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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 15, 2020 14:53:25 GMT
I tried to write a poem, Got stuck on rhyming poetry, So gave up pretty quickly And went outside to grow a tree.
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Skreebert
Freshman
@bigguns
Posts: 70
Likes: 33
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Post by Skreebert on Jun 15, 2020 14:59:02 GMT
Roses are red Skreebert is blue Something the dog left Is now on my shoe
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Post by alfromni on Jun 15, 2020 17:17:31 GMT
I wrote the following patter poem about 30 years ago during one of my Gilbert and Sullivan moods. It's not intended to besmirch, belittle or insult the POTUS, the Office, the White House, or the U.S. in general, in any way. Just some nonsense verse. As with my previous effort it's set to the music of "The Major-General's song" from "The Pirates of Penzance". Not sure how accurate it is.
I had no particular POTUS in mind when I wrote it, just an almalgam of many leaders in many Offices from many countries I guess. I intended to follow it up with one about British monarchy but somehow never got round to it.
I realise that much has changed since this was written. If anyone IS annoyed by it, please say so and I'll remove it.
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With reverence and deference to Gilbert and Sullivan...
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
I am the very model of a modern U.S. president, With rugged looks, a simple face and Daddy`s very opulent I`ve got to be a diplomat with people whom I cannot stand and eat with them, and speak with them, and even shake their bloody hand.
I spout a load of double talk, and look as if I give a damn, like FDR and JFK, a nameless one who's quite a ham. The ordinary Joe from Uncle Tom to little Jethro Tull Thinks I`ll come through, know what to do, He doesn`t know I`m full of bull.
I`m thrust from here to there upon a geographic roundabout, I hardly know just where I am, or what I`m s`posed to shout about, I fly around the world without a chance to even catch my breath, but know the king of England`s been a lady called Elizabeth.
I have to learn a little game, a silly prank called global chess, I beat my chest and try my best but always end it in a mess, I have a brand new analyst who`s treating me for stress and strain, but says that I`m a waste of time, when only owning half a brain.
I look so smart and never fart and do exactly what I`m told. A face lift here, a hairdo there, like Peter Pan I don`t grow old, I try to understand my speech, and speak it how I`m s`posed to do, They`re teaching me, my ABC I`m very nearly at grade two.
I`m shown a little button, yet, the army say that I`m not fit, to understand how things are planned and I`m not meant to play with it. I said with some aplomb that I have heard about uranium... was sent to bed, with Nurse instead... just loved it when she whipped my bum.
I`m not a skunk and never drunk, my cookies I refuse to dunk, I may digress, but female press, convince themselves I`m such a hunk, they purse their lips and sway their hips and come on in that girly way, but it`s no go, `cos they don`t know, my funky nurse is C.I.A.
I`m s`posed to have a dog, a pretty wife, a boy and girl or two, I loathe the dog, detest the wife, n`hate those brats, as much do you, I fix my tights, let out a curse, the cam`ra lights, could it be worse? Let time go by, and let me fly... back to my starched carbolic nurse.
In Pennsylvania Avenue where wars are hatched, my breakfast too, A lot of educated men have dedicated lives for you, I reckon I`m endowed with luck, this team of mine are never stuck, Without a grouse, they rule the House, While I`m engrossed with Donald Duck..
I`m told this holy land of glitz, now runs itself without a hitch, both it and you, and me and them, especially them are very rich. So come the dawn on Christmas morn, I`ll trust to Santa`a loving care, No long to fret, at last I`ll get My cuddly golden teddy bear.
If ever there`s a war and I discover that we started it, I`ll show just what a leader does, embellish that brave-hearted bit, won`t cut and run in Air Force One, but beat the fife and blow the drum, Suck lollipops and hope it stops the magic trick is just keep shtum.
Don`t like to think too far ahead, but recollect what Daddy said, that people who are paid to cope, will tell me that there`s always hope, if things aren`t right, and headlines bite, forget it all, just stay in bed, Just keep my looks, they`ll cook the books, The House`ll get the blame instead.
So dot by jot, I`ll have the lot, if you believe this loyal son, without a lie, a simple guy, a supermanic paragon, And hopefully the money spent, will prove to Yanks I`m Heaven sent, and not a prat, but show them that I am a worthy President.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 15, 2020 19:08:26 GMT
Need to share this; it’s from Garrison Keillor’s introduction to Good Poems for Hard Times. It’s wonderful.
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Post by alfromni on Jun 15, 2020 19:26:16 GMT
Nalkarj --- Interesting paragraph, but he must have a very drab life. He says nothing about comedy or the ability to laugh at oneself. Wot no comic operas? Oh dear!
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 15, 2020 20:14:12 GMT
Nalkarj --- Interesting paragraph, but he must have a very drab life. He says nothing about comedy or the ability to laugh at oneself. Wot no comic operas? Oh dear! Well, do remember that (1) it’s an excerpt and (2) it’s from a book called Good Poems for Hard Times. Keillor is, or was, something akin to an institution here in the States—and is (in my opinion, if not Homer Simpson’s) a magnificent dry comic, and he certainly knows about comedy and laughing at yourself. As for comic operas, well, he does include Bunthorne’s Song (“If you’re anxious for to shine/In the high aesthetic line…”) in the book!
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Post by alfromni on Jun 15, 2020 20:19:20 GMT
Nalkarj --- I confess I'd never heard of Keillor. My remarks were related to the paragraph you supplied. Just seemed to be devoid of fun. Myself I write poetry for fun, not for any social awareness etc., or concerns about saving the planet et al. I'll do some research on the guy. Thanks for the heads up.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 16, 2020 4:21:37 GMT
Need to share this; it’s from Garrison Keillor’s introduction to Good Poems for Hard Times. It’s wonderful. Like many attempts at defining poetry I think this is more poetry itself than definition, more a limited perspective than something that could possibly hope to encompass the breadth and depth of all poetry that exists. EG, I disagree that a poem can't be a puzzle, or can't be something to meditate to and think over. Everything he mentions can certainly be a fine and noble aim of a poem as well, but it would leave out works from many, if not most, of my favorite poets. Indeed, most of the poets that have survived the fickle collective memory of time have been those that have left works that are something like puzzles for us to solve, and it's in our continued efforts to solve them that keeps us reading and pondering them, as opposed to reading and then forgetting/moving on. That isn't to say there can't be profound, enduring poems that are simple and straight-forward, but in those cases it's often something else that keeps us reading: their beauty, the formal ingenuity, the surprise, a brilliant use of metaphor or memorable turns-of-phrase, etc. There's little that's easier to do on the most basic level than write poetry, but there's little that's harder to do than write great poetry.
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Post by alfromni on Jun 16, 2020 9:00:27 GMT
The English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once defined music quite succinctly. "Music is simply noise" he said, "You either like it or you don't." Can't imagine how he'd define poetry.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 16, 2020 9:12:45 GMT
The English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once defined music quite succinctly. "Music is simply noise" he said, "You either like it or you don't." Can't imagine how he'd define poetry. Depending on how you define "noise," I'd more say that music is intentionally organized sound, and whether we call it "music" or "noise" is dependent on whether we like the sounds and method of organization. Poetry is more complicated to define I think. Hard to think of many qualities that both Homer's Odyssey and Williams's Red Wheelbarrow share in common.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 16, 2020 9:22:35 GMT
BTW, to illustrate my point, I think Emily Dickinson is a phenomenal poet for her versatility in sometimes being pure and simple, and other times being complex and barely comprehensible . Here's just two poems of hers that illustrate those extremes:
You may prefer one of these to the other, but I think they're both equally astonishing in their own ways. The former for its profound mystery, the latter for its sublime clarity.
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Post by alfromni on Jun 16, 2020 9:24:39 GMT
Eva Yojimbo --- Isn't poetry simply prose that is limited to particular forms or parameters ruled by either (or all) rhyme, syllables, or rhythm? There's a modern tendency to free poetry from boundaries, which I thnk rather defeats the object.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 16, 2020 9:35:03 GMT
Eva Yojimbo --- Isn't poetry simply prose that is limited to particular forms or parameters ruled by either (or all) rhyme, syllables, or rhythm? There's a modern tendency to free poetry from boundaries, which I thnk rather defeats the object. Yeah, I think from a strict, denotative, definitional perspective, poetry is just prose with additional formal parameters, the least of which is the line break. That's why free verse can still be poetry because it makes use of line breaks. Of course, there's also what some call "prose poetry," which I think would be more accurately called "poetic prose," but that's a purely semantics thing. As for free verse defeating the object, I guess it depends on what the object of poetry is, and that can vary from poet to poet and reader to reader. I do know plenty of great poetry has been written in free verse. I certainly want to live in a world without Wallace Stevens:
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Post by alfromni on Jun 16, 2020 10:07:07 GMT
Eva Yojimbo --- I prefer poetry which has rhyme and rhythm, and preferably tells a story. Symbolistic poetry just leaves me cold, as does free verse. As said above I write verse for fun, and that fun comes from arranging words within the parameters. I guess I'm more of a wordsmith than a poet.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 16, 2020 10:32:54 GMT
Eva Yojimbo --- I prefer poetry which has rhyme and rhythm, and preferably tells a story. Symbolistic poetry just leaves me cold, as does free verse. As said above I write verse for fun, and that fun comes from arranging words within the parameters. I guess I'm more of a wordsmith than a poet. All things being equal, I prefer rhyme and rhythm as well, but all things are rarely equal. I think it would be difficult to improve on the best free verse poems out there by putting them to meter and rhyme. FWIW, I wouldn't categorize Stevens as a symbolist, though he doesn't fit neatly into any category. He took something from the English romantics (Keats especially), the symbolists, the metaphysical poets, and the modernists, but never really sounded like any of them. He's something of a unique, enigmatic figure in the history of poetry. Here's one more favorite, because why not: And don't sell yourself short! There's no rule or law that poetry must be serious and can't be just the fun arrangements of words, rhythm, and sound into narratives. WH Auden is another of my favorite 20th Century Poets and he loved light verse. Light verse is to someone like Wallace Stevens as comedy is to tragedy. Is comedy lesser than tragedy? I think not. The world is a better place with both in it, and we need not rank them as opposed to just finding a place for and enjoyment of both.
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Post by alfromni on Jun 16, 2020 22:50:06 GMT
Reflections...
I don`t really mean to be cynical, a Christmas morn face how it glows, but the seasonal sell ecumenical, puts Santa Claus right up my nose.
The tinsel, the turkey, monopoly, the half-an-hour toy you`ve to mend, an agnostical time of anomaly, will the "Wizard of Oz" never end?
Christmas over, it`s soon "Old Year`s Night" when strangers go mad in your den, and all get exceedingly tight, and you`re resolute..."never again".
On the twelfth day the tinsel is down. as is your whisky and beer, you reflect where your money`s all gone, that you`ll do it all diff`rent next year.
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Post by alfromni on Jun 16, 2020 23:06:15 GMT
Sung to "Home on the Range". So altogether now...and...
SONG
Home, home on the range where the cattle and TV crews roam, to shoot Wyatt Earp, an` all grizzlies who burp, pork and beans on that long Wagon Train,
Lone Ranger and Tonto to start, those silvery guys played their part, so bang on the gong, for Bill Boyd`s Hopalong, Tom Mix, Autrey...Rogers and Hart?
Yippy-I-ay...yippy-oh, on the High Chaparral and Shiloh where Gunsmoke was thick, later came Maverick, (Rockford`s brother was brave Ivanhoe.)
Dale Robertson took to the stage, as guard for that movable cage, and shot-gunning all of those outlaws galore, who dare to fire Wells-Fargo's rage.
Dave...that`s Davy Crock-ett, brought back from the dead to the set, from the old Alamo, for a baar killin`show, is that hat a racoon or his cat?
Cheyenne...now Bodie`s the name. (no, not of Professional fame), Clint Walker just drawled, and Hawkeye bush-crawled... Mohicans (the last) did the same.
(Stanley and Olly went west for a film that was one of their best, a performance quite fine by the old lonesome pine, so dear Laurel and Hardy...God bless!)
Have Gun will Travel apace, where Rawhide`s the thing, not pink lace, when chased bounty-wise by a man Mountie-size or if young Steve McQueen`s on your case.
Far from the sea and the foam, a fairy tale sort of a home, no wood on the Prairie for housing so cheery... the sodbusters built theirs with loam.
Sugarfoot`s one to recall, of anti-heroical gall. Smith and Jones...(Ali who?) and some Chinese Kung-Fu, for Casey a fast Cannonball.
I remind you of tumblers an` clowns when Mickey Dolenz came to town, a Circus Boy still, (and I think he`s quite well) he`s gone to where Monkees abound.
It`s OK...I`m not such a burk, as to leave the Corral from this work, when the fight at Tombstone, (where the Clantons went down) was even contested by Kirk.
Burn up that brown map you hold, and get in Bonanzical mould, it`s Cartwrights all go, to control Little Joe, for thar in them hills he`s found gold.
While the old Ponderosa lacks gloss, with Ben, Joe and Adam and Hoss, the Big Valley`s cool, under feminine rule, Queen Barbara Stanwyck`s the boss
No sage buff could give them a miss, those Magificent men led by Chris? Sadly Brynner has gone but the tele-show`s on I suppose for the faithful it`s bliss.
The showdowns of old never end, Young Guns betwixt goodness and sin, and long may they roam, all those Westerners from the Virginian to nice Doctor Quinn.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 30, 2020 22:16:04 GMT
“The Commiserators”
Once, when I was working on a poem, Someone I don’t know came up behind me, Said, “Excuse me, but are you a poet?” “No,” I said; “I just write poems sometimes.” “I’m sorry,” he said; “just how long’ve you had this affliction?” “Oh,” I said, “my case is really dire!” “Well,” he said, “my sympathies I give you; I now have for years been in remission.” Then he walked away in total silence. We’d spoken in whispers so no one else caught the infection.
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Post by Xcalatë on Jun 30, 2020 22:25:17 GMT
The Island.
In a vast sea of emptiness sits an island, My own souvering kingdom a nation of one where the skies are always clear and the nights dark.
Dark even in mids of summer and the air is colder than ice.
But all in all it is a lovely place to visit if I say so Myself.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 2, 2020 18:47:17 GMT
Didn’t realize until afterwards that, like alfromni ’s, this could be considered a W.S. Gilbert pastiche—but, when I did realize, I gave it an appropriate title.Based on a dream.
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