Tag Archives: lion

Job 28:1

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Two things happened. I received, as i regularly do, a reading from the Bible Job 28:1 (There are mines where silver is dug; There are places where gold is refined. 2 We dig iron out of the ground And melt copper out of the stones) and found the imagery wonderful and truly quite awesome. Then a day or two later I read about the Onegin Stanza also called a Pushkin Sonnet.  With these two influences buzzing around in my head I have created the following piece with two Onegin stanzas ending in a set.

I hope it works for you, although I think a modern free verse attempt may have captured the grandiose emotions a bit better. Perhaps another day.

There are mines where silver is dug, and found

Places where our gold is refin’d

We dig for iron right out of the ground

And stones we melt for copper to find

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Panchatantra – The Jackal & The Drum

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Continuing the Panchatantra tales in verse…

(So king Ping-a-laka settled down to hear

Dama-nak-a’s story, all about fear

And an unknown fear, as we all know

Must be faced in order for it to go)

And this dear friends is the tale we’ll hear

About the jackal and the drum he feared

 

The Jackal and the Drum

A hungry jackal went in search of food

And came to a deserted battlefield

But loud strange sounds made him feel not so good

And he thought to run from the battlefield.

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Panchatantra – The Loss of Friends

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The following is all thanks to Wikipedia: The Panchatantra consists of five books – Mitra-bhed: The Loss of Friends; Mitra-lābha or Mitra-samprāpti: The Gaining of Friends; Kākolūkīyam: War and Peace; Labdhapraṇāśam: Loss Of Gains; Aparīkṣitakārakaṃ: Ill-Considered Action / Rash deeds.

The next few tales in verse are from

The Loss of Friends

The first strategy, it’s quite a patakha*

The loss of friends, as told by two jackals

They were Kara-taka and Da-ma-naka

And these are their tales, not one but all…

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