Human Condition

Parody Poetry: Bull Shit! (NaPoWriMo day 27)

It took me all day (admittedly, I was busy) to find my response to the 2021, NaPoWriMo 27th prompt, which was to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

It was dinner time before I chose the contrived word, lilo. It’s supposed to mean “a friendship that can be dormant for years only to pick right back up instantly, as if no time had passed since last seeing each other.”

I was friends with Jimmy as far back as I can recall.
Like forever. He was a grade ahead of me,
but only seven months older. Jack was younger.
Jack and I became friends in high school,
Class of ’64. Jimmy might have been ’64 too,
but I don’t recall cuz jumbled memory. It’s fishy.

I was the one who moved away,
yet so did they, eventually. But I went first.

That bond when you grow up together,
close in every way. Boys become men.
That’s sad. I knew their foibles and flaws,
and I suppose they knew mine. Jack did for sure.

Jimmy was a hyperbolist. He wanted to impress me.
To prove himself. Why? I feel guilty.
Why did he always feel like that? I loved Jim for him.
I knew when he lied, exaggerated, or fibbed up a storm.
I didn’t care, but it was pointless.

Fifty years later, face to face, Jack and I realized
we were alike in many ways, not all, but for years
neither would broach one thing cuz we both thought wrong.
The irony was we lost something there.
We each assumed, and we were wrong
about our best friends. I feel sorry about that.

When I last saw Jimmy, we met and talked.
Jimmy told me of all his achievements.
When and how life had cheated him: The Navy.
We hugged meeting and parting, as old men
who’d not seen each other since being children
will do. I knew then, Jim as was not well.

Jimmy died. Then Jack. We can’t lilo.
All I can do is to write about them and me.
Maybe that’s something. But good god we were
friends who did a lot of childish,
stupid, teenage shit together. I wish we’d
all been more honest as men. Like boys.

Look both ways in old friendships
unaffected by time or tribulation.
Mind the gaps.
Drink to the reunion. Nothing is for always.

Parody Poetry: Older than before (NaPoWriMo day 26)

For NaPo day 26, I was to write a parody. I was to find a poem or song and write an altered version of it. A parody is also called a spoof, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on something, or a caricature. It is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or make fun of its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation.

I decided to work on the song(s) “Old Hippie” by the Bellamy Brothers, a classic paean to male boomers that many of us related to. David Bellamy wrote three of these: one at 35, one at 45, and one at 55. Mine goes to 75 (the age of the other brother) and is more about me.

He turns seventy-five on a Tuesday
sometime late this next July.
Can’t believe his friends’ all dead,
but down the same old road he’ll  still try
to understand and to keep his level head.
But now he craves those crazy days
with his shoulders back,
his chin held proud and high.
He still looks at life and wonders why.
He stopped with church and never prays
but he never wonders when he’ll die.

He still loves old soft county rock,
his poems come from just such songs.
His only friends are now computer faces,
and medicine pros working to help him get along,
with medical-grade stainless steel heart parts.
But he’ll run no more endurance races,
Just the tips and bits on legs that hate him.

He’s an old soldier who wants to be
a hippie getting older every day,
with hair and colors and closet disco music.
An old hippie who knows what life is for,
still wanting to be her man, before
she goes knocking on his door.

He’s an old man who always hated war,
but seemed to know what it was for.
He’s been confused by a government
he both supports and finds disgusting,
and people who tell him to forgive,
while he decides to let them live.

He likes people but not in crowds.
He craves his tribe, but they’ve all died.
Spending quiet time at home alone,
his kids are still his universe,
and Texas is still his home.

He’s a boomer till the day he dies,
he now fears life more than death,
he’s looked at evil in the eye
believes in love and wonders why,
then drums to ten below his breath.

Look both ways and avoid reading the obituaries.
Mind the gaps in everything but believe
you’re this damn old.

Poetry: Electable Swine (NaPoWriMo day 24)

My NaPo challenge today was to find a factual article about an animal. I was to be sure it frequently repeated the name of the animal. I was to go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else, either abstract or concrete. Then, I could rearrange and edit the article into a poem.

Since my grandson raises pigs, and my daughter, his mother, loves them, I chose an article about pigs. I replaced pigs with politicians and changed a few other words (like boar to bore) before trimming into a humorous, somewhat insulting, poem. Now I have an urge to read Animal Farm.

Politicians are mammals with stocky bodies,
flat snouts that can move independently
of their heads, small eyes, and large ears.
Intelligent, social animals,
they’re found all over the world.

Politicians come in eight genera.
Sixteen species include wild bores,
wart-poli-hogs, pygmy poli-hogs,
and domestic politicians.
Politician, hog, and bore essentially
describe the same animal,
but there are some distinctions.

A bore is an uncastrated male
domestic politician, but it also means
a wild politician of any gender.
A hog often means a domestic politician.
Politicians are also called swine.

Today, of 2 billion domesticated politicians
on the planet, most are classified as wild bores.
Wild politicians vary in size.
The largest bore is the giant forest hog.

Bores, politicians, and hogs live all over,
except for Antarctica, northern Africa
and far northern Eurasia. Red River hogs,
also called bush politicians, are found in Africa.

All politicians wallow in mud
to help regulate their body temperature
and discourage parasites.

Politicians are “cognitively complex,”
capable of remembering objects,
perceiving time, and navigating environments.
Politicians can be playful.

Politicians communicate with
grunts and squeaks; as they warn
other politicians of approaching danger.
A politicians’ primary defense is speed,
but when cornered, tusks are weapons.

Look both ways in the Animal Farm (yes, that one).
Mind the Orwellian gaps for Democratic Socialists
who believe all animals are equal.

Note: Politicians will eat anything, including people. Farm accordingly.

Poetry: Siege by Stone (NaPoWriMo day 22)

The Napo challenge for today was to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place. The trebuchet, mangonel, or catapult sling was a siege weapon of choice against castles and enemies during the Middle Ages (500 to 1500AD). I like the sound of the word, trebuchet, especially when pronounced in French.

Other rabbit hole excursions while working on this prompt included diaspora literature (poems), mango, metonym, and 7th Century classic poetry compiled by Confucius. But what the Hell? I had all day (sarcasm).

A sling toss of a single stone
When David slew Goliath, made
Profound religious history, in theory.

Rome grew in a millennium,
Then died. Dark times rose
From those civil ashes, a beastly age.

From the hands of naked boys
To the age of sling-shot artillery:
The trebuchet. A French feast of fright.

Stones and bones, living or long dead,
Fodder with missiles from mangonel
Machines to crush citadel and castle walls.

Thunder carriages bring down life
With strikes of slow siege and certain
Pillage, rape, death, and lifelong slavery.

Now ancient artillery, the trebuchet pales
Beside man’s modern tech-machines of death.
Is cold hearted mankind the final stone?

Look both ways to war,
that human endeavor we can’t seem to stop.
Mind the gaps, the sound of peace is often war at rest.

 

Poetry: Sijo for Two (NaPoWriMo day 20)

The NaPo prompt for day 20 was to write a poem in a traditional Korean poetic form called sijo, in English of course. Sijo is a specific form with a little flexibility unless one wished to exercise poetic license to color outside the lines. Since these are only three lines of 14 to 16 syllables each, I wrote two for Tuesday.

Marvelous Melancholy

I forgot about something important. What being bored feels like.
Oh, how I long for the days when I could do what I wanted.
Now I can’t just up and do, up and go. I mustn’t fall on my ass.

***

A Taste of Tint

Like yellow, it has never been one of my favorite colors.
Did I ever favor any one color over another?
I’m starting to like orange. Never saw a color I didn’t like.

Look both ways. Then smile. Sing a song, “I’m Alive!”
Mind the gaps for forgotten sorrow or the taste of color.

Poetry: Rant (NaPoWriMo day 19)

Today is day 19. I was challenged by NaPoWriMo to write a humorous rant. In this poem, I was licensed to excoriate (I prefer bitch) to my heart’s content. I ranted about ranting.

Let Me Explain

I’ve been okayed to rant.
I should be good at this
cuz lots of practice,
but I need a subject;
like in a poem, something
specific to rant about.

I prefer small audiences
or choirs to preach to,
preferably from my own tribe.
I need to know what I’m
talking about, no random topics
that just piss me off for now;
politics, religion, or both might work.

I should stand. My face will redden.
I need not be near breakables,
like nick-nacks or small animals. I can
frighten cats, small dogs may cower
into a corner, and I need a timer.

Like I’m Italian talking normal,
I need to waive my arms and make
gestures about the size of fish I caught,
or the size of my antagonist’s penis.

If Yolonda is there, she will tell me
to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut.
I’ll claim NaPo permissive prompt status
or poet’s privilege, but she won’t care.
She’s heard it all before.
I’ll call him “needle dick the bug fucker,”
for laughs, then I can sit down and let it all go.

Look both ways, be it a declaration of war,
burying the hatchet, smoking a peace pipe, or opening kimonos.
Mind the gaps because that’s where the trouble starts.

Poetry: Fear of Poetry (NaPoWriMo day 18)

The eighteenth day NaPo challenge was to write a poem based on the title of a chapter, as a prompt, in Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. After reading the “look inside” on Amazon, I bought the book at 4 AM. Then I selected Chapter 51, “Fear of Poetry.”

Fear of Poetry

They say, poems find us.
They say, we cannot teach how to poem
words, to think one, or to write one.
They say, we are not all the same,
but we are all equal, or should be,
simply different I suppose. King
thinks writers (poets) are born.

I fear no rainforest, not electricity,
nor my own subconsciousness;
yet ocean depths, being too high,
or the worst of my fears, being a fool
can imprison me: body, mind, and spirit.

Unlike others, poems came to me ever since
I was forced to memorize “O Captain! My Captain!”
at age 13, long before I understood much of anything.
But I hid my love of it for fear of what
poetry might mean to me. Like repressed memories
or unrequited love, I hid from, ignored what I loved.

Now behind that mental dam of fear is stored
years of unexpressed ME (or is it I?) – poetry.
Only in demonstrative anger
or stoically hidden sorrow did I feel safe.
Since owning that,
since calling myself poet,
then writing and thinking,
I let them out. One poem at a time.

Look both ways to see where it began and where it might end.
Mind the gaps because it’s never to late to be completely you.

Poetry: Sammi’s Weekender #205 (uncanny)

Click image for Sammi’s Blog

Magic Music

Music finds my mood,
picks at my soul
it finds my feelings,
uncannily,
making music mine.
Is our love for sound and music
the saving grace of life?
Or is it our destiny
not to think about it twice?

Listen to the music but look to see it both ways.
The gaps between the notes, a place where angels play.

Poetry: Nature Knows (NaPoWriMo day 16)

The NaPo prompt for Friday, April 16th, was to write a poem using a form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. Skeltonic poems have short lines of three to six words, two or three stressed syllables, and are simple verses. There is no specific length. Lines must rhyme and new rhymes may be introduced. There is no alternating rhyme scheme.

Nature can be dastardly
Random in her apathy
Extending thru the galaxy
Giving freely of catastrophe
With all her immortality
With no kind of partiality
Uncaring of our flattery
In her lavish asexuality
At the center of gravity
Lacking godly spirituality
Devoid of all sentimentality
Guilty of total impartiality
What can I possibly say?
What will save us this day?
As to tragedy we give way
Maybe we should pray
To express our dismay
Of her uncaring touché.

Look both ways, in the blues and thru the grays.
Mind the gaps as there may be traps making all of us saps.