Words of one beat

[larryhammer]

Here's a fun game: Write posts in words of just one beat. It's hard at first, but once you catch the way of it, soon you can spin it out like a stream flows on and on. Well, yeah, sure, streams don't have to stop for food or sleep, but you can still go as long as you want. Or till you try to count -- it's danged hard to count past ten.

The best play is take a bit of verse or prose that's in bad words you can't read,* and put it in good words. If you're good at this, you can make your verse still rhyme; if you're way good, you can keep the beats of the line; if you catch the sound, the sweep, the tune, of the old verse -- well, I bow down in awe, Dude. Here's a stab at what I mean:

To His Coy Miss
by Drew Marv.

    Had we but all the world, and time,
These coy ways, Miss, would be no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the East Ind stream's bank-side
Shouldst find red gems: I by the tide
Near York would moan of love. I would
Love you ten years ere came the Flood,
You should say "No," if you should please,
Till Jews to Christ go on their knees.
My love like an old herb should grow
To some great state, and still more slow;
Five score of years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy brow should gaze;
Twice that to dwell long on each breast;
A Great Year's span to all the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Miss, you should be loved in state,
Nor would I love at a fast rate.
    But at my back I seem to hear
Time's wing'd and horse-drawn cart run near;
And there in front of us lies this
Dead plain of all the time there is.
Thy good looks shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy stone-carved tomb, shall sound
My much-sung song: then worms shall raid
That long-kept state which you call "maid,"
And your quaint good name turn to dust,
And burn to ash shall all my lust:
The grave's a fine and well-hid place,
But no one screws in such a space.
    Now thus, while youth's first flush and hue
Sits on thy skin like the dawn dew,
And while thy soul now still wills forth
These quick, hot fires through all thy pores,
Let's fuck like minks while yet we may,
And now, like lust-crazed birds of prey,
Rip all at once to shreds this hour
And not be gnawed in his slow power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
We have that's sweet up in a ball,
And tear what comes from rough love strife
Through these steel grates hedged round our life:
Thus, though we can't make our old sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

As you can see, names are hard, too. We used to play this game on an old board, long since dead. I've got a page of works in words of one beat and an Oft Asked Things that gives the rules in more depth (with notes on such words as "power"). If you want to play, feel free to post here (and let me know if you want me to add it to the page). Or if you think folks would take part, we could start a group L.J. to play in.

* The way we played it, if you used a word with two or more beats, we could not "see" the word -- it was a hole on screen, as it were.

E.T.A.: I note that there is a wordsofonebeat group L.J. now. Needs some work to make it look nice, but I'll get to that in a bit.

---L.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*claps, man*

[larryhammer]

One can hope the verse helped Drew get in the girl's pants.

---L.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

You make me think back to the day of that old board, long since dead! It brings a tear to my old eye.

I grow old, you know, I grow old. I shall wear the ends of my pants all rolled.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Uh.

Wow.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

You still have all the old ones? We changed lots of verse to words of one beat. It was fun! "To His Coy Miss" is still the best.

[larryhammer]

By the way, Will takes well to this sort of thing.

---L.

[larryhammer]

I have but a few from the time on the DJinn board; this has those plus all I did on D.M. If you have more, do send them on.

---L.

[larryhammer]

You and me both, Pat -- you and me both. (I wear tweed today, which means rolled cuffs are but a week off.)

---L.

[larryhammer]

You should try it. I mean it.

---L.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

At the round Earth's made-up sharp bits
Blow your horns, winged ones, and rise up
Rise up from death, you great past all we can count, of souls
And to each your own corpse, spread out, please go!

All whom the flood did and fire shall turn
All whom war, death, age, hard heart, brute force
squashed down, or who by law or chance are slain;
And you whose eyes shall see God

And not now or then taste death's woe
But let them sleep, Lord, and me cry a while
For, if on top of all else, my sins rise to a high point
It's late to ask You to give your grace to me in full
Now that we are there

Here on this low down dirt
Teach me how to be small, for that's as good
As if you'd stamped and sealed and proved me
With your own shirt.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Sigh. So good.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

I had some, but the file is gone. This is what comes of new hard drives and old lost back up disks.

[tnh.livejournal.com]

Such joy! -- when I first read that Blest Verse Five-plus-two, which you may see a short way up from here, it seemed to me (and so I said to P.) that there should be one of those jots, those mere curved dabs of ink that sit at words' right feet, thus joined to "did" and "shall" in the fifth line. Then, when I looked at John Donne's own verse, Lo! those same jots fell in those same spots in that same line; for which cause I'm much pleased -- and smug, too.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* I gotta say, I think I prefer the originals...

*ducks*

[athenais.livejournal.com]

You all so rule. Like, wow. I wish I could do the same. But I don't have the knack.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Ha! Very good. Were I home rather than in India, I'd give it a shot...

[larryhammer]

Though how to point Donne's verse is a vexed thing, with the texts sent out as they were, and none of them of his hand.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Yes! There, that's the way. (Though where'd the shirt come from?) My I post it on the One Beat Book of Verse?

---L.

[larryhammer]

Like all knacks, it takes the act to bring it out. My first tries were, well, it's best not to think of them.

---L.

[larryhammer]

That is sad.

---L.

[larryhammer]

It's like all words done from tongue to tongue -- if you know the first form, it's best.

Too, I'm not half the verse wright that Will was. Or a tenth.

---L.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

No doubt there's blood on the shirt.

Go, sure, post.

[larryhammer]

The Great East Land comes first -- at least in front of this fluff. Have fun! (By the way, have you read All the Fish Come Home to Roost by rachelmanija? It's her tale of when she was a child in that land, when her Mom and Dad went to a man of God's school. I don't know if it's out Down There, though -- I think the Brit form comes out in a few months.)

---L.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* What's a one-beat word for "obsessed"?

[larryhammer]

"Caught." Or "trapped." "All for." "Can think of nought else."

(It's best, in words of one beat, to go phrase by phrase, not word by word. Just as with real tongues.)

---L.