Erasure? Sure! – Personal Challenge for Hannah

Yay!! I was picked and here’s the challenge…

Björn says, “I want you to present a piece of erasure poetry. The idea is simple – take a book page – provided by me. Then by erasing everything but the words needed for your poem present it (together with a picture of your book-page). As an additional (which should be easy for you) the poem should have an autumn theme).  So print it out and black out all the words that are not part of your poem J. The words have to be used in the exact order that they appear in the text.”

I didn't actually print it out because the gremlins got into my printer but I used my writing program and highlighted in black. Unfortunately, you can still see the original text through the highlighting but actually, some might be interested to read the context, (a page from Bleak House), from which I’ve carved this poem.

I hope you enjoy it…I certainly did! Thank you for the challenge, Björn.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here—as here he is—with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be—as are they not?—ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chanc-

This is my compiled and titled version...probably easier to read. :)

Autumn Afternoon

Looming fog in streets,

sun from fields seen by boy.

Light before time – seems to know.

Look

raw afternoon

near that Temple

at the very heart of fog,

fog thick, mud and mire

deep –

hold this day in sight

heaven and earth

an afternoon sitting here

glory softly fenced with crimson

addressed by a little voice,

brief and direct.

Lantern can see on such an afternoon

mistily engaged an endless tripping –

running horse…

walls of words play on an afternoon inherited.

Fortune in a well

(look for truth at the bottom),

red silk owns answers –

mountains piled.

Candles here and there stain windows

and light of day may initiate from streets;

through glass panes entrance by owl

and languid echoing…

the lantern has light in it

and fog. 

I'm looking forward to picking on someone for the next challenge - so keep an eye on your inboxes Toads! 

There isn't a Mr. Linky today but if anyone is inspired by this challenge and wants to play, please feel free to leave a link to your blog below or paste an offering in the comments.

Have a wonderful day Garden Dwellers!