Stolen Pixels #259: Don’t Fear the Creeper

By Shamus Posted Tuesday May 17, 2011

Filed under: Column 37 comments

May I present: A poem. About Creepers. Because.

Not actually crazy about how this one turned out. (Rhythm is off in places.) The rhyme scheme is just a little more complicated than I should have taken on at that point. To put it in context, your average poem with a rhyme scheme of A A B B C C D D is about ten times easier than A B A B C D C D. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I was hammering this out at the last minute and perhaps bit off more than was wise, given the coming deadline.

Ah well. It’s not bad. There’s not enough poetry in webcomics, anyway.

 


From The Archives:
 

37 thoughts on “Stolen Pixels #259: Don’t Fear the Creeper

  1. Jansolo says:

    Nice try, ain’t bad. You have added some poetry to the world (at least to the webcomics’ world)

  2. Mari says:

    On the one hand: yay for poetic words. On the other hand: your poetry sucks. But I still love ya because not many poets laureate are tackling such heady subjects (no pun intended) as green phallic dudes who mess yo *$%& up, yo.

  3. qrter says:

    Better to go for A B C B – you won’t win any points for style, but it’ll still rhyme, and you can use C to dump an expositional line.

  4. Heron says:

    Is it just me, or does that “ka-boom” font look like it came from Champions Online?

    1. HeadHunter says:

      If it were, we could only hope that the creeper has blown up Champions Online as well. I loved City of Heroes, I even enjoyed DCUO… but Champions Online was so awful (in my own opinion) that I uninstalled it within minutes of beginning play.

      In fact, creepers might have made that game better!

  5. Chris B Chikin says:

    “I think they’re all men”

    I’m pretty sure I can find some fanart showing otherwise!

    1. Loonyyy says:

      Please no, MineCraft Rule 34: Do not want! I’ll never be able to look at a Zombie Pigman the same way again…

      1. Chris B Chikin says:

        Dammit, now I just know I’m gonna have to google this!

      2. Rayen says:

        you had to bring up the pigmen in this context didn’t you?

  6. Max says:

    Pretty good poem but, needs more cowbell.

    Other than that it’s okay. It’s actually quite nice.

  7. krellen says:

    Kudos for a poem that ends with “Ka-Boom!”

  8. Lord_Bryon says:

    Great poem, now all we need to do is put it to the tune of “Don’t fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult.

    1. AbruptDemise says:

      I actually read the poem to the tune of the song (in my head, at least). It ended up with really odd pacing at some parts, but it still kind of worked.

      I am in support of this.

  9. Loonyyy says:

    Fortunately this comic caught me out of a MineCraft-Playing stupor, when the world was finally starting to look curvy and not made up of blocks enough to read it. And now I want to play MineCraft again.
    Good Poem though, better than my random cry of “d**k-monsters!” every 15 seconds.

  10. Volatar says:

    Um, Shamus. “Sure” and “more” don’t rhyme.

    1. Chris B Chikin says:

      Sore they do!

    2. Klay F. says:

      They do if you use certain American accents.

      EDIT: DAMN NINJAS!

    3. Supernal Clarity says:

      It’s called slant rhyme, my friend. You can pronounce “sure” like “shore” (as some people do) or you can accept that “sure” and “more are almost close enough to be a rhyming pair, either way works. Writers do this a lot, and sometimes too much (just ask Emily Dickenson…).

      1. Aldowyn says:

        And I’m pretty sure it’s poor form to have words than end in the same stem, i.e. -less or -est, and he did that at least once. *shrug*

        At least he can WRITE a poem. I almost got a B one semester because I hate writing poems with a fiery passion.

    4. Blake says:

      They do where I’m from (Melbourne).

    5. Simon Buchan says:

      At least in my sortofnotreally New Zealand accent, they rhyme perfectly.

  11. Eärlindor says:

    Many times in Tolkien’s poetry you’ll have a line that doesn’t rhyme with the others. I don’t know much about poetry, but it seems to me to be in a certain style?

    …No spawning of young.
    Theyd on’t hatch from a den.
    They Don’t eat. (or make dung.)
    And I think they’re all men…

    And:

    …Do not disrespect them,
    Double-check your bedroom.
    When you least expect it:
    Oh **** NO! KA-BOOM!

    What you use he in a couple lines doesn’t exactly rhyme, but it works–I think anway. These verses kinda reminded me of that. Not in a specific ABCB meter, it just reminded me of that particular style.

    From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
    where shadow lies on frozen hills,
    from nether heats and burning wastes
    he turned in haste, and roving still
    on starless waters from astray
    at last he came to Night of Naught,
    and passed, and never sight he saw
    of shining shore nor light he sought.

    1. Eärlindor says:

      Whoops, I wanted to mention the “Sure/More” line, not really the “KA-BOOM” one, when I was talking about the above.

  12. psivamp says:

    So, you went with a variation of the Italian sonnet’s ABBA ABBA CDCDCD? Or as my English teacher taught us, “Father, Father, give me money!”

  13. Jarenth says:

    Well now. This poems appeals to the two most prominent parts of my personality: My lazy bohemian side enjoys watching the creativity of others, and my obsessive neurotic side immediately starts thinking about alternative wordings so the poem could flow better.

    Well played.

  14. TSED says:

    Shamus, I want to see you try to write a sestina now! Those are good times for all.

    I don’t know. I feel like I’m overqualified to comment on this topic, and that if I say anything it’ll come across as being a dick. Hurray, liberal arts majors!

  15. Jeff says:

    Actually, given that the lines don’t actually end for some of those line-breaks, it ends up reading more like AABBCC and so on.

  16. Regarding creepers, I think Clive Owen said it best:

    “Fuck you, you fucking fuckers.”

    Shoot ‘Em Up…now THAT movie was poetry! ^_^

  17. RTBones says:

    Well played.

    Minecraft…ugh. Trying to build a railroad, transcon. Found obsidian, made gate to nether, made mad dash through nether (just go go go), made another gate in the nether, warped back. Wandered transcon until I found my home again, dropping markers on the way. Built rail lines to two “randomly appearing” nether gates (didnt know they could spawn). Built rail line to a “lost fort” – meaning, I was exploring, got low on supplies, got chased by monsters, built a small fort to protect myself with what I had, then found home again. Set a forest on fire to get rid of monsters chasing me (surprisingly effective). About 1/3 the way to my out-lying gate. Lots of track laid. Lots (ugh, lots) of mining done.

    Three rules accompany this nonsense:

    1) I must play on normal (no peaceful). This means, on occasion, rebuilding something an idiot creeper blew up once or fourteen times.

    2) All supplies I need (iron, gold, coal, etc) must be mined. They cannot be added with an inventory editor. Yes, I am apparently a gaming masochist. Yes, it is taking a long time. Yes, I am having fun building the train to nowhere.

    3) Creepers suck. Don’t fear the creeper.

    1. Mari says:

      I don’t know that it’s masochism. Honestly I enjoy mining stuff. I’ve made all kinds of cool stuff the hard way. My most recent project is huge pyramid spanning from sea level to “the top” made entirely of iron blocks (not ore blocks, but the extra shiny kind) that I’ve mined myself. It’s 117 blocks to a side and 117 blocks high. And yet, I only had to go find 6 more blocks after I got the idea and started building. I’d been mining for months and trying to figure out what the heck to do with all those chests full of iron blocks I was forging. Next up, I think I’m going to try the same with gold blocks though that’ll take more work.

      1. RTBones says:

        Oddly enough, for some reason, it didn’t seem that long when I “walked” back – though walking you can use diagonals. When I built the original gate to the Nether, my intent was to just “dig for a good ways”, build a second gate to pop back, and explore. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that it would be fun to connect my home with the faraway gate by rail – in addition to the modest rail network I already had.

        I do find myself wishing at times Notch would add a locomotive (a real one, that you could “attach” to other mine carts). I am finding the new powered tracks lacking sometimes.

        Still fun, though.

  18. Supernal Clarity says:

    Shamus, as a poet myself and an aspiring professor of English literature, I tend to have rather high standards for poetry. Nevertheless, I could not help but love the ending to the sixth stanza:

    They don’t seem to grow.
    They don’t dig an abode.
    Their life cycle runs so:
    They are born, then explode.

    Bravo, my good man; I am always happy to see fellow anglophones trying their hands at the most wondrous art of poetry.

    1. Kaeltik says:

      My favorite as well. Very Dr. Seuss.

  19. Nasikabatrachus says:

    As soon as I saw the words creeper and poetry together I had to make a haiku.

    Why sneak up on me?
    Why the big frown, my green friend?
    “Well, it’s just-” TISS BOOM

    Also, like Supernatural Clarity, I enjoyed the sixth stanza the most. Nice effort, Shamus.

  20. Rob Lundeen says:

    Someone posted this to the minecraft subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/hdzt9/stolen_pixels_259_dont_fear_the_creeper/

    They didn’t credit you so I added a link to your blog and the escapist in the comments.

  21. Dude says:

    They are born; they explode.

    Best line ever.

  22. Cuthalion says:

    I agree, the life cycle line is awesome.

Thanks for joining the discussion. Be nice, don't post angry, and enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked*

You can enclose spoilers in <strike> tags like so:
<strike>Darth Vader is Luke's father!</strike>

You can make things italics like this:
Can you imagine having Darth Vader as your <i>father</i>?

You can make things bold like this:
I'm <b>very</b> glad Darth Vader isn't my father.

You can make links like this:
I'm reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader">Darth Vader</a> on Wikipedia!

You can quote someone like this:
Darth Vader said <blockquote>Luke, I am your father.</blockquote>

Leave a Reply to Lord_Bryon Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.