Poem: "Battle Rap"
Jan. 7th, 2022 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the January 4, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "Attack / Defense" square in my 12-23-21 card for the Story Sparks Bingo Fest. This poem belongs to the Polychrome Heroics series.
"Battle Rap"
[Saturday, May 2, 2015]
It was a bright sunny day
in San Francisco, people
packing into the parks.
There were guys
flying stunt kites,
musicians and
jugglers busking.
A whole yoga class
pretzeled themselves
on the green grass.
Someone had started
an impromptu contest
of chalk art on one of
the smaller plazas.
The food vendors
hawked their wares.
Two supervillains had
gotten into a dispute
over something.
They weren't flinging
superpowers, though.
They were doing battle rap.
A man with a black hat
and tattoos chanted:
Dubiety's
reality
is questionable
hubble-bubble.
A girl with long hair
and shimmery lights
around her called out:
Rumblety-bumblety
Hardbody Morrison
looks for some troublesome
gangsters to crack
thinks he's invincible,
not quite convincible --
it would be better to
watch his own back.
A big crowd had gathered
to watch the peculiar contest.
The policeman who came
to see what the ruckus was
decided not to arrest them
because they weren't
breaking anything and
they were entertaining.
* * *
Notes:
A quirk of Terramagne is that some people with superpowers have devised other means of settling disputes than by physical fights. Some are idiosyncratic and spontaneous; others are culturally established and ritualized. This is one of the more whimsical examples, but it still belongs to a larger class of literary competitions.
Battle rap includes bragging, insults, and teasing in the form of verse.
The clerihew is a four-line poem of two rhyming couplets and was invented by the writer and humorist Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Clerihews usually deal wittily with some aspect of the life or career of a well-known person, whose name forms the first line.
A dactyl is a three-syllable poetic foot with a stressed first syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (DA-dit-dit). Ex: national, jelly roll, mention it, memory
The Double Dactyl is a humorous take on a subject (usually a person) with the following rules:
• Two 4-line stanzas, each with three lines of two dactyls followed by a fourth four-syllable line that begins with a dactyl
• The first line must be a double dactyl of nonsense language, ex: Higgledy-piggledy, Pocketa-pocketa
• The second line must be the name of the subject in double dactylic form
• The 1st, 2nd or 3rd line of the second stanza must be a single double-dactylic word. Ex: iconographical, megalomaniac, egocentricity
• The final lines of the two stanzas must rhyme
ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "Attack / Defense" square in my 12-23-21 card for the Story Sparks Bingo Fest. This poem belongs to the Polychrome Heroics series."Battle Rap"
[Saturday, May 2, 2015]
It was a bright sunny day
in San Francisco, people
packing into the parks.
There were guys
flying stunt kites,
musicians and
jugglers busking.
A whole yoga class
pretzeled themselves
on the green grass.
Someone had started
an impromptu contest
of chalk art on one of
the smaller plazas.
The food vendors
hawked their wares.
Two supervillains had
gotten into a dispute
over something.
They weren't flinging
superpowers, though.
They were doing battle rap.
A man with a black hat
and tattoos chanted:
Dubiety's
reality
is questionable
hubble-bubble.
A girl with long hair
and shimmery lights
around her called out:
Rumblety-bumblety
Hardbody Morrison
looks for some troublesome
gangsters to crack
thinks he's invincible,
not quite convincible --
it would be better to
watch his own back.
A big crowd had gathered
to watch the peculiar contest.
The policeman who came
to see what the ruckus was
decided not to arrest them
because they weren't
breaking anything and
they were entertaining.
* * *
Notes:
A quirk of Terramagne is that some people with superpowers have devised other means of settling disputes than by physical fights. Some are idiosyncratic and spontaneous; others are culturally established and ritualized. This is one of the more whimsical examples, but it still belongs to a larger class of literary competitions.
Battle rap includes bragging, insults, and teasing in the form of verse.
The clerihew is a four-line poem of two rhyming couplets and was invented by the writer and humorist Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Clerihews usually deal wittily with some aspect of the life or career of a well-known person, whose name forms the first line.
A dactyl is a three-syllable poetic foot with a stressed first syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (DA-dit-dit). Ex: national, jelly roll, mention it, memory
The Double Dactyl is a humorous take on a subject (usually a person) with the following rules:
• Two 4-line stanzas, each with three lines of two dactyls followed by a fourth four-syllable line that begins with a dactyl
• The first line must be a double dactyl of nonsense language, ex: Higgledy-piggledy, Pocketa-pocketa
• The second line must be the name of the subject in double dactylic form
• The 1st, 2nd or 3rd line of the second stanza must be a single double-dactylic word. Ex: iconographical, megalomaniac, egocentricity
• The final lines of the two stanzas must rhyme
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-07 10:54 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-07 11:09 am (UTC)Most cape fights are dominance fights anyway, so people might as well solve them without violence. It's less risky.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-07 12:37 pm (UTC)Especially if their powers are mutually incompatible, leaving each other defenseless to the other, or vice versa, i.e unable to harm the other.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-07 03:28 pm (UTC)Telepaths just have to lift things an inch or two, then drop them in such a way as to make an emphasis.
Anyone with voice powers just has to infuse a tiny bit of 'pay attention' into what they're saying.
Flashy ones...fire, electricity, just fidget. (Safely!)
And I'll bet some villain primals play up their less-than-human traits. (Threat-yawning with fangs? Flexing claws? Yup.)
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-07 04:53 pm (UTC)I am now imagining a couple of super-villains volunteering at a haunted house, and competing to see who can scare the most people, or who does the best scares.
Although I can see a couple of primals also doing a scare off... and being interrupted by a bunch of school-kids shrieking in delight.
"Gerrof, stop calling me Kitty!"
"Aw.. they like you kitty!"
"Don't you start, puppy!"
"That's Wolfy to you."
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-09 05:44 am (UTC)"I'm mean and horrible and scary. Go away!"
"No, you's fluffy and nice!" [Hug]
(Thinking) Darnit, how'd I get stuck with a kid?
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2022-01-07 05:58 pm (UTC)And less energy-intensive, too. After all, one doesn't have to recharge from having used one's superpowers. A lot less collateral damage, too -- which is a good thing. Aren't there quite a few legal codes in Terramagne that provide avenues for restitution when that happens? (Which supervillains, being supervillains, will largely ignore -- but c'est la vie).
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-07 03:43 pm (UTC)Seriously, this is awesome. I would so be in the audience for this, especially if the combatants leave off the shorter verses and go for the longer flow.
Me too!
Date: 2022-01-07 06:11 pm (UTC)I bet the poems that appear here show up as part of a longer rap stream. Meanwhile, someone comes by with a boom box and a suitable backing track, and the action soon draws a small crowd. Everyone winds up having a good time, nobody gets hurt, nothing gets broken, and Dubiety and Hardbody both get to blow off some steam. Which is good for the community.
Round one to Dubiety, by me.
Reward Them!
Date: 2022-01-08 07:25 pm (UTC)