How do you tell the difference

[PrinceMyshkin]

between a poem
and a strawberry?

Well, strawberries are shallow-rooted, perennial plants.
Poems are not.

ii
How do you tell the difference
between a poem
and a murder victim?

Murder victims are often
gory, repugnant sights,
possibly dismembered, their parts
strewn across the room or rooms.

All of a poem’s parts
are usually in the one place
more or less tidy on the page.

iii
How do you tell the difference
between a poem
and your sister’s latest purchase
of shoes?

Your sister isn’t wearing a poem
though she may think she is.

iv
How do you tell the difference
between a poem
and Gotterdammerung?

No need. When Gotterdammerung
arrives, every word we speak
will be a poem
or none.

[NickAdams]

Well, strawberries are shallow-rooted, perennial plants.
Poems are not.

:lol:



Your sister isn’t wearing a poem
though she may think she is.


Food for thought.:nod:

[qimissung]

You have managed to combine the humorous and the sublime into a rich and tasty confection. The questions remind me of elephant jokes we told as kids, only with nuggets of truffles tucked inside each one.

[dibyendra]

ii
All of a poem’s parts
are usually in the one place
more or less tidy on the page.

iii

Your sister isn’t wearing a poem
though she may think she is.

iv

No need. When Gotterdammerung
arrives, every word we speak
will be a poem
or none.


Humorous comparison between two disparate things, yet you did so well! :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

The questions remind me of elephant jokes we told as kids, only with nuggets of truffles tucked inside each one.

Speaking of which, do you know how to get down from an elephant?

[AuntShecky]

VERY nice -- illustrates Dr. Johnson's def. of metaphysical poetry "heterogeneous things yoked by violence together." (Except there is no "violence" in your work.)

[qimissung]

No, how?

[PrinceMyshkin]

No, how?

You DON'T get down from an elephant - you get it from a duck!

Do you know the difference between a mail-box and an elephant's rectum?

[qimissung]

:lol:

Both are suppositories for incoming information? No? What is it?

[PrinceMyshkin]

No? What is it?

Sorry, but if you don't know the difference between them, I'll never ask you to mail a letter on my behalf!

[Virgil]

Nicely done. I enjoyed the third stanza the best. :)

[qimissung]

What do you get when you cross an elephant with an ant?

How do you tell the difference between a poem and an elephant?

The elephant is much more eloquent, of course.

[PrinceMyshkin]

What do you get when you cross an elephant with an ant?

An elephant that hardly notices?

[qimissung]

the elephant
touched the face
of the face of the
poem wonderingly,
then scooped it up
and drank its fill

[PrinceMyshkin]

the elephant
touched the face
of the face of the
poem wonderingly,
then scooped it up
and drank its fill

Lovely! In these shorter, epigrammatic poems, the whole of it repeats itself in one's mind, leaving one with an impulse to imagine the next few lines but the whole of the captured perception or thought is there.

[Pendragon]

iv
How do you tell the difference
between a poem
and Gotterdammerung?

No need. When Gotterdammerung
arrives, every word we speak
will be a poem
or none.


Indeed. The end will come one day, and either we speak with careful phrasing or we miss the golden opportunity to be blissfully silent, because silence sometimes speaks volumes...