Senseless acts of poetry

[wombat1138]

In spring, a young(ish) marsupial's thoughts turn to Tolkien pastiche. Or something. I have no other rational explanation.

Fit the first: Balrog/Shalott.

The world was green, the Trees yet shone,
When Durin woke and walked alone.
In many-pillared halls of stone
A king he was on carven throne
Beneath cold Caradhras.
Fanuidhol and Celebdil
Dwarves also delved for pale mithril
Down through the mountains' roots until
They dug too deep, alas.

They roused from sleep in brimstone bed
A nameless terror, wroth and red;
They wakened Durin's Bane and fled
From Silvertine and Cloudyhead,
From Redhorn's snowy pass.
Yet in far lands, the dwarves still sang
Of Khazad-Dum, Kheled-Zaram,
Of great halls where their hammers rang
Beneath cold Caradhras.

So Balin, Fundin's son, came forth
With friends and kinsmen from the North
Rekindling as by right of birth
That ancient realm beneath the earth
With lamps of crystal glass.
A few years prospered, but the cold
And silent dark returned of old;
No further word came from the bold
Of what had come to pass.

Through hidden doors in Hollin land
The wizard Tharkun came unplanned,
Gondolin's sword swift in his hand
And Anor's fire at his command;
Cried he, "You shall not pass!"
The Balrog's shadow spread out wide
Like wings unfurled from side to side
Upon the narrow bridge astride
The depths of Caradhras.

The wizard smote the bridge; they fell
Long time through darkness, deep as hell,
And still by sword and flame and spell
They fought. High on Zirak-zigil
As white as silver glass,
Ascending through the Endless Stair
To Durin's Tower, still the pair
Fought fiercely in the icy air
Beside cold Caradhras.

The Balrog fell, the Tower crashed
Upon the mountainside in ash;
At last was quenched his fiery lash.
But Gandalf's body too was smashed
Like shards of silver glass.
And yet by Valar's grace reborn
he rose again like silver morn;
Away by eagles he was borne
From cruel Caradhras.

When at last Isildur's Bane
Fell too into its mountain's flame,
Barad-Dur crumbled. The end came
To Sauron and to Mordor's reign.
Away from Caradhras,
Away from Middle-Earth the sail
Of the last elf-ship glimmered pale.
And so too ends the wizard's tale:
Namarie at last.


Fit the second: Nimrodel Lee.

It was many and many an Age ago
After Gil-galad fell
That an Elf-maid lived in Lothlorien
By the name of Nimrodel.
She was fair of face and fleet of foot,
Her voice was a silver bell.
But lost she was in the White Mountains;
Where she is now, none can tell.

At Edhellond, Amroth's grey ship stayed,
Waiting for Nimrodel;
A wind blew out of the North by night
As if some evil spell
Would drive his ship far out to sea
Without his Nimrodel.
He cursed the faithless ship that bore
Him far across the swell,
Far away from his Nimrodel.

But his love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who lived to tell:
From helm to sea they saw Amroth leap
To return to Nimrodel;
His strong limbs flashed forth through the sea
As deep as a funeral knell.
Those havens are called now for that Elf-king,
And still the waters of Lorien sing
The songs of Nimrodel--
But nothing is known of Amroth's fate
Nor that of Nimrodel,
The beautiful Nimrodel.


And now for something completely different:

Axes don't faze them,
Torches gutter;
Ice won't glaze them,
Chainsaws stutter.
Bullets just pock them,
Anvils cause stains;
Nothing can stop them.
Might as well eat brains.


Addendum: the zombie jamboree continues.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
Out of the Valley of Death
Lurched the Six Hundred.
"Sharpen your stakes, my lass!
Aim for their hearts!" he said.
Out of the Valley of Death
Lurched the Six Hundred.

"Stake them straight through the heart!"
Was the brave girl dismayed?
Not though the Slayer knew
Someone had blundered;
Hers not to make reply,
Hers not to reason why,
Hers but to do or die.
Out of the Valley of Death
Lurched the Six Hundred.

Zombies to right of her,
Zombies to left of her,
Zombies in front of her
Ate brains and chundered;
Clutched at with rotting hands,
Boldly she took a stand
Against Six Hundred.

Brandished her stakes mid-air,
Kicking ass here and there
Wondering the hell where
Her Watcher studied;
Didn't that stupid git
Know that a zombie kit
Needed more chainsaws?
Still she fought on, unbit
By rotting jaws;
Zombie crud in her hair,
Bruised but unbloodied.

Zombies to right of her,
Zombies to left of her,
Zombies behind her:
"Bugger this for a lark!"
Rain flashed and thundered
O'er the desert park.
She ran back for an axe;
Chopped zombie heads with whacks--
No more live brains as snacks
For the Six Hundred.

Zombie confetti stained
The sand; good thing it rained
Into the Valley of Death.
"Looks like gazpacho."
The Slayer caught her breath
And fired her Watcher.

Comments

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

The poetic meeting of Poe and Tolkien (in my mind at least) is just crying out to be set by Stephen Foster or one of his contemporaries. :-> Or you could imitate Burns and Moore and hire an arranger to set it to a traditional melody.

Songster (back in the mid 19th century)

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

Eee. Isn't it bad enough that half the time, the Hymn to Elbereth goes in my head to the tune of the lonely goatherd song from The Sound of Music?

(Sing along now:

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel
Yodelayee yodelayee yodelay hee-hoo
Silivren penna miriel
Yodelayee yodelayee yodelay...")

Or for that matter, there's the weird form of musical dyslexia which keeps mix'n'matching the lyrics and the tunes among the alphabet song, "Amazing Grace", and "House of the Rising Sun". Though I *think* I've actually heard snippets of a gospel/blues recording of a stunning (and shiftingly harmonic multivoiced a capella) rendition of the second of those in the tune of the third, so at least it's not just me.

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

The Blind Boys of Alabama did record "Amazing Grace" using the "House of the Rising Sun" melody. Spectacular performance, with the bonus of following the old tradition of wedding secular tunes to sacred lyrics.

For the sake of humanity I will not share the images called up by the "Lonely Goatherd" parody.

Songster (who as a Foster fan, feels honor bound to see if any of the Foster tunes she knows will fit your parody) >>:-)

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

These are quite good, especially the first and last. (And could've sworn they weren't up before now. Huh. Must have blinked. Had intended to compose an appropriate response, but skill fails me for the moment.)

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

The Blind Boys of Alabama did record "Amazing Grace" using the "House of the Rising Sun" melody.

Ooo! Do you know the name of the recording?

*pokes around web* Gosh, I seem to know slightly more of Foster's oeuvre than I'd realized; his songs really have worked themselves into the collective musical subconsciousness. ("Camptown Races" was one of his? Coincidentally, the last time I mentioned the Elbereth/goatherd combination to someone, they attempted revenge by re-resetting the lyrics to that: replace yodelling with "doo-dah, doo-dah"; rinse and repeat.)

With the Tennyson pastiche, the inherited combination of regular meter but slightly irregular rhyme scheme is relatively resistant to... um... (feh, drawing a blank for the right single word, if there is one) setting it to pre-existing music. However, the Poe pastiche does seem close enough to standard ballad meter to squodge into anything with that sort of pattern, incl. "Beautiful Dreamer" (which doesn't seem *quite* right to me for some reason) and "Oh Susanna" (eek). The near-parallel of the song title for "Laura Lee" is tempting, but I don't actually know the tune for that one and at the moment can't find a clear online sample (polyphonic barbershop-style renditions do *not* give a straightforward impression of the main melodic line, grr); the lyrics don't look like the right meter either, unless copious melismata are invoked.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I pasted down the first few seed lines into a private entry at first, and then didn't revise the date when I unlocked it.

The first one bothers me because its internal development isn't terribly close to the original, and there isn't even a clear central character-- seems as if the way the parallel *ought* to work is that the Balrog is shut up in the deeps of Moria for ages and Ages and doesn't know what's happening outside (though it would be neat if it had a palantir to look at; offhand can't think of a plausible way one of them would've rolled down there, tbough), until one day this Gandalf dude shows up and yanks the Balrog's attention away from its former drab Balroggy existence toward the outside world, ultimately killing it.

OTOH, no one expects very much from Poe except mellifluous assonance and a pervasive aura of tragedy/dread; it's not as if he has to make sense.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Eh; as noted elsewhere, sticking to the original's structure isn't that important to Weird Al Yankovic, so why should it be for you? And there doesn't have to be a central character; literary-canonical "epic series of events" poems escape me for the moment, but I know I've read them.

(though it would be neat if it had a palantir to look at; offhand can't think of a plausible way one of them would've rolled down there, tbough)

Then rolled from high above the dark
A glowing orb; he seized it. "Hark!
What's this, so round and gallant, here?
I think it is a palantir,"
The Balrog thought, "at last!"
And so he watched the world outside
And watching, knew what came to pass
In lands where Men and Elves rove wide
Beyond dark Caradhras.

Or something.

I dunno, I like Poe, myself.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like Poe too; he's wonderful at intensely embodying his chosen headspace, but imho his range is somewhat limited-- not much sensawunda intellectual ingenuity, ROFLMAO moments, or massive epic sweep. At least iirc; I don't think I have a dedicated volume of Poe around for a quick check, though there're probably various poems and shorts scattered around various anthos.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like Poe too; he's wonderful at intensely embodying his chosen headspace, but imho his range is somewhat limited-- not much sensawunda intellectual ingenuity, ROFLMAO moments, or massive epic sweep.

True, he's not really about those. Like (arguably) many of most authors, he's got his specialty he's known for.

At least iirc; I don't think I have a dedicated volume of Poe around for a quick check, though there're probably various poems and shorts scattered around various anthos.

There's always Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/p#a481).

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, don't recall if you ever saw this thread (http://users.livejournal.com/_xenogenesis/34850.html), which I apparently killed.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

You overwhelmed them with your awesome. ^_^

Much like Wombat's poetry. Awesome.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you. Though wombat1138's skill easily outmatches anything I have to offer.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I remembered seeing the original pic, but hadn't followed the comments.

Hm. Now I wonder whether palantiri have some method of self-orientation so it knows which direction it's being viewed from, or whether their magic means that if N equally-spaced viewers are ranged around it, all N of them will see it from the intended angle? There're probably other factors such as whether the intent is driven by the (main) viewer of that particular palantir or whoever's hanging onto the palantir at the other end of the transmission. Also, something about Trek viewscreens vaguely comes to mind, but not in a way that really makes sense.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Can more than one person look into a palantir at the same time? Is it all one big round screen, or is there a "viewing face," with the rest of the surface around it just being cut rock? If the latter, there'd only be one direction it could be viewed from, hence no magic compass would be necessary.

The viewscreen simile actually makes sense, except that Sauron's version also transmits Psionic Mind ControlTM. Don't know if it's relevant to muse idly that early TNG screens appeared to be three-dimensional--when viewed at the the right angle when in use, Captain Picard and the Romulan Commander Du Jour would appear to be looking at each other and not at your TV--but later they seemed to go back to not bothering with that.

Belated note

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

a //y/o/u/n/g/(/i/s/h/)// marsupial

(Because I don't know how to do the strikethrough thing.)

You're younger than this aging insect.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Axes don't faze them,
Torches gutter;
Ice won't glaze them,
Chainsaws stutter.
Bullets just pock them,
Anvils cause stains;
Nothing can stop them.
Might as well eat brains.

The Force helps one's passes
down Death Star crevasses.