I've been threatening folks in Chime with this thread, and today I'm feeling silly enough to post it. A while back, there was a discussion about the Oath and how it changes, and I guess I thought it would be fun to see it in a few other forms, and I know we've got a ton of poets on this board.

So, let's see who can rewrite the Oath as a haiku (or other verse form of your choice).

For Life's sake a vow
To always heal; never harm
I shall use the Art

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kli6,

Two different, independent versions. Because I rock just that much.
Also because it is damned hard to condense the Oath, so I took two different angles.

Until all things end
I will be steward of Life
Caring, protecting.

For guardianship
Of all that lives I swear this:
Defense, and no more.

Anyone brave enough to tackle a pontoum, villanelle, or sestina has my hearty congratulations and a mug of digital coffee. I might myself, once I have more time...

Oooo! Much more articulate than mine. I like!! And yeah, hard to cram the whole Oath into a single haiku.

Myself, I'm waiting to see if anybody takes on the challenge of a limerick, double-dactyl, or clerihew...

Lemme try a limerick... XD

Once there was a wizard from Manhattan
who happened to pass by a broken fan
Said, "How do you do,
and can I help you?"
And was shipped off to a mental institution by a passing man.

aka the forums with the rest of us loons.

Hee hee hee!!! [applause]

I can only think that the first line of a double dactyl needs to start with "temporal clauditing" ...

Thanks. I love all the others, but no one else is posting.

Poot: *footsteppishes*

*attempts to drag people from chat into it* Rawww, excuses, all excuses...

I think because it takes time to come up with something. I mean if someone wanted to do a Shakespearean sonnet, that could take a while.

And geez, a sestina would take forever. Ouch! I mean, if I were going to do a sestina, just picking out my six words would take HOURS...

That's why I said haikus.

to guard and protect
how life grows naturally
the Wizard's Oath stands

in the name of Life
and Living things I say I
will serve and protect.

Umph. This is harder than it looks. I am sort of tempted to put it into daft rhyming couplets, since we mention other forms, but I'm pretty sure that would be frivolous and, like, bad.

Still tempted, though...

Pfft. Go ahead.
More haiku, 'cause I'm just that lazy.

Servant, protector
All Life my ward and I Life's
Fear not eternity.

That last line of papercrane's haiku had six syllables...anywho..I'll have a go.

I've taken the oath
in life's name and for life's sake
I'll practice the art.

eh...it'll do...

Ok. To fulfill the trad. haiku restriction of mentioning a season:

summer and winter
on guard against entropy
'til Timeheart's meeting

And just 'cause I'm feeling daft and rhymy, too...

There once was a wizard named S'ree
Who spent all her life in the sea.
Said one human senior
The moment you've seen 'er,
You'll say: "A whale of a wizard is she!"

Aiyee, Lovebird's right...
Just change 'eternity' for 'forever.' I don't like it as much, but hey...what can ya do?

Love the limerick, kli. Ought to win something. First of the category, for one.

No, no, Gryph's was the FIRST limerick posted.

Clerihew:

Diane Duane
Drives us insane
Since her publisher can't resist
Making release dates drift

Oh god, I have been so mind-numblingly stressed the past few days...weeks...yeah. I apologize to everyone involved, and will just be shutting up now.

I should be more intelligent and come up with some witty poem(s) to make this post more than one line instead of whining about what I should do. The poem(s) would have been brilliant, I assure you. Let us mourn their loss.

Oh, dear. Heartfelt sympathies, and much mournful wistfulness of the Lost Poems of Papercrane. Hopefully it's less crazy for you now!

hey ppc just ship all the leftover crazy to me ok? i collect it. I mean there is no such thing as too much crazy. there is however such a thing as being too crazy but those two facts are entirely unrelated.
besides less crazy for you means more for me and then i get to figure out what to do with the surplus crazy and try not to go crazy trying to figure out what to do with the crazy.
if any of you are going crazy trying to follow this send me that crazy too please.

Well, I thought that I would jump off the deep end and join in. Laugh if you must .

Wizardry is the
knowledge of what is wrong and the
power to fix it.

There was once a Power who caused pain
Most wizards thought it was strange
That when defeated It was
It never changed Its cause
And went on to cause pain once again

there

Yay, alla!! [clap clap clap].

I suddenly realized the last two lines of my clerihew don't rhyme. Hmmmm. I think it's time to use a rhyming dictionary. (I cannot rhyme for toffee. Luckily, there are reference books/websites for people who cannot rhyme for toffee.)

Clerihew, take two:

Diane Duane
Drives us insane
Because her publisher keeps
Using a release date that creeps

Ok, this one isn't really a formal verse form, but I have this urge to paraphrase a well-known rhyme:

At the Crossings
Heed instructions
It saves rebuilding
And constructions
--Burma Shave

[The original was: "At school crossings/Head instructions/Save our little/Tax deductions--Burma Shave." I suppose, I should've tried something with "Free! Free!/A trip to Mars!/For 900/Empty Jars!--Burma Shave"....]

quote:

kli6 rhymed:
I suddenly realized the last two lines of my clerihew don't rhyme.

It's an assonance, as Eustace Scrubb claimed in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

quote:

Hmmmm. I think it's time to use a rhyming dictionary. (I cannot rhyme for toffee. Luckily, there are reference books/websites for people who cannot rhyme for toffee.)

I'm still boggling at the concept of toffee delegating rhyming to people. I hadn't really thought about toffee as some sort of poetry mastermind, before, and now that image is stuck in my mind.

Yes, it's an assonance, but clerihews are supposed to rhyme, alas.

I always pictured it not so much as a piece of toffee demanding that you rhyme, so much as "for toffee" was kind of like "for food" in "will work for food." But I've never understood why toffee would be such a great motivator, either. Your teeth would stick together after too much of it.