love letters never sent
i — o — u — c — b mine in
code miss — understood
.
haiku
Category Archives: Short Story
stop’it
i went into a pit to rescue my sister who was down there in it
i beseeched her to reach up, climb out to the light but in fright
she held me to her and together we swallowed the night
she cried, at least she wasn’t alone
.
not a haiku
.
should we drown so another is not alone
or show the way, lead the way, be the way
btw
correspondance
months we were apart
he sent me love letters but
left when i came back
.
haiku
remini scent
tangerine peel curled
in crevasse of park bench wood
juicy segments lost
.
haiku
from the other side
Romeo said to
Juliet just, don’t do it,
change the story, love
.
haiku
The Fowl and the Bully-rat
NaPoWriMo day 26
I.
The Foul and the Bully-rat were put out to sea
On a manky-scant wee boat
They were thrown some spitballs, catcalls tar and feathers for good measure
Wrapped up in a cautionary note
.
The Fowl growled up to the stars above
With a sound like a small chainsaw
You, Bully-rat, you fat hunk of shite
Gimme room in this boat, oar,
I swear
I swear
I’ll haul your arse out!
.
II
Said Bully to Fowl, you evil great bleep
How charmingly sweet you bleat!
We’re in this together, you’d better not blether
Oar, I’ll cut your throat while you sleep!
III
They floated this way for a year and a day
To the land where the spliff trees grew
And there in the woods, a beautiful woman stood
They puffed up their chests and and jousted their jests
All to impress their importance upon an isolated female
Soon to be in their thrall. What a boon!
But she saw straight away they were
Up to no good
Up to no good
Though they begged so sweetly for fun and for food.
.
They warbled, aw, darlin’ It’s probably you’re also hungry for a fine feast of a man , we’re a bit wobbly but
honey girl, would you give us a whirl as a nibble
Supply us some vitals and a sniff of your spliffs, we’ll all bob along well, we can tell
But the woman was wise to all of their lies
She’s smelt them coming for miles and miles
So, she called on the conch to the other girls of her tribe, and they had them split-toasted in a flash, for their ladies lunch.
And hand in hand they danced
By the light of the moon
But the light of the moon
Full-bellied and stoned, they pranced
They licked the fat from their fingers and runcible spoons be damned!
.
btw April 26, 2021
parody picked from the teeth of the Owl and The Pussy-cat, loosely and unabashed.
And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a parody. Besides being fun, writing parodies can be a great way to hone your poetic skills – particularly your sense of rhyme and sound, as you try to mimic the form of an existing poem while changing the content. Just find a poem – or a song – that has always annoyed you, and write an altered, silly version of it. Or, alternatively, find a poem with a very particular rhyme scheme or form, and use that scheme/form as the basis for a poem that mocks something else.
If you’d like to get some inspiration, you might consider some of the poems that Lewis Carroll included in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which parody the moralistic verse of Isaac Watts. For example, “The Crocodile” is a send-up of Watts’ “How Doth the Little Busy Bee,” while “Tis the Voice of the Lobster” is a parody of Watts’ poem “The Sluggard.” Or, for a briefer and more whimsical poem, consider “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat,” which is a parody of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
II
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
the living end
napowrimo day 21
.
tell it….don’t tell it…i can’t because
it wasn’t midnight – that’s just one minute
it wasn’t eternity – that just a concept
it wasn’t a toast of glasses
it wasn’t a fumbling of cusses
it wasn’t a teacup of grief – gulp it!
it wasn’t beyond all belief – swallow it!
tell it…. don’t tell it… i can’t because
it wasn’t a blizzard – there must be a sky
it wasn’t a prison – there must be a key
it wasn’t a limit unfurled
it wasn’t the end of the world
what was it… what was it…. don’t tell it…i can’t because…
it wasn’t revealed until it congealed
it wasn’t sealed until it was too late to see what it was
it wasn’t fate…was it
it was … it was
darknesses drunk
princely forevers
faith trapped
frozen diamond
universe stalled
tightened bonds
cut neat ever after
words spoken never
never ever tell what it was, only what
it wasn’t
it wasn’t – i promise
til death
parts – us
to the living end – with this breath
i won’t tell…..i can’t because.
.
btw april 21 2021
.
Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up. Here’s an example I came up with after seeing this video of . . . a bucket of owls.
Bucket List
Several owls can fill a bucket.
Several buckets can fill a wheelbarrow.
Several wheelbarrows can fill a truckbed.
Several truckbeds can fill a song.
Several songs can fill a head.
Several heads can fill a bucket.
Several buckets filled with heads and owls
Sing plaintive verse all night long.
intercontinental
i love the breakfast
they bring you before you land
‘specially the coffee
.
haiku
i got my wish
napowrimo day 16
.
i’d thought us well-suited
though his stance was brutish
his diamond stare was rare & bluish
his family name well-reputed
may i admit to being foolish?
i’d thought him tellement charming (charmant)
his romantic gestures disarming
the softness of his whispers calming (calmant)
pronunciation of the word ‘darling’ (mmmm)
delivered sweet warm hotter….burning
may i admit to yearning?
he was one helluva bloke
my love he needed not to coax
yet after years of mirror smoke
cleared the sleeping dragon woke
shimmers and glass slippers broke
and on the shards i choked
jaysus christ and holy ghost!
tippy-toed in dead of night
while lizard dozed i took flight
in pursuit he comes in full-blown spite
pride in tatters bent to smite
a well-know tale tall and trite
may i admit to quite a fright
although i run low fly high or hide
he tirelessly searches far and wide
to get me back by his side
or all more honestly my demise
he calls… you bitch, you are my bride!
.
btw april 16 2021
.
Because it’s Friday, today I’d like you to relax with the rather silly form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each line should be short, and should aim to have two or three stressed syllables. And the lines should rhyme. You just rhyme the same sound until you get tired of it, and then move on to another sound.
dire
napowrimo day 8
.
quagmire rises to release her/his words
up to no good
no bad – birds knife at the dirt to wake
up the dead
inside her/his head
he/she’s never slept in the depth
night/morning yawning
from an 8-foot down-echo chamber
chill whispers come up
comeuppances
rain down
steady as
steady as
chatter
chatter
remember me
the embers of me
unscattered
you buried me
while i was alive
and once again
made sure i died
haggard
.
remember me
untethered
tongues of me
crawl into your bed
to unsettle your raw bride
6-inches into her/his skin
shrivel galaxies hidden
everywhere aware
here/there
.
remember me
can never be rid of me
foolish one/twos
stamp your shoes on me
spit your 7-curses on me
time again
again
dismember me
remember this
statutory lying-in begins
endless as sins
lying in waiting
there’s no escape
remember me
remember me
.
.
April 8, 2021
btw
And last but not least, our (optional) prompt. I call this one “Return to Spoon River,” after Edgar Lee Masters’ eminently creepy 1915 book Spoon River Anthology. The book consists of well over 100 poetic monologues, each spoken by a person buried in the cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead. Not a famous person, necessarily – perhaps a remembered acquaintance from your childhood, like the gentleman who ran the shoeshine stand, or one of your grandmother’s bingo buddies. As with Masters’ poems, the monologue doesn’t have to be a recounting of the person’s whole life, but could be a fictional remembering of some important moment, or statement of purpose or philosophy. Be as dramatic as you like – Masters’ certainly didn’t shy away from high emotion in writing his poems.
barbaraturneywielandpoetess 