Title:  If the Masters Wrote K/S

Authors:  Various--see bibliography

Adapted by: Lyrastar, www.geocites.com/lyrastarwatcher

Rating: PG-13

Series:  TOS

Pairing:  K/S

Warning: The T.S. Eliot piece, like most of Eliot, has no happy ending.

Summary:  What if the great masters had known of K/S?  A six-pack of slashed poems.

Disclaimer:  This is a highly derivative collection of adaptations of poems well-known to the public domain.  All the artistry is in the original works--only the Treksmut slant is mine.  Star Trek characters and references are all property of Paramount/Viacom; no money is being made from their appearance herein.

Bibliography:  For the interested, urls for links to the original works:

1) Cummings, one winter afternoon and a man who had fallen among thieves http://www.tearsofllorona.com/cummings.html

2) Basho, Autumn Roads http://www.haikupoetshut.com/basho1.html ;

3) Shakespeare, Sonnet 87 http://www.bartleby.com/101/153.html ;

4) Dickinson, I Had Been Hungry http://www.bartleby.com/113/1076.html

5) Stevenson, The Land of Counterpane http://www.bartleby.com/188/117.html

6) T.S. Eliot, The Journey of the Magi http://engdep1.philo.ulg.ac.be/download/2002-2003/bible/MAGI.HTM

Feedback: always welcome at <Lyrastarwatcher@yahoo.com>

IF E. E. CUMMINGS WROTE K/S--A DUET

I

a man who fell among humans

lay by my side still on his back

dressed in uniform of duty

wearing a peaked slant for a smile

vulcan plying an elite

but ironic twist of fate in

return for freedom of the fleet

endowed him with a stiff facade

whereon countless brave and leal

shipmates did thither gaze and pause

then fired by hyperproper zeal

sought newer pastures or because

masked with an icy frozen look

of sorest need from eyes which saw

only everyone he spoke

as if he did not care at all

one hand did nothing at his waist

its wideflung friend clenched firmly me

while the trouserfly ripped in haste

confessed the passion that must be.

Brushing his bangs from the stiff face

i put him all into my arms

and staggered banged with terror though

a million billion trillion stars

II

one starry night

(at the appointed place

where if became is)

a golden idol

standing tall among the fleet

handed me his heart.

Nobody, it's safe

to say, observed him but

myself; and why?because

without any doubt he was

whatever (first and last)

mostpeople fear most:

a mystery for which i've

no word except alive

--that is, completely alert

and miraculously whole;

with not merely a mind and a body

but unquestionably a katra--

by no means tragically heroic

(or otherwise beyond perfection)

but essentially unconquerable

or eternally beneficent

a fine, not a splendored idol

(not a human, but a person)

and while never saying a word

who was anything but demure;

since the smile of him

self sang like a lyre.

Mostpeople have been heard

screaming for intragalactic

accords that render chaos logical

--how would it be if we

all simply followed our hearts

IF BASHO WROTE K/S

Lonely roads he walks alone

No, another is beside!

Starlit paths go on.

IF SHAKESPEARE WROTE K/S

Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing,

And sure enough thou know'st thy fair effect.

The sands of Gol do holdeth my redeeming;

My bond to thee shall be our sacrament.

But holding you be not of Surak's granting,

The joys of love be not of Vulcan's serving,

So your great gift a tear in me is rending;

And to the forge of stone I must be heading.

Thyself thou gav'st, our full worth then knowing

And me to whom thou gav'st, wonder'sly taking

So our great love, upon misprision growing

Must the temp'ring test of time be undertaking.

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:

In your arms alive; in the world, another matter.

IF DICKINSON WROTE K/S

I had been hungry all these years.

My time had come to dine.

I, trembling, drew my loved one near

And tasted of his wine.

'Twas to this man that I had looked

When burning, hungry, lone.

I gazed upon the glorious gold

I dare not dream to own.

I did not know his quenching kiss

'Twas so unlike the one

The girl and I had onetime shared

'Neath Omicron Ceti's sun.

The feeling hurt, 'twas so new

Myself felt odd and weak

As a Vulcan shrub of desert land

Transported to the sea.

Nor was I hungry, so I found

That hunger is a way

Of persons banned from bounds of love

That entering takes away.

IF R.L. STEVENSON WROTE K/S

When I was sick and lay a-bed,

All my fanzines at my head,

And action toys beside me lay

To keep me happy all the day.

I sometimes sent the ships in fleets,

All up and down among the sheets;

Or brought out Klingons armed with knives,

And had them save each other lives.

Or sometimes when no one was home,

I let my plastic heroes roam,

In Starfleet uniforms and cover,

Among the sheets, one with the other.

On screen they must be kept apart,

Each time I watch it breaks my heart.

But there they had each other plain,

In my private land of counterpane.

IF T.S. ELIOT WROTE K/S

A hard search we had of it.

Five of us (or was it six?)

Made the voyage, and such a strange voyage,

Back to that newborn world

For the dead, but not dead.

And my ship flew her last for us,

Just as he gave his last for her, for us.

In this time I regretted

The unspoken words, the things undone,

The choice I wouldn't make, the choice he wouldn't force,

What might have been and now might never will.

And the times I choose form over substance,

And the times I choose comfort over passion,

And the times I choose the many over the few,

And what I wouldn't give to change that now.

A hard voyage we had of it.

Near the end we preferred to travel in silence,

Sleeping in snatches,

With a voice ringing in my ears, saying

That this may all be folly.

Then as dawn broke over the tube we met the Klingons.

Unyielding--ready to kill or die for Genesis.

Genesis: life from death, or death from life?

And my ship, my beautiful ship once more gave her all

And breathed her last low on the blood red sky.

We found David away in the meadow.

My son, my future, my legacy, cold.

I killed the one who killed him, I think.

I am told Spock killed the other.

Spock.  So hot.  So alive.  So cold.

The commander came, they left; we stayed to fight.

And feet, my feet, kicking him over the chasm

I arrived as the world crumbled, not a moment too soon

Retrieving him alive was (you may say) a miracle.

All this was a long time ago.  I remember,

And would do it all again, for him

But this set down

This:  was I led all that way for

Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,

Spock lives again,  no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different;  this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, our duties,

But no longer at ease with each other, the old traditions,

Alien people to each other, clutching at their past.

I should be glad of another death.