[Michael Cantor]

<u>Tanka Toys</u>

Spring rain on golf course
Crack of tee shots in the mist
Japanese poet
Grabs brush and ink; quickly puts
A Tiger in his tanka

The golfer’s parents
A marriage of gold and brown
Gray October frost
At the tip of autumn leaves
They are lovely, dark and deep


Whoops!

"I hang my head
Wish I was dead
Forgot this thread
Was rhymed," he said.

"What now to do
But seppuku?"

[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited April 30, 2002).]

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

THE NEGLECTED CRITIC

I always know a better way
to write the things they try me with:
“Good Lord, it's bad enough you play
with rhyme; why must you steep in myth
the common tryst, a lovelorn toff
and his Lady Tart, as if the throngs
of gods and goddesses got off
on human lust?” But the ding-dongs
will never listen. They ignore
my intellect, my wit, my prized
experience—they write; they bore.
You'd think that I've been demonized!
BANNED POST

[Roger Slater]

BUILDING A SONNET


This will be the first line. There, it's done!
It wasn't hard to write, and now line two
continues in the spirit of line one.
Behold, I'm on line four. I wish I knew
the way to throttle quickly past line five
since by the time a poet writes line six
his engine ought to be in overdrive.
And now I'll toss the eighth into the mix,
the turning point, the volta, so line nine
can start another thought suggested by
the notions one-through-eight tried to define.
The twelfth prepares the couplet's final sigh:
If only, couplets tell us, there were time,
we'd live, we'd love, we'd worship, and we'd rhyme.



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 01, 2002).]

[Jan D. Hodge]

THE IMPATIENT READER

A first line? Piece of cake!
A second's easy, too.
But then, for Heaven's sake,
just give it up! You're through.

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

BUILDING UPON IT

Recall his first critique: “What have you done?
You must discard those trite beloved's in lieu
of common speech; say Baby, or Big One.
Beware the metaphor that isn't new.
You say that Aristotle is alive;
then, 'brother, can you spare a dime?'—please fix
this overwrought, slack newbie kind of jive.
Resist the impulse to half-bake your mix.”

Remember, your riposte was asinine:
“Could you please find another mind to buy?
Your quotient's showing. Many have feared mine.”
—you thought your share of wit could terrify.

He's a bold lover, but he wastes his time
striving to love and worship what you rhyme.



BANNED POST

[Nigel Holt]

<u>For Michael</u>


If you've drunk Sapporo
I know what you've been through
andioxyfluoro-
carbons deep in you:
twenty fluid ounces of high-grade seppuku.

[Melalope]

Wild Bill, new member asked about the stars...and Svein mentioned writing a poem and so:


I wonder about the stars
lined under a person's name.
Do they perhaps enlarge
the hopeful poet's brain?
What could it mean
when you see the stars amass?
Is it the more stars are seen
The more you kiss that person's @$$?

I'm just of one star stature
Lowly but hopeful poet
Explain to me "sphere nature"
I don't want to blow it.

I've noticed hob knobbery
forgive me if I say
I mean no poetic snobbery
I've only come to play...

So I ask for revelation
For I couldn't just suppose
that on forum relations
Is it okay to brown nose?



merrily merrily merrily...
ha ha hee hee ho ho!






[This message has been edited by Melalope (edited May 02, 2002).]

[Renate]

Star speculation

I think indeed they must,
Enlarge the poets brain,
For they sprinkle their stardust,
On we who write in vain.

[Carol Taylor]

If you'd like a galaxy
start out just the same as we:
post and read and read and post;
some day you may have the most.

[Zita Zenda]

special people


Again I arrive
the right place the right time
hoping to survive
the repartee rhyme

those names with those stars
you’re speaking of sneetches
they wear them on thars
for their numerous speeches

I’ve come with questions
on how I shall manage
to post direct dissentions
to those stars’ disparage

but speak out I must
or a wimp I’ll be called
but how can I trust
you won’t be appalled?


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