Odd Ode

I’m here to pen an Englished ode
and bugger up the form.
There’ll be no praise nor lyric mode
so might create a storm

‘mong poets who, in tripsy poesy dwelling,
first Urnified their Greeks with adulation
then tarted up the Sun to Glorious Birth:

poets’ odes that wobbled into jelling.
Those tacky flubs that should be on vacation
got flobbed our way - long gone from wordy worth.

Ref. stanza 2:
Keats, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn;’
Wordsworth, ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Childhood.’

More Work Needed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revision, and revision, and revision
clots on this putrid piece from page to page,
to each blasted syllable refusing to rhyme;
and all my time is spent where blighted bits
drag on to fusty death. Flop, flop, short scribble!
You’re but a whining whisper, a saddo squiggle
that mopes and pouts a path along these lines
and then becomes a blot. Such is your life,
an inked-on folly, full of rot and slop,
implying not a lot.

To a Poet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If, in walks on poesy’s paths, you see
a hinterland that’s clogged with tangles, which you’ll
unravel, don’t push past brambles, blackthorn or more
matter that pricks. Stop at the edge of the flush
and eye the easy; that you trust. Start there -

a rhyming couplet, even upstart epigrams
or free verse, provided the latter’s not cluttered
with hearts or plodding prose hauled from thickets
guised as rosy growth. There’re spikes enough
without bristling, falling for the first fair you spy,

as you’ll notice above. But do I care?
Blank verse can be a bore. It flops along
its footed way, all iambs when I am not
hooked on stresses for ‘if’ or ‘be’ or ‘that.’
First learn the rules, we’re told, before you find

a way to rebel. I’m not so sure it’s true.
A briar or three will leave you bloodied, sure,
but bloody iambs will get you down at last.
Rebel as you will. It’s your verse, after all.
For me, it’s always buggeruppance time.

End Game

 

 

 

 

 

Attention!
Revision!

Some tension?
Prevention.

Retension?
Distension!

Extension?
Dissention.

Pretension?
Detention.

Convention?
Contention.

Ascension?
Suspension.

Sans vision.
Invention!

Fuck! Gimme
my pension.

Life

 

 

I found myself in a bit of a pother,
mazed, frazzled when thinking
about existence, a lifetime bother
that has brief moods sinking,

so turned to others to help me out
of the dither and panic and flap.
A number are guides, well out of doubt,
and some provided a map.

One says she feels a single notion,
answer, faith will lead
to harming mankind’s forward motion:
freedom’s a critical need.

Another advises making a choice –
evolution or faith or chance.
Will the best option give me a voice
or end in a merry dance?

A further adds that building awareness,
it’s fumbling, stumbling, tumbling,
is part of striving, but seeming unfairness
sometimes leaves me crumbling.

Yet one more says existence rose
from me, from you, the living
and non-living. Her pointer shows
what multitudes are giving.

There’s much wisdom to mull over here
from this worthy band.
It’s to end, cease, finish, I fear,
tramping around the theme, and

my conclusion about existence?
I’ve too much time on hand.
It’s better by far to go life’s distance
than writing on the strand.

Failed

 

 

Anac’luthon’s nowt but pain
my knee’s all achery just now
it’s enough to drive you sane.
The cure is tea. I make it how

my mother did - there I lie;
I never teapot it and sleep
but mug a bag miss the high
it’s time for up I need to steep.

Titania Corleone

 

 

 

 

 

Alack! Alas!
Here’s Bottom’s arse
and I wish his head
weren’t in my bed.