agreed.  and where i live here with maggie in mexico, each time she reads tom's comeback, up comes these hoots of laughter from her room.  [we must get our rules together for folks to break, and soon, before m and t have made up their own!]

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.
He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.
Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?
No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innoscence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!



 

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.
He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.
Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?
No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innoscence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!

Check out? This line. A wild card and four aces,
the total is a buck two-eighty. Pay me Tuesday.
No I don't care if you have a Roman collar,
they're a dime a dozen in this jurisdiction.
Yes, La Mancha. Everybody here is someone,
but the manchego cheese, ¡que rico!
If you need something for your donkey--
oh, lo siento, señor, he looks like a donkey!
Nevermind. Ah hah. You are here to see
Aldonza? Señor, no one sees Aldonza.
She is--figmento, do you say? There was
a guy here years ago, walked right in here
and said the same thing, bought a wild card
and aces too. With him, señor, it went hard.

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.
He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.
Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?
No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innoscence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!

Check out? This line. A wild card and four aces,
the total is a buck two-eighty. Pay me Tuesday.
No I don't care if you have a Roman collar,
they're a dime a dozen in this jurisdiction.
Yes, La Mancha. Everybody here is someone,
but the manchego cheese, ¡que rico!
If you need something for your donkey--
oh, lo siento, señor, he looks like a donkey!
Nevermind. Ah hah. You are here to see
Aldonza? Señor, no one sees Aldonza.
She is--figmento, do you say? There was
a guy here years ago, walked right in here
and said the same thing, bought a wild card
and aces too. With him, señor, it went hard.


And aces, too? With him, señor, it went hard-
er than it should have. The jury did not smile.
Didn't buy amnesia from a hangnail or the wind
as an adversary. A genius is a fool who
moves the foolish to pity. Pity.
If only songs came with the poetry,
his sensibilities might have shared visions.
There is no weight to pay you Tuesday, amigo;
the jailer has no taste for donkey and I have freed the chickens.
What awaits sentencing is the question
and your confusion about my silk dancer's pants.
It will cost you to peek.

I leave Aldonza to her crazies;
but for him I will plant the tallest daisies.

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.
He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.
Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?
No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innoscence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!

Check out? This line. A wild card and four aces,
the total is a buck two-eighty. Pay me Tuesday.
No I don't care if you have a Roman collar,
they're a dime a dozen in this jurisdiction.
Yes, La Mancha. Everybody here is someone,
but the manchego cheese, ¡que rico!
If you need something for your donkey--
oh, lo siento, señor, he looks like a donkey!
Nevermind. Ah hah!--you are here to see
Aldonza?  Señor, no one sees Aldonza.
She is--figmento, do you say? There was
a guy here years ago, walked right in here

and said the same thing, bought a wild card
and aces too. With him, señor, it went hard.

And aces, too? With him, señor, it went hard-
er than it should have. The jury did not smile.
Didn't buy amnesia from a hangnail or the wind
as an adversary. A genius is a fool who
moves the foolish to pity. Pity.
If only songs came with the poetry,
his sensibilities might have shared visions.
There is no weight to pay you Tuesday, amigo;
the jailer has no taste for donkey and I have freed the chickens.
What awaits sentencing is the question
and your confusion about my silk dancer's pants.
It will cost you to peek.

I leave Aldonza to her crazies;
but for him I will plant the tallest daisies.

But for him I will plant the tallest daisies
because he came to rub Aldonza's
private parts with what he hid inside his pants!
He didn't come to speak of airy things!
The last thing on his mind was candlelight or shadows!
He didn't care about the fleas! Do you hear me,
cabrón? He used his wild card to slip his fingers

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.

He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?

No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innoscence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!

Check out? This line. A wild card and four aces,
the total is a buck two-eighty. Pay me Tuesday.
No I don't care if you have a Roman collar,
they're a dime a dozen in this jurisdiction.
Yes, La Mancha. Everybody here is someone,
but the manchego cheese, ¡que rico!
If you need something for your donkey--
oh, lo siento, señor, he looks like a donkey!
Nevermind. Ah hah!--you are here to see
Aldonza?  Señor, no one sees Aldonza.
She is--figmento, do you say? There was
a guy here years ago, walked right in here

and said the same thing, bought a wild card
and aces too. With him, señor, it went hard.

And aces, too? With him, señor, it went hard-
er than it should have. The jury did not smile.
Didn't buy amnesia from a hangnail or the wind
as an adversary. A genius is a fool who
moves the foolish to pity. Pity.
If only songs came with the poetry,
his sensibilities might have shared visions.
There is no weight to pay you Tuesday, amigo;
the jailer has no taste for donkey and I have freed the chickens.
What awaits sentencing is the question
and your confusion about my silk dancer's pants.
It will cost you to peek.

I leave Aldonza to her crazies;
but for him I will plant the tallest daisies.

But for him I will plant the tallest daisies
because he came to rub Aldonza's
private parts with what he hid inside his pants!
He didn't come to speak of airy things!
The last thing on his mind was candlelight or shadows!
He didn't care about the fleas! Do you hear me,
cabrón? He used his wild card to slip his fingers
through the ring in her nose. She beat him
for his trick with words. Left him.
Then missed his golden view of her.
She sits and weeps and weeps and weeps
and mold threatens the wool on the sheep.

I beg you, Sancho,
come to Toledo's footsteps and fetch Dulcinea home.

I come to El Toboso for Aldonza
not to tilt at her but only speak
about economy to let my images
settle themselves between her ears.
Those baggage stanzas filled to tilt
our eyes towards time most often
just distort the found and weaken
struts originally sound. Is my dream
impossible? Is it the blind wish of a
fool who nutures the unseen?
Consider El Toboso, its Alhambra
the church of San Antonio Abad.
He battled phantom girls and pig's feet;
his church looks like a depot for wheat.

His church looks like a depot for wheat,
exactly what la Mancha's economy
feeds its waifs--wheat with fried beans,
on holy days, morcilla, blood sausage;
all rich fare in candlelight but the holy
days are too few and too far between.
Reality recedes to bone, the judgement
of shadows and the benedictions of the
priest. How lucky is the flea who thrives
beneath the wool of a man who cannot
feel its bite, who sees but does not see
each moment as it comes to know him.
Write the next sonnet to the couplet, Tom;
Purchase a ticket for the dog? Why not.

Write the next sonnet to the couplet Tom?
Purchase a ticket for the dog why not?
Easier said than done, Maldonza!
Yo soy hombre de pocas palabras,
as I have said a thousand times, and who
are you calling 'my dog' if you don't
mind my asking? My 'bitch'?
Are you not weary yet of insults,
those embroideries of rape and hit
that call kettling vultures here,
and here, to swell their bellies
and their feathers with hitchhiking fleas?
No one  talks trash about my Panza;
Otherwise, yes, we are flying Lufthansa.
No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!

No, don't make me put 15 lines in this stanza!
I want no form named after me!
No paparazzi pleading for pinafore pastries
to sell at book fairs of the famous
and fleasome. Your Panza needs powder, Pilgrim;
it's nothing personal. Maybe if you spoke up
more often and wrote darker
the pigeons would leave you alone.
Come Tuesday, the pope will question
the faults of our innocence. No absolution
will be served. Just thin slices of tres leche cake
and tea.

Somber and serious have their places.
Check out this line: a wild card and four aces!

Check out? This line. A wild card and four aces,
the total is a buck two-eighty. Pay me Tuesday.
No I don't care if you have a Roman collar,
they're a dime a dozen in this jurisdiction.
Yes, La Mancha. Everybody here is someone,
but the manchego cheese, ¡que rico!
If you need something for your donkey--
oh, lo siento, señor, he looks like a donkey!
Nevermind. Ah hah!--you are here to see
Aldonza?  Señor, no one sees Aldonza.
She is--figmento, do you say? There was
a guy here years ago, walked right in here

and said the same thing, bought a wild card
and aces too. With him, señor, it went hard.

And aces, too? With him, señor, it went hard-
er than it should have. The jury did not smile.
Didn't buy amnesia from a hangnail or the wind
as an adversary. A genius is a fool who
moves the foolish to pity. Pity.
If only songs came with the poetry,
his sensibilities might have shared visions.
There is no weight to pay you Tuesday, amigo;
the jailer has no taste for donkey and I have freed the chickens.
What awaits sentencing is the question
and your confusion. It will cost you
to peek at the answer.

I leave Aldonza to her crazies;
but for him I will plant the tallest daisies.

But for him I will plant the tallest daisies
because he came to rub Aldonza's
private parts with what he hid inside his pants!
He didn't come to speak of airy things!
The last thing on his mind was candlelight or shadows!
He didn't care about the fleas! Do you hear me,
cabrón? He used his wild card to slip his fingers
through the ring in her nose. She beat him
for his trick with words. Left him.
Then missed his golden view of her.
She sits and weeps and weeps and weeps
and mold threatens the wool on the sheep.

I beg you, Sancho,
come to Toledo and drag Dulcinea home.

Ahh! Very moving ending, Maggie! Oh what a blast this was!!! Like what yu did with the final two couplets! Love it all -- "freed the chickens" indeed! Well, they've all flown the coop. Came home last night and see the high school kids have flocked me -- set up 20 pink flamingos in my yard! A good omen. Title? Shall we think today? Thank you so much, a wonderful whirlwind. Tom

Flocked! What an honor! As was this exploration. It's nice to hear kids can still be kids without
the threat of police alarms in the background. I'm guessing these were seniors in a right of
passage expression? And if not, how marvelous anyway!!!

He didn't care about the fleas! Do you hear me, cabrón? This was just too funny, Tom.

This practice run went a bit faster than the one Lynn and I did, but considering we didn't have a common topic right off the bat, I think we did a good job of taking our wo(a)nderings and brining them back to point.

A couple of questions:

Did you find that couplet-cue, for lack of a better palabra, directional in any sense, even though we were shooting from the hip without a shared experience, so to speak?

This practice run went a bit faster than the one Lynn and I did. I had mentioned speed-thinking as part of the process, did you find that happening?

I liked how I could wander, have some fun and still get back home.

I can see two places I'd fix right off the bat, though:

What awaits sentencing is the question
of your confusion. It will cost you
to peek at the answer.

And

I beg you, Sancho,
come to Toledo and drag Dulcinea home.

What did you think of V and tone throughout.
The energy was certainly there.

Why don't you title it?

I'm going back in to fix my nits.

Want to try a slim-jim before the contest starts?

Maggie

Maggie, I will try with title. Nothing now.

Yes, your cue about couplet I took to mean "repeat the whole last couplet instead of just its last line." What did you mean: just write it properly, so couplet sums it?

The speed was fun, optional as it always was, it was just exciting. I like speed writing, it's good for me to be less moderated. I have a friend here with whom I exchange 4-5 lines off the top of the head every night, start anew on the first of the month. We never go back, never read it over, just enjoy it. It sits in these long email reply threads for some egghead Martian e-archaeologist to puzzle over in future millenia, do his doctoral thesis on it: "See! They were totatally bonkers, that's what happened to them."

I am looking forward to reading this over next week with an eye to any revision...but not too much, it deserves its own spontaneous life, I feel.

Don't know what a slim-jim is besides the thing you eat!

Tom

Hey, who stole my silk pants?

I'd like a title that fits the idea of two Quixotes, as there were Aldonza/Dulcinea (and two of us tilting).

"Dos Quixote"

"Otro Quixote"

"Duplo de Quixote"

"Quixano Redux"

what?

My friend and I have done that in meter and rhyme; shooting couplets and epigrams at one another in these long wandering epics that will probably
end up as supportive material for your e-archaeologist's thesis.

A slim-jim would be a leaner, more pointed sonnet.

We can talk about it Monday.










i

Maggie, what say I Submit this under the title "Quixote Doble"?

Oh I like that!

Leave in the line with the strikeout, ok?

Definitely!