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[TinPenguin]

A word is worth a thousand pictures!

Are there many writers and/or poets here? Let's see what you've got! Or if not, well, I shall bore you with mine.


Viennese Chess

The music begins with a tap of the foot,
And the dancers glide out across the floor.
With a bow and a curtsey, and hand in gloved hand,
In double file procession, as if to war.

The waltzing parade pours over the room,
Flowing like water through a river's weir.
Elegant grace and a surgeon's precision,
Spinning like blades and leaping like deer.

In pairs they whirl, each to their own dance,
But in synchronised steps they cohere and unite.
The men tall and smart in long black dinner suits,
Their fair partners swirling in ballgowns of white.

Like chess pieces battling on the chequered floor,
The tiles divided into boards, eight by eight.
Each white maiden a queen, each black warrior a king,
Each queen entrapping her partner - checkmate.

[Elysiana]

It makes me so, so happy that this can be recited in 3/4 (waltz) time. If you meant to do that - kudos on the attention to detail.

I am no good with words and especially no good at poetry, so that's all I really have to contribute

[TinPenguin]

It makes me so, so happy that this can be recited in 3/4 (waltz) time. If you meant to do that - kudos on the attention to detail.

I must be honest and admit it was not deliberate - but I was inspired to write it while watching a Viennese waltz, so I was listening to waltz music when writing it, and that might have bled through to the rhythm. A similar case of serendipity was the title. I wrote this poem comparing Viennese waltz with chess, and then, when trying to think of a good title, discovered there is actually a style of chess called Viennese Chess. The moment I read that, I knew I had to use it!

Here's another.

Forget Me Not

A stirring in the rafters of a memory long gone,
An infestation long forgotten, now returned.
The hatching of a scratching patter, needling at the mind,
Reminder of the way the winds have turned.
And ne'er before was it so loud, not even at the first,
In silence it has grown as it was spurned.
A neglected part of you, that you thought was weeded out
And yet now that you've moved on begins to burn.
A nettlesome regret as you seek to find your peace,
The overdue reprise you know you earned.
"I won't be left behind!" howls the memory maligned,
Reminder of a lesson never learned.

[Carl-E]

I like this, it's an excellent image of the mess that is my mind...

It also reminds me of what happened in the house my grandfather built.  It wound up with a serious squirrel infestation in the attic space, and we all worked hard to get them out.  Several years later, after my grandparents passed, while my parents were doing some simple renovations, the bedroom closet's ceiling collapsed under the weight of several thousand hoarded pinecones. 

Remember to clean out those nests, folks!  There can be literal regrets, too...   

[tjradcliffe]

Delightful!  Always a pleasure to meet a fellow formalist! 

Most of my own poetry is written in collaboration with the artist Hilary Farmer:

http://greenteadoodles.wordpress.com

Here's a typical example, illustrating (narrating?) an image of a teenage girl looking out through a leafy veil:

Eyes of innocence observe the scene
through grassy stalks: the rites of springtime may
be misinterpreted the first time seen
by virgins who have yet to boldly stray
into those woods of pleasure and deceit
that lurk beyond the garden’s grassy wall
where satyrs chase their willing prey’s retreat
though the sunlit corridors and halls
of Pan’s dominion where the truth will out
that pleasures of the spirit may be great
but pleasures of the flesh–beyond a doubt–
can justify the body’s mortal fate.
In innocence and wisdom still she knows
That down those paths she will one day go.

(original image here: https://greenteadoodles.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/pretty-girl/)

Sonnets are my favourite form, although I play with everything from haiku to blank verse, and on very rare occasions will even take a poke at free verse, although playing tennis without a net is trickier than it looks...

Our big project right now is an illustrated Web serial novel about Sir Francis Drake's plan to colonize the Northwest Pacific Coast, and what REALLY happened to Christopher Marlowe after he "died":

http://www.songsofalbion.com

It's an attempt to do for the novel what QC does for Webcomics, telling an extended multi-character story in illustrated 140-word segments, updated Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Check it out!  Our audience is kind of a select group, with intersecting interests in Webcomics, poetry, and historical fantasy.

[TinPenguin]

It also reminds me of what happened in the house my grandfather built.  It wound up with a serious squirrel infestation in the attic space, and we all worked hard to get them out.  Several years later, after my grandparents passed, while my parents were doing some simple renovations, the bedroom closet's ceiling collapsed under the weight of several thousand hoarded pinecones. 

Remember to clean out those nests, folks!  There can be literal regrets, too...   

Ha, there can indeed! And in keeping with the analogy, it's when trying to renovate that everything is most likely to come crashing down...

Delightful!  Always a pleasure to meet a fellow formalist! 

Likewise! I usually deviate from the very fixed forms and just create my own, though my most common style is the simple but trusty quatrain. Like you, I've written free verse a few times, but I feel they never stand up next to rhyme. Longer narrative poems are the sort of stuff I really love to write; I'm quite inspired by John Masefield's ballads in that regard.

I absolutely love the concept of both links you posted. A picture and a poem can really compliment and add deeper meaning to each other, and I'm sure it is a great way to keep yourself inspired. I particularly like your seal poem. As for the Songs of Albion thing, it's a brilliant idea. The writing style is good, there is some great wit in there, and I can understand the comparison to QC. I'm interested to see where this goes. You've got a new audience member. I should perhaps ask, are you aware of the Stephen Lawhead trilogy, "Song of Albion"? Very similar title there.

By the way, most of my poetry is posted here, if you're interested. Here's a longer one of mine, an example of the sort I mentioned before:


Watcher in Heaven

Behold how the seraph stands with wings outstretched on the ramparts of heaven,
As he watches the pale mortals head to prayer, their solemn faces leaden.
He hears the church bells ringing, and pities them for their tone,
Their brazen peal far weaker, far less glorious than his own.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

He stands and views his master's lesser work below, brown and green and grey,
With not half the radiance and divine splendour that he cherishes every day.
Lacking all that makes its people yearn for heavenly grace at death,
For their paltry lives, when compared to his, are but a single breath.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

See how he stands, gazing down, in a single passing glance from on high,
And over the joy and laughter he hears, rises a united, plaintive cry.
The true voice of the multitude, toiling on, throughout their bitter lives,
While the seraph stands in heaven, and in eternal bliss he thrives.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

Behold as his ears hearken the majestic voice of his master's golden call,
A beauty unknown to those below, as their chants echo upon lifeless walls.
A mystery to even those who claim they hear an answer to their prayers,
A pleasure reserved for the archways of heaven and he on the ramparts there.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

No proud sneer can there be seen to sully his face of gleaming light,
His angelic mind pure, untarnished, to please the holy master's sight.
Only pity he feels for man of dullest grey, straining to escape the dragging mire,
And something else hid deep within, as he sees wretched man's yet high desire.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

Behold his feet tremble on the gilded ramparts, as he watches a child play,
He sees men laugh as they drink in sin, and the love of couples in the hay.
He turns his head from his sentinel gaze, and casts a look around,
The white hospital walls of heaven surround him, high above the ground.
As he stands with wings outstretched.

Now see a silver tear leave his shining eye and tremble down his face,
A tear of envy for the gleaming hope of those who robed in mud still live in faith.
A spark of sin there malingering in the creator's purest work,
A wish for life not clad in white, not kept from worldly hurt.
As he folds his golden wings,
And jumps.

[tjradcliffe]

Thanks for the link to your work!  I'm enjoying it a lot!

New audience members make my day!  Feel free to point anyone you know at Albion!  We're planning to be huge!

I wasn't aware of Lawhead's books until a few weeks ago when I happened on one in weird little rural used book store.  There's also a "Sword of Albion" trilogy by this Mark Chadbourn (http://www.jackofravens.com/) which looks pretty cool if you're into historical fantasy.

Fortunately, while the titles are similar, the stories are all very different!

One of the things I like to do as an exercise is take classics and re-write them--Kipling did this with his "Muse Amongst the Motors", where he wrote a poem about automobiles in the style of everyone from Homer to Robert Louis Stevenson.  Here's one of those that worked out sufficiently well to stand on its own:

Then

If you can stand before the door of dreams
and watch it open, and then turn away
when they appear much smaller than they seemed,
or if there is a price too high to pay;
If you can put ambition on the shelf–
for money or for fame or worldly things–
and seek instead a different kind of wealth:
the joy of laughing children in the spring;

If you can face an offer from your God
to ease your pain, to fill your broken heart
and turn it down, declaring it a fraud,
even as the tears of mourning start;
If you can hold your mind to only reason,
If you can seek the ordinary truth,
If you refuse faith’s simple, tempting treason,
and equally the trap of lies abstruse;

If you can face a life-or-death decision
and make it in the certainty of doubt;
if you can live with anger and division
while never letting either win a rout;
If you can learn and keep an awful secret,
the death of worlds so quiet in your mind;
If you resist the rantings of the zealot;
If you create a home that’s warm and kind;

If you can seek the beauty of the evening
without denying loveliness to dawn
and feel the depth of sadness that is grieving
while joyously recalling those now gone;
If you accept that life must end in dying
yet still give all you have within to give
these fleeting years will seem no longer flying:
then you will know all that it means to live.

[TinPenguin]

Nice one! Forgive my ignorance, but what was the classic being rewritten there?

Fortunately, while the titles are similar, the stories are all very different!

Indeed! As a name, Albion is pretty undefined in terms of date - I don't think it has ever been used as an official name at any time, so as a result several authors have used it in very different contexts.

If I get a chance I'll pass on the link to anyone I think might be interested.

[tjradcliffe]

Ignorance is always forgivable!  The classic is Kipling's "If...":  http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/KiplingIf.htm

I'm a huge Kipling fan, although I'm not sympathetic to his more simplistic imperialist views.  But his best poems, and especially his short stories, are amazing works of art.  "Mary Postgate", "They" and "The Gardener" are all examples of his deeply humanistic impulses (I think Dover or somebody has recently come out with a little book that has just those in it... well worth the money.)  He was also a pioneer of experimental fiction in "Mrs Bathurst".  His most famous stories, like "The Man Who Would Be King", are in a lot of ways his weakest.

[Elysiana]

Aha, I knew it sounded familiar but couldn't place it. You did an excellent job of reworking it without it sounding like a copy - it's a great sister piece. "If" and "Then" - very well done!

[tjradcliffe]

Thanks!  A computer guy I know says I should now write a final one called "Else"!

[pwhodges]

Trump him with "fi" (originally from Algol-68).

[tjradcliffe]

Funny!  It's in bash script, too, I think...  so I could write a poem that would only be accessible by retired Algol programmers and sysadmins!

[TinPenguin]

This sonnet is a sort of tribute to Shelley's Ozymandias. At least, it has a similar theme.

Ziqqurats

Before you can build you must first destroy,
But not all destruction may be rebuilt.
Real building blocks are no child's toy,
And to topple them beckons adult guilt.
As a boy I built mighty ziqqurats -
Mighty as a boy's mind can understand.
But wooden blocks little higher than flat,
To my eyes like monoliths in the sand.
As if raised up from the desert itself,
By architect gods to adorn their earth.
Arazu, looking down from mountain's shelf,
Poured blessings upon the completed work.
Now I stand tall over old bricks cast down.
Ziqqurats fallen where they once stood proud.

[tjradcliffe]

Interesting take on the theme!  I've not thought about Shelley for a long time, but it might be fun to do a riff on Ozymandius.  Hmm...

[tjradcliffe]

My take on Ozymandias, where I have as usual kept as tight to the original form as possible, just 'cause doing that amuses me:

Pioneer

I met a relic in a Huston bar
Who said: “Two cold and quiet craft of steel
fall outward from the Sun, out to the stars,
exhausted they still now and then reveal
an unexpected consequence of laws
we’d like to think we know so very well:
flaws in our grasp of this vast universe
whose secrets we have yearned to learn and tell.
And fastened to their frames two plaques converse
with beings who might one day happen on
these artifacts, and know the work of Man,
whose lone brief candle may by then be gone.
But still the work of men and women stands
in distant skies, beyond these desert sands.”

Some commentary on the poem here:  http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=445

[pwhodges]

(Just a bump to say that this thread is back.)

[tjradcliffe]

returning thread ho!
poets cry out with great joy!
but where did it go?

[pwhodges]

There is a place for spam
Where all things spam are sent
This thread went there in error
And needed help to recover

[TinPenguin]

This poem was inspired by this picture which my friend took about midnight on his visit to Norway to summer.

Fjord

The beauty of the delicate buds flowering,
The grandeur of the rugged peaks towering,
The glistening glaze of fjord waters that run,
The light of the never-setting northern sun,
Down through pinkish midnight clouds glowering.

[Asterus]

After seeing this thread, I feel inadequate with my off-the-cuff material. It kinda reminds me of when Wil started discussing monetary values associated with his adjectives.

An amateur 'mongst a congregation of learn'd men
To an outsider, an art most austere
Like a peddler among merchants, I offer these wares
View my ramblings and ravings right here: http://hypocriticalparadox.blogspot.com/

[Soulsynger]

Compared to those of poets
Words of wisdom like sonets
This child's ways are a waste of space
So I will leave this and vanish
without a trace.


Clones

Once in a lab, I found a clone,
I hit it, and hit it, with a weighty stone.
You are not worthy, I shout in disgust,
To live on this world. Die, you must!

It looked up and sad, sad said to me,
As your child still in breath, let me be free
You have created - a monster you see,
But this one is you, as it can not be me.

Such empty young eyes, I never have seen,
It looked at me still - but pleading in vain.
Cloning the heart, which we kill day to day,
I dread the time, when their life finds a way.

(© Paul Indrome, 2011)

(No inspiration. Just a thought that needed to get out of my head.)

[TinPenguin]

I wrote this poem about the forest fires that have ravaged the ancient Fragas do Eume national park in Galicia this past week. Although of course I would rather this tragedy hadn't happened, on a personal level I'm quite pleased with this piece.

[Asterus]

In the interests of interest, I place this post here
Though the forum has willed a warning in red to appear
But I feel the possibility of resurgence does trump
Or in the forum venacular, "bump"

[Zingoleb]

(some ideas fade
between fits of mania
others
find themselves only ever glowing
in deptures
and darkness;
nyctophilia
is only a welcoming
of the monsters
that lurk in the dark recesses
of our childroom hearts
 
be kind to them.)

[Thrillho]

You can find yourself some nonsense if you route around the trash
I could wring you out some meaning for a little extra cash
In truth the only thing I need's a place where I can crash
And I'm worth less than you'd pay for a lump of hash

You can find me on the pavement
You can pick me off the floor
I'll take hot meals as a payment
Before I rob the record store
They don't sell records any more

I've been wondering for years now why I've felt so dry and dumb
It's funny, when you're lonely the words will start to come
I forgot what it was like to have my heart sat on my tongue
And weirdly all this bullshit's the most truth I've ever sung

[Asterus]

I applaud that' you've written, as it sits among the throng
Though given as a poem, I feel that it's a song
One formed in words so simple, but held in meaning strong
Something we all can read now, feel free to sing along

The words that come to leave your tongue are yours and yours alone
Yet still they hang up in the air until they're overthrown
By words put up in some reply to some new truth now shown
And so this tangled web weaves on until its overgrown

So come now friends, let's tailor more thread and weave the next verse
This rhyming flow may flow onwards as some unending curse
Yet I feel we should press on until we fully immerse
This thread with thread made up instead of words we shall disperse.

[Barmymoo]

I started writing a poem/song just after xB broke up with me, although it isn't finished yet. It's a slight exaggeration for poetic licence, but it basically expresses how I felt at the time.


You didn't want to live in my dream castle,
You didn't want to be my shining knight.
You didn't think that we would last forever
so you decided that you'd make sure you were right.

You didn't think that this was what you wanted.
I think I could have told you that myself.
I saw the writing on the wall before you wrote it,
and knew that I was due back on the shelf.

It's dreaming all those dreams that stopped them happening
(I think I must be set to self-destruct).



This is as far as I got - there is an obvious rhyme for the final line but it doesn't really express the tone I was going for! I might add an optimistic stanza at the end, with the benefit of six weeks' reflection.

[Asterus]

Hyperbole can be easily said as the measure by which you measure
the severity of situations stuck with you, the traits by which you treasure
the memories and feelings held right there within your hand.
By embellishing thoughts with drama-words, you help us understand.

I too find solace (inner peace) with words in phrase and rhyme.
And afterwards (Or after words) a song appears in kind.
Sometimes the song is made known first, sometimes it's made known second
Either way the combination made is beyond what I've reckoned.

But praytell BM, tell us now
the things you wish to say.
For over the course of this discourse
We might help you on your way.

[jwhouk]

"If you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with..."

[Barmymoo]

I suppose the sentiment I'd have gone with next would be "but I can deal with that, at least I've learnt some useful lessons for the future".


Maybe:

It looks as though I've settled in a pattern
of bad choices, or bad taste, or just bad luck.

I'm sure that there's a lesson in here somewhere,
that I've been learning very slowly all these years.
Some day I'll think of us and smile fondly
and not feel that I might be close to tears.

[Asterus]

Though words unsaid hang in air yet purged
And memories past still stay
I know I'll find another "me" has emerged
And moved on to another day

Though it may take some time to adjust to this state
Many other things do hold the key
So while these words here serve to demonstrate
I'll start to live, live as "me"

A word from the fool who speaks in odd tongue
The hypocrite who lives in a dream
I have enjoyed the recollection of past introspection
Trust me when I say I get what you mean.

[SethDeAlba]

Its hard to make a rhyme
Flow in Time
Cause at the end of the line
you will find a sign

Strangely
you cannot change me
nor can I enslave thee
for we can all be.

as such we look for the light
that can only be seen from the height
never with our sight
but with our pure might.

That was harder than I thought it would be...

[Asterus]

But still in those verses three
Do you see?
Endless possibility
That slows from your ability?

Though truth be told I most often find
You get a good sight from a height of a different kind
So by flipping your style's page, you'll vary your mileage
Until you've broken the formats assigned.

[SethDeAlba]

The formats I'm assigned are leaving me blind
So I'm gonna think before going on the brink
Because im aligned with those stars I hope to find
For the final link is gonna be attached to my sink.

 

[Deathjester]

well, after reading some of the stuff you guys put up it makes mine pale in comparison, but I have only really written the one poem.
I call it I'm No Superhero

I'm no Superhero
Just an ordinary man
A lot closer to zero
But I do what I can

If you were in trouble
Just call out my name
And I'd come on the double
To stop the crooks in their game

Justice and honour
I would be their defender
Injustice a goner
I would never surrender

I could be more
Than an ordinary man
More than a zero
Through the clouds I could soar
Do what no one else can
I could be a Superhero

[Asterus]

The sentiment here is really great,
a measure by which many can relate.
That sort of thought should propagate
and permeate through realm's estates.

Perhaps if we were more receptive, more collected, more reflective of
what should be done and said instead of what is now inflicted
upon the states of society. Thoughts of property, propriety,
are the sort of things we ignore ideally

The fact simply is that these still exist
A product as society grows
Though this may seem to inevitably persist
I still say these we must oppose.

[Masterpiece]

Another Bottle Of Rum

I bought a bottle of rum
after a day of boredom
I’m feeling rather glum
and so I chug till I’m numb

It’s a feeling of freedom
I drink my rum and I’m gone
I hear the music in my eardrum
come on and give me some

But is this really what I want to do today?
Is this really the only reason I stay?
So come on baby, take me away.

Another bottle of rum
This is the alcohol’s wisdom:
As long as you don’t succumb
keep drinking until you’re dumb

And is this really what I want to do today?
Is this really the only reason I stay?
So come on baby, take me away.

Some people want to have fun
or need a way to feel handsome
some just don’t like what they’ve become
and so they drink some more rum.

And this is really what I want to do today.
Is threre really a better reason for me to stay?
Get me more rum, and I guess we’ll be okay.

[Thrillho]

My poetry is generally more of a stream of consciousness, rhymeless thing, so here's one of my favourites. It hasn't got a title.

And the heavens opened
It all became so much clearer
Stories like this usually come from the darkness
The light in the tunnel.
The rainbow in the oil spill.
But not for me.
For me, I'd already left that behind
There was just one piece missing
And she arrived
Wrapped in a facade
An accident of design later
And everything changed.
For the better.
She said to me things I'd never heard.
And I wept. I admit it.
And each day that passes like the view from a train
I become surer and surer
That this is what my future holds.
When my darkest desire is just to awake in her arms
Watch the dawn spill through her hair
When every wall is broken down by an equal
Who can beat me, but knows how to lose
A heavyweight with no more to prove
Who pulled me apart and reassembled me
In the most beautiful way
I spend every day realising with yet further clarity
That this is what our future holds.

[Zingoleb]

every morning's light

i loved you like i loved the fog
faded and burning away
in every morning's light
i tell you everything
and you listen now
so well
so well
so very
very
well
sometimes you laugh at me
sometimes i do too
but i've gotten good at pretending it doesn't hurt
and you've gotten good at pretending you're still alive.

[Asterus]

Should I be concerned about what's written here?
Or take it as an expression of self?
Do these words simply show what someone might know
Or are they the state of your health?

In any case my response is "just live as you choose"
"Cast all of your worries aside"
"Choose to act whimsical and be who you are,
And you'll find your own meaning inside"

I chose to be me after uncertainty
I'm doing things now as I wish
I live for today and go my own way
So I don't have time to reminisce.

[Zingoleb]

i cannot help but resent
the way a single light intrudes
on the perfection of darkness
like a promise
destroying silence.

leave me be.
you have nothing to offer me
that my nights cannot give.

[Zingoleb]

pyrophile

he
stands before the fire
with every song he's ever heard
running through his head
 
it hurts him
but he doesn't mind
 
he wants to be hurt
 
he wants to reach into the flame and watch it catch his sleeve
like a lover
dancing over his body
 
every stovetop he's ever passed
beckons to him
every oven
small and cramped
(you could curl up in it
and it would burn you away)
he wants to lay his hands on the burner
but another voice tells him
no
and he listens well
he does as he's told
 
but he wonders
 
what is it like
 
to be in there.
 
in a small oven
curled up
on the wires - they heat up
faster than anything else
you'd feel it fast
imprints in your skin
lines
crossing
lines
a story in flesh
and sick/sweet burning
 
but in a larger room
you'd hardly feel it at all
he figures
it would get warm so slow
you'd sweat
and be uncomfortable
but the heat would be so gradual
your nerves would burn out
before you felt the real pain
you'd pass out
before you were tortured
(and then
well
you had no chance;
you may as well be roasted
and served:
waste not: want not)
 
but now
he just stands there
in the heat
with the hardest cock
he's ever had
he says he can feel his skin baking
drying out
flaking away in the wind
until he's nothing but ash
purified
at last

[Zingoleb]

insomnia

sometimes
the nights stretch out so long
that you swear that you'll break apart
before they ever end
that you've fallen into some kind of black hole
that it's not time stretching
but you
so long and fragile thin
that they'll see right through you
just like the ghost
you've always suspected you are
 
you never do, though
morning arrives
resentful
and accusing
 
and you're always as relieved
as you are disappointed

[Zingoleb]

(some ideas fade
between fits of mania
others
find themselves only ever glowing
in deptures
and darkness;
nyctophilia
is only a welcoming
of the monsters
that sleep in the dusking recesses
of our childroom hearts

be kind to them.)

[Asterus]

Take chances
This part 1 of three is to be named whimsically
Alone, the title doesn’t make sense
It appears to advocate behavior that’s risky
But this is where a series shall commence

Consider the reserve in which many bind themselves
Choose not to act without assurance of success
Resign themselves to what is known and expected
Choosing not to put luck to the test

If nothing is ventured, nothing is gained
With that in mind, I act without thought
To move ahead recklessly with little reserve
Is how I’ve often found what I sought

Note I caution against running headlong into what lays ahead
Undue haste begets waste after all
I still will proceed with all due speed
Swift joy is worth the pain of a fall

Make Mistakes
Perfection’s impossible in anything here
That thought echoes here in my head
Still it is a goal that can often console
A height for all interested

Mistakes will occur, it is an almost certain fact
Where is little about that you can change
The better question is when you fail, how will you react?
Will you move on ahead, or find it strange?

Mistakes can shape the success to come
As long as you pay them due heed
They outline the flaws you may come to find
And point out what exactly you need

As long as you learn from mistakes made in the past
An error’s no such a bad thing
Pick up the shattered pieces of your work today
And look for what tomorrow will bring

Get Messy
The third of the three best demonstrates itself
It’s an exercise in jumping straight in
No notice to what the other two started
Because this third part can finally begin

If nothing is ventured, nothing is gained
So find something you want to do
No matter the cost, much more would be lost
If you were to never chase and pursue

All efforts are messes, just messy in forms
That vary based on what they are
Just act on a whim, and give it your all
And I’m sure your efforts will reach far.