Tag Archives: parody

Mending Pants (With apologies to Robert Frost)

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I once again didn’t feel an affinity for today’s prompt, but a friend had suggested that I try this week’s Poets & Writers poetry prompt, so I did it instead.  What follows is a familiar poem by Robert Frost entitled “Mending Wall” and then my parody of it entitled “Mending Pants.”  I hope that I am interpreting that grimace on your face as a smile, and if so, I can link my poem to the Daily Post prompt as well, thereby mending two fences with one stone!!!

Mending Wall   (by Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Mending Pants (With apologies to Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love a fast,
That sends a frozen pizza to waylay it,
And spills the diner’s flesh out towards the sun;
And makes gaps in his pants legs where two balls can pass abreast.
Those forks of custard are another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left him with new stone on stone*
Until his flesh again peeps by habit out of hiding
To tease the helping girls. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor lady know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to mend his pants
And set him down between us once again.
We keep him there between us as we sew,
To each the breaches that have fallen to each.
Some near his buns and some so near his balls
We have to fuse him well to make them balance:
“Stay where you are, until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One ball on a side. It comes to little more:
She has your pine staff and I your apple, Richard.
Your apple, free, will never get across
And be misplaced to crowd its twin, I tell him.
He only says, “Good pants repairs make good neighbors.”
Frisky with springtime, I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are actually balls? But here there appear to be no balls.
Before I mend thy pants, I’d like to know
What I was panting in or panting out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love tight pants,
That wants them torn! I could shout “Elvis” to him,
But he’s not exactly Elvis, and I’d rather
He saw it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing his stones grasped firmly at the top
In each hand, like an old stoned savage armed.
He moves in discomfort, as it seems to me,
His balls lonely and his blade not yet set free.
He will not go far before his pants start splaying,
Yet he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good pants repairs make good neighbors.”

*a stone is a British unit of measure equal to 14 pounds.

(Wish I could have printed these out side-by-side so the parody is clearer.  If you are really a purist, perhaps you’ll do so to enjoy the parallels.)

Okay.. I’ve come back from the future to do a side-by-side version:

Daily Post: “Lined-up Blues”

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“Lined Up Blues”

(to be sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”)

Dashing through the flow,
barefooted as I go,
I stand and pine
in the security line,
emptying pockets way too slow.

Put my laptop in a bin
and my 3 oz. bottles in
a little bag,
but I can’t lag
‘case my purse and all my dough

has preceded me through the screen
and the TSA’s look mean.
I’m afraid that lady
who looks so shady
will take my purse and go.

(refrain;)

Oooooh, airport lines,
security whines,
waiting all the day.
I’ll flunk my scan
and the X-ray man
will frisk me all the wa-ay.

Airport blues,
got no shoes,
some man just took my rings.
I’ll lose my seat,
get athlete’s feet,
but lose my other things.

I guess it is the norm
my privacy to storm,
to strip me down
and frown and frown
as they survey my form.

I just spent all my dough
to come from Mexico
to see my kin
and then drop in
to see my favorite beau.

But first I’ll have to ride,
a center seat to abide
and airplane woes
like too-small rows
with no space left inside.

(refrain)

Ohhhhh, Airport blues,
travel dues,
no time to complain.
I grab my stuff
half in the buff
and run to catch my pla-ane.

Airport lines,
security whines,
I fear I’ll rue the day.
‘cause I have to face
this same disgrace
when I reach the U.S.A.!!!!

 

The Prompt: You’re at the airport, your flight is delayed for six more hours, and none of your electronic devices is working. How do you pass the time?

Blogger’s note:  Actually, I wrote a less tongue-in-cheek piece about this topic a few weeks ago. Here’s a link to that blog post: The Atlanta Airport

NaPoWriMo Day 26: Pied Beauty II

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Pied Beauty II

Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced— place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?

All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.

—Judy Dykstra-Brown

Our prompt today was to write a curtal sonnet in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ famous poem “Pied Beauty”. This form consists of a first stanza of six lines followed by a second stanza of five, closing with a half-line. The rhyme scheme is abcabc defdf. I chose to make it a parody of Pied Beauty as well.

And now, the original:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

NaPoWriMo Day 21: A New York Sorta Poem

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Today’s prompt was to write a “New York School” poem using the recipe found here. The New York School is the name by which a group of poets that all lived in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The most well-known members are Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Their poems are actually very different from one another, but many “New York School” poems display a sort of conversational tone, references to friends and to places in and around New York, humor, inclusion of pop culture, and a sense of the importance of art (visual, poetic, and otherwise). Here’s a fairly representative example.

In following the recipe, you can include as many (or as few) of the listed elements as you wish.

(I suggest you click on the hyperlinks above to better understand the poem below—unless you are such a scholar of poetry that you already know what a New York poem is.)

A New York Sorta Poem

Okay, Dear Readers.
Linda Crosfield and Ogginblog and InfiniteZip
and all you poets and internet marketers
out in Cyberspace who deign to visit
my humble blog,
I am lying abed in San Juan Cosala,
Mexico. It is a fresh day and
thermal water spurts and sputters
into my pool.
This is not fucking New York
but neither is it fucking small town South Dakota,
population 700 and more people than trees.
(Pardon me, okcforgottenman, RepoComedy and Brian Marggraf,
since I have grown dependent on these daily prompts,
I am a prisoner to profanity this day, as it
is a vital ingredient of the recipe.)

It is Monday, April 21, 2014—my thirteenth year
in this same house on a mountain
over a dying lake.
Now, I want to ask you, Ann Garcia
and Patti A. and Shawn L. Bird,
have I ever told you about the day
my neighbors streamed down from the hill
to dance on the dome of my house?
Neighbors had complained about children
who had climbed over the wall and walked
up the outside steps to the upstairs patio and then
run up the dome to jump and stomp.
When they ran home to complain to parents,
the parents came, and older brothers and sisters
and an uncle, and in solidarity, they all climbed over the wall
to ascend the dome and dance and stomp and jump up and down,
but the bricks held and the dome did not suffer
as they faced off the neighbor and danced.
This was before I bought the house, when it was
sitting idle, but it was part of my house’s history
that it lived before it began to live my life.

Those children now grown and departed,
only my dog, Frida the Akita, rests or stands barking on that dome
so that she has grown in fame among passersby and
I have become the owner of the “dome dog”
more famous than me, like having a notorious
older brother or sister, I am more a part of her
identity than she mine.
But I digress (with a fine excuse for doing so—part of the
recipe) and would get back to the point
if there were a point other than using
profanity and giving numerous references
to this place as far from New York City as one could get.
(Actually, that in itself is not precisely true. Antarctica
is further away, and probably Katmandu.)
Which is a big coincidence, since the message
that just popped up on my screen is from my friend
Patty, who worked in Antarctica, and so is an authority
on the subject of being far from New York City, but being
born in Wyoming, was an expert on this subject anyway,
from birth. (And coincidentally, again, today is her birthday,
so I wish I could send her a giant macaroon like the ones
we bought at the beach in La Manzanilla just a few weeks ago.)

So dear reader, Brian Moore or Kavalcade Krew,
had you ever heard of New York Poetry and if not,
have you made any sense of what I’ve written so far?
One hour ago, I was sleeping and I, too, had never heard
of this curious genre. Two days ago I awakened
to an earthquake’s vibrations and then today,
I find this weird recipe for poetry awaiting me as a prompt
and I do not know which has been more the more discombobulating of the two.
And dear readers, Lena or eyewillnot cry,
Are you old enough to have heard of Glen Yarbrough
and if you have, would you be surprised to hear
he rearranged my sound system and offered to record
the musical versions of my poetry to include with my book
and would have done so if they hadn’t messed up his
vocal cords in surgery? This is the only famous person
I’ve met in Mexico, except for Barbara Kingsolver
who wrote me a letter in green ink.
Or perhaps I am imagining the color of the ink. I have
that letter somewhere, buried in a file or a pile.

Pop culture I may have to leave out of my poem,
unless you will accept my mention of my poetry group,
The Not Yet Dead Poets. We have three Pops and two
Moms in the group which makes us sound more like
a singing group from the seventies. And in not being
dead, we sing of life. Or I could mention the poetry wall
near the malecón in the pueblo down below. With poetry
all in espanol (which isn’t capitalized in Spanish),
I think I should add a short poem or two in English
(which isn’t capitalized in Spanish, either, so pardon me for inconsistency)
to declare solidarity with Mario Puglisi or Isidro or Eduardo
or any of the other fine artists and poets of San Juan Cosala
who have welcomed me and included me in their shows
for which I am grateful as it makes me just a tad less gringa
and a bit more cabrona, which they assure me is not a
derisive label when spoken in the correct context and tone of voice.

So, robert okaji, fine poet, and Andrea Giang of Cooking with a Wallflower,
are you following this prompt
and, if so, is your poem getting to be as long as mine? I have
this feeling that the real New York poets didn’t have a recipe
to follow and that their poetry was more like discovering
leftovers in the fridge and making whatever they could,
spontaneously.

I feel this poem coming to an end
before all ingredients are added to the brew,
but since there is a tad more room left in my poetry bowl,
I would like to dedicate this puzzling poem
to Robert Creeley, Ron Padgett and Dorothea Lasky;
and to Thom Donovan I say,
“Like most renowned chefs, I imagine you have left one vital ingredient
out of your recipe that you may shine above your imitators
and be the only one able to create a perfect dish.
And so I lay the oddness of this poem and it’s probable failure to congeal,
at your feet, and in doing so, say it’s not my fault.
I followed what instructions you gave.
Perhaps the fault was in the mixing of my metaphors
or my obvious lack of sexual innuendo.
My failure to mention genitals or body parts
or to make drug references, legal or illegal.
Believe me, all of these elements are present in Mexico,
sometimes to an extreme degree, but that being true,
I would state the obvious in mentioning them,
and so I think I’ll pour this conglomeration
into a pan and put it on WordPress and Facebook and Twitter
to bake and then wait to see if it will rise.”

If you have made it this far, please tell me how it
tastes and take a chunk extra to wrap in a napkin
and put under your pillow tonight and perhaps
if I’ve done the recipe right, it will attract a real poem
which you will dream and remember afterwards
and bring into the world.

NaPoWriMo Day 19: Shell Game

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Our prompt today was to take a look at a list of actual sea shell names and to use one or more of them to write a poem inspired by one or more of the names. This is the list of shell names:

 Snout Otter Clam, Strawberry Top, Sparse Dove, False Cup-and-Saucer, Leather Donax, Shuttlecock Volva,  Tricolor Niso, Triangular Nutmeg, Shoulderblade Sea Cat, Striped Engina, Woody Canoebubble, Ghastly Miter, Heavy Bonnet,Tuberculate Emarginula, Lazarus Jewel Box, Unequal Bittersweet, Atlantic Turkey Wig,Peruvian Hat, Incised Moon.

And of course, I had to do more than one.

Shell Game

The Snout Otter Clam
is considered quite glam
with its nose like a stoat
and it’s soggy fur coat.

A Strawberry Top
has a very fine mop,
but when you want to eat it
you need to delete it.

What’s that in your paw sir?
A False Cup-and-Saucer?
I grant it’s amusing
but not made for using.

The Sparse Dove’s so small
you can’t see it at all,
but its bill and its coo
will reveal it to you.

This Shoulderblade Sea Cat
could catch us that mouse
if his shoulders would fit
through the door of our house.

Triangular Nutmeg? A most handy spice
with remarkable flavor and shape that is nice
for additional reasons
than savory seasons.
It won’t roll from the table,
for it is not able.

The Shuttlecock Volva’s
reputation is shot
for a stay-at-home lover
it surely is not.
It goes back and forth
from love three to love four
‘Tis Country Club gossip
amounting to lore.

and now, for the grand finale:

“The” Ride

Dad bought me a Tricolor Niso
though I wanted a Porsche that’s black.
I didn’t know he could be so
gauche and just one of the pack.

The car’s top was green houndstooth vinyl.
It’s body was fuchsia and yellow.
My first ride in it was my final,
for I was a fashionable fellow.

I couldn’t be seen in this auto
lest my reputation be shot
I must explain that my motto
was always that “cool” could be bought.

The dashboard was made of puce plastic
the seats were all tufted and piped.
but what turned me finally spastic
was that the Engina was Striped!!!!

I crashed down the hood and I shouted,
“I cannot be seen in this car!”
Each rule of “sexy” it flouted.
This auto was waaaaay under par.

I sold it and purchased another
that’s top of its line, so they say
and though drive a Porche I’d druther,
I had to go another way.

From now on I’ll avoid all the highways
and go by the water instead.
Take all the rivers and byways
and follow my heart, not my head.

For I traded that abomination
for a top-of-the line that can float.
And the name of this lovely creation—
is the Woody Canoebubble boat!!!

 

NaPoWriMo Day 12: Love on the Fast Track

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Love on the Fast Track

Love is a vehicle
powered by internal combustion
and able to carry only
a small number of people.
“We’re going by love,”
you can say, as they
hop aboard.

Even with no love
of your own,
you can now lease
some of the industry’s
best-selling love
for the equivalent
of a daily fast-food fix.

Easy-to-use online tools
put you a step ahead
in finding your next love.
At Loves.com,
you can search 2.6 million
new & used love listings
to get a dealer quote
or use an advanced search‎
to compare loves side-by-side.

Mexico Love Rental
offers cheap deals
at six rent-a-love agencies,
so save on affordable rent-a-love
when you book online today.

Our new love reviews
and love buying resources
are designed to help you
make informed decisions
when buying your next love.
See love reviews
for new loves
for 2014 and 2015
at loveanddriver.com.

Love is its own special universe
of design and engineering.
Learn how it works at
love.howstuffworks.com,

or if you have no interest
in the scientific side of love,
lovetown.com offers content
never before seen in the field
of love games.

Today’s prompt was to pick both a common concrete noun and a noun for something intangible, then to Google the tangible noun to find some sentences using it and to replace that tangible noun in those sentences with the intangible noun, then to use those sentences to create (or inspire) a poem. My least favorite prompt ever. This was the result. Now, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UWRypqz5-o#aid=P5UNMPDu_YA

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Strawberry Hill Forever

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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

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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.)