

And the Love with streaming hair?

The "loneliness of yesterday?"

What did these words bring to you?  What did you bring to these words?

Let your self respond.  What words, phrases, scenes do you want to put together?

Feel free to write a lush and lengthy essay, a rather diverting little tale of tawdriness, or even a sparse and thought-provoking poem...

Or just a few scattered thoughts, without direction, and wandering where they will?

But write!