[Roger Slater]

This one was published in Bumbershoot, but the last line is adaptable to most magazine and journal names. You have my permission not to obey the first line.


HONEST SONNET

Please don’t read this sonnet to the end.
In fact, if I were you I’d stop right now.
The sad truth is, I really don’t know how
to write a sonnet. Why should you pretend

there’s any merit to these words I penned?
Whatever praise you’d graciously allow
I feel I’m honor-bound to disavow.
(I’ve read ahead. There’s nothing to defend).

What’s that? Still here? Why can’t you take a hint?
Do you believe the last five lines will bring
a quality the first nine lines could not,

that just before it ends this poem will sing?
Come on, don’t be a fool. This poem is rot.
It’s scandalous what Bumbershoot will print!

[RCL]

Off the bone pile:

Sonnet Stanzas*

Within my room, I work to finish lines
that might support the stanzas of a sonnet,
and try to dovetail them as an octet.
But there are crucial problems with my rhymes
before I even smooth the fourth—such signs
of instability, beyond mere nit,
requires an innovative retrofit,
to square the verse with classical designs.

But then the lady whom I hope to woo—
not Will’s or Petrarch’s—spells my stanzas’ doom:
You’re pazzo if you think these dives’ll do!
I cannot fret, for she gives me the clue
that rhyming June and moon may cure her gloom
and canonize us in a sonnet room.

*In the Italian language, a stanza is a room. And pazzo means crazy.


Losing the Art of Love

There was a time when poets sang of love
without embarrassment, when versifiers
happy at their trade were gracious liars
in measured sonnets. They’d imitate a dove,
an owl, perhaps a dawn-drawn bird above,
who sighting human beauty soon desires
to mate his heavenly might with earthly fires
of passion: begets a paradox of love.

But tapping keys that text or tweet romantic
notes is so archaic, old-school, stilted
that songs of love, once tender or ecstatic,
are elegies about the lost or jilted.
Raving in rhyme about a love that’s new?
Postmodern ironies evaded you.

Nonce Sonnet? He's on It!

My muse and I design a sonnet,
Italian-ish; its resonance,
we plan, will generate nonce sense
from carefully cobbled rhymes on it.
Bonnet nicely echoes on it:
we like a sky blue one’s adornments
of little blooms with flower scents,
but some readers ask, What’s on it?

But then my muse, curses on it,
growls, whines, barks and coughs
up sonics. Mentally in circus tents,
insane, we juggle lines for laughs
on the tightrope of this so-so net,
and wavering howl our nonsense.


A Play Pen

A poet’s pen at play
shapes sound as if it's clay:
It measures sonic spaces
modulating paces,

turns senses into tropes,
when styling losses, hopes,
blessings, caustic curses,
puzzles, comic verses.

Its light and serious fun
at times inscribes a pun,
pens icons of our breath
in scripts defying death.

Arse Poetica

Epics chart a culture’s mind
in sprawls of history and wit—
their redolence rides passing winds.

The lyrics are much smaller songs
leaking just a little wind
perfuming feelings as they’re sung.

Dramatic verse can be perverse,
digest the major characters’ wind,
their offal odors at times a curse.

An Arse Poetica is art
releasing powerful rank aromas
as contrails of a horse's fart.

Symbol of a poem’s source:
It's Pegasus, of course of course.

These make an appearance in My Miscellaneous Muse and elsewhere.

[Christine P'legion]

PORRIDGE PROBLEM

When Mother Goose sat down one day
to write about some porridge,
she found at once, to her dismay,
it's hard to rhyme with porridge!
Since oatmeal doesn't grow on trees
there's not much use for forage,
and pots and jars are rather dull
(so much for porridge storage).
Since even Mother Goose could not
explain what's meant by borage,
she'd have to find another way
to versify her porridge.

[this one was written as a companion piece to "Pease Porridge Hot"]

-----

ARSE POETICA

A poem should be a series
of incomprehensibilities,

paradoxical images
that baffle the senses,

signposts for the clever elite
who know more than you.

A poem is made of wordless words
and silent sounds,

imparting meaning
through its meaninglessness.

A poem should not dictate, but be,
he dictated.

-----

LUPO's got first dibs on posting another one of mine, but I'll add it to the collection once able to do so

[Roger Slater]

Here's one I just wrote this minute to post here:

Lament

In olden times
a poem that rhymes
was, for the course, just par.

No eyebrows raised,
no folks amazed
at all the rhymes there are.

But then came Walt
whose full assault
on rhyme soon drew a crowd,

and now they say,
"We'll let you play,
but rhyme is not allowed."

[Roger Slater]

I translated a poem about poetry written by Baltasar de Alcázar several centuries ago. You can read all 100 lines in The Alabama Literary Review (scroll to page 100 or so), but here's the beginning:


About Rhymes

....I'd like to tell my tale of woe,
oh Juana, but my curse is,
what I mean to say, I fear,
my verse sometimes reverses.
....For if I try to say what seems
important, half the time
I end up saying something else
because I'm forced to rhyme.
....Example: I would like to write
a verse to make it plain
Inez is good and lovely, but
the rhyme then adds insane.
....And so I end up calling her
insane because it went
with plain to make a rhyme although
that isn't what I meant.
....And if I praise the subtle wit
with which she's known to speak,
before I turn around, my rhyme
proclaims her nose a beak.
....And thus in substance I allege
her nose, that's so sublime,
is hooked, although I have no cause
except the cause of rhyme.

[RCL]

Notes of an Old New Critic

Can it truly be a poem if
It isn’t in a formal shape
It isn’t in a well-known meter
It isn’t cleverly ironic?

It isn’t what’s ambiguous
It isn’t with organic rhymes
It isn’t opposed to paraphrase
It isn't paradoxical?

It isn’t easily read or taught
It's read as if a history text
It's a poet’s biography
It’s biased Lib or GOP?

It's a Frenchman's deconstruction
It's by an AI robot written
It isn’t a solo Verbal Icon
It isn’t a very Well-Wrought Urn?


For most of you out there, way way way younger than I am, the last two lines refer to manuals of close-reading approaches that English grad students and instructors slept with in the 1950s and 60s. From a weakening memory:

W.K. Wimsatt, The Verbal Icon
Cleanth Brooks, The Well-Wrought Urn

[Michael Cantor]

This was written for Carol Taylor, who ran the Sphere in the Mesozoic era (and popped up suddenly a few weeks ago, then disappeared again) and didn't like my habit (back then) of ending sonnets with an Alexandrine.

Alexandrine Ragtime

Come on along, come on and hear, you’ll want to cheer
the Alexandrine Ragtime Band. We top the stand,
we’ll take command, we are the grandest in the land!

If you’re keen on mean sestinas, set to ragtime,
and you like your Coke with brandy, Alexandrine –
beat your feet to rhythm? Hexameter each line?

Totally demented? You will like us big time:
we are the bestest poets what wrote a dithyramb –
your honeyed hams – the Alexandrine Ragtime Band!!


And this was one aimed at the legendary Alan Sullivan, who ran the Deep End when the Deep End was deep, and had a defeatist attitude about Triolets - particularly mine.

Critical Mass

“I don’t like triolets,” the critic states,
“I find them quite impossible to write
with grace.” Some may agree with his dictates –
I don’t! With poise and wit, the critic states
his point: my triolet accentuates
and twists his meaning, adds an insight
he won’t like. “Triolets,” the critic states,
“I find them quite impossible to write”


And Then He Wrote

Wheezerly, geezerly
Cantor the poet, he
hit on a dry spell and
couldn't write shit.

Finally, he sleazily,
double-dactylically,
twiddled and twaddled and
broke out of it.


Dear Poet: (Form Letter)

Thank you for your [brief description]
which we have read at [journal's name].
We recognize the erudition,
but must inform you, all the same,

that, though an elegant submission,
just now, we [show no one's to blame].
But please do purchase a subscription -
[imply acceptance then, and fame].

[Julie Steiner]

Manifesto

I’m sick of songs of victimhood—
stuff that I don’t want to write.
My work will preach that life is good.
I’m sick of songs of victimhood.
My muse, though, hasn’t understood,
and only sends depressing shite
I’m sick of—songs of victimhood.
Stuff that. I don’t want to write.

[RCL]

Nice one Julie! It reminded me of this oldie from Ghost Trees, a riposte to Frost's "Acquainted with the Night."


Night Light

This is a poem saying Life is good.
Although I am acquainted with the night,
it isn’t wailing grief or slinging mud.
This is a poem saying Life is good,
a song of peace and joy, not painful plight.
And yes—the darkest poems embrace the light.
This is a poem saying Life is good,
although I am acquainted with the night.


I then recalled this pastiche from My Miscellaneous Muse.


Acquainted with the Light

I have been one acquainted with the light.
I have walked out in sun—and back in sun.
I have outwalked the darkest city night.

I have looked down the sunniest city lane.
I have passed utopians, dreamy and sweet,
And raised my eyes to see no one in pain.

I have strutted, jumped and danced on echoing feet
When on my sunlit path a constant cry
Rose from dark caves beneath the city street

That meant for me to pause and praise the sky;
And closer still there was a hopeful sight:
Proud chanticleer, his ruby comb held high,

Proclaimed in song this day would bring delight.
I have been one acquainted with the light.


(I have an ever-growing suspicion that Frost's original is a parody of the overly indulgent ego in poems.)

[Michael Cantor]

Triolets, huh.

Confessions of a Triolet

I'm an easy triolet,
but it kind of makes me sad
when I overhear folks say
I'm an easy triolet.
Sure I like to tease and play
with two twists to make a bad
and uneasy triolet,
but it kind of makes me sad.