I thought that I would share a sample of my poetry that isn't related to old cars. If people are interested there is quite a bit more.
The first one is about a husband's dilemma when his wife asks him does he like her new haircut - or it could be does he like her new dress - or the wife's dilemma when her husband asks what she thinks of his latest poem. Actually Vivian and I are pretty straight forward and I do have permission to say "no" but possibly not "NO!"
I like to play with different rhyming schemes. This one uses rhyming triplets which is unusual, normally you have rhyming couplets (or quadruplets but they are really two couplets in a row with the same rhyme). It has the effect of making the switch to a new rhyme unexpected and in a way makes the poem seem a bit "jerky". Hopefully that adds to the feeling that the husband, in this instance, is trying to evade the issue.
Darling, Do You Like My New Haircut?
Since it’s a sin to tell a lie
A saying that you oft apply
Then darling can you tell me why ….
You ask me do you like my hair
With a most expectant stare
In answering I must take care ….
Now darling do I have this right
A lie’s OK if coloured white
In which case I think I might ….
Declare that I do love it so
The way the highlights seem to glow
And hope my true thoughts do not show
It seems that if for married bliss
I am forced to lie like this
I wonder what the reason is ….
You ask me this when we both know
That I am forced to respond so
And dare not truly answer, “NO!”
Quite a few of my poems deal with mathematical and / or geometrical themes. Some even teach a little mathematics. This one doesn't do any teaching but I think it's quite amusing in its own way.
Binary
Learning maths was considered cool
When I was young and went to school
A girl who couldn't count to three
Learnt her maths in binary
After all, so she thought
I only need know one and nought
Maths, she said, is much more fun
When it's down to nought and one.
We thought that she would struggle when
We could count a bit past ten
But as our numbers grew and grew
She did it all in powers of two
She said that we really ought
To know that with a little thought
She could write with nought and one
A number more than we had done.
When we reached the century
Too wide her numbers had to be
She simply said (with some pride)
I've turned my maths book on its side
She said it's time that we were taught
To write it out with one and nought
We told her we could write a ton
Using only nought and one!
That girl is sitting next to me
As l type on my PC
I know full well my CPU
Never deals with a two
She always smiles as I'm having fun
My poem stored in nought and one
I know that smile and her thought
That my one rhyme will come to nought.
I guess that my poetic style has been most influenced by AA Milne, Ogden Nash, Hillaire Belloc and the Australian Bush Balladists. Here's alittle tribute to Ogden Nash (that really should be in landscape mode for the proper effect).
Length
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)
I think that you will never see a line that's quite as long as me - If on this linee your eyes don't fall you'll never see this line at all.
I've thankfully never met a cannibal but that doesn't mean I can't write a silly poem about it.
Cannibal 1
I met a cannibal with many wives
He said that he had eight
I said that I could count but seven
He said that he had ate
Cannibal 2
I met a cannibal with yet more wives
He said that he had twenty
I said "Life seems kind to you
‘Cos wives you have aplenty
But what about your fellow men
Of wives they must be short"
"You silly boy - I've eaten them!"
Was the cannibal's retort.
When my daughter was first learning to read and write music she wrote her first ever composition and brought it out to show me. I must have been with the donkey at the time because the donkey grabbed and ate the sheet her tune was written on. That set me to thinking what would have happened had she been showing me her homework. Would the teacher believe a child whose excuse was "the donkey ate my homework!" This is the poem that resulted:
Homework
I was walking past the stable
With my homework in my hand
When the donkey ate my homework
An event I hadn’t planned
Now I don’t like fake excuses
But would the school believe
That our donkey ate my homework
Before it I could retrieve
I tried thinking of excuses
Which believable might sound
But if there really was one
It I never found
So I headed off to school
Determined I should try
To tell the full and honest truth
Rather than a lie
“I was walking past the stable
With my homework in my hand
When the donkey ate my homework
An event I hadn’t planned”
The teacher looked me up and down
As teachers often do
“That story is so crazy
That I guess it might be true”
The other students weren’t so kind
They thought it had been a ruse
And said that they could easily
Better my excuse
The teacher said “Class settle down
Or I’ll keep you back till dark”
And told me I would have to ask
The donkey for my mark
He told the class he was sure
My statement was no gag
And told us all to safely put
Our homework in our bag
I went to chide the donkey
In stall eight one O
How was I to get a mark
I really didn’t know
And then finally hit me
That the number on its pen
Meant that it had given me
Eight marks out of ten
I went and told my teacher
Who said “That sounds fair”
And dragged out his marks book
An eight was written there
NOTE: No animal was injured in the course of writing this poem
In high school we were set an essay task for our English class. I wrote a very short parody of the weird stuff our teacher was all about in a matter of minutes and handed it in expecting to be punished for making fun of him. My desk mate, by way of contrast, spent hours writing a lengthy essay on the set topic. Rather than getting punished I got 20 out of 20 (the best mark I ever got in English) and my poor desk mate got 4 out of 20. That would have been a bit hard to explain in verse so I changed the scenario a bit to being given an assignment to write blank poetry - which generally isn't my thing - and handing in something for which punishment was expected.
Not Blank Verse
The person whom you have to thank
For me writing verse that's blank
Is my teacher who insisted.
(Clearly more than I resisted)
For some reason quite perverse
That I write this style of verse
But it seemed that every time
I wrote a line it tried to rhyme
It also seemed some magic hand
Tried to make sure each line scanned
Whatever type of verse I got
Blank it clearly just was not
Every day my friends would ask
"Have you done our homework task"
And if I had could they see
A sample of my poetry
And if not what did I suppose
Set blank verse apart from prose
I told them that I had no clue
As to what I planned to do
Every night I tried to start
Blank verse was an elusive art
But then a chance discovery
My keyboard has a blank key
I guessed that if I could compose
A poem made up just of those
Whatever else it may be
It's blankness was a certainty
And so I sweated night and day
To write a poem just that way
At school I waited patiently
For it to be returned to me
The teacher had made a remark
"I found your poem hard to mark"
Which I always thought they might
Because I'd found it hard to write.
She gave me nine out of ten
And a brand new fountain pen
Plus a bottle of black ink
And when I had a chance to think
My lucky star I sure did thank
She didn’t class it as a prank.
My brother must, to some extent at least, be "tarred with the same brush". In one of his early school exercise books there's a story written in fairly heavy pencil at the end of which the teacher commented "Don't write so heavily". The next few pages appear to be blank but, if you look very, very carefully there is the faintest of pencil writing!
My daughter was at a dinner (pre COVID-19 days) and one of the party left early without leaving any money to cover their share of the bill and apparently its a bit of a habit of theirs. That gave me the basic idea for the following poem but I changed it to the classic Aussie "shout" system. It was also nice to use an AACBBC rhyming scheme.
Its Your Shout Mate
You know how things are
When you go to a bar
And join with your mates in a shout
But there's always one bloke
Who thinks it a joke
When its his turn to wriggle out
He thinks that its funny
To head off to the dunny
When it’s clear that his turn is approaching
He offers no redress
And's devoid of distress
Despite your repeated reproaching
One tried to pre-empt me
Stating his glass was empty
I said “No its just full of air”
And was quick to point out
It was his turn to shout
Mate the bar its just over there
And then just as I feared
As his next shout time neared
He with all haste had to leave
And his sudden decision
Deserves the derision
Of those whom he fails to deceive
I normally avoid politics. This poem takes no political side although it does happen to reference Bob Hawke's reference to eliminating children living in poverty in Australia. I rather like the juxtaposition of a prose like opening with conventional verse at the end.
Politics or Lies Damned Lies and Statistics
At school my teacher told us that half of all men are bald
So l was wondering, Daddy, which half of you is bald?
On the radio the announcer said that l in 4 people suffer from some form of mental illness
Mummy's normal, my little sister is normal (to a point) and I know that I'm normal
So l was wondering, Daddy, what mental illness ails you?
On the television the Prime Minister said that within five years no child will live in poverty
But that can't possibly be true, can it Daddy?
So I was wondering, Daddy, how could he possibly say such a thing?
It seems to me this lack of truth
Can't be blamed on a statistic
There never was a chance for this
Even being optimistic
It's not even a white lie
Such as you or I might tell
When telling a friend of ours
Their new haircut sure looks swell
They don't admit they're lying
Or that they're playing tricks
They simply redefine it as
Outstanding politics!
And even though we get to vote
Of one thing we are sure
The candidate who wins this time
Will lie like the one before.