Wednesday Is Poetry Day!

Or at least it used to be over at Annika's Journal. Sadly, Annika has only 18 days left before her blog, one of the coolest, is officially retired from service. In honor of Annika's long service in bringing good poetry to the attention of the blog masses, I'll post a few of my own poems after the break.

Annika writes poetry as well, and her stuff can be found here.

Nothing serious today, folks. Today it's all about fun.

[1] Now, this first poem won't make a lick of sense unless you click on over here and take a peek at the fourth testimonial by one W. M. Wires. James Lileks made the mistake of saying about that testimonial: "There’s a country-western song waiting to be written." Well - how could I resist? (The whole take-down by Lileks begins here.) One cowboy faux-sonnet, comin' up!

This Old Boy’s Blues

My wife has trouble with gas around her heart.
My cousin Pete runs numbers for the mob.
My hound dog Rex can’t even pass a fart.
‘Round twelve o’clock I found I’d lost my job.
Oh, it ain’t nuthin but some old boy’s blues;
But mind me as this lesson I impart:
I’ll just keep on a-wearin’ my own shoes,
And thankful be I’ve no gas ‘round my heart.
I worry ‘bout my woman’s gassy chest.
My cousin and my hound dog? Nuts to them.
You ever hear them fart sounds from a breast?
My lord, I almost crapped a doggone gem!
I s’pose it’s nothin’ Cel-Fo-Mo can’t patch,
At least until my woman lights a match.

[2] The only - ONLY - reason this next poem exists is because as I was discussing the works of Jane Austen with a particularly attractive co-worker, the phrase "pantalooned winkie" popped into my head. I don't know what it means. I don't want to know what it means. I only hope you get a chuckle:

The Squire and His Lady Go A-Walking

Squire Firth, first name Colin, went walking
With a regency lady in tow;
And anon the pair fell into talking,
And there a started a terrible row:

“ ‘Ere now, you,” said the babe, “You’re no D’Arcy,
Jest an actor ‘oo looks good ‘alf nude!
An’ now wot’ll I tell my friend Marcy?
Cor! I’ve never been in such a mood!”

“Well, I say!” said the Squire. “You’re a fine one,
To get on your soapbox and bray;
For the reasons you’re with me at all, hon,
Were your lies at the party today,

“Like the one where you said ‘I’m Miss Bennet!
I’m a regency tart an’ I’m ‘ot!’
And ‘Me baahwdis is much too small, ’innit?’
Well, what man could resist? I could not!

“For your bodice had deafened me, surely,
To your harsh, cockney give-away voice!
And now here you’re revealed, loud and surly;
Would to God I could remake my choice!”

Well, the cockney was no rhetorician,
So her knee to his [CENSORED!] did go;
Thus the squire, in fetal position,
Rocked and trembled while pondering the blow.

“Uuuunhh! Aaaarghh!” said the squire. “What the . .?? . . . Blehhhht!
Call a . . . DOCTOR! Aw . . . CRAP! Frickin’! . . . Phlefffffft!”
But the cockney who called herself "Bennet"
And her bodice had already left.

“Well . . . the . . . joke’s on . . . my date ” said the bruised cad,
Once his [CENSORED!], uh, ‘regained their youth’;
“Though I’m . . . doomed to hear . . . bad puns like ‘go, dad!’
It’d been worse if she’d known the whole truth:

“That my name isn’t Colin Firth, either:
I’m some yob ‘oo jest looks good ‘alf nude!”
Then the snake – gasping, grunting – did slither
Where those snakes go who best define ‘rude’.

Now, the moral, good ladies, is simple:
If to Regency parties you go,
And a man with a chin with a dimple
Says “Yo, baby! You sexy! Let’s blow!”

Rest assured that he hasn’t a title,
Nor a contract with BBC 4;
Though he chats up the smoothest recital,
O Beware should you walk out the door!

Should the “Regency Yob” become stinky,
Do not barter your virtue for pelf;
Rather, knee-crush his pantalooned winkie;
And the rest will take care of itself.

[3] This one - a sestina (they ain't easy) - wasn't so much for laughs as for flirting. Nice gal. Cute. Blonde. Addicted to chocolate.

Reading Books in Winter

The weather does not want you to be warm.
Or, rather, it wants you to choose a book,
To wear a sweater and sit in a comfortable chair,
To lose yourself in long pages as you read
Beside the glow of a lamp’s soft light,
Nibbling, when the narrative demands, a bit of chocolate.

Or perhaps the weather wants you to eat chocolate,
So it drives you towards ways to make yourself warm
Knowing that no matter the wattage of your light,
Winter, like Marley’s ghost, will haunt your book,
Each page a chain-rattling ordeal, if you read
Without some form of chocolate by your chair.

Or maybe it’s like this: Here is your chair,
And beside you, waiting patiently, some chocolate.
They’re merely there to help you as you read,
For words may be the things that keep you warm;
Your sweater now a mere adjunct to your book,
Which book, if good, can give a warmer light.

And it can reach your deepest parts, that light,
Far better than the lamp next to your chair,
For there’s a romantic magic in a book
(A spell that is helped by eating chocolate)
That can hold you like a lover, keep you warm
With words to kiss you gently as you read.

Comedy, tragedy: It’s all there for you to read,
These abstract notions giving off their light,
Large suns that birth ideas bright and warm.
Your world expands though you’re still in your chair,
Your fingers inching towards some chocolate,
Your thoughts now brilliant constellations to your book.

Largely grand or quietly intimate, each good book
Is a mirror – it isn’t merely pages being read.
Perhaps that chocolate isn’t really chocolate.
Just kidding: it is. But everything else changes in the light:
A million new reflections sitting in your chair,
A million new ways to know the meaning of “warm.”

Good books are diamonds, concentrating light,
When they’re read through the proper prism of a comfortable chair,
While chocolate keeps all colors perfectly warm.

[4] Last one! Relieved? (heh!)

Upon Encountering, in Harrison's and Kooser's Braided Creek, page 4, third poem, and page 43, first poem:

They show best under the light,
dark stains on pants legs,
the blots of writers unable
to contain certain truths,

but not the truths they think
as they shake themselves off. They
only reveal that they are no less full
of judgment and the need to bestow it

than other, less-poetic men.
In a way, it's comforting to know
that even the best poets must
do the occasional load of laundry

on those days when they miss the bowl.

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[All poems by ccwbass, and previously posted at Way Off Bass at one time or another.]

[5] Almost forgot! Don't blame me for ths one so much as it was a slow work day, and my job ain't exactly brain-heavy.

Untitled

Here I sit, broken-hearted;
Tried to fart, but only parted
My new pants from all the strain.
The moral is: All strain, no gain.

Thank you.