Tag Archives: farce

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Strawberry Hill Forever

Poets have been writing about love and wine, wine and love, since the time of Anacreon, a Greek poet who was rather partial to that subject matter. Anacreontics might be described as a sort of high-falutin’ drinking song. So, today our prompt was to write about wine-and-love.

Strawberry Hill Forever

So take we rum and take we Coke
and sippy-straws so we don’t choke
on ice and limes within our glasses
and fall dead on our tipsy asses.

Let us to Elysian fields
take our drinks and also meals:
cheese and grapes and shepherd’s pie,
potato chips and ham on rye.

Let us frolic in the lee
without your kids—just you and me.
Spread a blanket and have some fun.
Show ourselves to the morning sun.

If perchance you’d prefer wine,
well, you take yours and I’ll take mine.
I’ve chosen well. I think I will
take some Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill

found in a box of college things:
pennants, books and old class rings.
This dinosaur, screw top intact,
we must imbibe, it is a fact,

to stir libidos and memory
so I might take thee on my knee,
cop a feel of thy lovely ass
and roll thee in the green green grass.

Afterwards, we’ll fill our lips
with sandwiches and pie and chips.
No satyr dined on lovelier fare.
No nymph tasted food more rare.

And when the sun falls in the west,
we’ll cork our wine, pack up our chest
and hurry home. We can’t be late.
Your husband’s getting home at eight.

NaPoWriMo Day 8: Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

Our prompt today is to write a poem based on another famous poem. The poem suggested is this one written by Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly:

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris–and I don’t step aside–
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday,
setting down these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .

This is my version of Vallejo’s self-eulogy:


Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

I will die in Mexico, on a zany day,
on some day when memory fails me.
I will die under the feet of a burro––as I don’t step aside––
perhaps on market day, as today is market day, in a fall.

It will be a market day because today, market day,
buying new shoes, I have put them on
the wrong feet, and never so much as today do I find myself
having problems negotiating all the cobblestones ahead of me, alone.

Remi is dead. That burro walked on her
although she never did anything to him;
he tromped her hard with his hooves and hard also

with his trailing rope. This is what was left:
her shopping bag, the bones of her dignity,
her bolillos, her new huaraches, and the road. . .

(Note:  Remi is my preferred name to be called by friends, although few consent to do so.)