[Catherine Chandler]

Rose, These are so good!!! My favorite "Family Values" !

[Rose Kelleher]

Thanks. I'd like to read some of you guys's. I bet Michael Cantor has some good ones...if he bothered saving them.

This kind of thing can be fun in a forum like this one. It kinda bothers me when I see stuff like this in magazines, though. It's like, c'mon, must we publish everything we write?

Some of a certain Doctor's published work is at this level. Let's see if I can mimic him in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

The toadies in the universities,
enslaved by Modernism, must obey
the rules: Don't dot your i's, or cross your t's,
and don't, by God, have anything to say.
Pathetic academics (not like me,
the other kind), they worship Ezra Pound,

(1/2 cup)

waging a war against formality,
and driving Poetry into the ground.
True poets know that slant rhyme is a ploy
for cowards, timid formalists afraid
to rhyme outright -- those pussies, who say "Oy"

(3/4 cup)

when critics damn their verse, 'cause it's well made.

(finished cup)

Ack, I didn't make it. (It was a small cup.) Please finish this for me.


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 04, 2008).]

[Jim Hayes]

My First Crit.

For six whole days it was incubating--
the poem for which the world's been waiting.
Nobody will guess it is my first--
come on, have at it, do your worst!

A hit! At last-- it’s been a day--
a little applause won’t go astray.
What’s this? My meter’s a little off?
Well, far be it from me to scoff,

but a thin-eared bitch of a moderator
has the nerve to say my meters grate her?
Hey! a jennet saying it isn’t rhymed--
it’s a homophone! Is the asshole blind?

And, look at this-- am I to please
some yob in the fucking Antipodes?
An anally retentive myopic gobshite
is actually suggesting I do a rewrite!

And this crit here! Well, they have a quota
of ignorant wankers in North Dakota.
And what about this “Kerb it, quick!
It's jealousy! From a useless prick!


Alright, alright, when I’ve retuned it,
I’ll be back
--The Poetic Wounded




[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited July 04, 2008).]

[Shaun J. Russell]

Ha!

These are utterly priceless.

Nice ones, Jim and Rose!

[Rose Kelleher]

LOL, Jim.

[Quincy Lehr]

Forgive me, Tim, but when you were reworking 'Short Shots' ad nauseam, I did write a parody.

SHORT SHITE

To Michael Cantor

Dude with a beard.
Thinks I'm weird.
We've never met,
But chat on the net.

Englishwoman in Southwest France

She texted me a limerick.
It didn't quite scan. Who gives a shit?

New York Call From Terese

We're lining up the features for the fall.
Sounds pretty good--go ahead with 'em all!

Lines About Nothing--In French

Ecoutez,
S'il vous plait.
Va te faire
en coule!

For Dick Wilbur

I've never met him,
Though I've read his stuff.
I'll ask Murphy--
Are four lines long enough?

Dream

Recurring dream.
I had that one again
Where I wake up
Shouting "Lobstermen!"

Some Dude I Knew in High School

We lost touch.
I hear he's doing better
with his wife Maureen
who trains their Irish setters.

So, anyway, before you comment on this piece, I should note that I ran this by a prominent Irish poet (well, more of a drunk with nowhere else to go but the pub--but that's basically the same thing), and he thought it was brilliant. (He offered to fight me soon afterwards, which may take a bit away from it.) I also wrote this in homage to the deeply self-referential style of universally acclaimed poet Tim Murphy, whom I know. I haven't gotten opinions from Rhina Espaillat, A. E. Stallings, Sam Gwynn, Dana Gioia, and the ghosts of Howard Nemerov and Anthony Hecht yet, but they invariably like my work.

[Mike Slippkauskas]

Fenster the Formalist here (you all know that the epigrammatic voice is often exaggeratedly arrogant and that the narrator here is not neccessarily myself):

More Than Slant

Insouciant rhymes, each leaves the other pairless.
Are they "without a care" or merely careless?

Too Far

A product of Miss Moore’s judicious brain—
“Not in Latin, not in shorthand, but in plain
American which cats and dogs can read”—
Her compliment to Williams. Do we need
The lesson she implied? We’ve learned it quite.
Poetry’s now what cats and dogs and can write.

Their Criterion

About my verse they say, “Nobody talks like that”.
Of ballet do they say, “Nobody walks like that”?

Witless

You say I’m no Ben Jonson and it’s true:
No more, no less, Ben Jonson than are you.

and one that self-deflates:

The Muse Distributes

The epigram will best display his wit.
Its couplet length can fully compass it.




[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited July 04, 2008).]

[Rose Kelleher]

Ha! You evil, evil man.

Editing: That was to Quincy. Not that the rest of you aren't evil.


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 04, 2008).]

[Terese Coe]

Fun thread--just what we need!

Here's one I wrote about a different forum, years ago:


There’s a feisty detached intellectual
And a lady who sleeps on the beach
A Vietnam vet and a French soubrette
And delusives who drool while they preach

A rhymer from sweet Carolina
A writer of villanelles
A humor exponent and sometime proponent
Of Scarlet Pimpernel

Some post for renown or for money
Some post from volcanoes for free
Some say they must honor the dithyramb
Others their coterie

They know what it means when a klbut is keyed
Or a threnody laid to a triptych,
A line that went wrong or an African song
In a rhyme scheme that lacks an encryptic

And nothing works quite like a cabriolet
In the face of soliloquies
You can fly to Bombay or Calloo-Callay
Where no one has quite that disease

And we’ll shout out our songs from the parapet
We’ll sing a cappella in rondeau
For the only pretense is inconsequence
And the only expense braggadocio.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Just a quickie while at work...

You crit my poems, call 'em shit
And, disinclined to pick a nit,
You deem my querulous defense
As naught but righteous arrogance;
It's fine, though -- honest! I don't mind:
I know your aim is not unkind,
It's just the nature of the 'Sphere,
And, after all, that's why I'm here!