Sunday, April 15, 2012

WordParty Poetry Challenge - Writing Prompt #14

Day 14
Write an Ode
by Ingrid


The dictionary says an ode is "typically a lyric poem addressing a particular subject in an elevated style."  Many famous poems have been written in this way, and Neruda has an entire book of odes which looks at simple items like the tomato, a box of tea, the honeybee.  In short an ode is a way to examine and express your admiration for something or someone.


Write an ode and have fun with it. Examine the texture and life of whatever it is you are examining!


See these examples:


Ode to the Bee
by Pablo Neruda


Plentiness of the bee!
Coming and going
from orange, blue and yellow
from the softest softness of the world -
she hastily enters on business the flower crown
and exits with golden coat and yellow boots.

Perfect with a waist of lines of dark bands
with tiny always busy head and watery wings
she enters scented windows, opens silken doors
enters the sanctum of the most fragrant love,
stumbles over small droplets of diamond dew
and from all visited houses she takes mysterious honey,
rich and heavy, of dense fragrance
and liquid light that falls down in drops
until she reaches the bee palace
and deposes the product of the flower, of the flight
and of the seraphic, secret sun.

Plentiness of the bee!
Sacred elevation of the unity,
palpitating school! 

Sonorous buzzing multitudes that tune the nectar
passing swiftly drops of ambrosia -
it is the siesta of the summer of green and of the solitudes of Osorno.
Above the sun stitches his lances in the snow, lighting the volcanoes
wide as the oceans is the earth, blue is the space
but there is something trembling,
it is the burning heart of the summer
the heart of multiplied honey,
the noisy bee in the living comb of golden flights.

Bees, pure selfless workers,
thin, flashing proletarians, perfect fearsome militia
that in war attack with suicidal stings
buzz, buzz over the earth’s realms
family of gold, windy multitudes
shake the fire of the flowers
the thirst of the stamens
the sharp thread of fragrances
that unite the days and make the honey
surpassing the wet continents
and the farthest islands of the sky of the West

Yes:
Let the wax raise green statues
let the honey overflow in infinite tongues
let the ocean be a comb
and the Earth be a tower and tunic of flowers
Let the world be a cascade,
magnificent head of hair,
unceasing growth of Beedom!



Ode on a Grecian Urn
by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both,
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?


Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
         For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
                For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
         When old age shall this generation waste,
                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."