Homonymics
 

Here’s a bit of doggerel I just dashed off to make a point in a discussion. It was so much fun, I thought someone else might like to have a go.

When a wisher knows full well
what is wished for won’t just well
freely from some wishing well,
making wishers rich and well,
what’s the point of wishing? Well?

Still?!
 

I hear you!

Still Still

Still thinking sounds

still on a page
though still are breaths
unseen or read

still latent breaths
said silently
when lips are still

said aloud
or voice recorded
still though sounded

still leaves me breathless!

Cool, Ralph! I was going to suggest squeezing in another meaning of the word, when I suddenly realized it’s a derivative of distill. Now why didn’t I know that?

Any charge you made I’d second,
so you chose me as your second.
You misfired and he shot second.
All was settled in a second.

New one's a winner!

Anent "Still Still": Yes! All writing is distilled thought of distilled experience. I’ll drink to that.

Gravitas
 

Since I'm still awake:

Gravity!

Some verse is grave
and gravitates
to human graves
and grave grief
or grievances
and most are grave
when graves are filled
with gravel piled
to gravid hills
by gravity
and gravesite names
are engraved
on gravestones
in a graveyard

Another good one. I take it you're an early riser, Ralph. Can't be more than 4:30 in the afternoon in LA.

Yeah, retired and irregular.

Snappy dressers cannot bear
(if their very souls they bare)
thinking that the best-dressed bear
goes about completely bare.

Hold your laughter, humor us,
though it was quite humorous
how he broke his humerus.

When her fiancé dropped by,
wanting money she’d put by,
he explained that he was bi,
had a boyfriend standing by
and had lubricants to buy.
She was quick to say bye-bye
and forgot him by and by.

Stung by all the slights he bore,
Boris, never one to bore,
boasted he had dined on boar,
trekking with an Arab o’er
shifting desert sands to bore
shafts and from the sheikhs grab ore.

Any magistrate you meet
will inform you that, to mete
proper justice, it is meet
that a petty hoodlum eat
soup without a bit of meat.

Right, Right?
 

And the beat goes on. . .

When You Write

make it right
for it’s a rite
that’s a right
but not far-right
or downright
mindless spite
an evil rite
of an online site
that’s always trite
about the bright
about those upright
who say “alright”
you shit-head sprites
you MAGA shites—
be forthright
truthfully outright
put things aright!

*aside*
(I am so much enjoying this thread)

Sarah-Jane

Thank you, Sarah-Jane. Ralph and I are pioneering a whole new genre of English verse. I rather unimaginatively called them homonymics. Since then, I’ve realized that multinymics would be more accurate, but a catchier term might spark more interest. Oh well, pioneers are always lonely.

Nearly blind, she raised the matter
with her doctor: “What’s the matter?”
He proposed to clean the matter
from her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,”
she replied. I’d let him at ’er.

Vikram Seth’s pathbreaking homonymic:

Distressful Homonyms

Since for me now you have no warmth to spare
I sense I must adopt a sane and spare

Philosophy to ease a restless state
Fuelled by this uncaring. It will state

A very meagre truth: love like the rest
Of our emotions, sometimes needs a rest.

Happiness, too, no doubt; and so, why even
Hope that ‘the course of true love’ could run even?

Certain he could not repair
engine flaws or find a spare
parachute, still less prepare
for a landing, in despair
and with little time to spare,
Perry, managing to pare
quite a plump and juicy pear,
ate it in the high-up air.

I agree with Sarah-Jane. This was a lot of fun. Thanks CC and RCL

The Disappearance

There were no kids, the dogs are dead, and we’re
completely out of touch. Old friends lived near,
and now or then I’d get a call and hear
that one had seen her, sitting in the rear
at some designer’s show, or sipping kir
with groups of those young men who just appear
at every function, slim and cavalier,
and that she still looked good – but slightly queer,
and was not aging well – and I would fear
that she had asked for me. But year by year
my thoughts and interests moved from there to here.
The friends are gone – no longer volunteer
small updates on her sightings. Would a tear
or two in private now be real – or insincere?

Outstanding, Michael Cantor.

Not quite what I had in mind, Michael, but a far better poem than any of my doggerel. You’re classing up the thread!

The Great Man at the 92nd Street Y

Following the reading at the Y,
I shook his hand, surprised he seemed so spry,
if liver-spotted; so I joked that I
liked whiskey, men and my Salvages dry;
and stood a bit too close, and brushed his thigh.
He leaned towards me, intoned a soft reply,
“Let us go then,” and I thought I’d die!

He proved as rich, yet modest, as his tie;
and loved to tease, to offer and deny,
to use his clever tongue to crucify
me, pinned and wriggling like a butterfly,
until I’d shake and cry. How I miss my sly
old Possum-puss; my secret love; my wry,
dry, ragged clause; my Sweeney-pie; my guy!

These are cool, Michael! Up with monorhymes!

Carl - you're going to regret encouraging me. That was part (the best part) of a triolet. Here's the entire thing:

Poetry at the 92nd Street Y: A Triptych

Founded in 1939, the Unterberg Poetry Center at New York’s 92nd Street Y is widely recognized for both its famed Reading Series, featuring writers in every genre as well as dramatic productions and celebrations of classic literature; and the Writing Program, which offers a wide range of literary seminars, lectures and writing workshops.

The Relationship

When I first heard him, uptown, at the Y
on Ninety-Second Street, I wasn’t shy.
He had an angry elegance that I
envisioned bared; plus poetry to die
for, and that jet black hair. I used my
look, the one that tends to terrify
most men, and he looked back. We sent for Thai

and pizza all that weekend, got so high,
we never left the bed. Who’d prophesy
that almost thirty years have now gone by
and I would still be here? Sad butterfly,
I know that when his hand half-strokes my thigh
he’s picturing his students – so I cry,
and all I think is, “Why, you moron, why?”


The Workshop

When he first joined our workshop at the Y,
I saw the open shirt, the golden chai
that nested in his hairy chest, and all my
instincts were that he would occupy
the balance of my days; that he and I -
poetic pairing, twinned for life - would vie
for prizes and each other’s love, defy
the odds and publish, thrive and multiply.

He took a stack of sheets a half-inch high,
began, ’Tween dawn and dusk, my heart is nigh
to sweetly ask if thee wouldst with me lie,
and as we laughed we noticed that his fly
was open. “Zip it!” the cool Jamaican guy
called out, and I cried, “Yes!”, and caught his eye.


The Great Man

Following the reading at the Y,
I shook his hand, surprised he seemed so spry,
if liver-spotted; so I joked that I
liked whiskey, men and my Salvages dry;
and stood a bit too close, and brushed his thigh.
He leaned towards me, intoned a soft reply,
“Let us go then,” and I thought I’d die!

He proved as rich, yet modest, as his tie;
and loved to tease, to offer and deny,
to use his clever tongue to crucify
me, pinned and wriggling like a butterfly,
until I’d shake and cry. How I miss my sly
old Possum-puss; my secret love; my wry,
dry, ragged clause; my Sweeney-pie; my guy!

No regrets. In fact, I needed the rest for full appreciation. “Thee” should be “thou,” of course, but maybe that’s some of the silliness you were laughing about. Thoroughly enjoyable, Michael.

And then I wrote...

Above Fat Papa's Bar in Casablanca

Café on the veranda: Ilsa sleek,
her hair now set off by a silver streak,
as beautiful as ever, still a chic
and polished avatar of high-boned cheek.

The room appeared as if we’d spent a week
in bed instead of just one night – the reek
of sex and flat champagne, two flutes, all shriek
of carnal, sweat-drenched, sweet reunion; pique
my appetite for more.
................................. But she seems bleak:
“It won't work, Rick. You've lost the old mystique,
and turned into an aging film-crazed geek –
a droning and obsessive one-note freak.”

She turns to leave, but not before I speak,
“We'll still have Paris, kid, and that was magnifique!”

Not to mention.... (as you may have somehow guessed, I have a thing about monorhymes - it makes life simpler).

The Gallery Opening

“I really like the subtle use of negative,
um, space, you know, in contrast with the positive,
so that it all begins to seem so relative
and consequently, if I may, evocative –
which is precisely why it’s so informative –
provocative, and at the same time tentative;
not in the least judgmental, not competitive,
but kind of, sort of like, almost illustrative.

“Collector? That sounds so accusative!
I’m just – you know – a bored executive
who sometimes buys some art. Conservative,
of course, and nothing too prohibitive.
And you? I see that you’re not talkative.
I love that in a woman. Sensitive!”

If we're doing monorhymes now, here's one of mine that was published in Highlights for Children (and will be in my book, The Red Ear Blows Its Nose, early next year):

THANK YOU, NOSE

It rumbles loudly when I doze.
It sometimes strikes a snooty pose.
And when I catch a cold, it flows.
Yet when I stop to smell a rose,
life’s frantic hustle-bustle slows
and such a joy inside me grows
that from my head down to my toes
my favorite thing on earth’s my nose.

(aside 2)
*still loving this thread. Better than Netflix.

Two more rollicking monorhyme sonnets from Michael (the description of the room above the bar is delicious) and an absolutely delightful contribution from Roger, well deserving of its titular status. If this is children’s verse, I’d rank it with the best I’ve ever read.

This is a bit out of season, but I don't have any Rosh Hashanah monorhymes.

Tum-ta-tum-ta-tum-parum-pum-pum-pum

December’s here and hear the thrum
that crummy kid creates; the dumb
and droning, moaning hum of hum-
bug fills a mall with every strum,
just like a film of sugar scum.
It cloaks and gums the shopping slum,
where Santa’s just a dressed-up bum,
until I think my mind is numb.

But, hey, these complementary rum-
laced egg-nogs go down well; and come
to think on it, why be so glum
when everything here tastes so yum?
More doubles please, Miss Sugar Plum –
parum pum pum pum – one’s for my chum.
Him and his drum.

Michael I, Monarch of Monorhyme.

Thanks, Carl. That's very nice of you to say.

This next children's poem isn't a monorhyme, but I think it's in the spirit of this thread because it only uses two rhymes, and it uses each of them ten times. (This is also in my upcoming book).

IT'S ALL ME

I've sometimes been someone,
sometimes been no one,

the fast-as-they-come one,
the lazy and slow one,

sometimes the chum one,
sometimes the foe one,

the sit-and-be-mum one,
the stand-up-and-crow one,

the hopelessly dumb one,
the cool in-the-know one,

the moping and glum one,
the cheeks-all-aglow one,

the bang-on-a-drum one,
the volume-down-low one,

the merely humdrum one,
the big-fancy-show one,

the I've-no-green-thumb one,
the I-make-things-grow one,

the place-where-I'm-from one,
the place-where-I-go one.

.
.
Me, too. It's like candy to me. Bread, too. With butter.

.

Very much in the spirit, Roger. You seem to write up to children, and if I knew any, I’d get them your books. I’d get them for the kid in me if I wasn’t in a country that’s shut off from the rest of the world. Well done!

A Narcissist’s Sonnet

by D. Trump

I want it
I see it
I grope it
I grab it

I pet it
I lay it
I cheat it
I buy it

I charm it
I rape it
I fear it
I wed it

I have it
I hate it

I like your poem, Ralph, but it's not a monorhyme.

Well, then

That Inner Fish Tiktaalik

My inner fish alerts me, when I’m peckish,
that through eons I’d been a dish delish,
to fish! That even now I nosh kin’s flesh—
those primal ancient swimmers formed as fish
long after we evolved to tetrapodish,
then to unscaled two-leggḗds, proud and selfish.
With salty tastes, fish scents of fluids we flush,
we’re often sharkish, slippery, schoolish, foolish.
But maybe land’s fishkind will not soon vanish
due to warrish needs to push and vanquish.
I pray that we won’t end up in a clash,
declared in that cliché of big fish/little fish,
but with a happy leaping delusional splash!