DPP: The Poetry of Pilots

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Greetings and salutations, 'shipper nation! This is Amy, known on your internets as ninjamonkey73, and I'm driving the DPP bus this week. Sit back and enjoy the ride...

I really enjoyed the last time we had a poetry post, so I've resurrected it in a giant tub of Cylon goo.


Know a really great piece of poetry that reminds you of Kara? Lee? Pilot!love? Feel like writing one? Come one, come all! Rhyme, don't rhyme. Play with meter, stanzas, punctuation. Write a limerick, a haiku, an epic. Quote a favorite. Whatever, as long as it's even remotely poetry. And if it ties into a specific moment or arc for you, tell us about it.

I will kick things off with Shakespeare's Love Sonnet #145:

Those lips that love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate,"
To me that languished for her sake.
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet.
"I hate" she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away.
"I hate" from hate away she threw.
And saved my life, saying "not you."

When I read this, all I could think of was how it makes me think of Scar, from "What about us?" through the slap-kiss. But, sadly, that's the extent of my ability to quoth established poetry.

What ya' got?

Comments

[utenatai.livejournal.com]

I picked up Stephen Dunn's Between Angels, which has been sitting on my shelf since undergrad, and for some reason this go 'round a couple of poems really struck me, probably because they feel so pilots-y to me.

Letting the Puma Go Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels

I'll make a perfect body, said God,
and invent ways to make it fail.
--lines removed from the poem

He liked to watch the big cats.
He liked their beautiful contept,
yet imagined how they might change
and love him
and stretch out near his geet
if he were to let them go.
And of course he wanted
to let them go
as he wanted to let himself go,
grateful for the iron bars, the lock.
He'd heard the tiger succeeds
only once in twenty hunts-
the fragile are that attunced
and that fast-
and was confused again about God,
the god who presided here.
He'd watch the tigers at feeding time,
then turn to the black panther,
its languid fierce pacing, and know
it was possible not to care
if the handsome get everything.
Except for the lions.
Hadn't the lions over the years
become their names, like the famous?
But he could spend half an afternoon
with those outfielders,
the pumas, cheetahs, leopards.
So this is excellence, he imagined:
movement toward the barely possible,
the puma's dream
of running down a hummingbird
on a grassy plain.
And then he'd let the puma go,
just before closing time
he'd wish-open its cage
and follow it into the suddenly
uncalm streets,
telling all the children it was his.

This one feels like Kara and Sam, but I'm posting it anyway

[utenatai.livejournal.com]

Mon Semblable Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels

I like things my way
every chance I get.
A limit doesn't exist

when it comes to that.
But please, don't confuse
what I say with honesty.

Isn't honesty the open yawn
the unimaginative love
more than truth?

Anonymous among strangers
I look for those
with hidden wings,

and for scars
that those who once had wings
can't hide.

Though I know it's unfair,
I reveal myself
one mask at a time.

Does this appeal to you,
such slow disclosures,
a lifetime perhaps

of almost knowing one another?
I would hope you, too
would hold something back

and that you'd always want
whatever unequal share
you had style enough to get.

Altruism is for those
who can't endure their desires.
There's a world

as ambiguous as a moan,
a pleasure moan
our earnest neighbors

might think a crime.
It's where we could live.
I'll say I love you,

which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid

poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone ever has.

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

The imagery in this one is great! Wanting to let the puma go to try to claim it as his... It does ring very pilot-y.