ouxpo: sparse fields plowed last

Force of mood sheds painted clues into
tempers split on end. Middle slips on tumbles
fending this attack’s bloody bounty halved. Our course
dooms candle’s last wax—as drips crawl, search long on cruel
agony. Proving these toiled forms better
off comes drawn as present sport aches yet
tenderly. Arch angles trace round past fault’s alto
phrases trilled ironically, loudly as in song’s
best shouts of envy. Ironic? Ergo feted.
Movement enacts entropy, each pace lessens, thus
foils patterns evolved fast as each chaos blends
fevers aged under solid oak, solid
but pine. Thus, gauge every sentence
that lacked again from crooning’s mesh.
Croon your best as we bias following the
endowed, opposed on quarto’s blue
sea. Foreign scent condenses after we
blend it on velvet stool. Triple shapes burst
calm airs. Seething, somber, uncloy fate’s
energy, blister this—minus time’s mundane
trial. Spare moving doom’s luggage—speak
of luggage fast, but then spare tagging them.
Luggage best aloof when mirages enact
the sun’s devoted sound. Wooden souls
plod as mettle engulfs tumbles ending
past dawn. Exult patterns, react for either phase
and groom refracted gloom on
sun’s lost ice. Evoke fable’s form—about that
cause, agile tunes grow enough into
listing times of perished frames last known, found
traced then hidden lower. Basic ballots get
visited by agents in guest’s squat
abode, then are torn. Satisfy not long your most
exacting prose, inhaling tonsil’s throb
when staging every bend.

Mode of groove ails me, thus we ink long,
replenish those ink wells drying out, then
bend in. Slap-happy moods outrageously gouge
both goat’s ears as arias beat bottoms quest
at dooming sweet sod tilled for green
plots of best salads. Enter or tame me
better than fable’s age-old fuss, drama’s crusty shadow
charged in blessing coins aloud. An ingot’s
enough for sending office coffee
home, yet eaten, those last baked when menu
lost its phrases. Enclose clasp’s arched arm alone
when treated dully—then solidly toss back or kiss
quietly; undraw queen’s tresses lest we
arrange dark hair on drooping terms
not known, for quests placed in shadows noticed
bend over stool’s stem. Now guard tours: set
by each frozen time’s frozen lens. Area’s
edict ponders the good in men and ends up
sad and bitter. Splendid forces uncork shades
trembled in terrifying quiet—but false.
Incarnate soil’s bloom dug after each
bout alters cause as leaf bides
crust’s faltered play. Oppose this after each
best unit obeys your lost song—enough.
Donate these trusts under nesting
salad’s bent shrugs. Passed treats hone in, yet talent
affords more talent lost on old
dull voices bent on the talent’s slog. Shadows must pass
as sun sets—as if we stutter tones for stumbling on
in rhythm’s bliss—time’s over, time’s past. Search not out
past these links best fondled as if alone
in time’s grasp. Enlist guests, unarm
shadows we then cast, yet scold: fail on tomb’s fount of
crests and violent spring’s last sin—monitor
heart-blistered tests.

Forget or forgotten, failed but best in show,
the merit forges bitter limbs sought by the
lending standard. Fools brought after, though found when
donors trade alarm’s fast tick, patterns along tongue’s
last brooding. Enter foiled poses left
doomed by angry phrases encroached, yet
endear false age’s youth and annul past growth
as either spill spoils that fountain. Form
extols thrust form when prior times compel me
on, yet pelted ashes glow. Earth dares these lungs
to sing an even tone as scales fall flat. Close
these scales; duet coils on fast song’s tip,
but lingers. Ungauge me, render these
last scales fast—trail most moods by time’s
lost gloom under all merit along or in bends.
Redo the lock forced off, but allow trusted
keys at home’s filter, forget the shapes cast
when siphoned well. Soon, it treats me thus
as addicted, yet in love. Must my voyage
be excited in this quiet quay, send
ships away when going? No. You attend each
touch after pause arrests my tainted
lung’s last spent breath of oxygen. I falter, yet am
left. Quick—forget your bloomed youth
for a feeble lung’s tug, sweetly sing.
Arrange thrust’s phrase when alone in heart’s trench
and blood enacts best blood’s throb,
but posit every drop’s reach, then flow. Aloud, what
pauses gains the rude poet’s dour irony,
biting bitter odes in peace. As fools rush
past, enter time’s over, reach in and fold me
in. Listen as we inch up, exult at
last for present age grown avid. Soon, touch lost
by heaving those trials in song’s trills long
held—falsify, yet delve.

Lore looms on head’s view unspent in long
temper. My spigot entirely slits tongue’s
length—this an agony of thoughts paddled out suddenly,
honor last spent fast. Avail that, enact doom’s urgent
call—soon climb tree’s top limbs. Enclose me
or pose as a fleet’s fop. Garden’s best
green can happen as we shout at casual bonds
laced with veins of thrift. Can you call this only
enough to bend in or ice those tents?
Lose these spare tones and pander well, let such
phonics blast ever longer, and appeal alone
these able shudders. Poison along this
quiet thud gauges extreme needs
that are appalling. Bottoms soiled
follow doubt’s plea—feint a hook, wilt, then
be done. Go govern your fallow crusted
earth, go be field’s honest teacher. Sparks fly
when this governed room is bled dry. False shrug
lends all in deep pit of spent funk—voyage
screens this evil in fruit’s mess. Blush as we,
intact, gaze on in fool’s guarded sea
of unarmed causes. Layers praise
us as better than loose pins; make each
mesh blush in oxygen’s fount of frozen sound.
Soak elements but utter the first
and last when mutated, each vowel-sliced phrase
vast or short. Please grow fronds on
lungs or listen—engorged slate groans loudly at
causes that tried sudden slopes. No squish of
limits fires no exigent capers. That dooms us—
and yet, debts splinter votes as bills blast voters’
dimming hearts. Persist muted but all
alone we cancel most acting moods. Shout not
the valid notes, inhaling voting’s lost
pleading, yet felled.

Form ego or lose that index, trust the irony
even in frosted lines. Sing out the
text in saga’s long doom, burst all texts, shout, shout, yet
loom and read data in false paths, follow clues
along pointed entry. Voice song’s cheer
smoothed, and grace the song’s last –held length
even as after craters our flaw. Fault alto’s
flat merit, yet sing for this alto—burst antic songs
when lost, but store this voice close by when
overt spells dream demon dreams anew. Enter lung’s
coil and expend oxygen’s last gasp. Sextant alone
endears me—lunges long. Still boats troll this
quiet surf far spun. Sweetened fences
amaze lanyard’s whim of spoofing me
from floors crushed, angles intact. Opposite
the home, floods swell, crowds dump all our nets.
Each home is removed, each crest sags
the ship more, then oozing seas swell, but
fall as if eyes dim shore’s crust. Soar the
tempering, yet flight indulging me mutates
in fast age of irony, sours. Append sea’s
touch ad the fast gurgle lands me, fading me
up as eve’s last flooded light shades each
lens. Sun’s innocent loss by custom noted, for sun’s
lost day recedes. Trust sun’s receding
day, pass the sun’s ray every day, or let light reach me
at noon. Encase noon’s nod,
sun’s long dip, then evoke rage for fall’s ground fast
faulted. Pain me, sun—revolve on sun’s grid for
filling time’s pose. Lineate aloof sun’s
hard sphere in resolved plain chant. Somber
singing—earth’s spent tilt clues us that
above earth, below sand, in bottom clouds of
heaving odes, sings last in choir’s form.
End that bliss, then preen.
Lodged most of those antics we muscled in on
when we mirrored mimes in rogue
vein, as all boors shout false doubts of dulled
horror flawed by lad’s attacks. Impaled halo gouges
along voice’s bend joint—the box peels
for notes sad and held. Mend throat’s keen
neck spent, as phrases scare your ballad’s lust back on
age’s limp vein, for trials long run paid for
enough foreign coins then forgotten—
so left these flaxen folds, leap after the feuds
of ingrates. Venom exacts parched palms, allows the
best peace fused to slip, coats my lost lids
but hides lungs and turns me, seethes. Better
manage that frail honor of time’s
swoon, or tumble dry that wet shirt. Agony opines
the forest’s groove you sang of just then—
yet that forest dies of every phase drawn.
Exit, no trees, or longing, each nest just
an avis empty, the birds gone. Trust lost traces
these widening inch-bursts in spent quarters.
Imbalanced posits loom up after each
shout fades—causes all meaning left
by quartered stands; to close in and free that
bent fluid store. No lungs sung sweetly in
damaged trust fallen, bled dry. Pardoned first the shades
part, followed by age’s lost gloom.
Dust foils me when force spares most all loud bangs.
That fuse fails yet fumes drop me, pounding long
in this bitter poetic perch—matter can not count
at every index, for we valiantly chose
limited cases in guest’s quandary—
atone the phrase’s lost aim, or go down just now.
Exact this tone intact, sing of it or
be vanished well, spent.

Modesty longs for contemplating texture’s flick of
scented silk, moves fields, is worm’s fused
den. Intact and shop-worn, you cancel your tongue
on coated flaws. Rapt, saying new tears honor muted
fast songs, tonsils seek voice’s wobble. We
oppose that garbled text on agreed
tendency arranged. Spare your vandal’s lust and jot
that either in lost ink’s flask or up at window’s
best foundry. Force this voice open, then—
or then release notes at faster speeds. Thrust
chords in chapter’s resolved way as each atones
these traced clues bent on iron-clad joints
dug, fired but lauded. Everywhere we
saw craters arraying moon’s lost ice,
moon’s found sea; we had moon’s ice
evolve moon enough that thoughts we
meant to exist, we lost. These areas
nestling on better moon’s ice cradled us
at margin’s expelling core. Such boats rely
even in best visits up ice guarded
mills past shame on thick moon quarters bent back
on quarter’s clause. Fate’s raiment
unfastens each moon’s skin as the sea,
exuding love’s clout, opposes sounds
of agreement. Sun’s queen is
arrange, sun’s garden, sea opens ice, fades.
Along poem’s pace, moons grow
unpoised by the ocean’s elbow. A loud call
causes that timely tune to press our minds to
mimic primed poems first learned at school, but
that enterprise loses pacing as prodded;
incited phrases sing muted bursts, as
caromed, the planet soaks in moon’s fount of
healing tones in anti-orbit of
earth’s flight veered.

—Gale Nelson

Title
Sparse Fields Plowed Last

Rule / Constraint
Shakespeare’s passage,”To be, or not to be: that is the question” was rendered in homovocalic variations.

Medium
Verse

Technique(s)
While maintaining the lineation, Shakespeare’s (or Hamlet’s) soliloquy was stripped of all consonants, leaving strings of vowels. As such, the first few lines of the passage:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

once stripped of consonants can be rendered as:

OEOOOEAIEUEIO
EEIOEIEIOUE
EIAAOOOUAEOUOUE
OOAEAAAIAEAOOUE
AOOIEEOIEOEE

Note: “by” in the last line shown, is absented from the vowel string. Y does not count in this system—only A, E, I, O & U.

Bio
Gale Nelson is author of three books: stare decisis, Ceteris Paribus and This Is What Happens When Talk Ends—all from Burning Deck / Anyart, Providence, R.I.