Amusement And what colour would this prose be?

November writing goals.

Amusement Korean library

Status
Not open for further replies.

Marc Joan

Basic
Aug 26, 2014
There follows a direct transcription of a small altercation I had with Mrs Joan this morning, after she neglected to make me a cup of tea in spite of walking directly past the kettle! Ye gods! And little fishes!

"Irene, if I may use such familiarity, I have summoned you hither, it may be to undergo a stricter examination than your present condition probably permits; but knowing, as you should, my life must be miserable under this growing cloud of unfathomed dislike, I became resolved to end, if within my power, such contentious and unlady-like conduct as that practised by you towards me of late. It is now six months - yea, weary months - since I shielded you from open penury and insult, which were bound to follow you, as well as your much-loved protectors, who sheltered you from the pangs of penniless orphanage; and during these six months, which naturally should have been the pet period of nuptial harmony, it has proved the hideous period of howling dislike!
"I, as you see, am tinged with slightly snowy tufts, the result of stifled sorrow and care concerning you alone; and on the memorable day of our alliance, as you are well aware, the black and glossy locks of glistening glory crowned my brow. There dwelt then, just six months this day, no trace of sorrow or smothered woe - no variety of colour where it is and shall be so long as I exist - no furrows of grief could then be traced upon my visage. But, alas! now I feel so changed! And why?

"Because I have dastardly and doggedly been made a tool of treason in the hands of the traitoress and unworthy! I was enticed to believe that an angel was always hovering around my footsteps, when moodily engaged in resolving to acquaint you of my great love, and undying desire to place you upon the highest pinnacle possible of praise and purity within my power to bestow!

"I was led to believe that your unbounded joy and happiness were never at such a par as when sharing them with me. Was I falsely informed of your ways and worth? Was I duped to ascend the ladder of liberty, the hill of harmony, the tree of triumph, and the rock of regard, and when wildly manifesting my act of ascension, was I to be informed of treading still in the valley of defeat?

"Am I, who for nearly forty years was idolised by a mother of untainted and great Christian bearing, to be treated now like a slave? Why and for what am I thus dealt with?

"Am I to foster the opinion that you treat me thus on account of not sharing so fully in your confidence as it may be, another?

"Or is it, can it be, imaginative that you have reluctantly shared, only shared, with me that which I have bought and paid for fully?

"Can it be that your attention has ever been, or is still, attracted by another, who, by some artifice or other, had the audacity to steal your desire for me and hide it beneath his pillaged pillow of poverty, there to conceal it until demanded with my ransom?

Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!"
 
Thank goodness it was only the pillory. The bastinado is far more terrible than the pillory. Unless one was pilloried in a field of seagulls, and no farmer handy with a shot gun. But we can't have this. Shall I send to thee a box of ye choicest tea-bags at Christmas. Yorkshire tea? Lancashire tea? For thou knowest these regions have the choicest of tea plantations....

.....But I guess that does not resolve the utter vexatiousnesse of the kettle by pass. Perhaps sing to your ladye this little love ditty: see Wolf Totem.

https://www.phantomsway.com/2018/11/17/we-didnt-know-we-needed-mongolian-folk-rock-until-we-heard-it/?fbclid=IwAR0Yg-SxLAT1f9iQmn0MgIe4EaSWiU8KfSItM39XjJIl700J5dSXs-fMuv8
 
Last edited:
There follows a direct transcription of a small altercation I had with Mrs Joan this morning, after she neglected to make me a cup of tea in spite of walking directly past the kettle! Ye gods! And little fishes!

"Irene, if I may use such familiarity, I have summoned you hither, it may be to undergo a stricter examination than your present condition probably permits; but knowing, as you should, my life must be miserable under this growing cloud of unfathomed dislike, I became resolved to end, if within my power, such contentious and unlady-like conduct as that practised by you towards me of late. It is now six months - yea, weary months - since I shielded you from open penury and insult, which were bound to follow you, as well as your much-loved protectors, who sheltered you from the pangs of penniless orphanage; and during these six months, which naturally should have been the pet period of nuptial harmony, it has proved the hideous period of howling dislike!
"I, as you see, am tinged with slightly snowy tufts, the result of stifled sorrow and care concerning you alone; and on the memorable day of our alliance, as you are well aware, the black and glossy locks of glistening glory crowned my brow. There dwelt then, just six months this day, no trace of sorrow or smothered woe - no variety of colour where it is and shall be so long as I exist - no furrows of grief could then be traced upon my visage. But, alas! now I feel so changed! And why?

"Because I have dastardly and doggedly been made a tool of treason in the hands of the traitoress and unworthy! I was enticed to believe that an angel was always hovering around my footsteps, when moodily engaged in resolving to acquaint you of my great love, and undying desire to place you upon the highest pinnacle possible of praise and purity within my power to bestow!

"I was led to believe that your unbounded joy and happiness were never at such a par as when sharing them with me. Was I falsely informed of your ways and worth? Was I duped to ascend the ladder of liberty, the hill of harmony, the tree of triumph, and the rock of regard, and when wildly manifesting my act of ascension, was I to be informed of treading still in the valley of defeat?

"Am I, who for nearly forty years was idolised by a mother of untainted and great Christian bearing, to be treated now like a slave? Why and for what am I thus dealt with?

"Am I to foster the opinion that you treat me thus on account of not sharing so fully in your confidence as it may be, another?

"Or is it, can it be, imaginative that you have reluctantly shared, only shared, with me that which I have bought and paid for fully?

"Can it be that your attention has ever been, or is still, attracted by another, who, by some artifice or other, had the audacity to steal your desire for me and hide it beneath his pillaged pillow of poverty, there to conceal it until demanded with my ransom?

Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!"

Dare I confess it Marc? Some of my poetry sounds like this. But then I was only fifteenish when I wrote poetry... and to think I hadn't read "Clarissa" by then... but when eventually I skimped through the fifteen hundred odd pages, (for an exam), I totally abandoned any desire to pursue the style further. :rolleyes:
 
Hedonistic heliotrope.

But I would venture that a vexatious violet may capture better the mood; may verily veneer the piece in veils of va-va-voom.

Very good.

Ha.
 
Also...
... was I to be informed of treading still in the valley of defeat?
...informed of breaded dill in a vale of deer feet, is what I deem you meant to say.

I became cognisant of your enormity as I chanced upon my valet watching Masterchef: The Professionals on the cook's 'smart' telephone. I've docked them both a season's pay and had them thrashed.

Consider that a lesson, sir.
 
Thank goodness it was only the pillory. The bastinado is far more terrible than the pillory. Unless one was pilloried in a field of seagulls, and no farmer handy with a shot gun. But we can't have this. Shall I send to thee a box of ye choicest tea-bags at Christmas. Yorkshire tea? Lancashire tea? For thou knowest these regions have the choicest of tea plantations....

.....But I guess that does not resolve the utter vexatiousnesse of the kettle by pass. Perhaps sing to your ladye this little love ditty: see Wolf Totem.

https://www.phantomsway.com/2018/11/17/we-didnt-know-we-needed-mongolian-folk-rock-until-we-heard-it/?fbclid=IwAR0Yg-SxLAT1f9iQmn0MgIe4EaSWiU8KfSItM39XjJIl700J5dSXs-fMuv8
I'd like to say my pre-tea morning vocals sound just like the singer of said ditty (for which, thanks), but I just can't reach those pitches. In fact, the Joan household once made a recording of me requesting tea from beneath the duvet, and set it to music. Here it is:
 
Dare I confess it Marc? Some of my poetry sounds like this. But then I was only fifteenish when I wrote poetry... and to think I hadn't read "Clarissa" by then... but when eventually I skimped through the fifteen hundred odd pages, (for an exam), I totally abandoned any desire to pursue the style further. :rolleyes:
I think you should publish examples in this forum, for forensic dissection by our combined critical faculties.
 
Oh, I see. You were being fiendishly clever, while I was being silly. I say 'I'. I really mean whoever it was who stole my keyboard last night. It may have been the toddler. He has a skittish imagination.
 
Oh, I see. You were being fiendishly clever, while I was being silly. I say 'I'. I really mean whoever it was who stole my keyboard last night. It may have been the toddler. He has a skittish imagination.
LOL. Too late now, Rich.
 
I'd like to say my pre-tea morning vocals sound just like the singer of said ditty (for which, thanks), but I just can't reach those pitches. In fact, the Joan household once made a recording of me requesting tea from beneath the duvet, and set it to music. Here it is:


It has a certain something. That's the way to ask. How could the tea then fail to appear, on pain on the threat of imminent Mongolian invasion and the undying wrath of Chingis?
 
That is...wow. It's like someone dropped Lovecraft and Shakespeare in a food processor. The horror.
You probably meant to say:

"It is as if, gazing with a wild surmise, as did the poet on Kubla Khan's looming labyrinth, the reader (for it is he) (or she) clasps a clammy hand to his or her manly or heaving bosom, and called to the starry stars 'Lo! Are mine ears caressed by the dulcet words of Lovecraft? Or, truly, is it a shade of Shakespeare risen from the bard's own sepulchre to delight me with a nosegay of all virtuous vocabulary? I know not; but this I do know -- that to live without such language in my life now would be the deepest horror incarnate' "

That was what you meant to say, wasn't it?
 
You probably meant to say:

"It is as if, gazing with a wild surmise, as did the poet on Kubla Khan's looming labyrinth, the reader (for it is he) (or she) clasps a clammy hand to his or her manly or heaving bosom, and called to the starry stars 'Lo! Are mine ears caressed by the dulcet words of Lovecraft? Or, truly, is it a shade of Shakespeare risen from the bard's own sepulchre to delight me with a nosegay of all virtuous vocabulary? I know not; but this I do know -- that to live without such language in my life now would be the deepest horror incarnate' "

That was what you meant to say, wasn't it?
You're too good at this!
 
I think you should publish examples in this forum, for forensic dissection by our combined critical faculties.
Oh Marc... I thought you'd never ask!?! For crying out Marc, I'll agree if you then put up a thread called "My Worst Poems". Deal? But first I need to look for those poems... we're talking about scrapbooks fifty years old- I think I still have them somewhere in the basement, full of mould no doubt. So when I've stopped looking around here I'll go and resurrect those scrap books and choose a "worst" poem. Of course, I'll have to type it out, there weren't even electric typewriters in those days let alone p.c.s:rolleyes:
 
Oh Marc... I thought you'd never ask!?! For crying out Marc, I'll agree if you then put up a thread called "My Worst Poems". Deal? But first I need to look for those poems... we're talking about scrapbooks fifty years old- I think I still have them somewhere in the basement, full of mould no doubt. So when I've stopped looking around here I'll go and resurrect those scrap books and choose a "worst" poem. Of course, I'll have to type it out, there weren't even electric typewriters in those days let alone p.c.s:rolleyes:

Yes, I still have my scrap books, tattered and worn but all 468 poems are there... and they are numbered too, some even have a date starting with 8th February 1969. Then I noticed that in one of my external disks I had actually typed out a few, so I am posting one of those- the very first one in fact called "Ambition"... here goes, let the dances begin, as Jane Austen would say:

#1 Ambition - 8th February 2069

If I could take the giant sun within my arms
And count one by one its radiant beams,
Capture there majesty’s embrace into my palms
It would not be enough to solve my dreams,
For ambition is stronger than any created thing-
And no human hand can remove its sting.


Time has made me toss upon its sea too long,
Yet powerless against such forces humans be
For to conquer time we have no key.
Yet even if I, time in grasp could hold
Still the longing of my heart, remains untold.


Then life, the greatest gift of all
What can surpass what has no mortality?
‘Tis that voice within the heart that calls
Which given no heed, breaks into brutality
And leads a life which is not life
While passiveness becomes the stabbing knife.

What is that call that has such mighty power
That forbids the heart and soul its rest
And like a huge gigantic tower
Upon the mind forms its nest?
The call’s to love, and love in return
Is all our strife, and all our precious life can earn!
:rolleyes:
 
A horse and a pen. I see nothing but innocence here.

Out of interest, how much are M&B paying these days? [asking for a friend]
 
Apparently very well. I read an interview a while ago about this woman who started writing them simply to make a living. And she makes a nice living.

You should write up a few chapters up and post them on the writer's group. Just to, y'know, let us see whether you are up to the task. (And, sure, lookit, encourage another lurgy, and you could record a whole audiobook about your dark, brooding, gravelly-voiced hero. That would be hilarious a bestseller).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

November writing goals.

Amusement Korean library

Back
Top