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With You at an Ancient Temple (Sonnet) by Sasha
Some places were not meant for love. A shrine graced with pure roofless marble by the glade, as the sun lent us a columnar shade, helped us like rival ivies intertwine. Tourists flashed in to feel and photograph the unchanging statues, trying to ignore the two kids curled like shadows on the floor unseen by those stone gods. Long since I laugh in memory of pallid jealousy they masked behind bold gossip of “What is it with kids today?” with mere stone to admire. You’re what’s with me today, my dear, as we before the altar of our hearth revisit that blessèd blasphemy of our desire.

Down the ladder: Down Memory Lane

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Arithmetic Mean: 7.5
Weighted score: 5.2980075
Overall Rank: 3715
Posted: August 23, 2005 10:40 AM PDT; Last modified: August 23, 2005 8:35 PM PDT
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Comments:
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.179.244 | 24-Aug-05/4:58 AM | Reply
Hey, you pulled off the slang! Great!

But... some archaicky and/or highfalutin talk:
"graced", "lent", "rival ivies", "unchanging", "pallid jealousy", "masked behind bold gossip", "blessed blasphemy" (minus extra for the unnecessary diacritic.)

It's not that I have a problem with highfalutin as such. Lord knows I highfalute as much as anyone. But it's just so... STYLIZED, you know? I mean, what does it mean for a thing to grace you with something? Or who thinks statues are really unchanging anymore? Nothing and nobody, except in the kinda-removed language of old poesie. I doubt even Pope ever felt really GRACED by something in his long damp life. It's just what you say something does when you need to make it do something in a poem. Or it's like trying to write folksy/bluegrass music (which I do a lot). At some point you're not originating, you're just writing what bluegrass is supposed to sound like - the forms. Not art but a museum piece, ya know? -10-
[n/a] Sasha @ 68.49.8.49 > zodiac | 24-Aug-05/12:29 PM | Reply
I don't think "rival ivies" has ever been used in a poem before, nor have "pallid jealousy" or "blessed blasphemy," how are they stylized? The grave accent is not as archaic as you might think. Witness:

Yeats: "an agèd man is but a paltry thing"

Alastair Reid (in translating a poem by Borges) "Blessèd are those who do not hunger for justice."

"Unchanging" I agree is redundant as is "graced"
[10] zodiac @ 212.118.19.227 > Sasha | 26-Aug-05/5:07 AM | Reply
Weak answer: I dunno, just kind of strike me as stylized. You'll have to give me a day or so for the not-weak answer.

As far as accents, I look to Frost, whose more-or-less straight-up rhythmical verse is full of extra and dropped syllables (cf. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.) I've never had trouble reading Frost's intended rhythm, and I wouldn't stumble on "blessed blashphemy" in a pentameter poem. At best, the grave's unnecessary for modern readers, I think.
[10] INTRANSIT @ 205.188.116.198 > zodiac | 26-Aug-05/6:10 AM | Reply
Do you think i should strengthen the echoing sounds in -Quietus?
[10] INTRANSIT @ 205.188.116.69 | 25-Aug-05/8:56 AM | Reply
I read this several times to be sure I got the most out of it. Thank you for your time, Sasha.
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