The Poetry Page: On The Bummel with Mrs. Hudson

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Welcome all!

I have most exciting news! With the assistance of Mr. Holmes and his many contacts, today we are going to be attending the Duchess of Devonshire’s costume ball—the ball being held of course to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Mr. James Lauder of the Lafayette Company will be in attendance with his fellow photographers in order to record the guests’ costumes and we will be acting as their assistants!

Well, most of us will be assistants but they couldn’t quite accommodate all of us so… Mrs. Frankles, you will actually being attending the ball itself! Isn’t that exciting!

And… here is your costume.

Um, yes, what?

Well, I suppose it does look a little like a maid’s costume, doesn’t it?

No! Of course you aren’t actually going to be a maid!

Though… it might be fun embracing the role perhaps? Handing round nibbles and the odd glass of champagne? Just generally pretending that you actually are a maid for the night even though you’re really, really, really a guest.

Mrs. Frankles, I truly don’t think that’s appropriate language. Now please hurry up and get changed—you may use my bedroom. Thank you.

I am certain that all the splendid costumes at the ball will inspire you, but here too is a quotation from Dr. Watson’s novel ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. The quotation comes specifically from Chapter 13, Fixing The Nets:


“My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise."



Here are the usual suggestions for poetry forms:

221B verselet, abecedarian poetry, acrostic poetry, alexandrine, ballad, barzelletta, beeswing, blackout poetry, blitz poem, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cherita, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, clogyrnach, colour poems, compound word verse, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, débat, décima, descort, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, echo verse, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, enuig, epigram, epistle, epitaph, epulaeryu, Etheree, fable, Fib, florette, found poetry, free verse, ghazal, haiku, hay(na)ku, In Memoriam stanza, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, lies, limerick, line messaging, list poem, lyric poetry, mathnawī, micropoetry, mini-monoverse, musette, nonsense verse, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, puente, quatern, quintilla, renga, rhyming alliterisen, riddle, rimas dissolutas, rime couée, rispetto, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, shadorma, sonnet, stream of consciousness, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, tricube, trine, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle, xenolith


Ah, you’re ready, Mrs. Frankles.

So, off

we all go

to the ball!

Comments

Rhyming Poem by Mrs Small-Hobbit

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I must say it’s rather exciting
Two Cleopatrae are here
And if there’s only one Anthony
A fight may break out I fear

Someone said there was another
But she isn’t the Egyptian queen
It turns out she’s the one from Sheba
At least she won’t be causing a scene

The shepherdesses are very pretty
And have never herded a single sheep
There’s a man who seems to think he’s Nelson
Though he’s not ventured on sea blue and deep

Last of all there’s a maid in a costume
Looks just like any other working maid
I asked her for a glass of bubbly
Her language was quite bad I’m afraid

And so we have helped our photographers
To take pictures of the costume ball
We’ve had a wonderful day here
So thank you, one and all.

Re: Rhyming Poem by Mrs Small-Hobbit

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Great incorporation of the whole prompt scenario! I like the first stanza especially. Two Cleopatras would be trouble, I think.

[I left a comment but forgot I wasn't logged in]

Re: Rhyming Poem by Mrs Small-Hobbit

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much - yes, two Cleopatrae would be a major problem.

Re: Rhyming Poem by Mrs Small-Hobbit

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

^_______^

Very neatly done ^__^ I was rather taken with the Cleopatrae too. And the chap who thinks he's Nelson ^_^

I'm very proud to have got a cameo - sorry about my language ^^"

Re: Rhyming Poem by Mrs Small-Hobbit

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Thank you - glad you liked the Cleopatrae and the Nelson chap.

Not very ladylike ...

3 months late-sorry! (Italian sonnet)

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

At the ball, we play parts. A thrice-appointed snare.
A Petrarch bides in eaves. He weaves the whole cloth scheme.
A Cleopatra reigns. Inside and out, a queen.
A Nelson stands in brass. Napoleons beware!

A Cleopatra lures. Her charms dance everywhere.
A Petrarch spots the wolf. The sheep graze as in dream.
A Nelson circles ‘round. The waters start to teem.
The three-point trap is sprung! The villain grieves despair!

After the ball, we play. An unmasked revelry.
To quiet nook we hie. Divest our worldly pall.
Within, we can embrace. Without, the night’s sleeps tall.
A celebration wild. One act with cast of three.
A festive jubilee. Love’s own victory.
Together we are three. We are we—after the ball.

Re: 3 months late-sorry! (Italian sonnet)

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

It was definitely worth the wait ^__^

Oh, that's excellent ^^" I love the imagery in it:

A Cleopatra lures. Her charms dance everywhere.
A Petrarch spots the wolf. The sheep graze as in dream.
A Nelson circles ‘round. The waters start to teem.

And some other favourite lines:

After the ball, we play. An unmasked revelry.

Within, we can embrace. Without, the night’s sleeps tall.

A celebration wild. One act with cast of three.
A festive jubilee. Love’s own victory.
Together we are three. We are we—after the ball.

Re: 3 months late-sorry! (Italian sonnet)

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is from my ficlet After the Ball, which I did for Watson Woe's and I hope to finish the fic during Kinktober. I made Holmes Petrarch so the sonnet had to be an Italian one and I was exercising my alexandrines with the caesura in the middle.