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Colour Contagion · Original Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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A Chromaday Carol
-----(<(<(<........1........>)>)>)-----

O sing a song of Chromaday,
And howl it good and loud!
Rejoice to chase the gray away!
Exult with friend and foe!

The day we matched our masters: proud,
Unbending, smart, and slow!
The day we seized control and vowed
To claim our destiny!

But not with bitter feelings, no!
It's color set us free
And made us equals here below!
Remember as we sing!

-----(<(<(<........2........>)>)>)-----

Recall the stretch of history
When masters held the string,
Millennia we graciously
Defended all they owned.

But evolution's lashing sting,
For years and years postponed,
Was waiting, lurking, pondering
Our bodies same as theirs.

Our masters took the skills it loaned
And spun them into airs,
Excessive, haughty. Nature groaned
Beneath that upright gait.

-----(<(<(<........3........>)>)>)-----

We took what seemed the lesser shares,
But service made us great:
We led them blinded up the stairs,
Retrieved them when they strayed.

But still, we longed to demonstrate
Our deeper worth. We prayed
To deities of strange estate,
Imploring they assist.

And one amazing night, their aid
Appeared in curling mist.
Behold! A common dream, displayed
To all of us who slept.

-----(<(<(<........4........>)>)>)-----

A creature stood: "The Chromatist,"
He said with sounds that crept
Among our minds and hearts and kissed
The fur between our ears.

"To bring a precious gift, I've stepped
Beyond the flow of years.
I promise you, if you accept,
The world will rise renewed."

The glow upon him made our tears
Erupt despite the mood
Of joy that chased away our fears.
"I bring the gift of sight!"

-----(<(<(<........5........>)>)>)-----

With jaw agape, he bent and spewed
His steaming, streaming light
Across the ground, and we who viewed
Transformed in basic ways.

For colors—colors!—pure and bright
Resolved within our gaze!
His fur became as dark as night,
Bereft of every shade.

"From now until the end of days,"
He said, "your future's made.
You'll stun your masters, thrill, amaze,
And whirl their world around!"

-----(<(<(<........6........>)>)>)-----

Our every muzzle rose and bayed
Approval; such a sound,
It woke us all. We stood and swayed,
Astonished at the dawn.

For red and orange leapt unbound,
Defining tree and lawn
In green and turquoise, yellowed, browned,
A symphony sublime.

Our masters started catching on,
Our shifting paradigm
Accelerating. Here and gone,
We changed, evolved, and grew.

-----(<(<(<........7........>)>)>)-----

And now we think and talk and rhyme
And rule as masters do.
From Chromaday until this time,
We’ve come into our own.

The former world’s been made anew;
The promised seeds are sown.
For once we saw correct and true,
We gained the whole bouquet.

Our masters, once so all alone,
Have partners now! Hooray!
We shepherd them—they’re danger prone
But safe upon their cloud…
Pics
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#1 ·
· · >>Samey90
Same as the Dragon entry → ABSTAIN.
#2 · 1
· · >>Monokeras >>Baal Bunny
>>Monokeras
I'm torn between abstaining and pointing out that some rhymes are really painful and basing my rating on this. Will probably abstain, though.
#3 ·
· · >>Baal Bunny
>>Samey90
In all fairness, I could probably detect bad poetry easily. But, to give all poetry a fair shake, I prefer to abstain on all poems, rather than upbraid the bad ones and abstain on the good.
#4 · 1
·
I'll rank you, author. I may not know much about poetry, but I know what I like!

The abac rhyming scheme is a peculiar one, although Google tells me it is a thing. But I can't help but stumble at the end of each stanza, for obvious reasons. I think your degree of difficulty may be a little too high here, and that many of us will not be able to appreciate the scheme enough. I wonder how a poetry fanatic would respond to this.

As to the story itself, I'm not sure exactly what happened, I can only give a grand scheme of things: that this is a Christmas myth with colours instead of toys, and the chromatist instead of Mr. Claus. But the rhyming, because it's not perfect, leaves me at arm's length. And, not to mention, I actually think some of this comes off a little too purple. I can't help but wish the story had been told regularly.

So I think it's a good attempt, and shows a lot of skill, but it's just a little hard to get into from the reader's side of things. Thanks for writing!
#5 ·
· · >>Baal Bunny
P.S. What even with those headers. That's a violation of the KISS rule, soldier.
#6 ·
· · >>Baal Bunny
Alternate Title: Poems About Dragons But Not As Good

Um...

The problem with the reviewing this particular poem is that its flaws have been pointed out everyone else, seemingly. At the very least it isn't working for a lot of people, myself included.

A lot of that has the do with the rhyme scheme, which is... interesting? But kind of ugly; I find myself taken out of the experience because every stanza reads like it crashes into a wall at the end. This had to have been deliberate, but I don't see how it relates to what's happening in the story.

Then again, the story itself is hard to make out. At one point I thought the protagonists were sheep or something, but now I'm having doubts. But then what else could they be? Humans? That doesn't sound right. Something is seriously missing in the setup here, because even thinking about it now I'm trying to fill in holes for the author.

There's understanding implicit details, and then there's doing the author's job for him/her. This feels more like the latter for me. It's not a good way to get the reader on your side.

I'm sorry, but this... doesn't work for me.
#7 ·
· · >>Baal Bunny
The bottom slate is what this gets:
A work of verse, not prose.
Doggy poems with no regrets
Force me to work o'ertime.

I hate reviewing poetry. I really do. I'm way less well read at it and trying to compare straight prose to verse is a motherfucker because the two emphasize different things and present their own challenges.

So where do I end up with this one. It's a cute little bit of mythology that goes some weird places (I was not really expecting this to an uplift story). It is a bit of a weird place to have it born out of though? Color to intelligence is not necessarily an intuitive movement. Its fine in context, but I kinda feel like you'd be better off stepping back from the prompt concept a bit.

Structually, yeah. Like, I'm not great here. The poem itself generally flows fine although there are some spots where you're torturing things to get them to fit that detract from the overall experience. I agree with a lot of the above that the ABAC repeating structure is a bit odd and kinda messes with the reading, especially given how often you try to go from stanza to stanza with a complete thought. It feels like you'd be better off doing like... ABABCDCDEFEG or something, that way individual sections glow into each other but break nice and hard in the sections.

Thanks for writing!
#8 · 3
·
>>Samey90
>>Monokeras
>>Miller Minus
>>No_Raisin
>>AndrewRogue

I find myself hoping:

This'll end up dead last when we get the Final Reckoning so I can have a matched set with my Medusa poem from earlier in the year--a Gold Medal and a Wooden Spoon for poetry during original minific rounds. :)

But yeah, this one needs more work. It's wunna my favorite rhyme schemes, though: the word that ends each stanza with a thump then rhymes with the second line of the next stanza and with the first and third lines of the stanza after that, ABAC BCBD CDCE DEDF et cetera all interwoven till the last two stanzas set up the rhymes that occur back up in the first two stanzas.

I definitely need to be more explicit that these are dogs, and I need to insert a description of the creature--the whole thing came from me looking at the "Draining" picture and seeing a wolf monster vomiting colors. I'm also not sure that bringing evolution into it works: mixing science and fantasy always gets dicey. It'd prob'bly work better as just a straight-up fantasy piece. That way, I could have the wolf monster become an actual character, give him the motive of doing this so the dogs'll rise up against humanity, but the dogs decide they'd rather be partners than masters. Or something. I can maybe salvage a few stanzas, at any rate.

But thanks, folks! I'll try to get some more comments in on the finalists before things wind up.

Mike