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Kubla Khan with imagery removed (Implied Imagery Workshop)

Kubla Khan
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
THE ORIGINAL

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise

Kubla Khan withIMAGERY REMOVED

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
ordered a dome built:
On a river through caves.
He built a wall around it.
and there were gardens and forests.
There was a chasm
It flung up a river which ran for five miles.
Then sank into an ocean.
Kubla a prophesy of war
The shadow of the dome
Floated on waves;
with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of a mountain
Her music and song,
was good,
That music
her prophecy warned
of someone
Practice protective rituals
For this dude is sacred cos he drank and ate well

Editing stage: 

Comments

an old classic. good choice

but I haven't tripped in a while. I recently read a woman is doing a campaign to re-introduce LSD for seniors, for better psychotherapy. Join me up!

So the poem reads like a hallucination, with such power. starting with "stately pleasure dome" ...what is that?? We have never seen that, but right away it exists in our minds. He garlands it with a river and an "incense-bearing tree"... trees do not bear incense. But it exists in the realm of possibility in our head. Then he introduces "demon-lover!" Fortunately, poets used punctuation back then, could you imagine it without?? The exclamation is very important at that point. The image of such a lover reaches right into the groin. Then after a whole bunch of apocalyptic action (and !!) he shifts his stance to a soft tale of a vision of imagination, a painting by Bouguereau, and how her on song filled his soul with ecstasy..feeding with honey-dew, not honeydew, as he makes the dew itself a mist of honey. brilliant. Stoned.

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

As Hunter S Thompson said "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro".
There is a fine selection of pharmaceuticals available to the connoisseur these days. One never need tolerate the mundanity of consensual reality.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

icy cold of pleasure and was shocked by the revelation that all was just a dream! Very nicely played. I'm still searching for something that will bring the lesson to life. Soon...
~ Geezer.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

bland, eh!

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

This stripped version works well for shop purposes

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