[Martin Elster]

The Plains-Wanderer

This wanderer of the Riverina plains
with her pretty black-white collar knew a day
when she could whoo and cluck and munch away
on spiders, seeds, and bugs. Now poison stains
her home (to quash the locust), causing pains
as grave as falcon claws. The pleasant May
of life recedes. Foxes and cats will play
their predatory games, while plowing rains
its menace on the land and quickly leaves
it overgrazed or far too lush. Will suns
of trouble tumefy and fill the sheaves
of journals? Yet if time could hold his breath,
allowing you to watch her as she runs,
you’d see a tiny bird outrunning death.


In the last line "outrunning" might be "outracing."

[Jerome Betts]

Did slime-life glisten on the Martian plains
As once far off there water had its day?
If so, how long before it drained away
To nothing more than faint ambiguous stains?
The scientists have asked, and taken pains
To send a questing robot, which soon may
Reveal our role in some great cosmic play,
And find its cast includes more worlds of rains,
Mists, oceans, lakes and labyrinths of leaves,
Though powered and warmed by very different suns,
With beings too who gather fruit and sheaves.
Or will there come from Mars an arid breath
Predicting, like the restless sand that runs
Across our deserts here, a planet’s death?

[Martin Elster]

Jerome,

I like your take in post #72, even though you stole my Mars Rover idea (from post #29)! Your last 3 lines, however, seem to imply the greenhouse effect, which is more associated with Venus (whose surface temperature is around 780 degrees Fahrenheit). The Martian environment, on the other hand, is more akin to Antarctica, which is considered a desert, and is, indeed, extremely arid.

Best,
Martin

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Martin Elster

Jerome,

I like your take in post #72, even though you stole my Mars Rover idea

Yeah, well, someone stole my idea for using the word "May", and even got congratulated for his clever use of the word.

But there are far worse things going on: EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD has half-inched the end-rhymes I planned to use!

There are only two ways to solve the problem. Either keep your entry under wraps (as many do), or if you think you've been plagiarized, kneecap the bastards.

[Martin Elster]

LOL Brian! I only said that because I'm Martin the Martian. Here's another.

Night Terrors

Shadows of bombers creep across the plains
like phantoms, the mirror moon turns night to day,
and there’s no time to dash or drive away
from circumstances that will leave bright stains
on the flesh of the fresh craters. How the pains
of trauma will rival the rainbow-flowers of May!
a time of exploration, planting, play,
a time of thunderstorms that bring the rains
which grow the lavish lawns and lengthen leaves
creating the viridescence a season of suns
will bathe in light. Yet as these myriad sheaves
of visions rustle inside your brain, your breath
catches. You hear a scream. A child runs
across a threshold. And you wake from death.

[Jerome Betts]

Martin, far be it from me to plagiarise the work of my co-winner in the 2010 bouts-rimes. I think I'd only had time to skim the board some time ago and had no conscious recollection of your Mars Rover, but possibly an unconscious one.

Fortunately, I haven't submitted this attempt yet and will not now do so as your vehicle obviously reached Mars first.

Yes, not too clear about the mechanics of planet death but I thought desertification was increasing here.

Good luck!

[Nigel Mace]

Actually, folks, it's the folks at The Oldie whose perceptions count - but, just to add to the scrap, my three efforts all used 'May' without meaning the month and my Child's Play was the first to do so with its capitalisation arising from being at the start of a sentence (see post 54 - my God, how on earth have we launched so many posts on such a small basis?).

[Douglas G. Brown]

THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES

The Clampetts drove across the Western plains,
Huge wealth from oil had made these yokels’ day.
From Ozark Mountains, Jed had moved away,
With Granny, (spotted with terbakky stains),
And nephew Jethro, plagued by growing pains,
And shapely tomboy daughter Elly May.

The dining table once saw billiard play;
Their cee-ment pond is filled by summer rains.
The reek of Granny’s vat of lye-soap leaves
Miss Hathaway aghast, while in the suns
Of afternoons she reads her ardent sheaves
Of sonnets to Bodine, in bated breath.

(Nine seasons saw this show have weekly runs,
Until poor ratings brought about its death).

Is this show shown on TV in the UK?

[Chris O'Carroll]

Douglas, that's an incredibly creative approach to the challenge posed by the list of rhymes. I thought for a moment that her name might be spelled "Mae" rather than "May," but I looked it up and found that you had that part right. However the first part should be "Elly," not "Ellie."

Whether that show is known across the pond I can't say, but as a general rule they're more conversant with our pop culture than we are with theirs, God help them.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Originally Posted by Chris O'Carroll

Douglas, that's an incredibly creative approach to the challenge posed by the list of rhymes. I thought for a moment that her name might be spelled "Mae" rather than "May," but I looked it up and found that you had that part right. However the first part should be "Elly," not "Ellie."

Whether that show is known across the pond I can't say, but as a general rule they're more conversant with our pop culture than we are with theirs, God help them.

Chris,

Thanks for your comment. I have fixed the spelling of "Elly". In Lil'Abner, the blonde was Daisy Mae, and I suspect that Al Capp would have gone ballistic if CBS had used that spelling. I only wish I had enough room to include Milburn Drysdale.

My eighth grade English teacher used to say that watching TV would rot my brain. Little did she suspect that that it would enable me to do an overhaul (from the sublime to the ridiculous) on Keats.

Yes, aside from pop music, some movies, BBC shows on our PBS, and murder mystery novels, it does seem that more of American pop culture goes to the UK, than theirs comes to here.

I'm hoping that the Oldie staffers have seen a few episodes of the Hillbillies on the tube.