In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Snark Bombs, Away!” Try your hand at parody or satire — take an article, film, blog post, or song you find misguided, and use humor to show us how.
I must warn that my parody of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” is a bit risque, so if you are offended by a mildly off-color parody, please skip this one. If you are intrigued, however, go HERE.
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:
Our prompt today was to write a poem advertising poetry. The third one is not quite an ad, but it has the cadence.
Neo Burma-Shave Ads
Make your words
both scan and rhyme.
Writing poetry’s
not a crime!
Get a seed of thought
and sow it.
Once it grows,
you’ll be a poet!
Robert Frost at the Movies
Robert’s poems
scanned and rhymed.
His meter? Even
and well-timed.
Yet when he tripped
on slippery tile
and dropped his
poems in a pile,
the usher hissed
in tones most vile
to get his “feet”
out of the aisle!
For our fifth prompt, we were asked to take a famous poem and use each word, in sequence, as a last word in each of our lines. I chose “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Here is my poem:
Dateless Saturday Night
How she worries the
puzzle of her 16 years, her face an apparition
in the mirror of
her window. These
nights with no other faces
in them, no other voices in
them. She sits alone, apart from the
cool crowd,
plucking her own petals,
“He loves me. He loves me not” playing on
her radio, a
hand holding one more piece that doesn’t fit, wet
with her dew, the whole world black
grackles on a leafless bough.
-0-
That was so fun, I did another, this one based on Robert Frost’s “Devotion.”
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean–
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
Here is my second poem:
The
Changing “a” to “the”
is something the heart
will not do before it can.
It is not a matter of what we think,
but rather of
how we must. No
“should” can prompt devotion.
Nothing in our small lives is greater
than loving, than
being
loved. In our pursuit of it, we search for the shore
we were born to drift to,
swell towards the
home the ocean
of our being wants for us, holding
our happiness in the
breaker’s last curve.
What we are made of
is this becoming one––
curling from our lonely position
toward our safe harbor, counting
our failures shore after shore with an
aching to find the one. This seeking? It is endless,
and makes our world in its repetition.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 