Push Poetry (an addendum)

Some time back, in the beforetimes prior to the pandemic, I wrote about my ”push poetry.” You should review that post to see what it is and how it came to be.  As that was over 3 years ago now, you can imagine that I’ve pushed a few more times since then, and generated a bit more “poetry.” I thought I’d just take this opportunity to share a few more bits and bobs I’ve slapped together in the meantime.

Last time, I shared my most prized example, this cento:

once upon a time, when it lived in the woods,
and be was finale of seem,
the push machine past, the push machine future,
and the dreaming moment between.
tenders of paradox, tenders of measure,
tenders of shadows that fall,
black seas of infinity, most merciful thing,
my god, full of stars, all.

(For a full provenance, see the original post.)

Here are some others that I’ve put together in the past few years, and where they come from.

the sky was darkened, and a low rumbling sound was heard in the air.  there was a rushing of many wings, a great chattering and laughing, and the sun came out of the dark sky to show a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of immense and powerful wings on his shoulders.  then, with a great deal of chattering and noise, the winged monkeys flew to the place where the push machine and its tender bots were working.

some of the monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the machine and wound many coils about its chassis and control panel and caterpillar treads, until it was unable to roll or rotate or move in any way.

others of the monkeys caught the machine, and with their long fingers pulled all of the wires and hoses out of its logic circuits. they made its valve caps and control dials and gauges into a small bundle and threw it into the top branches of a tall tree.

the remaining monkeys seized the machine and carried it through the air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks.  here they dropped the poor push machine, which fell a great distance to the rocks, where it lay so battered and dented that it could neither extend its control arms nor generate any steam.

then all the winged monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight.

Obviously, this one is from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the book, not the movie).

the figure turns half round, and the light falls upon the face.  it is perfectly white—perfectly bloodless. the eyes look like polished tin; the lips are drawn back, and the principal feature next to those dreadful eyes is the teeth—the fearful looking teeth—projecting like those of some wild animal, hideously, glaringly white, and fang-like. 

with a sudden rush that could not be foreseen—with a strange howling cry that was enough to awaken terror in the breast of every tender bot, the figure seized the exposed tubes and wires of the push machine, and twining them round his bony hands he held it to the riverbank. electronic whine followed the scream of grinding metal in rapid succession. the glassy, horrible eyes of the figure ran over that mettalic form with a hideous satisfaction—horrible profanation. with a plunge he seizes the primary coolant hose in his fang-like teeth—a gush of fluid, and a hideous sucking noise follows. the push machine has fallen still, and the attacker is at his hideous repast!

I loved researching this one.  This is from Varney the Vampire, often considered to be the first modern vampire story (preceding Dracula by nearly fifty years).

life is short
and pleasures few
and holed the ship
and drowned the crew
but o! but o!
how very blue
the sea is.

i dreamt a limitless machine, a machine unbound,
its gears scattered in fantastic abundance,
on every tooth there was a new horizon drawn.
new heavens supposed;
new states, new souls.

i dreamed i spoke in the push’s language,
i dreamed i lived in the push’s skin;
i dreamed i was my own tender bot,
i dreamed i was a tiger’s kin.

here is a list of terrible things:
the jaws of sharks, a vultures wings,
the rabid bite of the bots of war,
the voice of one who went before,
but most of all the push’s gaze,
which counts us out our numbered days.

o push machine,
my little one,
come with me,
your life is done.

forget the future,
forget the past.
life is over:
belch out your last.

a machine lies in wait in me,
a stew of wounds and misery,
but fiercer still in life and limb,
the push that lies in wait for him.

life is short
and labor steep
rusted the bots
and ruined the keep
but o! but o!
how very deep
the river is.

This one comes from gluing together some of Clive Barker’s poetry.  Though Barker is of course known for writing excellent horror stories (and is in fact one of my pentagram of literary idols), he does occasionally dabble in poetry, and he’s not too shoddy at it.  I believe all of these are from the Abarat series, though from different poems, probably in different volumes.

forward, the push machine!
and every tender bot unseen.
not though they all knew
someone had blundered.
theirs not to make reply,
theirs not to reason why,
theirs but to do and die.
into the valley of death
went the push machine unencumbered.

then from the bank it seem’d there came, but faint
as from beyond the limit of the world,
like the last echo born of a great cry,
sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
around a machine returning from its labours.

twilight and evening bell,
and after that the dark.
and may there be no sadness of farewell,
when the push machine embarks.

cannon to right of it,
cannon to left of it,
cannon in front of it
volleyed and thundered;
stormed at with shot and shell,
boldly it rolled, but fell
into the jaws of death,
into the mouth of hell
went the push machine, now encumbered.

thereat once more through the mud clomb the tender bots,
ev’n to the highest they could reach, and saw,
straining their sensors beneath the rolling door,
or thought they saw, the speck that bore the machine
down that long river opening on the deep
somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
from less to less and vanish into light.
and the sun set, bringing on the night.

These are all Tennyson poems.  The first and fourth stanzas are from “The Charge of the Light Brigade”; the second and fifth (final) stanzas are from “Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur”; and the centerpiece is from the classic “Crossing the Bar.”

twas a dark and stormy night
and the torrents fell like rain;
you may get there by candle-light:
the place where the push machine was slain.

no less liquid than their shadows
at night, the ice weasels come.
obsequious as darkness, under the gallows,
they came; consumed; now are gone.

as hollow and empty, in the bleak december,
as the spaces between the stars.
the ghost of each separate dying ember
illuminates the scars.

now the rain (like tears) is perfunctory;
i can assure you, there was exquisite pain—
fear is the mind-killer; blood is compulsory—
on the night the push machine was slain.

And here’s another cento; I really love writing these.

Stanza 1

• Lines 1 & 2: The classic opening line of the bad novel Paul Clifford, which inspired the awesome Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
• Line 3: I’ve reused line 4 from my original cento; it’s a traditional nursery rhyme, though I first became aware of it courtesy of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.
• Line 4: Original.

Stanza 2

• Line 1, line 3 (first half): “Cats,” by A.S.J. Tessimond, contains one of my all time favorite opening couplets, and I often reach for it in cento writing.
• Line 2: This is from a quote from Matt Groening’s Big Book of Hell.  Fun fact: I wove this exact line into a wedding speech I gave once.
• Line 3 (second half), line 4: I can’t quite remember where these came from, but at least some of it is original, I’m pretty sure.

Stanza 3

• Line 1 (first half), line 2: This is a line from The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler.
• Line 1 (second half), line 3: From “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe.
• Line 4: Original.

Stanza 4

• Line 2: A classic line from “The Forbidden,” Clive Barker’s short story that was the basis for Candyman (just slightly rearranged).
• Line 3 (first half): This is part of the Bene Gesserit litany against fear, from Dune.
• Line 3 (second half): The penultimate line from my favorite speech of Richard Dreyfuss’ character in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
• Line 1, line 4: Original.

That’s all I got for ya this week.  Tune in next time for a more substantial post.