http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-butcher-a-sonnet Just another bbPress community en-US Thu, 23 May 2013 23:38:10 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/search.php http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-butcher-a-sonnet#post-58987 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:35:49 +0000 Desdemona 58987@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I Like it.<br /> <br /> &gt;.&lt; it seems like i am saying this to everyone, but i really like poetry.<br /> I can't write in strict stanzas or rhyme. <br /> I admire you ^__^ http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-butcher-a-sonnet#post-58713 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:32:18 +0000 s_gardiner 58713@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ Hello all. Thought I'd share this with everyone - I haven't written poetry in a good long while, but recently have taken back to it in a big way. <br /> <br /> Whereas previously free verse was, as they say, my bag, I've tried to write more structured verse, as I find it forces me to think carefully, not only about how to express, but what it is that's being expressed. Free verse is both intimidating and encourages laziness. Intimidating in that it offers no guidelines to structure, and presents no 'easy way in'; laziness-encouraging in that, in having no specific meter or structure to refer to, what is written is written with less. So, I've taken to structure, with rhyme, half-rhyme and everything. The Ode Less Travelled was, actually, very very helpful in this. <br /> <br /> So here's an effort I thought I'd share - comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Butchers<br /> <br /> The doorway is hanging with bright steel chains,<br /> Many ranks of them, to keep out the flies<br /> But to permit the stumbling forays<br /> Of shoppers in; plucking sleeves, blinking eyes<br /> Blearily in the sudden dim. Behind glass<br /> Lie butchered swads in mortuary banks<br /> While we the bereaved, like new mums and dahs<br /> Assemble, point, adopt them from their tanks.<br /> <br /> Turning, I am arrested briefly by <br /> The movements of the chains: the lower ends<br /> Are ankle high, and are ceaselessly swinging;<br /> The upmost links are still. So seeing, one might<br /> Ascend the road from which our lives depend,<br /> Back and back and back, to their still beginnings.