Dead Writers

The jester taunts, "How many do you think,
both high and low, can dance on my three pens?
What poetry supports the truth of ink?"
I sighed and said, "The evidence depends."

And still he taunts, "How many eyes will read
the gap 'twixt truth and lie, though angels save
the best of them who spoke for all to see?"
Again I sighed and said, "We must be brave."

"There were too many eyes, but ayes too few;
they saw the human beast but missed the saint:
Of Chang and Webb and Hunter no-one knew,
And what three pens might wipe their shadowed taint?"

You haunted three, your mem'ry never will
be lost, so long as we remember still.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 2004 and 2005, three fine writers, Iris Chang, Gary Webb, and Hunter S Thompson all took their own lives. This is for them.

Why DID the chicken cross the road, you ask?
No-no! 'Twas not to reach the other side.
The cluckster had good reason to decide
the dang'rous trip was her appointed task.

She did not flap to keep a lover's tryst.
No-no! 'Twas not to meet the rooster there,
At break of dawn, to seek his plumage fair,
(though possibly those drumsticks will be missed).

She did not brooding cross to save her eggs.
No-no! 'Twas not to keep them warm and whole,
preserve them from the whisk and mixing bowl.
An om'let fate did not propel her legs.

You'll cackle loud at cluckish reasoning.
She ran to dodge the poultry seasoning.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Written to answer that age-old question, "why did the chicken cross the road?"

Too many posts? Is that why this second sonnet was moved here?

Yes. Not that I'm a mod or anything, but yes, that's how it works.

Ah. Well, I wasn't keeping track, my fault. I get these bursts of energy, followed by fatigue. :) It's a bit bi-polar (okay, more than a bit) I know... I'll work at sticking within the strictures.

No-one will comment now, of course, so perhaps I'll wait a few days and then re-submit one at a time.

Thanks.

I ran across Will Self quoting Thompson yesterday: 'The Circus Circus [in Las Vegas] is what the whole hip world would be doing if the Nazis had won the war.' Deathless.

I like, but am struggling a bit to understand the dead writers poem – my fault, not yours – but Self went on in the same piece to talk about the idea of art as a counterfactual and I'm sort of feeling that fits.

That was quite a good comment, actually. Thanks. Opened my eyes to the general obscurity of reference within the sonnet.

Reduced to its most basic, it's a dialogue between right and left political views of these writers. Right wing media often portrayed these three as lunatics, whackos, navel-gazing, conspiracy nuts, whose writings had no useful (economic) value. It's a left-wing response to right-wing mockery of the people behind the works. Too often these people were demonized, and the price they paid for suffering under that demonization was high.

It's also a bit of an allusion to "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" question, though I see now that is also an obscure reference.

They are US writers. The context was the jeering, mocking reception these three faced by right wing, American media.

I wonder how I could fix this one to incorporate all that?

Interesting. I really don't know much about the reasons for Thompson's suicide and haven't heard of the other writers.

Been belatedly getting into Lenny Bruce lately and your remarks on they way these writers were treated make me think of him too.

Maybe the solution with the poem is just to write more. Try to flesh it out.

Great Sonnets! :thumbs_up