Your latest -- What a fun, humourous and spunky poem, AuntShecky! :D
And prior to your latest-- I'm going to take time to read these.
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Your latest -- What a fun, humourous and spunky poem, AuntShecky! :D
And prior to your latest-- I'm going to take time to read these.
lol. Can you be the wrong kind of jerk? That line really had me laughing Aunty.
Nice and witty
with a pinch of self pity
:grouphug:
Auntie there's so much delight in reading this. I confess I can't read long poems, but the short ones I find in your trove is nothing short of amazing. Add me to your list of "jerks", I can't do any of those either :D
Neat poem Auntie.
(Delta - love the group-hug graphic. It kicks @ss! :grouphug::grouphug: :smilewinkgrin:)
:grouphug:
I sincerely hope that the title "'Bye Lines" is not prophetic. You aren't thinking of departing the boards are you Auntie? That would be a crime against humanity! As a characteristically self-deprecating statement of bewilderment at the tastes of the masses, it is delivered with your trademark irony and a cheek fully occupied by tongue, at least, I hope so. If I'd been writing this poem I think I'd have gone for a more regular rhythm, but there's nothing wrong with the way you have presented it.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I sincerely hope it won't be the last time I enjoy one of your offerings.
Live and be well - H
Dear Auntie, are you fed up with us all here and want to take a vacation? Please do not..
Your poem is more than tongue in cheek, it reads beautifully but feels threatening a bit and makes one feel a very concerned a jerk...
Anyhow, applause for this, plus for your honesty!
And my usual best to you!!! But no, not "Bye Lines"!
Bar
Thanks for the nice responses to the last little "ditty" #360. The subject was a kind of invective against the types of writers whose scripts become Hollywood blockbusters and whose products populate the Best Seller List. Thanks, Delta, for getting the joke about the "wrong kind of jerk" as I had misgivings that noone would "get it."
Unless somebody persuades me to the contrary, I have no plans to leave my fellow LitNutters (for now.) Meanwhile, please don't ever take anything I say too literally. And don't judge a crook by her cover. Oh, I kid.
Re: the fractured meter in the triads or "triplets." Unless I miscounted, each of the lines has 4 stresses; the first stanza is roughly iambic but many other lines start with a "headless iamb" (such as you might find in the opening lines of many pop songs.)
It never occurred to write my triplets in trimeter and had to go with a lengthier line. Even with an extra foot (in mouth), it was difficult to cram everything in. You should have seen earlier drafts that had mouthfuls like "Nibelungenian" and "bacchanalian" in them. The lines varied so much in length that I was very nearly trespassing on Ogden Nash's territory. The difference being, of course, that his stuff was great and this thing is doggerel.
Woof!
The increase in the number of commercials promoting fish sandwiches at fast food joints reminds me that once again Lent is almost here. (Great! Just what we need--more deprivation!) As a matter of fact, Bigggus's verses today are on "Pancake Day." So tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Hence, the following irreverent reverence:
“Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company.”
–Mark Twain
The Defined Comedy
Inferno
The searing red and orange of fires
most starkly stake this doom as fact,
but stoke with doubt the truth of hell.
Reality’s always in black-
and-white, and fantasy, pastel.
Purgatorio
Where sin belatedly atones,
where souls can scrub and scour and groom,
will not be found on maps divine,
but earthly sites: a waiting room,
a call on hold, an unemployment line.
Paradiso
Even here nothing’s perfect.
The meals are bland; there’s peeling paint.
Admission comes with a heavy price.
Yet no one hears a sole complaint.
That’s why they call it paradise.
lol Aunty. What sharp wit you have. I tried to pick a favourite but I like them all. Great finishing lines but also nice descriptors. They're very atmospheric too. One can imagine reeling these off in a bar after one too many to an appreciative audience!
Very funny, and as usual, much enjoyed.
Nice view of purgatory as an unemployment line.
I agree: With all that colorful fire, hell must be more pastel-fantasy than reality.
Hey Auntie, Purgatorio really did it for me – I was giggling all alone here in the office! And what to say about Paradise being a place where no one complains? I should've known it - France is definitely NOT Paradise, then! Truly brilliant!
Thank you--Delta,Buh4Bee, YesNo (both of you), and Dieter--for responding to this latest ditty. According to conventional wisdom it's not quite cricket to comment on one's own work. On the other hand, I'm itching to clarify a couple of matters concerning this particular piece, and it's my thread, so what the heck:
Poets aren't supposed to be afraid of "offending" anyone, a point which the notorious "Railing at Greatness" thread tries to hammer home with a sledge hammer. It would bother me personally, though, if anyone thought I harbored animosity toward religion, which I don't. Along with others whose hearts break at the thought of evil wrought in the name of "religion," I'm against that, as well as disdaining those who maintain the self-righteous posture of having all the answers. At the same time I'm completely behind the comforting aspects of religion. If that constitutes a cognitive disconnect, so be it. (Anybody who wants to challenge me on this, please feel free to do so, but in a separate thread.)
Back to commenting on my own verse. This one's not to be construed as a parody of Dante, because parodies exactly imitate the form of the original, which we all know is in terza rima, and which this ditty definitely is not. Not only that, one line of the tetrameter of "Defined Comedy" has an extra foot (in-mouth.) But a couple of the commentators liked the "unemployment line" schtick, so I'll leave it. (In a rationalizing "stretch" I suppose I could say that the lengthier line underscores the long wait in the actual queue.)
"Inferno"-- The "searing" reds and oranges of hellfire aren't really the same as soft watercolors or candy colored "pastels" by my definition. When I was a kid, I couldn't quite wrap my little mind around the idea of Hell, because I wondered how a "soul" rather than a actual body with a nervous system, could actual experience being burned (even eternally.) Decades later I somehow came to the conclusion that hell could exist, but not in earthly terms and could only be imagined in terms of metaphor. Hence, hell is neither fish nor fowl, not quite "reality" (as we know it) and not really "fantasy" because it's possible that Hell could exist on some plane presently unknown to you and me.
"Purgatorio"-- Historians (a tribe of which I'm not a member) hear the word "Purgatory" and automatically think of a certain medieval practice perpetuated by the Church to drum up revenue. For a given price, members of the Faithful would be offered an opportunity to purchase "indulgences" -- a way to knock a given number of years off his inevitable sentence in Purgatory, sort of like an insurance policy. The centuries-old scam was just one of the abuses leading to the Protestant Reformation. But it's the older, more orthodox concept of Purgatory that my little verse plays with--the escape clause by which a person can shave off his bid in Purgatory through atonement and suffering here on earth (while, as the good old Gospel song tells us," there's still time, Brother.") The time off for good behavior relates to the various degrees of suffering, from intense pain to moderate discomfort to minor inconveniences, such as being stuck on hold, and--it is to be hoped--substitute teaching.
"Paradiso" Speaking of being presumptuous, who do I think I am to speculate what Heaven is like? ( It's kind of fun though.) When I wrote "Even there, nothing's perfect," of course, I didn't mean God. In Stanley Elkin's brilliant comic novel, The Living End, God gets bent out of shape to hear His heaven compared to a "theme park." (Pastels again?) Hence, this little ditty's metaphor of a slightly rundown resort, with the perq that certainly compensates for any imperfection in the facilities.
Thanks again for reading the poem, as well as this admittedly self-indulgent comment.
I liked the sarcasm in these. As a kid I went to a catholic school and I never was satisfied with the criteria for getting into these places. As kids we always wondered what could a child do to get into hell, but there was always a way it seemed.
Nice poem Auntie
[February 29, 2012-- Please note this is a revised version of a piece originally appearing in this space a few days ago. Although it's best to wait until one can revisit a work so she can look at it with a fresher, more objective eye, I decided to go ahead and fix it right away before another reader suffers through its original dreadfulness.]
Refuse
For just a little while let’s lay
the old realities aside.
Those cramping have-tos, shoulds, and musts
are nags who never were much use,
like dusty “practical” presents
or grab-bag gifts we meant to throw
away. We thought it best to keep
the parts that make us act with sense,
befitting the role of mature
adults. All of that’s debris!
Why not pretend we’re like the kid
who sees a party as a chore
but cries when it’s time to go home?
Instead some staid, sad ritual
stepped in to crumple up and stuff
our wistful sparks in plastic bags
and roughly dumped them all outside.
I find stanzas 2 & 3 a bit stiff, mannered, especially after the full-tilt authority of the first stanza and the felicity of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin
I knew there was something wrong with it, but hadn't the foggiest notion of how to fix the damn thing. Thanks to this reply and your PM on the matter, and to the other LitNutter who came to my aid, I was able to work on it (for hours!) last night so I can revise it today.
Here's the revised version
http://www.online-literature.com/for...02#post1119102
See? Yours reply is a fine and thoroughly useful example of constructive criticism which other LitNutters would do well to follow!
I really appreciate it, Prince!
Wow! I think the whole of it works so much better now - and I was going to mention the possible pun intended in the title, which one can read as a verb in the imperative sense or as a noun; and I believe seeing those two possibilities fits the poem well.
FREE the Wistful Sparks!!!!! The campaign starts here, let them out there plastic bags, let them flutter like fireflies lighting our miserable adult existence. I know where to find them, they were dumped out side.
"What do we want?"
"Free our sparks!!"
"When do we want them let out of there plastic bags, probably some really cheap arse chain store bags, and set free to flutter like fireflies returning childlike simplicity to our dour existence ?"
"Errrmmm. Now. "
Give me a S
give me a P
etc etc :D.
Loved it Auntie Fawcett
These:
are my preferred lines here, Dear Auntie, though I loved the "revolutionary", ie ironic at least tone that permeates all the poem!Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Thanks a lot, your offerings always surprise with the exactness of what they spy on and reach!
Just for the hell of it, I'm reposting these two from way back in 07, when I was just a tiny LitNutter, still wet behind the jeers.
On the Nose
(by a nose)
It’s plain as myself
on this face that I
am always sticking myself
into other people’s business
when I'm not stuck in a book,
or stuck up in the air
or looking down myself.
If not stuffed up,
I'm running,
though even when I smell sweet
(or sweetly)
a nose is a nose is a nose,
so I guess the
only thing left to do is
to cut off myself
to spite my face,
for as everybody knows
no nose is good nose.
------
"Chick Sal Sand"
Note how
in the dankest digs
someone remembers
to water the plants
struggling through
lack of light.
It’s helpful to catch
the briefest spark of humanity:
the pedestrian’s grinning shrug
when the “Don't Walk”
sign won't change;
the abbreviated
lunch order scribbled
on a little green pad.
AuntShecky
"A louse in the locks of literature."
Well I like, "On the Nose" for its wit and good humour, but I'm missing something in the title of the second offering. Not sure why you put a stanza break after the opening two lines and the last three don't seem to relate to anything which has gone before. My feeling is that the last satnza either needs extending or cutting. As a two stanza poem I think it would be stronger.
Anyway, Thanks for giving us the opportunity to peek at your back catalogue.
Live and be well - H
Well, Cyrano would have stuck his nose into your nose business for sure had he been younger! for his nose was his life business... and indeed, what a strange whim of evolution, nose...
I like your nose poem very much.
And as for the second, it's another amazing poem, elliptic, its surreal meaning(s) floating in the urban air for one to ponder as one is bound by a street sign to the pavement.
No end to your creativity, Dear Auntie, and you say it was at the very beginning...!
a nose is a nose is a nose
Now that's hysterical. Tiny LitNutter...maybe, but one can spot a budding rose (is a budding rose is a budding rose) of a poet here without a doubt.
The second one is full of ironies. Watering plants even when dank; don't walk sign suggests it's being walked on; and Chick Sal Sand...the abbreviated for Chicken Salad Sandwich? The scribbled note is discarded, littered, the final insult to the poor plants.
I particularly like the second one which reads as very PrinceMYshkin-like to me. Its brilliant disparate observation.... or is it ? Hugely enjoyable, if you were wet behind the jeers there is no sign.
If It’s Friday, This Must be Egypt
Near an obelisk
a slinky odalisque basked,
‘til a basilisk snuck by,
with its wings tucked and linked
and its breath’s putrid stink,
and that lethal look in its eye.
With considerable risk,
she gave its scales a quick frisk,
donning a mask so she wouldn’t die.
Then, after dancing to a disk,
clicking tunes hot and brisk,
they supped on crocodile bisque
and a slab of gooseberry pie.
Wonderfully trippy wordplay and a very conscientious skivvy! Obviously very well trained :D A very witty and enjoyable read. More please!!!
Live and be well - H
#386- Haha, nicely done Auntie.
J
Lol, loved the gooseberry pie (it's been years).
"Odalisque" was a nice touch; googled.
I noted "bisque" breaks the form you chose to work, followed by "pie" tongue and cheekily placed in the "off" line (interesting); or perhaps a form I'm not acquainted with. Quite fun>
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Thanks, Hawk and Jack and Tailor STATELY:
Good catch! You're right, it breaks with the form as it adds an extra line.Quote:
I noted "bisque" breaks the form you chose to work, followed by "pie" tongue and cheekily placed in the "off" line (interesting); or perhaps a form I'm not acquainted with.
But what the hey. Not an established form, just something cooked up from
the cobwebby recesses of yer auntie's brain.
Thanks for the comment. Good to see ya back on the LitNet again.
An old one from 2007, probably written long before that:
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At Wallace Stevens
I
Five bucks says
you don't get him
the first time.
II
There was a jockey
with the same last name.
Every time I bet on him
he lost, and every time
I bet against him,
he won.
III
You know, there are several
different kinds of blackbirds.
One species has a broad red
racing stripe on each wing.
The others don't.
IV
I really dread doing it,
but I guess I'd better
start looking into getting
some kind of insurance.
V
What’s the big deal with
the glass of water and that jar
in Tennessee? I thought
down south they were
big on bourbon.
VI
Things as they are
are never quite as good
as we want ‘em to be
and never quite as bad
as we think.
VII
You don't see many women
wearing peignoirs these days.
Then again, you can find
a load of complacency
in a pair of sweatpants.
VIII
What kind of ice-cream
would you order if you were
an emperor?
IX
On MTV tonite:
The Man With The
Blue Guitar
(Unplugged.)
X
Why can't I be
the comedian?
Oh, please let me.
Pick me.
Clip me.
XI
I can, oh I can,
I can quote the man:
“It is possible, possible,
possible.”
XII
Oh, hell, he’s just
so good. Let me quote him
again: “we keep coming back
and coming back
to the real.”
XIII
I'd say more,
but it’s Sunday
and time for
my bath.
Oh, and by the way–
you owe me five bucks.
An Auntie, An Attorney and A Blackbird are now ONE!!!!
Though to think of it, Auntie, there would be countless ways of looking at your amazing personality!
Kudos for this fantastic offering. Spanking good, really! A blackbird must have possessed your soul (just as it did Wallace's then) as you started to conspire to bring this one about!
March 14
In Memory of My Sister
(March 14, 1953-November 17, 2010)
It used to be auspicious, this day
before the Ides. It was all about
you, turning trouble into triumph
with those sardonic quips of yours,
that quick laugh, sincerely and freely born
from some place way down deep. Love landed
on you unsummoned, like a bird
gently settling on your shoulder. Life
hit you hard, so you smacked it straight and strong,
like wind gusting through leafless branches.
Remember how the pussy willows
once charmed you so? They’re already here,
and just the other day I saw four
fat robins hopping on the yellow grass.
But my heart still thinks it’s winter.
The room is dark when I’m nudged awake
by unsettling thoughts of those who have gone:
the people I liked and the ones I loved,
those whom you knew and those you didn’t.
Just like the blanket I grasp for warmth,
there’s comfort in the platitudes
we secretly hope, deep down, are true:
that there exists a place where you still
live, with no struggle nor snagging strings,
but where soft and bright mornings come attached
to a brand-new birthday without end,
where you in joy and glory thrive
among all of those whom you love,
the ones I know and the ones I don’t.
"Treacly," my Aunt Fanny! Although, to switch metaphors, I did experience a bit of whiplash in response to the images in the last line of the first stanza: the wind gusting through leafless branches seemed so discordant with all the lively, vital images that had preceded it, and when did it suddenly turn autumn or winter?
But the last line of all is one that one can and wants to dwell on: on the surface it's regret for not having had the opportnunity to know more of your sister's life, but there's also a hint of reproach in it, that you didn't have the opportunity to express all your love for her, just as you didn't get to know all whom she loved and you might have come to love.
I liked the last line acknowledging that there is something you did not know about your sister.
What a beautiful tribute to your sister, Dear Auntie.
We need hope. Perhaps what is in our minds creates our REAL afterlife experience just like it does while we're over here...
I loved this poem the first time I saw it Auntie, and time has not diminished its impact.
Live and be well - H
There is a great warmth to this. You would not want to get this wrong and you didnt. You are in reminiscent mood at the moment it seems. Pussy willows and fat robins. Beautiful.
What a lovely poem for your sister. The warmth and comfort of the blanket and the attachment to memories make this especially sweet Auntie but as Prince says the final lines in the last stanza beautifully wrap up the tranquil lines already penned.
Auntie, your description of your sister comes alive in the first stanza, you remember her as though it was yesterday. The sincerity and grief you feel is so touching:
But my heart still thinks it’s winter.
The room is dark when I’m nudged awake
by unsettling thoughts of those who have gone:
the people I liked and the ones I loved,
those whom you knew and those you didn’t.
My deepest sympathy for your loss, I feel privileged that you shared this with us.