Digging in the clutter I came across a literary game I played in the back of a college notebook. (I should have been taking notes.)
It’s simple. Write down a well-known line from a poem and provide an unsuitable second line. Another way to play: Make up a random and outrageous second line and have someone guess the first.
Here are some examples from back then: Feel free to provide your alternative second lines.
They flee from me, that sometime did me seek
Not surprising since I now carry an M-16 rifle.
Whose woods these are I think I know
But property is theft so who gives a shit?
I wander thro’ each charter‘d street
And get lost because my map is upside down.
On either side the river lie
Empty beer bottles and rubber tyres.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Cry: “Down with American Imperialism.”
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment
But just confess that the whole thing is a crock.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
And now I have a house in the Hamptons and still haven’t been caught.
Lay your sleeping head my love
Somewhere else, I’ve got a cramp in my shoulder
There was a child went forth every day
It was an unfair system and his parents were working class.
Softly in the dusk a woman is singing to me
Shut up you old bag I’m watching the cricket.
Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Never did learn to spell correctly.
Time to Play
Here’s an excessively long list of random first lines. Skip through it. Got any rejoinders?
Any other first lines come to mind? Set them as a challenge to be completed.
____________________
We wear the mask that grins and lies
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie
He came home. Said nothing.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad
A little called anything shows shudders
If you can keep your head when all about you
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
The sea is calm tonight
If I should die think only this of me
Among twenty snowy mountains
To see a world in a grain of sand,
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
What happens to a dream deferred?
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
I was angry with my friend
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
I met a traveller from an antique land
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Sundays too my father got up early
It is not the moon, I tell you
She walks in beauty like the night
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
The King sits in Dunfermline town
A cold coming we had of it
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
Love set you going like a fat gold watch
Have fun!
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
Well he had to really. The three little pigs had huffed and puffed his house down.
If you can keep your head when all about you
You are getting through covid a hell of a lot better than I am.
If you can keep your head when all about you
are lying through their teeth, then you must be watching Fox News.
Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans upon his hoe
And says I need more than a hoe to help these people.
Great – thanks.
Your first one had me laughing!
“Tyger, tyger, burning bright, ”
I told you not to sit so close to the fire!
All four of these are great Chris!
“Where’er you walk,”
-watch where you tread, there’s a lot of dog poo on the sidewalk!
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, ”
and a thousand parodies are created.
“What is this life, ….”
42
Do not go gentle into that good night;
take a flashlight and carry a big stick
The owl and the pussy cat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat
But Boris sent out the military so the boats no longer afloat.
I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over hills and dales
I think I may be taking social distancing too far
Terrific! Love them.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Completed their journey in the tumbril…
Gruesomely good one Ray!
They flee from me that sometime did me seek’
Now I’m knee-deep up shit creek.
You-reek-a!
🤓
A good game for school! I just remember writing ‘Help!’ over and over. Here we go…
‘Sundays too my father got up early’
Sneaking from the bed of Auntie Shirley
‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’
Don’t bother.
Challenge:
‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’
‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’
Go for it. There’s a big storm brewing.
They fuck you up, you mum and dad
Your were a girl, now you’re a lad
Seems right on for the social contagion of our time!
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
On every channel showing live TV.
i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my pocket)<>
Brilliant!
Behold her, single in the field…”
Yon solitary lass must gaggin’ for it.
This is fun…I’ll have to think about it…
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall”
Well he had to really. The three little pigs had huffed and puffed his house down.
Challenge:
“Look stranger on this island now”
Love it!
Look stranger on this island now
Before the latest crop of politicians changes it beyond all recognition.