The sestina is a fixed form of writing that resembles a poem and feels like a ride on the teacups. The sestina is 6 stanzas of 6 lines, each line ending with one of 6 words that repeat but change position in each stanza. The sestina ends with an envoy of 3 lines, each line embedding 2 of the 6 line ending words. Beyond that, we make no claims on Sestina, and hope that she makes none on us.
Note: As of June 12, 2012, new sestinas are being published randomly as posts on the home page of the Toads blog, and they are indexed by title and link below. Sestinas I wrote for the now defunct Sestina blog/site are pasted under the new index below, but I’m currently (Dec. 2011) moving them into the blog as posts, after which this page will be used as index to the sestinas:
Sestinas in The Coming of the Toads blog are written by Joe Linker, and the blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The Coming of the Toads blog is Copyright 2007-2012, Joe Linker.
New sestinas linked to home page:
Didi and Gogo Feted with Lifetime Achievement Award
Peccadilloes; or, The School of No Sestina
Whiteout on the Whiteboard in Winter
For older sestinas, see below.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
A Valentine for Sestina
If you were a baseball, baby,
I’d be a catcher’s mitt for you.
If you were a bird, baby,
I’d be a tree branch for you.
If you were a river, baby,
I’d be the ocean for you.
I’ll be the bell for your
streetcar, baby.
And for your guitar, baby,
I’m the bass strings for you.
I’d be a newspaper for you
if you were a puppy, baby.
If you were a forest, baby,
I’d be Puck for you.
I’ll be the dictionary for your
alphabet, baby.
I’d be a bottle of milk for you
if you were my baby,
baby.
If you were a church, baby,
I’d be a pew for you.
I’d wander the merry night for you
if you were a star, baby.
If we were down on the bayou,
I’d pole the pirogue for you,
baby.
If I were a cabby, baby,
I’d drive us to the abbey,
and with some ring joyously
I’d propose to be your
buoy.
And when our youthfulness
we’ve passed on to the youngsters,
you’ll still be my baby, baby,
and maybe, baby,
I’ll still be your baby.
Now this youthful vow to you,
baby, like the coupon for roses stuck to your icebox,
is only good for today, baby: Happy Valentine’s Day, baby!
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
This is just to say (sestina on a theme by William Carlos Williams)
not only have I eaten your plums,
but I’m wearing your robe, gadgets and torts in hand,
sleeping in your bed, using your words -
played your guitar and brushed your snare;
in short, I’ve thrown a party,
wishing you were here.
I’ve heard you’re now hard of hearing,
but across the sea I skip, spitting out the plum
pits, a bird flown the party,
so your bid to play your hand
too late snaps that snare
to win back your words,
words that flicker like bats – dark, silent words.
Listen carefully or you won’t hear
the tapping of the snare,
brushes held loosely in the palms,
a swooshing of the hands
at a sport celebration party
among squishy plums, bees dancing, a fussparty.
Recall our parting words,
the torturous silence our hands
played upon our ears,
falling then the plums,
the fermenting plums like rusting snares.
I did not by sorry mean to snare
and sneak away from the party.
About your plums,
I don’t want another word;
My ears grow weary of plum this and plum that; look here,
let’s part friends; here, shake my hand.
The raccoons are here, playing hands
of gin rummy on the snare,
too late for us to go there.
Even the verbs weary of partying.
The house is empty of words,
and empty too, yes, of me and your plums.
So here outstretched my empty hands,
for plums that will not stare nor snare,
for what’s a party without words?
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
The Alphabet Bowl
Quarterback A for the Vowels
attempts pass short to flanking E
but that Consonant defensive line
followed by blitzing backs C and S rushing
over center and A jammed
again.
And again no gain
as a time-out is called by the Vowels
the Consonants successfully articulating the jam
fricative defense as now the Vowels blow E
nasal through a huge whole rushing
all the way down to the 15 yard line!
But a flag down back at the scrimmage line
but that tongue formation seems to be working again
for the Vowels E now rushing
for a total of 90 yards setting a new Vowel
record for yards rushed by an E
against this radical Consonant defense jam.
Consonant defense clicking and jamming
now up against the scrimmage line
ingressive linebackers closing in on E
swishing around the corners again
labials and fricatives tongue-whipping this vowel
tooth splitting offensive friction rush.
The Consonants have stopped this Vowel rush
spurting gaps to complete the jam
the ball now deep in Vowel
territory and the implosive Consonant line
flaps as one tongue again
stopping the sore and tired E.
The Vowels continue stuttering with no resolution E
held to the 90 yards rushing
the Consonants lining up for a blitz again
and A drops back in the pocket away from the jam
looking deep past the line
for O long past M deep and touchdown Vowels!
A sent U then I again blowing inside ahead of E then
a great Vowel shift in this game from rushing to the pass
moving in the air over a jammed Consonant line for the score.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Hootenanny
A gut bucket thumps with a thingamajig,
a washboard ranting, while a flumadiddle fiddle
stirs up a zealous fuss;
then a banjo jumps in with a galvanized stare:
skiffle on down to the sock hop hootenanny,
a rooty toot toot for your stopped up head.
Green tape holds their curls to their foreheads,
The Travelling Trio warming up their doodads,
spending the rent money on a hootenanny,
a skiffle band called Bosses of the Plains, with five fiddles,
all with umpire stares.
Jazz never suggested such a fuss.
A fusion of muss and fuss
stands the crowd on its singing head:
“Oh, my starling; oh, my starling; oh, my star-ling
whatchamacallum,
Themistocles could not fiddle
so he ran the hootenanny.”
The first 500 ticket holders into the hootenanny
will receive a bobble head doll of Guitar Fuss.
Come one, come all, and hear the giant fiddler
with the tiny head
(this is no mere gimmick)
play scales up and down heaven’s stairs.
The crowd at a hoedown need not stare,
for everyone is a star at a hootenanny;
one plays upon one’s own homemade thingamajig,
and doesn’t worry if all about there seems a fuss.
An ear of wheat,
and a single fiddle,
a fiddler in a field fiddling,
and no one stares
at his tilted, fiddling head,
as he lets out a hoot,
his bow as taut as fuss,
his fingers like old fashioned doohickeys.
Up on the head of the fiddle,
a thingamajig stares at the crowd,
at the hootenanny, making such a fuss.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Person and Voice
Please allow me to introduce myself:
I’m the one who’s always there,
though I can’t be seen, smelled, tasted, nor touched;
for I’m as invisible as the air we breathe.
I’m the one who said “Once upon a time” and “In the beginning.”
I think I am the third person.
But you, you appear to be the second person,
with the coffee and the bread and ink, sitting by yourself,
listening, watching, feeling, smelling, touching the beginning
pages, smoothing them across your palms, before
taking a deep breath.
Then, exhaling slowly, eyes squinting, you touch
the paper carefully, as if fearful of a louche
message from some shady person,
the very ink we both breathe.
Myself,
I continue to pretend I’m not there,
never was there, not even in the beginning.
Where were they in their preliterate beginning,
before the shock of vicarious touching,
when they could merely talk to someone also there,
touching, smelling, tasting, person to person,
when to be one’s self
meant sharing the same air to breathe,
sharing the same breath?
That was before the beginning,
before the altered self
was able to touch
another person
not there.
A passive constraint is thus now there,
and we find this atmosphere impossible to breathe.
This coffeehouse of voices, the hierarchy of persons,
constrains us from the beginning,
unable one another to touch,
save the bread and ink for the self.
And you, the first person I saw reading at the table over there,
myself writing rapidly as if we could not breathe,
never from the beginning a voice so touched not to be.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Illuminations
That night when the old illuminations
rained weeping owls swept to sea
and must driven cars honked in hairy flip flops
while the anointed rabbits
waiting for the graceful city bus to transfigure
this magic moment
this desperate moment
when the manuscript fails to illuminate
and no epiphany girdles our gauche figure
and sadness rises, a plastic sea
full of scandal mongering treats and tidbits
of this man’s flip and that woman’s flop
texted and tweeted in a word slopped
trance of mobbed memes
while the pockets dance from bar to bar
an embargo on even potential illuminations
and standing by the bed of a sly sea
waiting for some sweet voice to translate
the orchard of trains
into some sort of readable plot
a pier into Homer’s wine dark sea
a plugging together of failed moments
that night we swam in the red tide illuminated
and on the beach watching us the Big Rabbit
the one that gets you if you don’t believe in big rabbits
don’t worry it’s just a phrase that will transmogrify
the monstrous words illuminated
at the tops of the opposite poles
the I am impulse of the moment
when we taste the salty sea
still we all in the end go down to the sea
a fire on the beach and skewered roasting rabbits
we do not measure the moment
but let the night do its thing transfiguring
our flops
into illuminations
from the sea we hopped a train
a couple of rabbits flip flopping away
may you still see that moment’s illumination
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Preparing for Winter
The land in white
cold silences the green
fogs the thin red
wafer of sun gold
and the sickly rose
twists with spotted black
The long winter black
softly covered in white
the hut and rose
cheeks blust and green
noses sniff the gold
drink and run red
At dawn the red
belly fire cold black
sun a thin gold
the tight skin white
arms of the green
fir thorn bleak rose
And then they rise
and shivering rub red
eat the canned green
and ask the black
smith to forge white
into a heated gold
A warm flavored gold
not a vestment rose
not another night white
but must rose red
in the morning black
the last color green
Survives the white green
awakes and shakes gold
arises from the black
ashes and answers rose
under the rose red
question of worm white
Shoots green a rose
gold turns sun red
world dark with light
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Sober Bukowski Hosed From Bar
From his father’s crap he fell
into the bar and plopped his basket
down on a stool and asked
for a Falstaff.
Three flies fastened to him,
ogling the brew.
One ran her fingers through his thick brew
and puled until he fell
into her arms and she pulled him
off his cask
and stole a sip of his Falstaff.
Another asked,
touching his face masked,
with slender pink nails running the rim of his brew,
tracing the scars on his face,
when did he first fall
drunk and askew.
The third took off his shoes and hummed a hymn,
tenderly rubbing his feet, humming,
his feet half-soled with beach tar, trash
cans, hummed for three hours until he was as sober as
an oaken church pew,
the bar flies all fallen
to the bottom of the empty glass of Falstaff.
Bukowski from the floor asked for another glass of Falstaff.
They told him
the flies were swatted and fallen.
Even a drunken poet must at least stand up to ask
for his last brew.
He bounced up like a basketball,
and athletically asked
for another Falstaff,
a new falling brew.
He began to hum the fly’s hymn,
and then he himself started to ask
a question, but before he could get it out he fell,
caressing his glass, and they hosed him
and his Falstaff out of the bar, a Herculean task,
washing away his flies, poems, and brew as into the gutter he fell.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Jackhammer
A jackhammer busting up concrete,
busting up concrete the jackhammer
bites and chews, bits of concrete jumping like jackstones.
Gewgaw go the gogglers,
the gogglers go gewgaw,
the jackhammer jumping up and down.
Jumping up and down jumping up and down jumping up and down,
the jackhammer gewgaws the concrete,
beating the gew from the gaw.
Blissful metal the jackhammer
jumps up and down in the goggles of the gogglers
sitting on the cement playing jackstones.
Watching the jackhammer kick out jackstones,
up and down up and down up and down,
the gogglers sit around the jackhammer goggling
on the vibrating whistling concrete.
Bouncing on steel springs the jackhammer
shock-spits gewgaws
and baubles, and on cue when the hammer claws
into a solid piece of huge jackstone,
and the jackhammer
shakes the ground up and down,
the earth a gewgaw of acute concrete,
a cheer from the gogglers
sneeshes up behind their dust covered goggles,
their eyes like gewgaws,
buttons of solid concrete.
From their jam-packed zest fly the jackstones,
sharp-witted; up and down
goes the jackhammer.
And the jackhammerer’s
fingers on keys globe-girdling,
up and down,
casting little gewgaws,
crackling jackstones,
set words in concrete
that later some reader with a jackhammer, gewgawing
in goggles thick with glossy jackstones,
reads up and down, cracking the concrete.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Shakespeare on Facebook
“What friends thou hast, add them fast, Lord Hamlet.”
Polonius advises us to link our souls with hoopla,
when twice this same moon updates us,
but still to me she hath not chatted.
“Light Lord, thy status in disconnect must be,
causing you this dark and dour distress.”
Fish not, Sir. I fear she hath deleted me, my fears undressed,
yet what post supports this knotted matter? For am I not Hamlet?
False light quickly fades, casting us in shadow, where we belong.
“Perhaps a new friend will soon light your night with hoopla,
with comely links and notes bright and much chat.
Light be your aim, Lord, light your audience with us,
and this will give light to thee and this light shower upon us.”
Nay, sir. In this book of faces there is but one will solve our distress,
and I am trapped in this light box like a wench chatting
away in some nunnery. No! I am not Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, and all the rest of that hoopla,
to be or not to be -
has a certain ring to it, though, this to be or not to be.
Perhaps it shall become, as you say, our status,
announcing a great call of hoopla,
calling out our great distress.
“Surely thou tell a tall tale, indeed, Lord Hamlet,
for a lady in waiting is a lady waiting to be chatted.
So why wait in this sore silence for her to post back chat?
Why will Lord Hamlet continue to bemoan
his one chatless whim when a sea of faces awaits Lord Hamlet’s?”
Zounds! These pathetic appeals from Polonius
do conspire to double our distress,
tightening around our neck all this hoopla.
“Nay, Lord Hamlet, hop not through her hoops.
For if I am not mistaken tilted appears your hat
when it sits upon this head of dire distress.”
Ah! This very hoopla is the distress that will become
for us our weary proof of distrust,
or I was never meant to be this Lord Hamlet.
Yes, our very own hoopla appears to be
the only chat meant for us,
for her distress lies chatting to this virtual friend, Hamlet.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Sestina Unbound
Looks like it’s just you and me, tonight, Sestina;
maybe Matthew Arnold was right about being true
to one another – sure he was, what else
can we expect, if not the truth from one another?
Listen to those oceanic waves, our chorus,
our reason to be one in this endless sea
of mediocrity.
What are you staring at, Sestina,
the waves? Not for us, this chorus?
Not true.
The waves sing for one another?
Are you coming undone, Sestina? What else
can the problem be, what else
can the issue be?
Is there some other window you’d rather look out with another?
Is that the problem? Say something, Sestina.
“I tried to be true, believe me, to one only true,
but what girl wants only sadness and misery, a chorus
of you and not me, a chorus
that can only leave me thinking what else
but the roar in your ears has unhinged truth?
I don’t have a bunch more years to be
true. I’m not here to fill all of your empty seas.
I’m not one of these to be or not to be types looking for another
excuse to go first bananas then silent every other
night, the silent ebb treatment and flow chorus.
I don’t expect a stormless sea,
but good grief, give it rest, or else
let me be.
Don’t misconstrue:
I love you, but I can’t be expected to be true
and keep coming over to this window every other
night. It’s getting to be,
well, like a caw-caw crow chorus.
Isn’t there something else we can talk about,
something other than your emptiness?”
Well, it’s true, a high tide of sad choruses
will not fill the beach with full, happy shells,
but with begging voices wailing to be set free.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
The Twitterers (after Walter De La Mare’s “The Listeners”)
“Is there anybody following?” twitted the Twitterer,
Twitting on the backlit laptop;
And his cat in the silence watched the empty light of the screen
Of the laptop’s infinite face:
And an ad popped up out of a modal window,
About the Twitterer’s eyes:
He twitted again, blinking his eyes;
“Is there anyone following?” asked the Twitterer.
But no one twitted back inside his white window;
No comment from the rotting laptop
Popped out of the blank light to interface,
Where he sat, eyes pulled to the screen.
But only a virtual host of phantom followers behind the screen,
Dwelling eyes dwelling within the one lonely eye,
Sat following in silence on the blank laptop face
To that twit from the world of men twittering:
Sat following in the light of the laptop,
That glows with unsleep through the window,
Disturbing the web in a twittering window,
By the twittering Twitterer’s twittering screen.
And he saw his strangeness in his laptop,
And their weirdness, through their eyes
Moving in white and blue background twitter,
Even the cat transfixed by the cursor blinking in the face;
He suddenly twittered again, his face
Lifting from the laptop’s window.
To his cat he twittered:
“I stayed as long as reasonable at my screen.”
Never once did the followers bare their eyes,
Every twitter he twitted from his laptop
Fell into the echo deep in the heart of the laptop
To the one man whose twittering face
Saw a blank set of eyes,
And heard the cat scratching at the window,
And felt the whistle filling with white light the blank screen
When the cat twitted off leaving the Twitterer
Sitting at his laptop staring at a blank window,
His face at one with the blank screen,
His eyes ever alert for the next twitter.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Lady Gaga Sitting Cross-legged on Her Gomden
Largess the monstress Lady Gaga sunscalds her saga
Lady who? Lady Gaga, aka Lady caca
from Saginaw she hitchhiked qua-qua
down to Lollapalooza maga
a funny thing happening on the way to see paga
on her gomden she sings her hagiography
Her saintly lady hagiography
eh, eh, we got a lot more to saga
abut her maga and her paga
and how baby gets her yagas out no caca
on her gomden a tabloid tatoo-bio gone maga
Lady Gaga’s letters to a young monster qua-qua
Poker faced on her gomden qua-qua
the androginous Germanotta hag
monster tattooed maga
eats her own saga
to satisfy our taste for caca
Lady Gaga please telephone yr paga
Speechless she calls her paga
the sharp-toothed Gaga in her qua-qua
on the road in her caca
wrapped in a graphic rhapsody
from rags to riches sagacity
of rarely heard magnitude
The herd of monsters their magnitude
staggers the Grand Duchess of Paganini
oh, the fame, the fame, the bottle rocket saga
the dressing up of the pointed qua-quas
the beatific dress covers the hag’s gomden
stained and glossed in caca
Eyeless in Caca did Lady Gaga
usurp the throne of Madonna-non-maga
her songs to mill on a stone-grind
her etymologically reclined paga
singing la-qua-qua, la-qua-qua-qua-la
sacrosanct slanginess saga
Cacophonically pagan
maga dances the qua-qua
and the gnome sings under the saga
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
To His Coy Sestina
The gal’s name was Sestina, Matthew Arnold’s girl.
Some say her name was Susan, or Beatrice.
Anthony Hecht knew her as “running to fat.”
Leonard Cohen sang to her: “So long, Marianne.”
Poets are forever calling her over to some window
that looks down on the Bay of Chance.
Just when it seems the Herrick-Marvel argument has a chance
to undo the coy strings, the girl,
wandering now across the room and toward the window,
grabbing on the way off the room service cart a bite of fruit to eat,
gets tripped up by Matthew Arnold who mars
the evening as his thoughts run to fat.
The ocean withdraws and leaves the land fat;
Still, Arnold didn’t like his chances.
“I was not just another girl,” said Marianne,
“just some other girl;
I am now like some aging Beatrice,
preparing late to close the window.”
Forever open is latched that window,
for Arnold’s thoughts grow fatter and fatter,
while the gentle and kind Beatrice,
who of course disappears before any chance
for Dante to consume his girl,
smiles from her green eyes merrily.
Her bosom full with rosebuds, Marianne
drops petals from the window
into the street below, where tarrying not, the girls
gather the petals before running to fat,
their only chance
before the heart in the dream they must eat.
A girl in the street turns and it’s Beatrice,
walking hand in hand with Marianne.
Now what are the chances
that through this sestina window,
the sun, sleepy on the horizon above an ocean grown fat,
will light the last chance for an old girl,
my Beatrice, singing still in yon kitchen window
my married one, we both grown fat –
what chance have I still with this girl?
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
One Night Sestina
When I politely suggested we might meet again, Sestina
daintily touched her lips with her red cloth napkin and said, “No.”
I know yes from no yet could not believe my ears.
In a rented tux I had strictly followed all of Sestina’s rules,
and at the end of a spendy, six-course meal,
two digit rejection is hard on a guy.
I mentioned the one night Sestina to my friend Guy.
“Who?” Guy asked. “You know, Sestina,”
I said. “I wined and dined her with a candlelit meal.
We’ll meet again on Facebook,” she said, “verisimilitudinously.”
Guy pretended confusion: “What rules?”
It had taken me years to defeat my Sestina fears.
I spent weeks rehearsing, I swear.
Guy said. “Consider yourself a lucky guy
for escaping a gal with so many rules.”
“I’m in love with Sestina,”
I said, which Guy acknowledged with a nod,
suddenly going mealymouthed;
meanwhile, my love for Sestina annealing.
Then suddenly Sestina makes an appearance,
talking profound nonsense:
“Hello,” she says, “big guy.
My name’s Sestina,
and I like a guy brave can break a few rules.”
What rules?
I can’t finish this meal.
All I can think of is Sestina.
Her voice fills my ears,
though I know she’s out with some other guy,
the depths of her deceits unknowable.
For now here’s Guy with winsome nonemotion:
“Apparently there are rules within rules,
wheels within wheels, but no more rules for this guy.”
“Sit down, my friend. Let’s drink and enjoy a simple meal.
We’ll fill one another’s ears,
and toast to the tales of Sestina.”
There was no meal.
With rules I covered my ears.
Here was just some guy bemoaning a lost Sestina.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Sunday Morning Newspaper
“When we were kids,” Grandpa says,
“you couldn’t swat a fly with a thing this thin.”
“It’s still half advertising,”
Mom says. “You read this article on the recession?”
Pop asks. “Story taken from a blog.
Somebody’s yesterday’s blog becomes today’s news.
I don’t get that. How is that news?”
“I’ll tell ya what’s news,” Grandpa says,
“and I didn’t have to read it on no blog.
You see how this woman is growing so thin?
Now that’s what I mean by a recession.”
“You always did to get a laugh have to advertise,”
Grandma says. “It used to be a service to the people, advertisin’,”
Grandpa says. “You got your news
followin’ the want adds in the great depression.
You never hear anyone askin’ ‘you hear what the Oregonian said?’
Horse fly would bounce right off and bite your nose this swatter so thin.”
“Yeah, but how you gonna swat a fly of any size with a blog?”
Grandma asks, and that gets a laugh. “I don’t blog,”
Grandpa says. “That’s just some sort of self-advertisin’
for people with nothin’ better to do, their lives so thin,
and you know why? Because anymore there is no real news.
Why back in the day, the baseball scores was front page,” Grandpa says.
“I got ta hit the can,” Grandpa says, “speakin’ of recession.
But don’t you worry none. I won’t be long with this recession-rag.”
“Careful, that toliet’s been acting up,” Pop says. “Had to unclog
it yesterday. Somebody put some newspaper down it,” Pop says.
“You clip those coupons out of the grocery advertising?”
Mom asks Grandma. “Ain’t that some news,
Mrs. McGillicutty had her stomach cut out so in a hurry to get thin.
Ain’t healthy,” Grandma says, “people all starvin’ themselves to get so thin.
“The kids, these days,” Mom says, “nothing to do at recess.
They want to take the candy and pop machines out. Saw it on the news.
“Whelp, that was sure satisfyin,’” Grandpa says. “Very healthy blog-post.”
Grandma takes a wad of paper and slaps him upside the head for advertising
it at the breakfast table. “Ain’t you no manners left in you,” she says.
I get my thin laptop out and start to blog
about the recession in my house and put up some advertising:
“BIG NEWS! I’m selling all my Pokemon cards,” I say.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
The Weekend Sestina: be bop a roo bop a pooh bop Splash
This sestina begins with a rim shot – Crash!
followed by a ride
and a Splash
hihaty hibeaty hihat high
then a Swish
be bop ba do pop ba jeeez pop bop
At the end of the week we bop
At the end of the week we Crash
Come Saturday morning we Swish
and Sunday forgo that Sunday ride
hi hat hi beat hi hat high
The weekend is our time for Splash
Friday night time for that bath splish splash
bebop a dop bop a rebop do
hihaty hibeaty hihat high
Let me down easy let’s not Crash
Hop the bus to the park let’s ride
On the streets the cools swishswishswish
It is my devout weekend Swish
That with you my love I might Splash
Come on baby let’s go for a ride
bebop ado pop a rebop pop
Live in the moment until we Crash
hihaty hibeaty hihat high
hihaty hibeaty hihat high
Put on yr dancin’ shoes and polish
Never mind the market Crash
Let’s go out and make our Splash
bebop ado pop our bop pop
Around and around and around we ride
on a Friday night hayride with my bride
hi haty hi beaty hihat high
bebop ado pop a pop bop drop
Swishswishswish
One more Splash
The weekend comes to close with a Crash
But we’ll ride and we’ll Swish
and hightail it with a Splash
be bop a roo bop a pooh bop Crash
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Dulce et Decorum est
And then went down to the sea dodge, set keel to desire.
Come Yam and Baal and a quarrel lot of gods pounding the same old story.
Quiet Owen, listen, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
On Dover Beach the sea of faith rises and falls, fills and spills
Over, flooding the place where all the flowers have gone,
As on this darkling page you and your girl hear the ancient song.
Pulling through salt water dragons we shout our song.
The white-throated sea monsters thrill at our desire,
Until the auburn sun and powder blue sky are gone,
And it sinks in about us is this story.
The old gods want fresh purple grapes to squeeze and spill.
In unison we shout “Mori
Te Salutamus,” dressed in our morello crested morions.
White song, yellow song, red song, blue song,
Pulling along, a morion color from our lips spills.
We require no armor, such is our desire.
What a preposterous story!
On surfboards made in garages to sea they’ve gone.
Where have we gone?
Oh, gaseous morning!
We hear their morphallactic story,
Their simple song,
Of moral sense melting to a morass of desire,
A quagmire of moral turpitude spilling.
Ebbs and flows and spills.
The old gods made mistakes, and we thought they were gone.
What now do you do with this desire?
A crusted article in yesterday’s paper moribund,
About a surfer whose only armor was his song,
A theatre of the absurd story.
Drink to the really rummy story.
Here’s a medal for your spills,
And we will sing you a song.
We’ll miss you now that you’re gone.
We’ve made you immortal,
Your name carved on our wall of desire.
For glory our story is already gone,
Spills for us no more,
We want a new song to fool our old desire.
~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~
Where process analysis gives way to Stooge logic and Jimi Hendrix meets the Twa Corbies
The word with which one ends line one
of stanza one, will, in stanza two, end line two,
and in stanza three,
will end line four,
in stanza four, five,
and in stanza six, six.
So, now pick the last word from stanza one line six,
and make it here in stanza two the last word of line one.
For three here we’ll use from above five,
and two from above to end line four of stanza two.
You may ask if ever exceptions are made, for
this is beginning to sound like the Three
Stooges at play: “Who’s on Three?”
And Jimi Hendrix said, “…if 6
turned up to be 9, I don’t mind,” for
he played for no one,
and Jimi knew, too,
6 flat 9 augment 5
would still sound discordant in 1975.
But by then the simple three
chord songs broke in two,
hipsters dragging up and down Route 66;
here came everyone.
Jimi got his Walk of Fame star in 1994.
Well, we’ve finished stanza four;
let’s move on to stanza five.
You see by now each stanza is a distorted clone
circling the end words, a spiral gear, a rule of three.
It was round about six
the corbies with knives twa
set a table for two
to slice the limbs of four.
“He looks to be about sixtyish.”
“This knight’s as tough at least as fifty-five.”
“We won’t go hungry though: there’s enough here for three.”
“A real brute from the looks of these aitchbones.”
Stanza two ends badly, and five
departs from four and has nothing to do with three,
while six seals this meal undone.
