(a cento)
…
The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.
(oh, ye high flown quills that soar the skies)
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
we wear the mask that grins and lies.
The world is too much with us; late and soon.
Leave a kiss, but in the cup.
Speak – my tongue is broken.
Waves, I have no wings.
I am the dark one, my sole star is dead;
I raised my cup to invite the moon,
turned to my shadow, and
we became three.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
…….Did you want to see me broken?
How do you like your blueeyed boy, Mister Death?
….To still the beating
…………of my heart, I stood repeating:
Ah, me! How hard a thing it is to say,
So much depends upon
love with unconfined wings.
..
Woven from lines from: Shakespeare, Anne Bradstreet, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Wordsworth, Ben Jonson, Sappho, Arthur Rimbaud, Gerard De Nerval, Li Po, Allen Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, E.E. Cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, Dante, William Carlos Williams, Richard Lovelace.
Prompted by day 3 at Quickly in September {part 1 of 3}.
Whimsygizmo's Blog 
“I raised my cup to invite the moon,
turned to my shadow, and
we became three.” … Excellent.
“Which way does your beard point tonight?
Did you want to see me broken?” … Love 🙂
I see WCW in the title. Love the title, by the way.
Thanks, I struggled with the title. 😉
I want the cup/moon/three line for my own. It’s Li Po.
And I loved the way Ginsberg and Angelou got along in those other two lines. 🙂
The construction here is quite good. Piecing the puzzle together is always the best part of cento. Great lines and combinations, De.
I like how yours makes sense. Like the beard pointing… and unconfined wings – mine are now free!
If I ever do a cento again it will be shorter!
Love, love the finale. There are so many things “so much” depends on.
Thanks, b. I was sooooo tempted to go pull some more lines for a list right there…but also didn’t want to complicate things…perhaps in a re-write. Or when we all decompose. Wait…no…deconstruct? 😉
It’s Walt who’s decomposing. The rest of us…dismember?
Ahhhh. That’s right. I disremembered. 😉
Wow. I love the way I recognized so much here, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it (well, the obvious ones I could).
“So long as men can breathe, and eyes can see” It’s amazing how much those 10 words grab me… so simple and yet the depth.
and the world is too much with us – that one too.
And when I wasn’t sure that some of this wasn’t your writing I did think the moon/ shadow thing was yours – it reminded me of you – to a T!
Awwww. Thank you. I LOVE that line by Li Po.
Don’t bother reading mine. Sigh…yours is magic! The time spent well worth it. 🙂
Are you kidding? I was just there. It’s fantastic.
De!! Thank you…I’m in one of those feeling rushed poetry modes…not sure how they’re coming out but pouring them out because I must…sigh. ♥ I’m glad you enoyed it!
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