What is this? What's going on here?

This will not be a single, multi-chaptered story. Sorry, but no. Look elsewhere for that (I have several dozen if that's what you want).

Instead, this will be a single entry for what will end up being a collection of short stories. Why? Because one of the mailing lists that I'm on has a new thing: a weekly Poetry Quote Challenge. The list-owner provides a snippet of poetry, and the challenge is for the list-members to write a ficlet (a single part, stand alone story, needing neither prequel nor sequel) inspired by or featuring that fragment of poetry. Her goal was to inspire creativity, to prompt people to write more, and to try different characters, people or pairings that they might not have considered writing about before.

I don't know if this will go on forever, or how many of the poetry selections I'll be able to write ficlets for. That will depend on a lot of different things, among them how inspiring I find the quote.

Just to make this as clear as possible: each 'chapter' will be a separate ficlet. They do not form any sort of whole. There is no continuation from one chapter to another, so don't give yourselves headaches looking for one. They will skip from season to season randomly. Some of them may be crossovers, some are not. If there is a fic that I intend to turn into a series or even write a sequel for, or one that I just think could use the visibility, it will get it's own listing - definitely for sequels.

As the main characters and pairings - if there are pairings then they will vary, you may not care for all of them. You may not like the focus of any given fic. And if a fic is not so happy, it doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike that character and/or relationship. Sometimes, there's just a particular idea demanding that it be written...

Hopefully, you'll find these enjoyable. So far, they've been pretty fun to write.

thanks,

Lucinda

Responses are asked to be sent to the applicable groups/lists. For these lists, slash and/or NC17 is permitted, as long as it is clearly labeled in the subject line.

Twisting-the-hellmouth (at) - for any crossover fiction, featuring any character from BtVS or Angel (a fic with only characters from BtVS or A:tS or only from both does NOT count as a crossover by the rules of that list) crossed over with ANY other source - books, movies, television, comics, games... Length of fics may vary.

Please note that the fics are not required to be shippy. A fic with a couple characters from different series just hanging out together would be fine, or someone stumbling onto a puzzle that is more often seen somewhere else, complete with the investigators... Bystanders for something unexpected - Mulder & Scully drop by Sunnydale, Hank Summers related to Scott Summers, pen pals, all of that is just as welcome as anything else.

Here are the Poetry Quotes, in order of the weeks.

Week #1 Poetry Quote

"Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality. "

-- Emily Dickinson - Because I could not stop for Death

Week #2 Poetry Quote

"T'was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desire'd, and got, t'was but a dreame of thee"

-The Good Morrow, John Donne

Week #3 Poetry Quote

"SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

-- She walks in beauty, Byron

Week #4 Poetry Quote

Some say the world will end in fire;

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-'Fire and Ice' by Robert Lee Frost

Week #5 Poetry Quote

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,

starving hysertical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the

starry dynamo in the machinery of the night..."

- from "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg

Week #6 Poetry Quote

"You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise."

- from "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

Week #7 Poetry Quote

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Georgina Rossetti - Remember

Week #8 Poetry Quote

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts be dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes there is more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Week #9 Poetry Quote

"He was my north, my south, my east and west;

My working week, my Sunday best;

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.

I thought that love would last forever, ... I was wrong. "

-- W.H. Auden, 'Song IX' from 'Twelve Songs'

Week #10 Poetry Quote

Jumping off the highboard-

Into the marshmallow pool.

Swimming through the greenbeans,

I'm NOBODY'S fool.

Bouncing on a rubber stamp

Trying to print your name.

Hoping hard to make the score-

Who says life's a game???

--Jen LeMaire, "Fish" (c) 1990

Week #11 Poetry Quote

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe

"Beware the Jaberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

-- Lewis Caroll, Jabberwocky

Week #12 Poetry Quote

I want to go with the one I love.

I do not want to calculate the cost.

I do not want to think about whether it's good.

I do not want to know whether he loves me.

I want to go with whom I love.

- Bertolt Brecht (I Want to Go With Whom I Love)

Week #13 Quote

"I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die."

-- 'The Cloud' by Percy B. Shelley

Week# 14 quote

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Ulysses, by Tennyson

Week# 15 quote

O Rose, thou art sick

The invisible worm

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy

- 'The Sick Rose' by William Blake

Week # 16 (yes, there was a long break)

'Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.'

- Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Poetry Quote #17.

Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn's rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and forever cry.

I am not there. I did not die.

-- I Did Not Die, Mary Sue Pacho