Kitchen SinkA not-so-good poet named Crow
Said proper forms she didn’t know.
“Write of lost glasses;
See if it passes,”
Said Friend BB. “Give it a go.”
Crow labored long o’er rhyming “sink,”
Thought of pink, link, dink, stink, and think.
At last she gave up
And turned to her cup,
Which she drained of tea in a blink.
What can I write about jig saw,
Crow ponder’d, her brain sore and raw.
It cuts like a dream
Through plywood or beam –
How about that? Crow censored, “Nah.”
Writing poetry is hard work,
Be it Crow, Englishman or Turk
Who sets hand and brain
To writing quatrain.
I’ll stop before it starts to irk.
Said proper forms she didn’t know.
“Write of lost glasses;
See if it passes,”
Said Friend BB. “Give it a go.”
Crow labored long o’er rhyming “sink,”
Thought of pink, link, dink, stink, and think.
At last she gave up
And turned to her cup,
Which she drained of tea in a blink.
What can I write about jig saw,
Crow ponder’d, her brain sore and raw.
It cuts like a dream
Through plywood or beam –
How about that? Crow censored, “Nah.”
Writing poetry is hard work,
Be it Crow, Englishman or Turk
Who sets hand and brain
To writing quatrain.
I’ll stop before it starts to irk.
(c) 2009 Martha McLemore
6 comments:
A jig-saw’s a play upon words
A DIY puzzle to nerds
The aim is to cut wood
And I would if I could
But this box of odd shapes’ for the birds
My specs are a sign of my age
And not of a face which is sage
When I leave ‘em behind
It’s not me I upwind
But others I tend to outrage
Scansion: not just the number of syllables but where the stressed beat falls. Iambic pentameter (what I've been doing for some time now) is five pairs of syllables stressed: di-dah, di-dah, di-dah, di-dah, di-dah. But, alas, there are complications...
Roger on the complications, BB. I'm going back to plain ol' prose, to see if I can get better at that.
:)
Prose and free verse. Writing well within the confines of structure is a tremendous challenge!
Hello, e:
Certainly is a challenge, but one I think you have mastered, judging from your writing. Thank you for dropping by.
:)
No it doesn't irk.
I generally struggle with poetry; both in the writing and the reading.
I find it is like using words with a straitjacket.
Get it right and it is beautiful but too often it misses what it is intended to do.
Far harder than prose I think which makes me wonder why people who don't bother with prose see themselves as poets.
Not you, I hasten to add.
Hello, AWB:
Oh, I'm no poet, by any means, and (thankfully) I recognize that.
Writing poetry is, as you say, far harder than writing prose, which comes much easier to me. I will leave the writing of poetry to those who can.
It is fun to try, though.
:)
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