# Writing > Personal Poetry >  Auntie's April 2012 Thread: 30 Poems in 30 Days

## AuntShecky

30 Poems in Thirty Days



Because yer ol' Auntie is completely insane, but mainly because it is once again National Poetry Month, I have challenged myself to produce a poem a day for thirty days. This represents a break from my usual _m.o._, since it usually takes me days, if not weeks, to produce something halfway fit for human consumption. Not only that, I can't guarantee the continued health of this computer, not less the looming specter of other factors which may prevent me from using it at all, still I'm going to give it the decades-out-of-college try.

Before someone reminds me that it's April 2, not the first, I'll add that I am aware of today's date. Didn't start yesterday though, and not just because of a technical glitch. I was afraid LitNutters would think it was an April Fool's joke. There are two offerings today, though, which keeps me on track.

_For now._

April 1
Poetry Month

Again it’s April, time to write in verse.
It makes me anxious that I can’t rehearse
these feeble lines, which genius makes look worse.

In literary light they fall to shame,
with excellence exceeding fickle fame.
Unworthy am I to mention the name

of Chaucer, whom time never could discard;
nor less the birth and death day of the Bard,
both on the twenty-third. It’s also hard

with Browning’s fond longing for England’s cool 
clime in the month great Eliot found cruel.
But I’ll try it anyway, like a fool.


Take the National Poetry Month Challenge!

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## AuntShecky

April 2
The Trout

Between the rocks
a silver
rainbow 
flash

above
the clear
and churning
waters 
splash,

it moves
along
the swollen,
silvan brook

beyond
the human
babbling, and
the hook.

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## Hawkman

A noble and ambitious quest Auntie! Two accomplished offerings which are both pleasurable to peruse. I like them both equally well, not that I wouldn't be able to suggest some minor, presumptuous tweaks and alterations - but I shall refrain  :Biggrin:  

Keep up the good work! (Somebody has to - LOL)

Live and be well - H

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## ShadowsCool

Excellent challenge. Good Luck!

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## Delta40

Go Auntie!

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## Paulclem

Good poems Auntie. I like how you've started with a poem about poets. 

It looks like April will be a fruitful month.

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## Jerrybaldy

April the third
the last that was heard.

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## cacian

Two brilliant pieces to read Aunt! Very well done!
A great idea indeed!

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## cacian

> April the third
> the last that was heard.


Is that your very own Jerrybaldy?

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## AuntShecky

Thanks, fellow LitNutters, for your encourging words! Here's April 3, JerryB:

April 3

The Crocus

Forget about
the oligarch
and those whose
boots would stomp
upon our will.

Instead submit
to anarchy,
the kind 
that lets
our spirits soar.

Kneel down
and take
a loving look

at the little
purple spikes
conquering 
the shifting ground.

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## AuntShecky

April 4

Gehennas Child

My Irish ma, devout and proud,
who cherished chalices and The Shroud,
would set aside each Holy Day
as one more reason we should pray.

Spy Wednesday * in the last week of Lent
oh my-- what sinful thoughts that sent:
like cloaks and daggers, furtive feints,
state secrets not among the saints.

Hypocrisy was what she meant,
but I, intrigued, could not repent.

*Matthew xxiii: 3-5, 4-16

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## DocHeart

What a treat!

Thanks, Aunt.

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## Paulclem

I was thinking today Auntie that you are following the tradition of invoking the poetic spirits of inspiration in your first poem. Excellent stuff. Looks like it's working.

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## PrinceMyshkin

Apart from the several excellences of these I'm mightily impressed by the variety of voices/form in which you've witten thus far. But what does it mean that you've presented us with April 4 a day ahead of time?

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## AuntShecky

> But what does it mean that you've presented us with April 4 a day ahead of time?


It only means that since I lack the foreknowledge of what may happen on any given day or how Pong 3.0 might choose to behave, I'm working "ahead" when I can to have a cushion so I won't fall too far behind.

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## YesNo

I enjoyed the one about the trout being beyond the babbling and the hook.

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## ShadowsCool

They all are excellent choices. A nice endeavor.

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## AuntShecky

April 5

No More Whining for Bread

All of us, of course,
need money,
but I love
wildflowers more,

and the blissful sparrow
unaware that
someones got
its back.

Death will come
(it always does),
but for now its shelved
way back in my mind,

where from time to time
its good to recall
that the way
to be remembered
is to do
peculiar things.

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## AuntShecky

April 6

A Murder of Crows

The rooks (or black birds) circled round and round
three empty roods on the deserted hill
in sight of scattered thorns upon the ground
so lost and disregarded in the kill.
With empty roods on the deserted hill
was there no sense of sorrow for the crown
so lost? And disregarded in the kill,
a clash between divine and human will,
was there no sense of sorrow for the crown,
a part of ancient prophecy fulfilled?
Could a clash of divine and human will
be picked up by a sharply pecking bill?
Not part of ancient prophecy's fulfilled
insight, the scattered thorns upon the ground
could be picked up with sharp, pecking bills
of rooks and black birds circling round and round.

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## AuntShecky

April 7

Nuance

There is very little
difference between
the word good
and the word god.

Oh.

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## Paulclem

The poems are gret Auntie.

I was thinking about it, but I take too long to write them.

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## Delta40

Auntie I don't think you're allowed to post before the date has actually arrived you know... :Nono: 

(wonderful poems btw)

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## Hawkman

I'm sure you'll be remembered then Auntie  :Biggrin:  I confess I was somewhat baffled by your use of roods in A Murder of Crows. A rood can be an archaic and obsolete measurement of area, (or length) and a screen or crucifix in a church. I think there may be some etymological link between rood and rod, another measurment of length which habitually hangs around with poles and perches, so perhaps this is why the crows like it so much  :Wink: 

very clever offerings all though  :Smile: 

Live and be well - H

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## firefangled

I am happy to be back in time to see these gems for April. Such a challenge conjures up one's spontaneity and yours is quite delightful.

My favorites so far are The Trout and No More Whinnig For Bread. I will read every one going forward.

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## BookBeauty

Ah!

I get to add yet another reason why April is my favourite month of the year.  :Smile: 

These are beautiful, Auntie. Really wonderful idea! I, too, enjoyed the fish and the babbling above the brook.  :Smile:  Perhaps because I am drawn to shiny things, being easily distracted. The word 'silvan' is very pleasant for me to read on any occasion.

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## MystyrMystyry

These are really pretty good Aunty - you should consider posting more often (like throughout May, f'rexample)  :Smile:

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## PrinceMyshkin

> April 6
> 
> A Murder of Crows
> 
> The rooks (or black birds) circled round and round
> three empty roods on the deserted hill
> in sight of scattered thorns upon the ground
> so lost and disregarded in the kill.
> With empty roods on the deserted hill
> ...


The lines you reiterated would have been powerful enough the first time around but reiterated they changed in depth and tone and added adimension of sadness to this wonderful poem.

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## AuntShecky

Thanks for all of your kind comments, and Happy Passover and Easter, everyone!
Special note to *Hawk*: I looked up "rood" in the two dictionaries I use; the word was not listed as "archaic" in either. (Like yours truly, the two lexicons are "old," but not THAT old!) The word itself comes from Middle English and has several contemporary meanings: the first is "The" Cross or crucifix on which Christ died, and the second listing is _any_ cross or crucifix. The use of "rood" as a chiefly British measurement is also one of the meanings. I used the word to play off "rook," which in addition to a noun for a crowlike Old World bird, also is a chess piece, sometimes referred to as a "castle," which plays off the use of "crown" in a later line.

And *Prince*: Thanks for noting the repetition, but the repetition is prescribed by the chosen form, a pantoum, which seemed to me to be appropriate since it begins and ends the same way, like a circle.

Next up, the April 8th posting, just under the wire!:



Full Moon in April

The other night I thought it no avail,
celestial sights hide, eluding me.
A meteor spray or a rare comet’s tail 
will bolt like a skittish child from a bee.
Although a shower loomed, I still could see–
despite lenticular clouds- clear as glass,
the moon called “Egg” or “Pink” or “Sparrow Grass.”

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## Hawkman

I'm a bit confused by this one Auntie. What "it" failed to avail? If the April moon had stayed hidden I think I'd have got the point, but in L5 you say you can still see it, and it gets a pretty description in the last line. You also seem to be hopping arround in time a bit. Opening line in the past, with, "The other night" but L2 hops into the present, "Hide" being present participle; L4 forecasts the future with "Will". In L5 we are transported back into the past with "Loomed". It all doth make the Hawk's head spin a bit  :Wink: 

I do like that closing couplet though.

Live and be well - H

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## AuntShecky

> I'm a bit confused by this one Auntie. What "it" failed to avail? If the April moon had stayed hidden I think I'd have got the point, but in L5 you say you can still see it, and it gets a pretty description in the last line. You also seem to be hopping arround in time a bit. Opening line in the past, with, "The other night" but L2 hops into the present, "Hide" being present participle; L4 forecasts the future with "Will". In L5 we are transported back into the past with "Loomed". It all doth make the Hawk's head spin a bit 
> 
> I do like that closing couplet though.
> 
> Live and be well - H


Thanks, Hawk. About this septet with "rhyme royal," written in haste. Because of the meter's restrictions, I invoked my poetic license (if in fact I deserve one) and took liberties with the tenses in order to conserve the quantity of syllables. Obviously, I didn't think this would cause a cognitive
disconnect, with the following excuse(s):

"It"--the full moon-- being able to see it, since usually celestial phenoms (Leonid showers, eclipses, auroras, etc.) elude us in this part of the world, where it's likely that overcast skies will occlude everything. Used "will hide" (as a continuous tense?) to connote "usually." "Loomed" for "was looming" (the other night) when I "still" (meaning "nevertheless") could see the April moon. And incidentally, I _did_ see it!

Here's today's piece, posted with misgivings, since I probably didn't get it right:



April 9

Double Dactyl


Quackery Hackery
Freud (Sigmund), analyst,
poking and downsizing,
cuts no goo. Some think:

“Probity!” Probably
microencephaly
prompts one’s impertinence:
“Nuts to you, dumb shrink!’

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## DocHeart

> Quackery Hackery
> Freud (Sigmund), analyst,
> poking and downsizing,
> cuts no goo. Some think:
> 
> Probity! Probably
> microencephaly
> prompted ones impertinence:
> Nuts to you, dumb shrink!



So skillful!

I know this is too much to ask, but I'll ask anyway: read it out for us into a mic, and post it as a file. This is definitely written to be spoken!

(I'll love you no less if you don't. But I hope you will.)

DH

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## AuntShecky

April 10

Man Bites Dog

News that stays news,
defined the scribe named Pound,

also the former name
for the county animal shelter,

where yesterday authorities
took 83 skeletal cats, found in filth.

In the ensuing confusion
an eighty-fourth unfortunate creature,

slipping out of the quaking hand
of the squeamish officer,

with manic liberation, madly ran.
It thought it saw a delectable bird,

sunshine-y yellow with enormous blue eyes.
From escape to chase feline thoughts segued.

Great minds at times think alike,
and on occasion, instinct too,

for thereupon an English bulldog
spotted the cat, felicitous for pursuit.

Meanwhile, a guy believing himself
clever for having hidden a camera

behind the toilet paper roll in the ladies room
at a CVS about a block away,

nonchalantly stepped outside the store
well in view of the uniformed patrol,

from whom he fled on foot.
The aforementioned dog,-- we neglected to note --

carrying the condition called ADD,
forgot the puss and switched its prey.

Mere seconds passed when the canine caught up,
jumped the perp, and held him fast.

Desperately the pinned perv seized
a paw and chomped down hard.

Hence: MAN BITES DOG;
SAYS TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

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## DocHeart

Poem of 10 April: *Brilliant fun!...*
 
My favourite part is _with manic liberation, madly ran._

Thanks for sharing, Aunt!

Regards,
DH

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## AuntShecky

Thank you, Doc. ^

April 11

Whale Watch

The introspective prince
saw shapes puffed up in skies,
but could not be convinced
without some helpful lies.

Imagination fails,
when real life shows its stark
side, freezing up our sails
and leaves us in the dark.

With no foot on a floe,
no need to feel the list
of shifting ice to know
that arctic isles exist.

Some mammals big as rafts
leap up and down the waves,
swim right up to our craft,
and splash for chum and raves.

Unfamiliar with our kind
within collective lore,
others never have a mind
to venture close to shore.

Not speared on statistics,
as are the friendly gams,
natural, not mystic,
where our realm never rams.

Where man’s unknown as night,
the whale world knows by heart
Ultima Thule’s site,
a deep berg’s greater part.

The creatures of the sea,
so glibly pegged as good,
are alien as we,
with egos full. What would

they think or make of us,
if not as food or harm?
Some strange breed of grampus,
a time piece on his arm.

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## Hawkman

You do seem to have been enjoying yourself, Auntie  :Biggrin:  April 9th's offering would seem to betray a predilection on your part for crosswords, as it reads a little like a clue for the cryptic variety - LOL. Playful and clever though and a lot of fun to read.

Man Bites Dog opens as a tour de force of word association football but quickly stabilizes in to a cunning narrative artfully wound around the eponymous title. Great fun.

Whale Watch, though bearing the stamp of your trademark humour is less successful to this reader, probably because he's missing something, but the rigid structure of 3 stresses per line kind of hamstrings the flow a bit. It doesn't quite work as a ballade as the scansion suffers occasionally and there are some howlers (presumably intentional) in the rhyming which don't sit well contextually. Waves and raves, rafts and crafts (ouch!) gams and rams... You are torturing the Hawk - LOL. I never could quite place that introspective prince, unless of course, you are referring to the much maligned Charles, which would sort of make sense as he's the Coronetted prince of Wales.

Still, who am I to criticize; I'm not writing anything!

Live and be well - H

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## AuntShecky

I appreciate all of your comments. Keep in mind that most, if not all, of these things were written in fewer than 24 hours, which may (or may not) provide a little wiggle room as far as expertise and quality. Even so, please feel free to go ahead and criticize,* Hawk*, but nonetheless let me defend or at least, 'splain:

The "crossword" of April 9 is a wickedly difficult form with strict rules, but my foolhardy nature tempted me to try it. Clicking the title on the April 9 posting should bring you to a webpage 'splaining how to write the Double-Dactyl.

Speaking of which, the double dactyl form was created back in the 1960s by John Hollander (primarily) with Paul Pascal and Anthony Hecht. Incidentally, I recently read Anthony Hecht's stunning poem, "It Outherods Herod. Pray you Avoid it." 

The whale watching thingie could never in a thousand years approach the level of Hecht's artistry but I wanted to emulate the form-- nine quatrains of iambic trimeter. A couple of Hecht lines might look like tetrameter, with a couple extra syllables, but after examining them a little closer, I see that in some places there are anapests (x x /) such as in a prepositional phrase. Count the stresses, not the syllables. So maybe that's where you thought the meter went haywire. (It still may have, since your old Auntie is rhythm-impaired.) As far as the objectionable rhymes-- "raves"-- refers to the "oohs and ahhs" of the middle class whale-watching tourists. I've heard reports that some whales and porpoises --even in the "wild" outside of Sea World-- often ham it up for the crowd. Hence, they perform for chum and "raves." "Crafts" as in seagoing craft, as opposed to the more generalized and pedestrian "boats." "Gam"--collective noun for a group of whales. "ram(s)" --I wanted to use that as a syn. for "abuts," meaning the land masses inhabited by human beings, "shorelines" do not always rub up against the realm of the whales. In these oceanic regions, it's highly probable that the inhabitants have no idea human beings exist.

Part of the theme of that poem refers to our tendency toward sentimentality toward animals and anthropomorphism, which when you come right down to it, is pretty damn condescending. But the larger theme is epistemological, a $50 word about the philosophy of knowledge--how do we know what we know? Coming to terms with the limitations of knowledge is the theme of the poem that inspired the content of the April 11 poem--"The Great Bear," by John Hollander (one of the Double Dactyl trio.) An editor's footnote to that poem contains a reference to the "Prince" in my ditty. If you've got a copy of Hamlet handy, look up Act III, scene ii, lines 392-9. Okay?

Now, as in an opening for a leaping whale, once more into the "breach"--

April 12

Termagant is Fair Pay

“Iceland” keeps coming up
in everything I read
maybe a sign
I should go there

heard how the whole island runs
on vast pots of geothermal energy
down in the gassy nether earth

one can easily find a warm spot
to sit on while wearing a bathing suit
theoretically

frigid air above
hot stuff below

cold shoulder
hot air
plenty of both around here
in this so-called temperate zone

Got to watch out for volcanoes
up there in the N. Atlantic
You never really can predict
when a vent’s about to blow

no such thing
as a temperate termagant
no big mystery
in the misbegotten birth

of the word pulled off wagons
circling around medieval cycles
of plays with characters
fabricated out of thin air

an insult to Muslims
an insult to women

I want to be Lilly Ledbetter
first I got to get a job

me all harried and harassed
seething steaming
bubbling under the surface

beware the wrath
of a patient volcano

meanwhile Iceland
keeps coming up
in everything

may be a sign

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## Delta40

I loved Whale Watch and the twist in the last stanza Auntie.

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## AuntShecky

Thank you, Delta. ^

April 13

Triskaidekaphobia

It’s only a number, just twelve and one,
not a digital warning from the sun.
Take nine plus four (if I have added right.)
It makes no sum that brings unlucky plight.

When Friday coincides, no need to run
this casual day, when work’s almost done.
The weekend’s prelude at last has begun.
Count on no ill omens timed for tonight –
it’s only a number.

Recall the corner pastry shop with fun:
a bonus doughnut or an extra bun,
thanks to the baker’s dozen of delight,
a sweet release from superstition’s blight.
Why spit out misfortune when there is none?
It’s only a number!

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## wal23

I do not read poetry much, but after reading your last one and few others, I quite like them.

Thank you

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## Delta40

Great poem Auntie and I love the way you break the 13th down with sweet things and math. I spent a wonderful afternoon yesterday having coffee and cake with a guy in my house (which is saying ALOT!) Nice way to disspell superstition.

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## AuntShecky

April 14 -15

To the Reader:

I humbly beg you to enact
a willful suspension of fact
over the pair this odd piece features.
Beware -- microscopic creatures!
This duo does so sorely lack
a nervous system and a back.
Sans legs to move, these two ne’er trod,
propelled with just a pseudopod.
Each breathes with neither lungs nor beak;
none has a mouth with which to speak.
Though there’s no cerebral basis
to form firm thoughts and make the cases
for quasi-logical debate–
somehow these two communicate.
So–your indulgence will go far
for:

“Two Amoebae Go into a Bar”

Though Nature seldom falls for whims,
one night she let two specimens

escape a slide, then to arrive 
at a foreign body-- a dive,

where rank-rot beer was called top shelf.
The pair slid onto the bar itself.

Not a wallet they had between them,
no card to use in the ATM.

Both, far more poorer than I am,
with not a cent, let alone a clam,

had yet a sense of being free, 
off on a lark, a wayward spree.

One said, “Way to slip off the slab!
Think they’ll miss us back at the lab?”

“Nah,” said the other, wet as rain.
“They haven’t even named our strain,”

Then adding, with a shift in gear, 
“Not many monocytes in here,”

looking ‘round (as if it had eyes)
“With these prices, I’m not surprised.”

Its pal concurred (for now, still game) 
“For the ambience, I’d say the same.

Nowhere is there a creature small.
Nothin’ but human, wall-to wall.”

Then, from above there came a drop
of the aforementioned slop,

the slobbered overflow from a glass,
which splashed the cells right in the —.

Not drowned nor succumbed by fear,
their instinct floated, treading beer,

and best survived this gesture rude
though in a feisty, fighting mood.

One, with what could be called its head
turned round, burped, and said:

“All them smug smiles, not one damned frown.
Wouldn’t you love to take them down?

All that gleefulness, soon bedeviled,
Swiftly stricken, quickly leveled.”

Its tiny comrade cried, ” Let’s say
a plague or epidemic. Hooray!”

“You bet,” averred the other cell,
“We’ll make their world a living hell.

Stick ‘em with sickness and poor health,
do it by hook or crook or stealth.“

“Whoo! Nothing beats the ordinary
like old fashioned dysentery.

Watch ‘em double over and trot
in their mad scramble to the pot.”

“Right, buddy. Bring it on! Oh boy!
But we’re not ready to deploy

our secret weapon to wreak this fuss,
There are, you know, just two of us!

We’ll start our plan, affliction-wise,
but first we’ve got to colonize.

So tell me, Pal, how you’d deduce
the fastest way to reproduce.”

“Why, I know a sure way that’s easy,
really simple and not sleazy.

I only have to step aside,
merely expand and then divide.

Both of us should just break in half,
and double,” it said with a laugh.

“Where we were merely two before,
presto, change-o, now we’re four–

so on and so on. Look, no hands!
We’ll outnumber great army bands.”

“No, my friend, that grinds no stones--
It makes a lot, but we’ll be clones.

Nature commands: ‘Diversify!
Get a portfolio, or die.’

Your idea --sorry--I must hex,
for the only way to go is sex!”

“No! Why not stay in my limits?
Be my own cell, no commitments!

A perfect replica, carefree,
No one to answer to but me!

Tell me, where do you hope to find
a partner, one who doesn’t mind,

hooking up with another strange cell?
Besides, how could you ever tell

if it’s an it, a he, or–eww!-a she?”
The other was quick to disagree:

“Many,” it said, “are the reasons why
Sex is the way to multiply.

For now let’s stick with number one:
sex is the best, since it’s more fun.”

With no counter- “Crap!” or "hurrah!”
an impasse thus ended _le débat_-

And that, as we say, was that.
Two little bodies ceased their spat,

one, with the smallest phone of all
made the world’s wee-est booty call;

the other, the androgynous “it”
puffed itself up, and then it split.

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## Paulclem

:FRlol: 

Excellent Auntie. 

Did you plan the forms beforehand, or did you choose the forms on the day?

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## Hawkman

Three more wonderful offerings Auntie. Witty, wise and funny. Keep it up  :Biggrin: 

Live and be well - H

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## PrinceMyshkin

Are there no laws against anyone having this much fun? I guess if you're sharing it with us, that constitutes mitigating circumstances. Brava!

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## AuntShecky

Thank you, Paulclem, Hawk, and Prince.^^^
Below is the posting for April 15, for yesterday, when I knew I wouldn't have an opp. to use the computer. The snorer for today (April 16) is finished, and I'll post it this evening.


April 15

A Kid Does His Homework

(Translated from the original Martian by William McGonagall, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Martian Language and Literature at Downstate University at Hogwash.)


Our assignment was to report
on an aspect of our neighbor,
the one that’s one step closer
to the star we share.

My composition is about whatever it is
that almost covers that entire sphere.

It is a sickening color.
It is not red at all.
It is nothing like we have here.

Below a bunch of star-colored streaks
that follow the big ball while 
it rotates and revolves, we see 
the non-red thing wrinkling
the way our sand ripples in the wind.

When we get a closer look,
we see the expansive edge
rush back and forth
like it’s chasing itself.

If you put a small quantity
into a transparent vessel,
the color goes away.

If you put some in a flat container
and wait–
all of it goes away
(except for the mark it leaves behind,
a gray shadow, like a ghost.)

There are a few solid places
where this covering doesn’t reach.
But on those stony parts you’ll find
basins full and narrow lines of it
wriggling and cross-cutting rocks.

When you’re next to a border
and bravely stick an appendage in,
it feels strange, as if you want
to shrivel up and get yourself small,
as you do in night-time.

There’s a story about
how these aliens catch 
some of it in little containers
which they keep by their sides
everywhere they go, like captured prisoners,

though from time to time
they tilt the contents out--
right into their maws!

I don’t believe this.
It makes me gag!

Also, it’s said that tiny, noisy
bits of it shoot down
from the tops of boxes
where the creatures stand erect.

They let these flashy meteors
fall directly on themselves.
They’re happy --
sometimes they sing –
as they caress and rub
these needles into their body-shells.

But when they move about their world
and the white streaks in their sky
meld into great clumps of dark gas
and begin to ooze the identical drops,

the earth-beings bolt in fear.
Sometimes they hold up parabolic shields
but mostly they run

as if they must avoid this stuff
or die.

They should do what our ancestors did
three million years ago
when they gathered up the putrid poison
and hid it all underground.

Mittfzlzl
(“The End”)


Martian Poetry

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## AuntShecky

April 16

Centerpiece

I could, I suppose, dig up a bowl to put in the middle
of this eyesore. Here are some “silk-like” flowers, plastic leaves.
I’ll stick them in this empty salad dressing bottle. There. All set.
It’s difficult to cultivate a decorative sense
with deprivation’s sloppy habit of hanging around
the joint. From near-squalor, good taste will seldom radiate.

Some folks of more comfortable means spread out and radiate
from the center of an upscale mall, the Mecca of the middle
class. They thrive in out-sized houses where company sits around
well-appointed tables, extended by the extra leaves
the hostess has so easily found. The ways of affluence make little sense
to me. For decades now my once-fond aspirations have been set 

lower, to compensate for this lot in life as previously set
by Chance –not heartless, merely neutral. Good fortune tends to radiate
toward random recipients. She loves a profligate or frugal sense
equally. But –- she can take a sudden downturn in the middle
of an upswing (or vice versa.) The lack of certainty leaves
a person without a solid surface to work around.

“Lucky at cards, unlucky in love” is a saw heard around
gossipy circles. “Unlucky in both” is never set
up as a corollary. Many times conventional wisdom leaves
one wondering if it’s possible for love to radiate
with true contentment. From deep down in the middle
of the secret self, uncommon sense

infiltrates the common: seeing, hearing, touching– every sense.
Earnestly we use these tools to construct a life around
a circumscribed sphere, with a diameter in the middle –-
flexible, but immobile at its hub – - set
to show resilience. This is the kind of love that should radiate
both in-and-outward from the circle, when vagueness finally leaves.

The shyly-opened buds in spring and autumn’s flame-stoked leaves
might lure a hapless heart into a gullible sense
of hope. Or a similar incentive might radiate
out of some well-defined display to flaunt around.
With solid assurance, we could set
our table without the fear of ugly interference in the middle.

Past the middle of life, the future leaves.
One’s curriculum vitae has long been set. There’s no longer any sense
of bouncing around. Yet a few stubborn stars still radiate.

----------


## AuntShecky

April 17

A Night to Remember

_La danseuse exotique_
named Lola Palooza
expresses herself
in excitable ways.

In seeing so much of her,
sinners whove touched her
pay for it when forced to walk
crookedly for several days.

Question--
Is this ^^ one of these?
Or is it a "McGonagall"?

----------


## AuntShecky

April 18

Belatedness

We heed the warning from Professor Bloom
that would-be poets may have come too late.
Naiveté ignores the crushing weight
of gigantic shoulders crowded in the room.
Were tardy - - and the heavy, daunting gloom
arrives to tell us we should hesitate.
We cry over spilled ink, such waste. We hate
to see hopes shatters swept out with a broom.
So who do we think we are? Who are we
to paint our dull, unproven talents gold?
Well dip our pens, then stoop to bend a knee
to pray that selfless creativity
helps raise the New to stand beside the Old,
each held up in a place where both could be.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

Of course one must talk about the technical proficiency of this, but even more affecting for me is to feel the heartfeltness of it.

----------


## cogs

damn right we will. i love this, "...paint our dull, unproven talents gold".

----------


## Hawkman

The facility you have with such a plethora of forms puts us all to shame, Auntie. That you demonstrate it with such humour and wit makes me deeply envious  :Biggrin:  This thread is an education in itself!

Live and be well - H

----------


## AuntShecky

Thanks all for the comments so far. As far as forms go, let's see, lately we've had Martian poetry, a McWhirtle (maybe, still waiting for confirmation), a sestina, and a Petrarchan sonnet. I'm running out of days to insert the remaining forms on my list. So for my next number I'm combining mock-heroic with a modified terza rima form, as well as a travesty of a beloved classic. It also could be a burlesque, but not the same kind of burlesque of Ms Palooza in the posting for April 17.  

April 19

Ode To (and On) a Pillow

IO soft, cool comfort at the end of day,
You, Pillow, for one’s hard and weary head–
if you could talk, I wonder what you’d say.

Though some things may be better off unsaid–
rough fare from which the innocent may cower,
the secret goings-on in and on a bed,

the main attraction of love’s secret bower–
you crown it well, discreetly well-encased
inside a slip of a repeating flower,

‘bove ticking– striped, not creamy white and chaste –
attached with a tag we shall not remove
else Penalty of Law. Who’ll act in haste

for such malfeasant felony to prove,
as if we’ve stolen oeuvres out of the Louvre?
Oh, speak! 
 IIOf your puff’d innards, do so bravely tell–
if cotton fiber-fill or feathers light–
do you prefer a primp or punch to swell?

How do you feel about wild pillow fights,
do you finding them fun or a cause of pain?
What’s worse: day’s down-time or working nights?

Or staying dry when by chance there’s rain
down from the bedroom ceiling’s stubborn leak–
(perhaps the source of your dark yellow stain)?

How can I quiet this old box spring's creak?
When the Tooth Fairy comes, do you ever peek?
Oh, speak!

III
Of crazed dreams I seldom can recall,
absurd sleep mutterings, a slurred reply;
of frequent trips to the can down the hall;

of facial streaks, such as snails might apply,
resisting a freshening rub from a towel;
of morning crust in corners of each eye;

of evil halitosis breathing foul,
and God! the rattling snore, that beastly growl–
please, oh please, shut up.

----------


## AuntShecky

a quick triolet for today

April 20

A Prayer for the Earth

Help us protect the living things,
air, water, land, all we cherish.
Preserve true Winters, vibrant Springs.
Help us protect the living things.
Summer riches, the wealth Fall brings
keep vital; let nothing perish.
Help us protect the living things,
air, water, land, all we cherish.

----------


## DocHeart

> a quick triolet for today
> 
> April 20
> 
> A Prayer for the Earth
> 
> Help us protect the living things,
> air, water, land, all we cherish.
> Preserve true Winters, vibrant Springs.
> ...



Beautiful!

(But who are you addressing?  :Smile:  )

Good health,
DH

----------


## cogs

a pillode! 2nd (movement?) 2nd stanza 2nd line: 'finding'. i love your form (and i've never seen you). specifically, the rhyme scheme is skillful. 'slip of a repeating flower' is light and charming.

----------


## BookBeauty

> a quick triolet for today
> 
> April 20
> 
> A Prayer for the Earth
> 
> Help us protect the living things,
> air, water, land, all we cherish.
> Preserve true Winters, vibrant Springs.
> ...


I like this one very much! Maybe it should've been saved for the 22nd! (Earth Day  :Biggrin: )

----------


## Buh4Bee

> April 18
> 
> Belatedness
> 
> We heed the warning from Professor Bloom
> that would-be poets may have come too late.
> Naiveté ignores the crushing weight
> of gigantic shoulders crowded in the room.
> Were tardy - - and the heavy, daunting gloom
> ...


These lines struck with me:
We hate
to see hopes shatters swept out with a broom.
So who do we think we are? Who are we
to paint our dull, unproven talents gold?

A moving piece that shows how gracious humanity can be.

----------


## AuntShecky

Thanks for the gracious comments!^^^^
April 21-22

Inside Baseball

Out of the batters box come two parodies. The first lovingly imitates the lyrics of Jack Norworth and Albert van Tilzers song celebrating an American institution. The original has been truly iconic for over a century. The second is a parody of another piece of Americana, a narrative poem thats devilishly difficult to imitate with its thirteen quatrains of serpentine fourteeners. 

Follow the bouncing ball:

Take out a loan for the ball game.
Take equity out on your house.
Buying steep tickets will make you choke
Nobody cares if it makes you go broke!
Cause its Loot, Loot, Loot for the owners!
For the players, more of the same
And its one-two-three thousand youre out
at the old ball game!


*Squinty Behind the Plate*

(With apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayers Casey at the Bat)

An umpire with myopia, of whom few folks have heard
judged nonetheless plenty of gamesat first base, sometimes third.
Last week a gig in Ashtabula; Erie, yesterday.
Another trip, another town, where two more teams would play.

It might have been East McKeesport, or some small burgh of that kind,
or maybe it was Mudville (he couldnt make out the sign.)
With one step scarcely off the bus, he heard the crew chief state:
Hey, Squinty, how are your peepers? Youre covering Home Plate.

This made our hero nervous, his mouth as dry as cotton.
Reflection struck him sharply with something hed forgotten,
left way back in Altoona, on a hotel bathroom shelf.
My glasses, merely trifles, he reassured himself.

Oh, I dont want em, hardly use em, even when I read
Well, now and then or distancebut theyre nothing that I need.
Spite fear of future jeers, historically derisive,
an umpire worth his salt must never be indecisive.

He pondered this a moment. Then he stroked his beard-less chin,
and to the baseball honcho, he flashed a c o c k-eyed grin,
and said, No problem, Pal. Ill be right there on the money.
One hundred percent perfect, my visions twenty-twenty.

I wont let you - - or Baseball  - down. Ill do just what you ask.
With that he donned the protective shield and the scary mask.
He looked like a big blue lobster inside that bulky shell,
and out the wires of the mask he couldnt see so well.

With confident authority he nodded to each bag,
and steadfastly he stood up for saluting of The Flag.
With the last note of the Anthem, the game all set to go
with a little broom, he whisked the dish, neatly like a pro.

Play Ball! came the umps proud yell, loudly echoed with a cry,
The lead-off batter grounded out; next up, a popped-out fly.
The third ones foul was caught; the ump, relieved. So far, so good
but truly, Squinty couldnt tell the spheroid from the wood.

The early easy innings were the storms deceptive calm.
The game required balls and str-riiikes! seen clearly without a qualm. 
Thus: eighteen sparks of ire. Mudvilles catcher, fuming, screamed:
How come you see the strike zone bigger when its the other team?

The patent may be pending, but thats patently absurd.
I dont play no favrites, he said. On that you have my word.
Then with firm resolve he threw the plaintiff out of the game
for arguing balls and strikes, the verboten sin of shame.

Both managers soon followed, with the umpire on a tear,
but secretly he could see nothing going anywhere.
The expletive deleted crowd let loose with its wild slur.
Squinty couldnt see which team led, the scoreboard all a-blur.

True to the long tradition of the seventh inning stretch,
time for oer-priced stadium fare, the kind that makes one retch,
the ump bit into a hot dog, which wasnt putrid, but
was instead a trick cigar, which exploded in his gut.

In Mudville there was no cheering; certainly no one cried,
not really racked with mourning, the day that Squinty died.
As least his last request would be fair-and-squarely applied:
hed be planted where hed wished  - low and outside.



Please note: Barring unforeseen circumstances, this nonsense will continue on Monday with a posting for April 23.

----------


## AuntShecky

April 23

Tradition has ceremonially designated this feast day of England’s beloved patron saint as the birthday of William Shakespeare, whose actual day of birth is not decisively known. The speaker of today’s posting belongs to the ever-burgeoning group of humanity which throughout history has been forced to cling to society’s bottom rung. We could describe ourselves with this line : “On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.”

_
“I have heard that. . .creatures sitting at a play have been struck to the soul.”_

The Groundling

A penny brought me noise and this scant space,
a pittance shy to make a costard mine,
I squat below the costly, lofty place
of gentle cushions puff’d for rich behinds.
My base and muddy view befits a pig.
There’s chance a sword-fight wets the boards with red,
or comic Kempe will stomp them with his jig.
What’s this? A ghost! – - sprung from his dirt-strewn bed.
That maiden looks just like the vintner’s son –
their shop’s along the rocky road to Ware.
Yet bolder wine no courtly cask could run
than vintaged words a lowly lad may share. 
My ears soak up such sack and potent things,
the same as quaffed by noblemen and kings.

----------


## cogs

wow i really like this. since i do, i'll say that i didn't understand the maiden part, whether she was a ghost, or what her appearance meant. and i didn't know why it switched to the words, but it was a great ending.
my favorite lines:



> of gentle cushions puffd for rich behinds.





> Theres chance a sword-fight wets the boards with red,


you are so good with old phrases and atmosphere.

----------


## MANICHAEAN

Dear Aunty

"And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."

Looks like you have a couple of fans after all!

Regards
M.

----------


## Hawkman

We reads 'em every day, you know
although not always does it show
that Auntie's pen has graced our eyes
as messages we don't incise
upon the virtual parchment here
because we'd rather drink a beer.
But lest she feel we've slighted her
we'll scribble a light verse, "Kind sir"
she'll say, "You've left a note
to say you liked what I have wrote,"
and grinning then from ear to ear
she'll brush aside the nascent tear
that in her eye neglect was forming
thinking that applause weren't storming.

by the by, you're a syllable out, you naughty girl:

try... "a pittance shy, to make a costard mine,"

Live and be well - H  :Biggrin:

----------


## AuntShecky

> i didn't understand the maiden part


That would be a reference to Ophelia. In Shakespeare's day, all the female parts were performed by young boys, even those who may resemble the vintner's son.

[QUOTE=MANICHAEAN;1134836]




> "And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."



Thank you, M. I just looked up the source of the quote and the posting said that Petruchio's reference to the "meanest habit" means an unstylish style of dress. Who knew my faded jeans, threadbare sweatshirts, and beat-up sneakers would be a Shakespearean topic!





> Originally Posted by Hawkman 
> by the by, you're a syllable out, you naughty girl:
> 
> try... "a pittance shy, to make a costard mine,"


That was the original line! I'll reinstate it. Thanks, and thanks for the little ditty too.

The folderol continues in the next reply.

----------


## AuntShecky

a thank you note appears directly above^^^^

April 24

*Originating in France, the huitain consists of eight lines of eight (or ten) syllables. Generally, the rhyme scheme is ababbcbc. This stanza allegedly serves as the form for The Monks Tale. Personally I cant vouch for that, because my copy of The Canterbury Tales includes only the prologue for that segment. Explaining that the tale itself is monotonous, the editor provides a brief summary of the tediously stultifying screed. Even the Monks fellow pilgrims complain about it in the next prologue: namoore of this, one says, for youre tale anoyeth al this compaigne. Indeed, the Monk is told that if it werent for the clynking of the belles adorning his horses bridele, the entire crowd would be taken as dead from the coma-like sleep induced by the boring tale, devoid as it is of desport and game.

Amid the devoutly religious center of the medieval world, the people living in that era did not focus on The Plague and Eternal Doom 24/7. They managed to find ways to leaven the ever-present pessimism with a little fun, a bit of desport. The following attempt at a huitain tries to imagine such a diversion with an annual tradition actually practiced in England into the 
sixteenth century. Not unlike our modern-day charity fund-raisers, this custom engendered modest donations for the pastoral works of the local parish, while providing an opportunity for the participants to have a good time.*

Hock Tuesday

Three Tuesdays past Easter, the town
in bright-bannered envelopes,
lets women in their festive gowns
chase men around with mocking ropes.
Each captive feigns despair and gropes
at bonds not truly tight nor tough,
by ransom freed(or so he hopes.)
A tiny sum will be enough.

----------


## qimissung

Aunty, these are awesome! Really your breadth takes my breath away, but I think, so far (the month isn't over yet!) that I love the trout one best, but why pick one? It's an embarrassment of riches!

I am so glad I know you.

----------


## DocHeart

Dear Aunt,

Thank you so much for this marathon of skill, inspiration and love. Perhaps this isn't even hard for you, but to my eyes it represents a forceful (but beautifully *calm*) pushing of boundaries.

Good health,
DH

----------


## miyako73

"Three Tuesdays past Easter" is a brilliant phrase for time. It gave me an idea for my short story-- "Three birthdays after the diagnosis." Thanks, Auntie.

----------


## AuntShecky

Thanks to all! ^^^

April 25

The medieval madness continues with two types of verse. The first form may or may not have originated with–but it certainly was perfected by-- the sadly anonymous author of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Hence, today’s posting attempts to emulate the “bob- and- wheel,” with a necessarily more modern sensibility, although yours truly is well aware that such an attempt may be foolhardy.

The Shepherd and the Stranger

In that short season when The Bull first bolts
to run The Ram off from the star-strung sky;
when silver shad have lately taken leave
of whirling whale-paths to swim salt-less streams;
and winter-waste’s abandoned for the trees
where cheerful songs are trilled by brighter birds,
the throbbing April tempo moved a boy
in certain tender, yet distracting, ways.
Though aimed toward tasks he ably could fulfill,
his wits were changed by whim-swept air to play
Through fancy’s wiles he willed himself a knight,
his shepherd’s crook, a lance for jousting feats;
forgetting the flock he was charged to watch
and so his trusted care he did
suspend.	 The sheep were thus bereft
of eyes that would attend.
His straying mind had left
them, for themselves to fend.
Meanwhile, not far away, across the lea
the sorrel tart, the clover sweet, and grass
remained unbent beneath near-weightless hooves,
as if the gentle horse were not quite there.
Like dew, the stately steed and rider seemed
to shimmer in the sun, though free from pride.
Their humility shone like martyrs’ faith,
as fulgurous as heaven’s sacred Cross
converting Rome. Some paladins felt such
a flash to change Jerusalem again,
yet one served more with softness than with might.
The horse, alert, stopped short. He’d stumble on
no rock; much less he’d stomp upon a lamb.
The knight swooped down to scoop it up

by hand. The sheep who’d strayed behind
he’d unite with its full band.
The careless keeper he’d find
to counsel, not to command.
The starling sound of a swift slash in the air
came from a sharp cut of the ersatz sword.
Unseen, a dragon fell, a damsel saved.
A snort from the horse made the boy jump round,
first frightened; then blushing, abashed,
caught in pretense, he faced the evidence
of guilt, bleating in the kind stranger’s arms.
“Return this poor thing to its ewe,” he said.
“The world God made is one we can enjoy;
but times we’re called to mind what’s here and real.
I’ve traveled far, young sire, to unknown lands,
but never a fierce dragon did I slay.
Though sheep must stay together with the fold,
apart from fable, Faith is best 
to keep."  A legend’s allegory
To truth our brains must leap.
So ends our story
Of a boy, a saint, and sheep.

Next we’re jumping into the twentieth century which saw the birth of a verse form totally different from the bob-and- wheel but not unlike the later inventions of the double dactyl and the McWhirtle forms of light verse. Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) came up with a quatrain consisting of two scansion-defying couplets whose completely irrelevant subject matter involves a famous person. Why the form was called a “clerihew” rather than an “Edmund” or a “Bentley” we’ll never know, but this one is not only irrelevant but irreverent about the person who stars in the previous bob-and-wheel:

George, England’s patron saint,
mentioned rarely, even there faint,
except for when actors revive
that stirring line in _Henry V._

----------


## cogs

your talent is endless. where could i begin?

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

These are astonishing, dear Aunty: the first, of course, a masterpiece of virtuoso and narrative art; the second a lovely, impish riposte!

----------


## AuntShecky

Thank you, cogs and Prince ^^^

Today’s posting will offer a third --and final --form of the sonnet, a shortened version called “curtal.” But first, a word about its creator:

As we enter the home stretch, it’s high-time to mention the one of the most ground-breaking poets of the English language, *Gerard Manley Hopkins* (1844-1889.) The oldest of eight children in an upper class London family, Hopkins alienated himself from his kinfolk by converting to Catholicism, eventually becoming ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1877. He wrote most, if not all of his poems, before entering the order; because of this and the fact that he died of typhoid at the relatively-early age of 44, only three of his poems were published in his lifetime. It wasn’t until 1918 when the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges discovered the poems that they entered the literary world at large.

And oh, what a revelation they were, so much so that Hopkins has been called a modernist, initially surprising, since–-as Anthony Burgess reminds us-- he died the same year as Robert Browning did. James Joyce was only seven then, yet Hopkins completely transformed English poems. According to the introduction to the Hopkins section in the _Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry_, Hopkins sets “anguish and rapture against each other,” especially in his masterpiece, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a reaction to an actual historical event of 1875 racked with socio-political, religious, and –especially for Hopkins– profoundly spiritual personal significance. Conscious of the psychological tension which his work explores, Hopkins termed his unique sensibility as “inscape,” to express the vividness of an idea. He called the power to hold the elements of the inscape together “instress.”

“Inscape” and “instress” are progenitors of Joyce’s later “epiphanies.” In his short essay about Hopkins, Anthony Burgess tells us that Joyce unwittingly inherited the Hopkins superbly off-beat take on language, both creating a sparkling new vocabulary. Hopkins coins us fresh expressions, such as “beechbole,” “churlsgrace,” and “firefolk”-- stars. He was influenced by classical prosody, Welsh poetry, but especially Middle English verse forms, as in _Piers Plowman_. Rather than reiterating the iambic pentameter prevalent in the majority great English poetry, Hopkins preferred adapting the language to the natural rhythm of speech, without prescribed formulas about the quantity of stresses and slavish devotion to their locations. Burgess adds: “The English language had allowed itself to be shackled into a verse system borrowed from the Latin languages which don’t go in for the hammer blows of the native Saxon.” 

In the position of having to invent something to fulfill a need, Hopkins created “sprung rhythm” –a liberated way of writing verse while simultaneously appealing to a musical ear. Like early English poems, the lines of verse are accentual, not metrical. *Count the stresses*, not the syllables: 
_With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim_

Another quality Hopkins shares with Old English and Middle English verse, is that the newly-coined words are constructed as compounds, with or without hypens. Even more important is the use of alliteration, both for sound effect and to balance the stresses in the line:

_Fresh-firecool chestnut falls, finches’ songs_

Hopkins employs sprung rhythm predominates his works as well in the new verse form he invented: the curtal sonnet. As the name connotes, it’s three and a half lines shorter than its Petrarchan and Elizabethan ancestors. Not only that, the lines are not metrical but accented and alliterative in which the number of stresses count and the number of unstressed syllables may vary. The rhyme scheme is abcabc dbcd and c (for the half-line)

And without further explanation, here’s yours fooly feeble attempt at imitating the curtal sonnet, vaguely modeled after “Pied Beauty,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

April 25

Words in Bloom

April’s first language is flourish-full, fine.
The wake-robin* greets the merry-bells’ glee;
From the pitcher plant eloquence leaks.
Up a Jacob’s ladder word-wisdom climbs,
a friendly chat tames a rue-d anemone,
while prolix pansies prate on and on for weeks.
Crinkle-roots smooth out; Jack in his pulpit swoons;
foam-flowers spew truth, the phlox springs free.
The jewelweed boasts vibrance, the violet peeks;
the blood-root moans; the honeysuckle croons–
Spring speaks!
* regional name for the trillium

----------


## Jack of Hearts

> April 18
> 
> Belatedness
> 
> We heed the warning from Professor Bloom
> that would-be poets may have come too late.
> Naiveté ignores the crushing weight
> of gigantic shoulders crowded in the room.
> Were tardy - - and the heavy, daunting gloom
> ...


So that's why it's standing room only!





J

----------


## cogs

exactly what i'm all about. i love this poem! (at first i thought it was hopkin's.)

----------


## AuntShecky

I'll do my own thanking, thank you. So thank *you*, Jack of Hearts and Cogs.


April 27

Exhilarating Nonsense


If you’re anything like yours fooly and find that you never get to go out and have any fun, allow me to offer a suggestion. The next time you find yourself in a melancholy mood, try lifting your spirits with a healthy dose of Lewis Carroll. No, I don’t mean the two classic Alice books. I mean _Sylvie and Bruno._ You can read it right here on the LitNet.

Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), considered _Sylvie and Bruno_ to be his masterpiece. Never mind Northrop Frye’s opinion that a writer is a poor judge of the value of his own work– in this case, Dodgson may have been right. I know I didn’t laugh aloud at_ Alice in Wonderland_ nor its sequel, but this one had me chuckling, chortling, giggling, roaring, and all other adjective describing a response to comedy. 

An online treatise about the book subjects this tour de force to the painful treatment of deconstructionism: while making a couple of good points, the article all but ignores the overall hilarity. I found _Sylvie and Bruno_ to be a linguistic romp, free-wheeling, disjointed, and digressive as _Tristram Shandy,_ while subtly concealing slyly insidious observations about politics, urban and country society, and religion. Philosophy, especially Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism, falls prey to the satiric treatment; the author, who had already earned great esteem for his scholarship, even pokes fun at his own field of mathematics. Once again I greatly regret that decades ago I never paid attention in math class; if nothing else, it would have allowed me to “get” more of the mathematical jokes. But it’s not all set in the humdrum workaday world; several madcap scenes occur in a topsy-turvy fairy land.

The unnamed narrator, smart and at times densely naive, presents the title characters, a delightful couple of children – or _are_ they? The little girl, capable of charming the bejeezus out of everyone with whom she comes in contact, is sensitive and sweetly-sentimental, yet witty enough not to be cloying, as Oscar Wilde famously found Little Nell. Her brother, Bruno, who goes to great lengths to avoid doing schoolwork, is a major source of pratfalls and unintentional bon mots, his verbal humor delivered with a slight speech impediment. 

Other characters include a pair of brothers who are mid-level government officials, one of whom attempts to finagle himself into becoming emperor. Throw in a couple of addle-brained professors, a commitment-shy bachelor doctor and his supposed lady love--a couple whom the author employs to mock the romances common in Victorian novels as well as its implausible conventions (such as the narrator suddenly having to rush out of town “on business,” not to return for a month.) A number of minor characters round out the cast, notably the fat, spoiled “Uggug,” a name with which few, if any, of Dodgson’s young readers would have experienced the shock of recognition, let alone the embarrassment of identification. Similarly, there is a brief appearance by a pompous ambassador announced as “His Adiposity, the Baron Dopplegeist.” The book abounds with one-liners as funny as you’ve ever heard in a Marx Brothers movie.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I could go on and on rhapsodizing about how I enjoyed the book, but I do remember this is a poetry thread, and we’ll get right to it. But _first–_an explanation of the specific inspiration for today’s posting. In the first half of the narrative, songs from the “crazy gardener” intermittently pop up with exhilarating nonsense. One of the gardener’s ditties goes like this: 


*He thought he saw a rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek;
He looked again and found it was
The middle of next week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak.”*
Thus, the inspiration for today’s postings, not nearly as funny nor impeccably metrical as the crazy’s gardener's songs. Here we go:

He thought he saw new luggage
with handles and matching locks.
He looked again and found it was
a croc with monkeypox. 
“Next trip,” he said, “I’ll have to use
a trash bag and a box.”

---------

He thought he saw a large dragon
lashing a damsel to a rack.
He looked again and found it was
a tattoo on her back.
He tried to help her out, until
his laser jumped the track.

- - - - - - -

He thought he saw a topless bar,
lascivious and uncouth.
He looked again and found it was
a place without a roof.
When it rains, the joint provides
an umbrella for each booth.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

Going to go and see if I can download "Sylvie and Bruno". Thanks for bringing it to our attention and for the foregoing several verses.

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## AuntShecky

April 28

As this thread comes down to the wire, I still have a short list of poetic forms which haven’t yet made an appearance in “30/30.” I’ll save the list and attempt to explore them at a later date in the “anti-poetry” thread. Today I’m returning to the type of verse which Robert Frost likened to “playing tennis without a net,” although yours fooly has never been able to wield a tennis racket, with or without one. Writing competent netless verse, however isn’t exactly a matter of phoning it. In a way it’s just as difficult to execute as using an established form, because the writer has to come up with a unique structure for that particular piece. 

Perhaps that’s the reason there have been relatively few, truly “netless” poems in this thread, namely April 3, April 5, and April 10. On April 12, the net was hiding way up in Iceland. But back here today is another piece of netless verse, also known as “free,” with absolutely no cost to you.

The source of this next number is an online ad consisteing of just a single line asking the Freudian question, “What do rabbits want?”

What Do Rabbits Want?

We want a comfortable patch
of turf that’s nettle-and-burdock free
where we can lie on our furry backs
and lounge for hours at a stretch.

We want that show-off hawk,
cruising above us in the threatening sky,
to spin his fancy spirals somewhere else.

And we want that sneaky fox,
that foul-smelling coyote, and that
vicious pit bull down on Elm Street
to leave us the hell alone.

We want our digs
to stay dry. Now
and then we don’t mind
a freshening shower,
but you can’t imagine
how depressed an otherwise
well-adjusted young rabbit
can get when a suburban
septic tank overflows.

On a balmy moonlit evening
we want to come our and arrange
ourselves in a leporine ring
and hop the night away,

but most of all we want
to pitch a bit of woo, make
a lot of whoopie, and produce
more
and more
and more
rabbits.


PS-- A similar subject had been masterfully treated by a "real" poet, Philip Larkin, whose name has been "haunting" the LitNet in recent days. The title of that poem is ""Myxomatosis."

PPS I've been having a devil of a time connecting to the Web this day. Just my luck!-- with just two more of these things to go. I will try to log back on when the April 29 thingie is ready for posting, but if it should be noticeably absent tomorrow, I will try to finish up this thing on Monday if the connection problems cure themselves. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for all of your support this month.

Auntie

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## AuntShecky

At last we come to the next-to-closing spot with a verse form called an epyllion, a miniature epic poem. The epyllion is a narrative poem, metrical but unlike its massive big brothers, it is much less lengthy. Often full of discursive sidetracks and mythological allusions, the main topic is romantic, in our modern sense of the worderotic, if you will (which Im sure many of you do.) The best known epyllia in English are Marlowes _Hero and Leander_ and Shakespeares _Venus and Adonis._

Shakespeares take on Ovidian myth evokes the Elizabethan society in which he lived and wrote but especially displays his signature gift for figurative language, wit and unprecedented insight into human emotion. His poem notoriously focuses upon the horniest woman in English literature, Lady Chatterley notwithstanding. The object of Venuss affection, a hot-looking young dude named Adonis is just the opposite: annoyingly prudish, self-righteous, and more than a little impressed with his own awesomeness. A little of Adonis goes a long, long way, but hes not the kind of bore that is the crucial factor in this love affair. Their pastoral seduction scene is just shy of going over the top in its passionate expression and explicit depiction of the ladys desire, not to mention a vignette about a stallion and a mare doing as the kids say the nasty.

Published in 1593, _Venus and Adonis_ was Shakespeares first major effort establishing his poetic reputation. Some of his contemporaries considered the poem improper; despite that fact or maybe because of it, it went through nine printings. The subject and the expression are tame by modern audiences inured to salty language and full-frontal nudity on pay cable tv.

The sesta rima stanza with an ababcc rhyme scheme carries the soubriquet, Venus and Adonis stanza. The following posting is a feeble attempt at a epyllion, which through ignorance avoids allusions and maintains our modern idiom. Every effort was made to steer clear of anachronisms, but if any pop up, like the proverbial wristwatch on a Roman soldier in a movie, please inform me. Not only that, this 2012 piece is a lot less hot than the original. (Sorry.) There are, however, imbedded references, direct, and indirect quotes from Shakespeares writing in his career that did not begin until some eleven years after this imagined episode. Within the few facts known about his life, official documents still extant establish that his wife was eight years older than he. That fact, coupled with Venus as seductress , makes it seem almost counter-intuitive not to portray the male character in this piece as the reluctant conquest. Instead it takes the more or less conventional view, with the male as pursuer, though in life the result often lies somewhere in between. So in a way yours fooly is not only inspired by Shakespeare but also Irving Berlin: A man chases a girl until she catches him.

April 29

Love in the Woods

Some overgrown weeds on the river path
bent to angry steps of an employee.
But Nature was not the source of his wrath
for loose from the shop, he was not quite free.
From commerce into the wild hed been hurled,
full of briers is this working day world

He passed two swans, immaculate, too proud
to note the muddy stream, the sluggish flow.
Any lumbering goose plucked from the crowd
could grab the fowl mid-wade and bring them low.
A burly hand, tough armour gainst the peck,
with one swift twist could break a slender neck.

Here hed been sent to do what hed been told:
to check on conies, also gulled and caught.
Less tame, this hunter was eighteen years old;
for greatness he was born, he gamely thought.
When hope thus suppurates, a trap enjoins
a man to bonds of mind and heart and loins.

His salad days arose with wants, not needs.
In youth bright dawn wont sleep with darkest fears.
Like lilies festering among the weeds
raw goals run rampant through the greenest years.
Yet vines will try to bolt and vault the ground
til tender, earthy tendrils keep them bound.

Unrapt in his task, still he searched each snare
hed set for pelts which wrapped the ordered flesh;
to seek out other prey did not prepare
for rare sites woven in the forests mesh.
Not primed for sights less common than a hare,
his eyes first missed the hidden creature there.

Part dappled in the sun, part in the shade,
a lass remembered her mother said
to fetch some rosemary for a stew shed made.
Her dutiful daughter would cull the sylvan bed.
The figure snatched the swains distinctive eye.
For a few moments more he stood to spy.

He recognized her-- Master Hathweys girl
whose strange wander to the woods that day
discovered sweetly. Like the tribesmans pearl,
he hold a while, then softly throw away.
To salvage the hour its charm worn thin,
hed try to charm her, not to woo nor win.

He ventured closer to the shadowed glade
to greet her gently with his voice of silk,
though faintly she could smell the butchers blade,
also a vague trace of a mothers milk.
Conversing as a couple anywhere,
in no time both forgot both herb and hare.

Then, asking about her familys lot,
and signing, his own spelling much the same:
at times the alphas shown and sometimes not.
With weighty words writ down, whats in a name?
He was no bumpkin, this hed let her know,
to make the buds of her esteem to grown.

He bragged how hed been to London town
where hed seen Euphues and St. Pauls boys,
and had felt the pull of the cap and gown;
how hed tamed mad steeds like childrens toys.
No mention of the jobs not among his loves
of cutting meat and cutting rich mens gloves.

Perched upon the friend of his fathers knee,
hed heard fine learning, verse, and Latin lore.
He told her of his hunger for the sea
which gains advantage on this kingdoms shore.
In turn she told him nothing of herself;
she listened, as volumes speak upon a shelf.

But drenching rains near filled her barren well
with thoughts that would bring drought to moister maids:
cold deaththen leading brutish apes in hell,
the wasted wombs of women in parades.
Yet marching in a spinsters sense-souled shoes,
she knew this youth would not be hers to choose.

Stillif in faith he felt that love is blind
and fails to mind the wide gap tween their years,
against conventionss tide hed wall his mind
and let her waves wash over his frank fears.
Her overripe wish came perhaps too soon,
while dallied discourse ate the afternoon. 

As the sun prepared to take to his bed,
and lovers meet to consummate their plans,
he saw up close her eyes and noble head,
and sipped the creamy skin upon her hands.
Then not too roughly seized her by the wrist.
Not frightened she did not fight nor resist.

On mossy bed they hadnt planned to lie,
nor Venuss chariot meant to ride,
yet both in thrall to one anothers sigh:
impromptu groom and most unwitting bride.
That tavern wench with her ill-fitting love
matched not this snugness, like his fathers glove.

Postscript signs in her middle swelled before
belated banns sealed fate, perhaps one heart.
A babe soon born; then twins a quick year more,
a wife at home, another one in art.
Two loves wrought in ebb and flowing stages
That brought to life immortal light for ages.



And finally, were going to shut this thing down with a limerick:
April 30

30/30

A LitNutter in a strange kind of haze
entered an oddly deranged sort of phase.
She called herself Auntie
and her wit proved quite scanty,
writing verse for a full thirty days.


And thats a wrap!

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## MystyrMystyry

A Purple Haze?


Well done Aunty! Bravo!

A Bravura effort, each of them a gem! Please do May, please!

 :Smile:

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## AuntShecky

Shakespearean References in Love in the Woods from april 29-30, above

Stanza 1, l. 6: Full of briers is this working day world _As You Like It,_ (I,iii,12)

Stanza 2: Ben Jonson nicknamed W.S. as Sweet Swan of Avon.

Stanza 3, l. 4: born great. . . _Twelfth Night_, (II,v, 158.)

Stanza 4, l. 1: salad days _Antony and Cleopatra_,(I,v, 73.)
  l. 3: lilies that fester Sonnet 94, l. 14.

Stanza 6, l. 2-3: rosemary. . .remembrance _Hamlet_, (IV, v, 174)

Stanza 7, l. 3-4:  . . .threw a pearl away. . .tribe _Othello_ (V, iii, 46)

Stanza 9, l. 5-7: G.B. Harrison, _Shakespeare The Major Plays_ notes the various spellings of surnames in the public records. Christopher Marlowe, for instance, appears in various documents as Marlo, Marle, Marley, Marlin, Merling, Marling, Morley. There are several variations in both the Shakespeare and Hathaway family names as well: In Shakespeares will, the scribe spelt the name Shackspeare on the first sheet and Shackspere on the third. Shakespeare himself signed the three sheets: on the first he wrote William Shakspere, on the second Willm Shakspere, on the third By me William Shakspeare. 

Stanza 10, l. 2: _Euphues_ and St. Pauls Boys (Cf. G.B. Harrison, Shakespeare The Major Plays):  . . .[I]n 1576 another kind of theatre opened. The choirboys of Queens Chapel Royal and of St. Pauls were often summoned to Court to give musical and dramatic entertainments, which required much rehearsal. The masters of the two choirs hit on the bright notion of giving these rehearsals to a select public who should pay for the privilege of a preview. A hall was rented in the old Blackfriars Monastery in the city and was converted into a small private playhouse. John Lyly, author of two popular about Euphues, noted for their overblown euphuistic style, provided delicate trifles in the material he wrote for Blackfriars, which lasted until 1589. It is conceivable that young Will Shakespeare may have attended one of their performances.

Stanza 10, l. 4-6: Because of Shakespeares early missing years there has been much speculation among scholars as to how he spent his early youth. Possibilities include horse holder, butchers apprentice, and-since his father was a yeoman as well as a glover and whitawer (tanner of animal skins for gloves)young Shakespeare might have briefly dabbled in glovemaking as well.

Stanza 11, l. 1-2: Harrison again:  Elizabethan Englishmen were amply aware of the value of education. . . [and] were men of distinction, whose indirect influence on English life and thought . . .was very considerable. . .Hence not only were most men of any social standing in the provinces literate; many of them were highly cultured. Of the friends, for instance, of the Shakespeare family at Stratford-on-Avon, one was a Master of Arts of Oxford University and another read Latin for pleasure.

Stanza 11, l. 3-4: When I have seen the hungry ocean gain/ advantage on the Kingdom of the shore, Sonnet 65.

Stanza 12, l. 3: leading apes in hell _Much Ado About Nothing_, II, I, 43.

Stanza 13, l. 1 - Id thought that love is blind originated with Shakespeare, but apparently the line, whose author is listed as anonymous in a book of quotations, was a time-honored platitude in Shakespeares day, and thus occasionally quoted it in his works.

Stanza 14, l. 2 consummate-Indirect reference to _Hamlet_, III, (I, 8-9)

Stanza 15, l. 5, The hostess of the tavern, a most sweet wench, (_Henry IV, Part 1_, I, ii, 44.)

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## Hawkman

A heroic undertaking, Auntie, and you seem to have come back laden with dragon's heads. Too bad there aren't any philanthropic kings giving away significant portions of their realms to reward those as valiant as you. Still, You seem to have gathered together a bag of gems of you own making. Be wise, and convert them to the chinks which guild the path to recognition.  :Biggrin: 

Will you be taking a well earned rest now, or are you so fired up by your muse that you will continue to cast the largess of your talents before the greedy muzzles of your public? I do hope so.

Live and be well - H

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## qimissung

You know, Auntie, I usually don't really like literature that speculates on the lives of real people, but this is beautifully done, as your work always is. 

Brava, brava, on thirty fascinating days!

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## Bar22do

It'll take me long, Auntie, to catch up with your April learned, inspired, heroic, so well documented an effort! I will need to spread my reading over May to be able to taste your art fully. My long absence deprived me of the immediate pleasure of your dedicated, Herculean work!

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## tailor STATELY

Thank you for the rhyme and raison ! Vive Avril !

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

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## AuntShecky

Thank you, everyone, for reading and commenting on these!
I meant to do a type of index for this thread, but an unexpected event got in the way. Finally, here is a list of titles, poetic forms,and/or genres for "30/30" (Not linked. If interested in a particular poem, please scroll up or down to the appropriate date.)

April 1 
“Poetry Month” 
triplets

April 2
“The Trout” 
rhyming quatrain with line breaks

April 3
“The Crocus” 
“netless” (free verse)

April 4
“Gehenna’s Child” 
rhyming couplets

April 5
“No More Whining for Bread”
netless

April 6
“A Murder of Crows”
pantoum

April 7
“Nuance”
epigram (sort of)

April 8
“Full Moon in April”
septet; rhyme royal

April 9
“Double dactyl”
double dactyl

April 10
“Man Bites Dog”
netless narrative poem

April 11
“Whale Watch”
iambic trimeter qautrains

April 12
“Termagant is Fair Pay”
really, really netless

April 13
“Triskaidekaphobia”
13-line rondeau

April 14
“Two Amoebae Go into a Bar”
Amoebean; rhyming couplets

April 15
“A Kid Does His Homework”
Martian poetry

April 16
“Centerpiece”
sestina

April 17
“A Night to Remember”
McWhirtle

April 18
“Belatedness”
Petrarchan sonnet

April 19
“Ode to (and on) a Pillow”
mock-heroic, terza rima, travesty, burlesque

April 20
“A Prayer for the Earth”
triolet

April 21-22
“Inside Baseball”
parodies of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “Casey at the Bat”

April 23
“The Groundling”
Shakespearean sonnet

April 24
“Hock Tuesday”
huitain

April 25
two poems about St. George
narrative, Bob and Wheel; clerihew

April 26
“Words in Bloom”
curtal sonnet

April 27
Ditties inspired by “Sylvie and Bruno”
three parodies after Charles Dodgson

April 28
“What Do Rabbits Want”
netless

April 29
“Love in the Woods”
epyllion, sesta rima

April 30
“30/30"
Limerick

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## miyako73

Auntie, I have a question. My current method of writing is just writing down what pop up in my head. finding the right words for them, and digging metaphors from my past. It seems to me that when I follow certain forms, I don't feel I emotionally invest enough. How do you make certain poetic forms naturally flow as if they are yours not copied from the poets of the old? Thanks, Auntie.

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## Virgil

Fantastic Auntie. This was (1) an achievement and (2) some real good poetry. I also enjoyed reading some of your commentary on poets and poetry.

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## AuntShecky

Thank you Mikayo73. You're a serious scholar and such a nice girl! Hope someday all of your ambitions become fruitful.

And thank you as well, dear Virgil.

Someday soon, as I begin to get more of my strength back and recover from my clumsy
injury I'll post a blog describing how this self-indulgent thread came to be.

Thank you everyone, for reading and commenting.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

I've just gone through and picked out the shorter poems to comment on, Auntie. I'll do the longer ones in the future.

Also, I've read no one else's comments prior to my own.



> [SIZE="2"]
> 
> April 1
> Poetry Month
> 
> Again its April, time to write in verse.
> It makes me anxious that I cant rehearse
> these feeble lines, which genius makes look worse.
> 
> ...


I'm not usually a fan of poetry about poetry--I usually find it obvious and uninteresting--but this is an exception. I didn't start liking until the start of the third stance, which seemed to add a bit of substance. It reminded me a lot of older poetry when the muses were invoked, the muses in this case being older poets. Not bad. Not much beneath the surface, but entertaining.



> April 2
> The Trout
> 
> Between the rocks
> a silver
> rainbow*
> flash
> 
> above
> ...


I find your ability to be so diverse with structure quite impressive. I like the imagery and minimalism of this one, along with the message at the end, which I assume was that nature, in it's simple and ignorant way, is above humanity. The fish has no use for human inanities.



> [COLOR="Teal"]
> 
> April 3
> 
> The Crocus
> 
> Forget about
> the oligarch
> and those whose
> ...


I was with this one until the last stanza . . . can't really figure out what that's referencing. Now that that means it's bad--I often don't know what poems are referencing. The first two stanzas, while well written and constructed, reminded me too much of the mindset of an angsty teen extolling the "fight the power" mindset. Nothing wrong with that, but the mere use of the word "anarchy" reminds me of speeches given by high school hipsters.



> April 4
> 
> Gehennas Child
> 
> My Irish ma, devout and proud,
> who cherished chalices and The Shroud,
> would set aside each Holy Day
> as one more reason we should pray.
> 
> ...


My favorite so far. Unlike a couple of the previous ones, this one just seems so dense, layers and layers upon meaning. I can't say I understand it (too lazy to look up the bible verse, honestly), at least not all of it, but that's not always a bad thing. I can't pick out a particular line I like, they're all good. I love the imagery, the word choice, and the message.*



> April 5
> 
> No More Whining for Bread
> 
> All of us, of course,
> need money,
> but I love
> wildflowers more,
> 
> ...


It's not bad . . . but I just can't get into it. There just doesn't seem to be anything special about it--nature poetry, meh (by the way, I'm being a total hypocrite here since I've written my fair share of mature poetry--probably because it's so easy), It reminds me of Wordsworth without the strict structure, and I've mixed feelings on Wordsworth.



> April 6
> 
> A Murder of Crows
> 
> The rooks (or black birds) circled round and round
> three empty roods on the deserted hill
> in sight of scattered thorns upon the ground
> so lost and disregarded in the kill.
> With empty roods on the deserted hill
> ...


I liked it, but the rhyming seemed a bit forced. I liked the reporting though, and there's great imagery here. I think with some revising this could be excellent. Also, the parentheses in the first line were distracting. Maybe just go with "black birds" or "rook," rather than explaining what a rook is.



> April 7
> 
> Nuance
> 
> There is very little
> difference between
> the word good
> and the word god.
> 
> Oh.


Ummmm, don't really know what to say about this one. I know this will sound harsh, but it seems kind of stupid. There's just not enough there, or maybe there is and I'm not finding it, but it seems like a spur-of-the-moment poem gone bad (of course, one couldn't blame you, forcing yourself to write a poem a day  :Smile:  ).



> Full Moon in April
> 
> The other night I thought it no avail,
> celestial sights hide, eluding me.
> A meteor spray or a rare comets tail*
> will bolt like a skittish child from a bee.
> Although a shower loomed, I still could see
> despite lenticular clouds- clear as glass,
> the moon called Egg or Pink or Sparrow Grass.


[QUOTE=AuntShecky;1131055]

I can't say I'm a fan of this one, either. I don't dig the fourth line at all, and I'm trying to figure out what it's about, as in what's below the surface. It's one of the poems in which I think maybe I'm missing something.


That's as far as I got for now. I'll take a look at the rest when I can.  :Smile:

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## AuntShecky

Thank you M-M, for taking the time to read these and to give such well-thought replies. The one about the crows tries to follow the form of a pantoum, which may have given it that "forced" impression. "No More Whining for Bread" makes oblique references to specific Biblical passages. 

I believe I agree with many of your assessments on these. Thanks again.

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## AuntShecky

Here's the blog that explains how all of this nonsense came to be:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=12419

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