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Monday 20 March 2017

Two Poems! And One Of Them Is Mine!

Actually, three poems. Technically speaking. But, still, only one of them is mine :)

It's Poetry Monday! Started by Diane at On the Alberta/Montana Border; picked up by Delores at Mumblings. Join in, or just read, or just skip - your choice, as always!

First of all, my inspiration poem, by American writer Gelett Burgess, with the original title of ...

The Purple Cow's Projected Feast/Reflections on a Mythic Beast/Who's Quite Remarkable At Least

... but more commonly known as ...

Purple Cow

I've never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.


Sound familiar?


Now, according to Wikipedia, Mr. Burgess was less than pleased with his poem as time went by. It was widely quoted, often without giving him proper credit; it became his best known work, and he eventually resented it. Whereupon he wrote another poem called ...

Confession: and a Portrait, Too, Upon a Background that I Rue 

Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow" --
I'm sorry, now, I wrote it;
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it!


Now, I've been having a bit of trouble coming up with a poem for today's post. I wrote one in free verse, but it was long and kind of depressing, and I'm saving it for a soggy grey day when the news is bad and we are all about to weep into our soup to start with. A public service, if you will, to help everybody have a good cathartic cry.

In its place, I set about to try to write some rhyming poetry. The only success I've ever had with rhymes in the past has been when lines just pop into my head -- it's like a crack of lightening, only less painful. To sit down on purpose and try to compose something with the proper rhyme and meter is quite difficult. (For me. I'm not sure how hard it is for Diane, because she produces them regularly, as if by magic.)

You may have heard the saying "The perfect is the enemy of the good." In the spirit of "good" rather than "perfect," I offer these mushrooms from my soul. They are not 100%, but they're 75%, and y'all are welcome to leave only 75% of a comment (if you choose to leave any at all).

HUGE apologies to Mr. Burgess.

 My Rhymes Don't Work/I'm Going Berserk

I've never written rhyming verse.
With every line the chore gets worse.
Lines One through Three I can coerce --
It's Line Four that messes everything up.

I wonder how the scribes of yore
Found just the words they needed, for
They never seemed to be word-poor,
Unlike me, who has to Google "rhymes with" in order to come up with anything.

They must have had so many words
Flitting in their heads like birds.
Today we'd call them rhyming nerds
Or maybe rhyming ninjas, and it would definitely be a compliment.

When all is said and done, I say
A poet's work is hard -- but, hey!
I'm not a poet anyway,
Which is painfully, obviously, irrefutably, and undeniably clear.

 ****

Tha-tha-that's all, folks! Hope you have an excellent week :)



Pixabay, how I love your pictures. Although, this is more a lavender cow than a purple cow. But it will do.

39 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Big smiles.
I can only write blank verse. No rhyming. And I can remember submitting a prose poem to a writing challenge and having one of the judges not recognise it as a poem.
Sometimes in comments I can produce rhymes - when it happens all of an accident.

LL Cool Joe said...

I'm sorry to sound so basic but that lavender cow looks like he's doing a massive fart and winking about it. And that doesn't rhyme either.

Martha said...

HAHAHA...this was fun to read! Rhyming poetry is pretty tough to do. Have a great week ahead.

Joanne Noragon said...

Recently Laura had to write a poem for her English class. She was not pleased.

Red said...

You had fun with this poem and I enjoyed the toying around with the form.

Steve Reed said...

I like your poetic wit! I had no idea that any specific person "wrote" purple cow. It just seems like one of those things that's always been around. A folk verse, if you will.

37paddington said...

Well, I love your poem 100%! Bravo! The rhymes are sure and it has a sense of humor too. You brought a smile to my face this morning.

only slightly confused said...

That was fun...and I know what you mean about rhyming verse....I find it terrifically hard unless, as you said, lightning strikes. Ouch.

Jono said...

The last one made me LOL. It really did.

jenny_o said...

Accidental rhyming, yes! Quite familiar :)

It's sad that a writing judge would not recognize a blank verse poem when he/she saw it. Well done for entering the challenge.

Have you thought about joining us on Mondays? (after you recover from the last bit)

jenny_o said...

I hadn't thought about that, but you're right, and now I can't NOT think about it! Bonus points for Joey for writing free verse without intending to :)

jenny_o said...

It actually surprised me how much trouble I had with it :)

jenny_o said...

I can understand that completely.

jenny_o said...

Hey, when I can't do it right, I try to at least have a good time :)

jenny_o said...

Yeah, I was surprised to find that out too. And felt sorry for Mr. Burgess that it was often not attributed to him! It's just so darn catchy.

jenny_o said...

Smiles are good - thanks, Angella :)

jenny_o said...

I don't know, Delores - you seem to come up with more rhymes, statistically speaking, than can be accounted for randomly ...

jenny_o said...

LOLs are good, except - wait, did you just LOL at my lack of talent? lol

Elephant's Child said...

As I said to the judge, it said more about my poem than it did about the quality of her judging. I have considered joining you three. But not yet.

jenny_o said...

You may have been too generous with the judge :)

Take your time, but I would love to read your poetry.

e said...

LOL here, too and alas, because of that, I must use the loo!

Diane Stringam Tolley said...

Oh, my goodness! That is wonderful! One of the most fun things I've read in FOREVER!!! Read it out loud. It's absolutely hilarious!

dinthebeast said...

Rhyming is hard, and often not worth it. I used to try and make my song lyrics rhyme, but sort of left that aside as I found I could only really write songs all at once, and no matter how hard I tried to make the lyrics work by themselves, I just wasn't very good at putting music to them afterward. That's how I ended up with a bunch of "poetry" in my journals...

-Doug in Oakland

Diane Henders said...

Bahahaha!!! (Three exclamation marks.) Brilliant! You gave me my best laugh of the day. :-D

Janie Junebug said...

Your poem is cute. Poor Mr. Burgess and his purple cow. Martha sent me!

Love,
Janie

jenny_o said...

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I think you made a rhyme there, e!

jenny_o said...

I'm so glad you got a laugh, Diane! And thank you :)

jenny_o said...

It seems to me that putting words to music just adds another layer of difficulty to a rhyming poem. I wrote a four line "song" with rhyming lyrics when I was about ten years old. That was my one and only inspiration, music-wise :) You're welcome to post more of your poems here on Poetry Monday; anyone can, but especially those who don't have a blog of their own. I'd like to read them if you feel like sharing them.

jenny_o said...

Oh, good!!! Partial repayment for all the laughs you've given me on your blog!

jenny_o said...

Thanks for reading, Janie! I feel badly for Mr. Burgess, too :)

Geo. said...

I delight in your poems! I too tend to abandon meter because it gets too ponderously awkward the way I go about it, but that's the fun of poetry. As to Gelett Burgess, I just unshelved my 1907 Bobbs-Merrill 1st edition of "The Heart Line (a drama of San Franciso}" to see what it's going for --ebay has it up for $9.77. Another insult to Burgess, and the fine illustrations of Lester Ralph. I'm keeping it!

e said...

Indeed...

jenny_o said...

I am in awe of your poems, Geo., and wish I could produce even one like them. I'll keep trying, but it's not boding well that today's effort is the kind of thing that I come up with!

Old books are treasures. Just to think that they were printed and held in someone's hand that many years ago - it's a bit like old photos to me - fascinating.

Chickens Consigliere said...

That's not just a poem, my friend, that's a stand up routine. I adore those fourth lines.

jenny_o said...

Thank you, Chicken :) I had a lot of fun with this one.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

I enjoyed your quirky poem. Very original and honest too. As the comments above prove, it connects effectively with others. Well done Jenny!

jenny_o said...

Thanks, YP - I was quite surprised how well it was received, for a piece of fluff :)

Nancy said...

Thanks for the chuckle, I enjoyed your rhyme, and each rather jarring fourth line.

jenny_o said...

Ha ha! Nicely done :) Thanks for commenting!