A Friendly Poke

Just a reminder that the Poetry Competition has but a few more days to run, it will of course be extended indefinitely, until some contribution from the female side is received.
By way of encouragement I offer this little piece from a local paper. When I read It I thought of Bearsy who has favored this form in the past, I have a hard time with the sonnet, something about counting in fives.

Gene Weingarten writes for the Washington Post, his column a few weeks back was the latest in a series labelled “Bad Poetry” initiating a new genre “Pokes” a merger of poetry and jokes.

“The Camel”
in the style of an English heroic sonnet

An officer takes up his new command:
A desert outpost, lonely and austere.
He asks the sergeant how the men can stand
To be so long without a woman near.
The sergeant shyly shows his commandant
A tied-up female camel in a shed.
Whene’er the men are paralyzed by want,
They make good use of her, the sergeant said.
While horrified, the captain did not speak.
His feelings, though, were of extreme unease.
But after months he, too, was feeling weak
And very much in need of some release.
He found it in the way he’d so condemned;
But this the sergeant spied — the deed, unmasked!
Embarrassed now, the captain hawed and hemmed —
“That’s how the soldiers do it, then?” he asked.
“It’s not,” the sergeant said with measured frown —
“The soldiers ride the camel into town.”

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Author: Low Wattage

Expat Welshman, educated (somewhat) in UK, left before it became fashionable to do so. Now a U.S. Citizen, and recent widower, playing with retirement and house remodeling, living in Delaware and rural Maryland (weekends).

10 thoughts on “A Friendly Poke”

  1. JW, the sonnet trundles along with five te-tums on each line, rhyming where it will. Imagine on old-time train ride.

  2. Janus: JW is that other tall chap. 🙂 I’ve tried believe me, I do like the way they sound but cannot stay within the form for more than a few lines, my binary background no doubt.

  3. Agh.

    Thanks for the reminder, LW. I’m now feeling guilty.

    My muse is buried, sinking even, under all sorts of irrelevant minutiae. Note to self : get a grip and get creative.

  4. A Good New Year to you, LW.

    In the first paragraph of your post, you state that the deadline will be extended ‘ ,……. until some contribution is received from the female side’.

    Does this mean that Pseu, who posted her entry on 12th December, is not of the female persuasion? Startling news indeed!

    I wonder if anybody has told Pseu or her husband and children yet?

  5. An eighteen-line poem is not a sonnet, whatever some Yank says, Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding. As for being an “English heroic” form, the guy’s dreaming. 😆

  6. Mr Mackie, Pseu: My apologies, from the exchange I had drawn the conclusion that said pome was not an entry due to its prior appearance hereon. If Pseu wishes it to be considered I will of course be happy to include it and declare the closing date final.

    Bearsy: Attention spans are short here, I am surprised it was not classed as an epic. 🙂

  7. Smarting with no triple crown
    our creek dweller decides to leave town
    disguises his boat
    with white sheets and a coat
    sailing off for some time on his own.
    ! 🙄

  9. Low Wattage :

    Janus: JW is that other tall chap. :) I’ve tried believe me, I do like the way they sound but cannot stay within the form for more than a few lines, my binary background no doubt.

    Sorry, Low! A slip of the digit.

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