February Poetry Comp. – Casabianca

OK, I did not know it was called that either, but after all I’m just a retired techie (right Janus?)

Except for the original, all  the versions I know are “unsuitable for family viewing” as they say here in rural Maryland.

So let us innovate, if you wish you can keep the first line, or if you choose, change it to set the scene elsewhere, but keep the ballad meter and the a-b-a-b rhyming scheme.  Short or long is OK,  the original is an unending twenty verses of Victorian melodrama.

It’s been “Done to Death” if you will excuse the clench and whenever I hear it I am reminded of  “Would you like french fries with that?”  But enough of that, here is the opening salvo –

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.

Here is Spike Milligan dealing sharply with the whole shooting match –

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
Twit!

Closing February 29, 2012 midnight GMT.
Enjoy.

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Author: Low Wattage

Expat Welshman, educated (somewhat) in UK, left before it became fashionable to do so. Now a U.S. Citizen, and recent widower, playing with retirement and house remodeling, living in Delaware and rural Maryland (weekends).

12 thoughts on “February Poetry Comp. – Casabianca”

  1. My Granpa’s version: (so not an entry 🙂 )

    The boy stood on the burning deck
    his feet were full of blisters
    the flames came up and burned his pants
    so now he wears his sister’s.

  2. Sorry Bearsy, ignorance on my part, not knowing the title included not knowing the difference between my a-b’s and my a-x’s. Lets be rigorous and stick with the a-b-a-b rhyming. Sorry Granpa.

    (Post edited accordingly.)

  3. I learned:

    The boy stood on the burning deck
    Playing a game of cricket.
    The ball went up his trouser leg
    And hit his middle wicket.

  4. I learned:

    The boy stood on the burning deck
    Picking his nose like mad
    He rolled it into little balls
    And flicked them at his dad.

  5. Low Wattage :

    Sorry Bearsy, ignorance on my part, not knowing the title included not knowing the difference between my a-b’s and my a-x’s. Lets be rigorous and stick with the a-b-a-b rhyming. Sorry Granpa.

    (Post edited accordingly.)

    Don’t tell Bearsy, but it should be x-a-y-a, eh? 😮

  7. In my efforts to retain a degree of intellectual honesty, a noble virtue, I came across this site, which I found most informative. http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html

    Hidden therein is concurrence of our honourable proprietor’s assertion concerning rhyming convention.

    It strikes me that this is an example of the gulf that exists between the arts and the sciences. Maths convention has ‘x’ (often together with ‘y’ and ‘z’) as a variable, but one that retains its value for the duration of any given calculation.

    Thus if the variable, x =2 in one part of the calculation, it will be 2 throughout.

    On the other hand, literature, according to the above, does not follow that rule. As demonstrated, the variable ‘x’ can represent one sound in one line of a poem, but a completely different sound in a subsequent line of the same poem.

    So, if x= a word that rhymes with, ‘chip’ in one line, it does not hold that it will rhyme with ‘chip’ elsewhere. It might easily rhyme with ‘shoulder’.

    Totally illogical to the mathematician, I suggest. I suspect Janus agrees with me.

    Of course, I stand to be corrected in anything I have said.

  9. Bearsy, Your #5. Yes the dreaded cut and paste, I usually don’t but it was late and I did. First surprised, then after several deletions, frustrated, then after deleting anything that looked like h,t,m or l, annoyance. I saw that the dd’s kept popping back in, but could not figure a way to get even half way to where I wanted to be. I will take a look at the formatting you did and attempt to learn something from it. Thanks.

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