Please check out the first poem in the Edward Lear topic under Musing on Mastery and then write a poem in which you describe yourself, in the third person (i.e. as he/she/Ms.Dickinson/Mr.Lear) in wry, unflattering, or pathetic terms.

Kate, shouldn't it be "I stink, therefore I am?" Or in Latin, "Fogito, ergo sum"?

I'll cheat, since the subject of my poem isn't myself, but I have the subject's permission to post it so I'm not worried about a libel suit.

Bob Sale is one of the few (but proud!) dads who attend our weekly park day (i.e., recess). He homeschools his kids by day while his wife works, and he's the drummer in Eve Selis ' roadhouse rock band by night.

At the time I wrote this, there had been several complaints about Bob's sidesplittingly funny "chitchat" postings and smart-aleck comments being posted to our local homeschooling e-list, because the volume of posts was making it hard for some people to sift through to the serious posts about field trips, etc. These complaints then sparked dozens of posts expressing appreciation for Bob's unique sense of humor, and advising the naysayers that they should just delete anything from Bob without reading it.

That flurry had just died down when Bob cautiously posted the Lear poem for discussion. I couldn't resist responding with this:


How pleasant to know Mr. Sale,
A solipsist extraordinaire!
He's uncompromisingly male.
He's mourning the loss of his hair.

His posts are off-topic and comic.
Attempts to dissuade him fall flat.
Political or economic
Discussions devolve into chat.

His arguments often are specious,
But no one can say that they're trite.
His tone's almost always facetious.
He thinks he's a wit. He's half right.

His dignity's somewhat precarious.
His posts with riposts are replete,
But if they get too deleterious
To sanity, just hit "Delete".

The genial say, "Who's this genius?"
While others respond, "Who's this jerk?"
But even the downright venenous
Admit the man's some piece of work.

Of course, a professional drummer
Contributes his own unique riff.
Without him, our group would be glummer,
Though sometimes his volume may miff.

He's henpecked by homeschooling mommies.
His keyboard's employed to impale
Arcana from commas to Commies.
How pleasant to know Mr. Sale!


* Yes, I know I've mangled the pronunciation of "venenous", which is supposed to have two short e's and a stress on the first syllable.

Julie Stoner




[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited March 26, 2004).]

How pleasant to know Mrs. Kelleher!
For if you're convinced you're a bore,
Recall how few people think well o' her;
Your self-satisfaction will soar.

Her mind is resoundingly vacuous,
Her bottom exceedingly broad,
Her grammar and spelling inaccurous,
Her character hopelessly flawed.

She has kittycats, Bobbie and Fidget,
Who barter their friendship for food.
She enjoys watching reruns of Gidget.
She doesn't like wearing a snood.

She's too lazy to write eight whole stanzas;
five of 'em's all she can manage.
Insert a line here about Kansas.
This verse demonstrates her poor plannage.

Ineptness exposes her poses.
Deodorant covers the smell o' her.
Before she is mulch for the roses,
How pleasant to know Mrs. Kelleher!

Where is everybody?

I guess I'll just have to dangle here, on record forever as the Sphere's only imperfect member.

Move over in the bed there Rosie...


How Pleasant to Know Mr Hayes

How pleasant to know Mr Hayes
though his constant faux pas amaze
but he's ever so nice
when meeting him twice.
(Which nobody ever essays)

He's made it abundantly clear
that he cannot abide Mr Lear
from which we deduce
that he's rather obtuse
and beyond educating we fear.

His metrical nous is immense
(What he doesn't know he invents)
but musing on Mastery
was quite a disaster he
is never inclined to make sense



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited March 27, 2004).]

Swell, all! Here's one from me. Man, do I sound pathetic!

KATE THE CURSED!

I’d present her, of course, but she’s scared to shake hands.
I’d put her on stage but in spotlights she quakes.
She’s travelled to very few near or far lands.
She’s phobic of planes and agoras and snakes.

She’s happiest when her companionship’s virtual.
She’s made more of words than of skin, bone and blood.
It’s easy to shock her and hurt her. Don’t flirt. You will
nip camaraderie right in the bud.

She doesn’t own pooches or parrots or cats.
She doesn’t have children, she doesn’t have means.
She doesn’t wear high heels or high flowered hats.
She doesn’t eat lobster or foul lima beans.

What does she, what does she, what does she love?
A poet named Hopkins, a poet named Frost.
When will she throw down a bellicose glove?
When she feels undervalued, neglected or bossed.

Which is most of the time when she’s out of the house
working at jobs that require commitment,
a happy-talk outlook when she'd rather grouse,
not turn a blind eye to pervasive nitwitment.

The lady’s a dull, hypercritical bore!
The death of the party, unsocially skilled,
Rectitude's midwife, Solitude's whore—
such was she fated, such was it willed.

She comes home at seven and fastens the locks,
turns on the Sony and unplugs the phone,
scrapes off her makeup and flicks off her socks
and dances a truncated tango, alone.

I'm not sure if this qualifies, but here it is: consider it a pas de deux with Ms. Benedict's narratrix... (Except now that I re-read the "assignment" I see that third-person was mandated, and thus (as usual) I have failed miserably to color between the lines, not even to mention the incurbale optimism that permeates even my most plangent attempts at self-deprecation...)

Fool Sings

Should I sing songs? I’ve got a lousy voice,
but I’d croak gladly if it pleasured you.
Bend backwards, touch my heels? A supple man
I’m not, but I’d do pretzels for your smile.

For just one touch, I’d pen a perfect rhyme.
A single kiss? Sonnets would rain on you.
Or — Dream of Dreams! — but offer me your heart,
not all the world’s words would be enough

because in the dying world there is no time…

I cook, I sew, I’ve learned to clean a house:
the plumbing’s not a mystery to me.
I know enough to run a separate load
for denims when I’m at the Laundromat.

I understand the workings of a car.
I can drive boats. I’ve even flown a plane.
Withal, I’m just a total paragon,
Domestic Virtue looking for a home,

as if, in the dying world, we might find time…

I know you think me something of a clown,
an easy laugh, a friendly sort of fool,
and I’ll buy that — but still, my foolish heart
cries out no less than ever heart has done,

denies the mask, if you would hear it cry.
No words can do the job — or, I have none.
How can I come to you? It makes no sense.
You will, or won’t. We are, or we might be,

here, now, in the dying world. We must make time…

(robt)




[This message has been edited by Robt_Ward (edited March 29, 2004).]

OK. In spirit of fairness and remorse, here's third-person Ward:

Delusion is the Wellspring of Denial

Here’s Mr. Ward: a fond and foolish man
who somehow has convinced himself he sings
better than angels sing, although his croak
could gladden no heart except a bullfrog-wife’s.

He’s proud that he can cook, yet turds like you —
it all comes out the same brown in the end,
and even roses damasked (as it were)
cannot quite mask the stench that of him flows.

When Mr. Ward wakes of a morning drear,
he dons the cap-and-bells and dreams of sun.
He transmutes everything of somber hue
by hoping light is lovely, loving light.

In argument he’s not be outdone,
not any fault admits, nor lacks for faith,
the while ignoring utterly the truth
that his true weakness is excess of strength.

So Mr. Ward strides corridors, alone,
deep in the dusty mind that he calls home,
glimpsing, through rain-streaked attic windows, what
he cannot have, and cannot understand.

(robt)

Continuing Education

Though his collegiate race has been run
he still finds that learning is fun;
from mechanical pleasures
to artistic endeavors,
he's well-versed, but master of none.

Debtor


She laughs when it’s rather bad form,
her clothes are eccentric and strange
She’s cold when she ought to be warm
and engages in heated exchange.

She’s modern when others are staid,
conservative when they are wild.
She defends anybody afraid
of anything, even a child.

She’s cross with the makers of bombs
especially the nuclear sort.
She’s not very fond of sitcoms
and usually hates manly sport.

She hates self indulgent moderne
excuses for writing but fears
hide-bound refusal to learn
any difficult novel ideas.

Progress is something she won’t
believe in. She doubts we have grown
any better: “I certainly don’t
applaud “proof” they’ve recently shown”.

People who build and preserve
and those who see truth in a plant
or cricket or bird all deserve
her thanks in this primitive chant.

She never performs as she wishes.
Inside she’d prefer not to spout
this drivel. She certainly dishes
her share of tomfoolery out.

What she likes is when one and one do
really work and make one that is better.
Cooks, poets and painters, and a few
musicians have made her their debtor.



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 29, 2004).]

Aged Whine

My name is Michael Cantor and I come
to poetry too late in life to bang
out unaffected rhyme – I bear the sum
of years in suits and neckties, dreams that sang
of balance sheets and factories - and much less
crowds every line – old Yiddish curses,
half-remembered stories, thoughts that mess
and twist my words in visa verses.

My mind retains with seamless care
ten recipes for boneless leg of lamb;
a fourth round draft choice jostles Baudelaire,
all cram together in an anagram
of names, dates, faces, places; poems abound
in all the corners of my mental Lost and Found


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited March 29, 2004).]

How Pleasant!

How pleasant to know Mr. Ralph
who currently dwells with himself
because he’s private and grouchy,
and women find him touchy.

He once committed marriage,
some might say a miscarriage
of justice. He served his time—
his punishment fit the crime.

A sybarite who drinks,
his doggerel mostly stinks,
but when he’s down, depressed,
he posts online a jest.

How pleasant to know Mr. Ralph!
His Shadow’s a genial Self,
a public man who’ll smile,
an aging man sans style—

who longs to be retired,
before his ticket’s expired.



------------------
Ralph

Michael

My gift to you.
Janet


Aged Whine

His name is Michael Cantor and he comes
to poetry too late in life to bang
out unaffected rhyme – he bears the sum
of years in suits and neckties, dreams that sang
of balance sheets and factories - and much less
crowds every line – old Yiddish curses,
half-remembered stories, thoughts that mess
and twist his lines to visa verses.

His mind retains with seamless care
ten recipes for boneless leg of lamb;
a fourth round draft choice jostles Baudelaire,
all cram together in an anagram
of names, dates, faces, places; poems abound
in all the corners of his mental Lost and Found

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 29, 2004).]

Kate
I love your poem. The others are good but yours is special IMO.
Janet

They're all good... inspiring, even, and while reading them I had many promising ideas flit through my mind on what I could write. But the combination of an aging brain and a day job have conspired to reduce me to this:

How pleasant to meet him, Albert,
for poets in need of a trope
to cover the word "debonaire"
can invoke him thus: "not that dope."

If you come to his book on a shelf,
think "Self-published", not "What awful miracle…?"
And his nose, like his light verse itself
though amusing, is nothing like Lear-ical

Yes, the best to be said for his name
could comfort the least fêted clown:
It's not tied to too much that is lame
just the dross he had time to write down.

How pleasant to know Zita Z.
Who is perfect in every way!
Some mope, she is better than me,
But most others have little to say.

She slinks through her life looking glamorous,
Her breasts are synthetically large;
Financial success is preposterous,
She’s no longer able to charge.

She has cats, and a boyfriend, and daughters,
All blessings, and sometimes a curse;
Long ago she was drenched by warm waters,
But this winter just couldn't be worse.

She works in a corporate office,
With Partners intent on their wealth;
She’ll never be more than a novice,
She’s far more concerned for her health.

She has no friends, unreal or imaginable,
Her attitude’s down in the dumps;
Her voluble skills are abominable,
She wears a mad frown, her heart thumps.

When she sings in the steaming hot shower,
Her cats take their sauna, and purr…
They keep hoping she won’t hit that sour
Note: the shrieking to which they refer.

She howls over 79th street,
She howls on the way to the park;
She packs up a picnic of mincemeat,
And saves it for after it’s dark.

She writes, but she doesn’t read, verses,
She doesn’t pursue her degree;
She is held back by too many bosses,
How pleasant to know Zita Z.

Ernst A. Kipling
writes with a crippling
handicap: stippling
freckles adorn

face, arms, and shoulders;
freckletude smoulders
all through his folders
poems fill when born.

E. A. K.

"Musings of the Poet Bug"


Heed, young bard, so swift of pen,
thy flower days are fleeting.
You, though once the Muses' friend,
will find your powers receding.
Frolic while you have your day
of phrases wrought with cunning.
Night is near, so make thy hay,
the clock, alas, is running.

Time was, I was cogent,
and my satire laced with acid.
Now, I’m just im-potent,
and my barb is rendered flaccid.
Once my literary gift
brought kudos from congratulants,
Readers claim they now are miffed,
by my "poetic flatulence."

I was once a wunderkind,
prolific, just like you.
Now a frikking week I spend
to write a lame haiku.
Run and ask your fathers how
my rimes were all the rage,
No-one ever bothers now,
to read this ancient sage.

All the critics changed their minds,
no more was I the best.
How it pains when first you find,
your status "reassessed".
I, who was so lauded, then,
for deftness with a poem,
Now live unapplauded in
the Poets’ Nursing Home.

Every day I take a crack
to write a line or two.
Every night, they roll me back
with urine in my shoe.
Look no more upon me now,
so loathsome and appalling.
Ply me not with pity, how
the mighty so have fallen.

Heed, young bard, so swift of pen,
thy flower days are fleeting!
You, though once the Muses' friend,
will find your powers receding.
Frolic while you have your day
of phrases wrought with cunning.
Night is near, so make thy hay,

the clock, alas, is running.


[This message has been edited by Lightning Bug (edited April 08, 2004).]

A glutton for punishment, I did two: the second using my married name.


Sugo ergo sum

1.
Do you know that Marion Shore?
She has a certain strange allure
That lessens as you know her more.
Do you know that Marion Shore?


2.
Have you made the acquaintance of that Marion Shore Burns?
She likes to eat good chocolate; she spends more than she earns.
She claims to love Great Literature, like odes on Grecian urns,
But admits it's courtroom mysteries for which she truly yearns.
She's quick to form opinions; she very slowly learns,
As she makes her way along this road of twists and turns.
She fondly hopes that come the day her dust to dust returns
Nobody will be moved to say that Marion sure burns!

I'm Baaack!

How draining to know Michael Cantor,
for - after some opening banter
on his past as a crass galivanter –
it soon becomes clear he’s a granter
of liberal views, a left-slanter
whose ‘tude makes you back off, askanter,
as it dawns that he’s also a chanter
of monorhyme verse, a mad ranter;
and the worst of it all: a recanter.


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited April 09, 2004).]

Ernest,

That's a good 'un :) This isn't a critiquing forum, but I feel compelled to suggest: "All through the folders / his poems fill when born."

(robt)

Bugsy,

That is KILLER! Way to go! May I suggest "make thee hay" (instead of thy) in the penultimate line?

(robt)

Marion, any realtion to the Burns of Big Sur? Julia Pfeiffer Burns? Now THAT was a name! Fun poem too.

Michael, "truer words were never spoken." Recant! The end is Nigh!

(robt)

Robert,

Not that I know of.

To see the Fabulous Burns Family, check out our website at:
http://translations-ink.com/burns.html

And on the Shore side: Yes, Dinah was my aunt. No, not really! But when I was a kid, I used to say she was because I got tired of people always asking me if I was related to her--that is, when they weren't serenading me with "Marion, Madam Librarian".

Marion

I know I am just a new member who just got registered, but I saw this thread and could not pass up the opportunity. Self-deprecation is my speciality. Consider this my self introduction.

What dread it is to know a Chip
From which uncouth sarcasm drips.
His hair's a mess, his clothes are worn,
He truly is a societal thorn.
His writing sucks but he doesn't care,
He'll venture where few may dare.
No friends around to call his own,
Yet he never feels alone.
Lazy, boring, and mostly annoying,
and always caught in public, snoring.

I could go on, but I beleive in short and simple. I feel a lot better now. (yes, I know it sucks)

How Pleasant to Tipple with Quince

How pleasant to tipple with Quince,
Who ventures the odd line or two
While pausing for breath between drince —
If there’s nothing better to dwo.

His face is the colour of pinot,
His handlebar whiskers outré;
He used to teach Plato and Zinot,
Now he mumbles in meter all dé.

He sits with his wine by the ocean
And thinks about wenches he’s known;
He walks with a bouncy mocean
And despises the portable phown.

His domicile’s Australasian,
His spirit is Irish or worse;
He gives in at once to temptasian,
And mangles the truth in his vorse.

He mourns the passing of prayer
While claiming to be agnostic;
He offers up thanks for his hayer,
And sometimes he burns a jostic.

He can bash out a tune on the keys
In a rough imitation of Monk;
He’s ravished by sky and by treys,
But the ladies now need to be dronk.

He would dance, if he could, a pavane,
With somebody far from plebeian:
He flees the low woman or mane
Who swears with a truculent meian.

In dreams he sees hips and breasts
Emerging from ruby-red wine;
But he’s terribly genial to geasts,
And his motives are sometimes benine.

Henry wins buy a knows.

Onedirfool.

Janet

Okay, this is not usually my cup of tea, but I figured a non-met version deserves a glance too. Forgive me if I've breached the rules.

She’s a loud child in a quiet room
stifled with sinister smiles.
She is the cat that climbs the tree
where opportunity flocks.
She is the horse that plows the field
plodding a course to the clover.
She’s the old jeans you can’t throw away
pleasantly riding your ass.
She is the threading of a needle.

Might as well get in the game.


I think that I shall never see
a man who's half as bright as me.

Who can with explanations bore
the sharpest students by the score.

And make a simple grammar freak
believe that Fowler's sprung a leak.

Who'll tell you when your comma's wrong,
and beat his chest like old King Kong.

And should you prove he has it wrong,
he'll scorn your logic all day long.

Oh, countless men may stubborn be,
but God's made only one like me.