1) I liked things the way they were. Maybe I'm just vain enough to like seeing my name in print, anywhere at all.

2) I never wrote a poem about flying monkeys, but I wrote this one back in college, when my roommate had a dream about a flying hippo:

Happy hippopotami,
Gliding, sliding through the sky,
If hippopotami can fly,
Why, I ask myself, can't I?

Happy hippopotami
Dwell in the beholder's eye.
If you see happy hippos fly,
You'll be committed by and by.

I know I'm going to regret asking, but what the flying **** did monkeys ever have to do with this in the first place?

Bill, you are to poetry what Bob Hope was to comedy. Bob (apart from, proverbially, liking a "big room") was the original joke box comedian.

P

Philip, look back at post 2. In it Bill makes jokes about what administrators do behind the scenes, by alluding to Oz-elements such as wizards and curtains (which are a reasonable metaphor for admin stuff) and flying monkeys (which are utterly gratuitous and a mere excuse for all these silly poems). :D

Philip,

It's a very old joke in computing, having to do with the Wizard of Oz. Remember the old Blinken-lighten thing from the 50's?

"ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKSEN. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN."

That's an edited version. Some speakers of German quite rightly objected! ;)

Anyway, 'the man behind the curtain' trope is something computer people used to say to the user community, jokingly, in the 90's. What the community members never heard was what the sysadmins would whisper under their breath just afterwards: "or the flying monkeys will get you!" ;)

But I'm deeply offended that anyone would suggest the light-hearted verse in question existed, in any form, in advance! Such suggestions are in shocking bad faith, and I *will* have satisfaction! Pistols at dawn being out of range, I demand a one-hour duel, on any subject, even one of the other contestant's choosing, tomorrow afternoon. He should have his seconds contact my seconds. I have been slandered! Slandered, I say! It's a matter of honor!

Thanks,

Bill

Blitz Chess as poetry! Here's some advice to potential contenders. Demand tet or hex, or even a dactyllic meter. I'm fairly certain that Bill is a MetriBot III model, or possibly an IV beta, and those early Series were all implanted with the Adobe SonnetShop chip that can only handle IP.

Quite right. Iambs only. What's a dactyl? Tet, hex, het all are fine. Shouldn't my seconds be deciding this issue? Or even my thirds?

Since the craven and cowardly villain has not yet responded, (sadly, we can't see if he's online), I'll make the malingerer this offer: I will double his line totals for the given time! If he can only manage a sonnet, I'll do 28 lines.

There. One hand tied behind my back. That should smoke him out! ;)

Thanks,

Bellicose Bill

Alright, alright. Move along. The Code Duello of 1777 specifically forbids children's play as "dishonourable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited."

Let's get back to the serious business of Poetry. I've already employed my cast iron skillet on Bill to get him back to earnest toil.

I am a witness to the 36 minute waste of time, though I am happy to report the poem is already flying off for consideration.

Best,

Kate

Your call is important to us. The waiting time on this queue is calculated to be approximately three minutes. All of our service technicians at present are taking other calls. Please continue to hold until one of our technicians can respond to you.

I like the idea of a speed poem competition. Just for the hell of it.

Rats! Not only have the calumniating assertions been withdrawn, but somehow the authorities caught wind of the affair, and now I'm dodging frying pans aimed at my head! Ouch! ;)

And here I'd hoped for a little bracing excitement. I love the smell of flyting in the morning! But now we'll have only peace, and honest labor, darn it!

On the other hand, who knew the code was actually written out in 1777? And it turns out it's dishonor to simply shoot in the air! ;)

Thanks,

Bill

The idea of a pre-written flying monkey poem is actually quite plausible, since I searched the internet and found that there are already quite a few flying monkey poems out there, and Bill is not one to let others write all the flying monkey poems without him while all his own poems involve only flightless monkeys. Here are a few in the existing canon:

• http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index....number=1078715
  
• http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flying-monkeys/
  
• http://allpoetry.com/poem/5955791-Th...y-by-imroberte
  
• http://hellopoetry.com/poem/the-fall...lying-monkeys/

There are quite a few others if you care to dig a bit.

I myself do not want to duel, since I'm on a diet and have forsworn seconds, but I would love to witness a duel requiring ballad meter, or limericks, or G&S-like anapestic tet rhyming couplets, or rhyming dimeter quatrains, or sonnets (no nonce rhyme schemes). Sonnets would be particularly nice, since the most famous poetry duel ever, the one that produced "The Grasshopper and the Cricket" in fifteen minutes, was a sonnet competition.

I think we all need to speed up our compositional wpm, and submit all the results at once to AGNI, near neighbor of Hahvard, MIT, and them ilk --- and we do know where and who! However there is a downside to speed, and in my signature mode of 'pata-relevant YouTube link posting, here's the downside : "All aboard?"

Enjoy the scenery. It's a beautiful bunch of roads they've got in CO.

Your welcome.

Kate -- who is a 1st cousin to She Who Must Be Obeyed, being She Who Makes Too Much Sense To Disagree With -- has spoken, and that is that. No dueling, I guess, my buckoes.

However, I'd love to see Bill become a light versifier on the side. I think many of us would be overjoyed to be one front and fore, if only we could get a splice of the Whitworth gene or a Slater prosthesis.

By the way, Bill: of course it's dishonorable to shoot into the air, and against the dueling code -- think of what you might hit! (Hint: they wear little caps).

Best,

Ed

Hi Bill

Thanks for the reassurance that "Who's on line" is coming back. Sounds like a panel show. Oh, no, that was "What's my line"! Seriously though I also find the facility of being to know who is around useful, most particularly I think for directing me to threads I would not otherwise know about. I was wondering if the function might have been disabled because of privacy issues. I am glad to know that is not the case.

Best regards

Chris

I shot an arrow into the air.
Dishonor! But I did not care.
This forum's full of threads like these
for Sphereans to shoot the breeze.

What, no flyting monkeys, then? Darn. Could somebody please pass the Cheetos?

Shoot the breeze? But Julie, will it
hurt the breeze, or maybe kill it?
Slap the breeze a bit, perhaps,
but let it not come down to taps,
for breezes are beyond compare
in dealing with the Sphere's hot air.

I think I read somewhere that "Ozymandias" was written in a head-to-head competition with someone else. I can't recall the other fellow's name though.

Name a theme, name a meter, name a form, name a time frame and I'm happy to participate! I did a competition once where you had to use ten particular (and dissimilar) words one time each in a poem. I didn't win, but I thought it was a fun exercise, at the very least.

OK, write a hundred lines (rhyming and metrical), no more, no less, on mixed nuts in America. Post it here by Monday morning, 9 a.m. eastern time. No acrostics.

u c u again!

did i spoil the fun thread?

Any takers?

I'll provide one of the readers, at least, if there are any takers.

I have a feeling the proposed length will deter many would-be entrants, though. Besides the investment of time and -- er -- poetic energy it would require, 100 lines about anything is about 84 more than most mere mortals can manage. Even the long distance writers among us may not start out with a set number of lines in mind. Or perhaps they do. Do they?

Ed

Ah, but the length is a mere hurdle, Ed! Though I agree that your poems are perfect in their succinctness.

I'm pretty sure I can pump something out within the parameters, or would at least be game to try (it's the spirit of the thing). I won't do it without an avowed competitor however.

I thought you might go first and then the rest of us could respond.

I do. I design the form before I start, so that I'll have a sense of the size of the canvas. Otherwise, I wouldn't know how to handle details in each part of the whole. It's a mostly intuitive production, which would be much harder without knowing the length in advance.

PS: I can see myself writing 100 lines on mixed nuts. Yes, I think so.

That's fascinating, Mary. I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense.

Ed

100 lines is not enough for all the Republican candidates for the presidency.

Today's intelligence test:
Would you rather
A) Read Poetry Daily and Verse Daily on-line
B) Write about flying pigs or mixed nuts on Eratosphere
C) Google pictures of interspecies snorgling on youtube?

Dear Gail,

Having just done this, for the first time in my life, I would find *any* other option preferable. Frankly, I think I'd rather stick my arm into a fire ant nest. All the way to the elbow! ;)

In fact, I think I'd rather be this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIMigVo1pyA

Yikes!

Thanks,

Bill

I agree, and I typically do the same thing. I'm primarily a sonnet writer, so that makes it a bit easier, but when I've written other forms (Swiftian satire, Rhyme Royal, Villanelle, Ghazal etc.) I've had a firm idea of the length in mind before I started.

In fact, in my early days of writing sonnets, I used to jot down "A, B, B, A, A, B, B, A, C, D, C, D, C, D" at the start of each line before I even began. It would help me better visualize the track the poem would need to take. It was sort of akin to knowing how many letters a particular answer was in a crossword puzzle.


Is that the gauntlet? Do we need a starter pistol to fire to declare it's on?

I'm already on line 17.

Ha!

Then it's on! Good luck, Mary!

Don't forget, it's not just mixed nuts, it's mixed nuts in America. Ed had the right idea, I guess, but I did have more of a snack food or trail mix in mind.

Ok, I'm done writing 100 lines on mixed nuts in America. Where do I post it? Is there some place Google won't find it?

Wow, Mary! That's amazing. Google won't find it here if you put this code up top in your post:

{noindex}{/noindex}

only use square brackets instead of curly ones

Can't wait to read your poem.

Nuts in Nutland

Good afternoon. I'm glad to see
You've made it safely. Follow me --
I'll take you on the scenic route
Around our "hallowed" institute.
Within these walls you're sure to find
Many a divergent mind;
Most harmless, though some slightly more
"Incongruous." Behind this door
We have our recreation hall,
With TVs mounted on the wall,
Inoffensive books to read
And pastimes to fill every need.
Now through the kitchen is Ward Five
For patients who are not alive
In mind, although they breathe the air
And still receive our constant care.
There's Marge -- she came from Newport News
With pathologic hate for Jews,
Then fell, three years ago this date
Into a catatonic state.
"But why?" some ask; well, no one's sure --
You'd have more luck in asking her.
Across the ramp we have Ward Four:
It houses casualties of war --
A rank of brave and noble-hearted
Men whose sanities departed.
Come over, meet a man named Sam
Who served two terms in Vietnam.
He's sixty now: a man bereft
Of reason -- thinks he never left;
Believes he's in a foreign land
Still fighting V.C. hand-to-hand,
Platoon outnumbered, undermanned
For forty years, we understand.
Now some might say he's not insane:
That all the visions in his brain
Are just as real to him as the
Asylum is to you or me;
Yet I presume that he's aware
Our world exists, and he's not there.
Ward Three is for our general crowd
Who softly seethe or rant aloud --
The sort most would call "nut" or "loon"
For howling at the waxing moon.
There's Amy -- she's a schizophrene
Who came to us at age sixteen
From Trenton, where her parents died
(A likely murder-suicide).
When lucid, she's demure and shy
And seldom looks you in the eye,
Still young enough to give you hope
That she might find a way to cope.
But then some thing will set her off:
A buzzing fly, a muffled cough,
She'll storm and scream and tear her hair,
She'll grind her teeth and claw the air,
She'll claim the voices in her head
Conspire with us and want her dead.
When she is in this manic state
Our only choice is to sedate.
The other wards are down one floor
Behind another bolted door.
Ward Two is for the violent sorts
Whose pathos most disturb the courts:
Those deviants and pedophiles
A sane society reviles.
They are the kind that prisons fear:
When wardens balk, they get sent here.
You cannot rehabilitate
Someone whose acts are so innate;
We simply take them in and let
America outside forget
The truth in no uncertain terms:
Some apples in the pie have worms.
These aren't the worst though; they're outdone
By those we keep down in Ward One
Beyond a chamber, doubly barred,
And flanked all day by constant guard.
The cells that line this final hall
Are filled with those whose crimes appal --
Some psychopaths you've likely seen
Portrayed, and glamorized on screen.
The homicidal maniacs
Whose gruesome histories of attacks
Obtained them a "Not guilty" plea,
By reason of insanity.
They're not "mixed up" and they're not "nuts" --
The system doesn't have the guts
To punish them beyond refute:
To end the threat and execute.
But you know this. It's why you're here.
You thrived on torment, death and fear;
You hunted dozens, killed your share,
And yet, I'm not convinced you care.
It's just your nature, right? To kill
Your fellow man just for the thrill?
It doesn't matter anyway --
You're here, and surely here to stay,
For this concludes our tour. Your cell
Awaits. I'm sure you'll fit in well.

I peeked at how this code was used, and it won't work the way it was done, with one command right after the other.

The code works on whatever is between the start and stop (signaled by the /) of the command. So, put the second bit in brackets after what you want to hide.

Marcia

I've added the code in the first post of this page (corresponds to what the bots sees). So, Mary & Shaun, you're now covered from the bots now, and you don't need to do anything else.

Impressive results from your head-to-head!

Cheers,
...Alex

Thanks, Alex -- on both counts!

Congrats to you two, for your skill and alacrity! Mary's gave me pleasant dreams, and Shaun's will probably keep me up tonight -- Hard to choose which I like best. Nuts to both of you.

Ed