Monday, October 15, 2018

Monday's Poetry: The Accidental Haikuist

by Pa Rock
Tormented Versifier

Last Thursday evening as I was surfing through Twitter and thinking about heading to bed, I came across this quote from an internet news site relating to the Kavanaugh affair:

"Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is asking federal judges outside the beltway to investigate complaints over statements made by now - justice - Brett Kavanaugh during his contentious nomination."
Still feeling somewhat embittered by the sordid Kavanaugh business, and smelling another cover-up in the making, I posted this snide tweet in reply:

"Break out the shovels.  Republicans have some more burying to do."
The next morning a tweeter named "Haiku D2" reposted my tweet in haiku form:

"Break out the shovels
Republicans have some more
Burying to do."

It turns out this "Haiku D2" person scours the internet looking for accidental haikus, and somehow he or she came across my lines while I slept peacefully in the Ozarks, totally unaware of my poetic talents.

Well, that's a lie, I guess, because I have tried my hand at a few assorted rhyme schemes and even free verse before - almost all of which have been roundly ignored by almost everyone.  I began this blog on November 4, 2007, with one intent being to use it as a repository for a desk drawer full of old writing scraps - including a few tortured efforts at poetry.   I had gone through a phase in college where I played around with the sonnet form, and some of my original early fourteen-liners made it into the early days of The Ramble.  

I also had a rhyming story that I had created about a little boy who used a bad word at school and was sent to the principal's office.  When the boy's mother arrived, she shocked everyone by using the same naughty word.  That poem, a sentimental favorite of mine, was called "We Don't Talk that Way in Tulsa," and it ran on The Ramble's ninth day of publication - November 13, 2007.  It would make a great basis for a children's book if any illustrators are out there looking for a project.

My favorite personal poetry effort came about in early 2011 while some American friends and I were spending a holiday on the small Japanese island of Yoron just north of Okinawa.   We stayed up late playing Yahtzee and talking until a typhoon that was coming ashore killed the electricity.  I went back to my room, and by candlelight - and with a backdrop of howling winds - began composing a story, in verse, about a fictional pair of murders in a French resort setting.  That effort was called "My Poor Yvette Is Dead," and it ran in The Ramble on the 13th of February 2012.

And now, to demonstrate my continuing poetic prowess, here is a lusty little limerick that I recently put to paper:

Lancelot's Lament
by Pa Rock

"A rogue by the name of Lancelot
Strummed his lyre and did dance a lot
Til the Queen took his measure
And commanded he pleasure
Her Highness by dropping his pants a lot."

I blush at my own talent!

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