A Sonnet for Sir Terry

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Canadian poet, coronavirus, Discworld, Elaine Stirling, homage to Terry Pratchett, Sir Terry Pratchett, sonnet

What, oh what, would you make of us today
satirically, Sir Terry, this spinning
disc of whirling thoughts? Do you grandly play
among the stars or do you creep, grinning,
with the spectre we fear so much to touch?
All this advice, inadvertent adverts
very soon will not amount to much, such
fun to elbow bump, though grumps still pervert
at every mimsy turn the joys of life.
Four pachyderms atop a turtle shell.
As science, faith, and politics suffice
to stir the worst and best, I cannot tell
nor must I, thankfully, explain the WHO,
the what or whyfor. Sans wi-fi will do.

Stay healthy, friends!

Image creator unknown: Happy to attribute if anyone could help out.

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E Words

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Elaine Stirling, humourous verse, Marjorie H. Chapman, old dictionaries, poetry

This one’s for you, Mrs. Chapman.

An escolar inesculent eructed at the table.
An elocutionist by calling, erumpent and most
erudite, the escolar exceptional eschewed
essential themes of ethics and economy,
ejaculating most effectively on eschatology.

If you could just elutriate, he said,
all thoughts of ‘ell and ‘eaven,
allow that moon’s evections
can effect (sic) the evenest
of minds, that evidence
and etymons empiricized
empoison some and others
elevate, I think you’d find
you would elude most fears
of death and end. Such
evanescent notions would
evapotranspirate, and you,
my friend, would fast evaginate—
like socks! And newly inside
out, you would experience
ecstatic, though I’ll grant you,
embryonic, new emergences
sans effort, sans unease.

~~~

This bit of free verse nonsense (with perhaps some hidden sense) began with my looking up an E word in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate, © 1965, for something completely unrelated. I love older dictionaries because they hadn’t yet eliminated obsolete words and meanings to accommodate the notion of a dumbed down readership. The first Collegiate came out in 1898, and I’ll bet that one was even more fabulous!

Here is a loosely defined prose version of “E Words”.

An inedible fish resembling a mackerel belched at the table. A public speaker, bursting forth with learning, this very special fish tended to avoid topics of ethics and economy. Most of his utterances were about the end of the world.

“If you could just purify by washing out all thoughts of hell and heaven; accept that orbital disturbances of the moon can affect any of us; allow that observation and experience, proof, and word derivations will make some people bitter and others feel fantastic, I think you’d shake off most fears of termination and dying. Those flimsy notions would evaporate, they’d be pulled out, and you, my friend, will be turned inside out, like socks! While this new outlook may feel awkward at first, you’re going to enjoy fresh and glorious experiences, free of all struggle and worry.”

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image: Mackerel on Stone, artwork by Peter Gander

I’d Rather Know

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Elaine Stirling, humourous verse, poetry

I know poets who discard
their lines like trousers, shirt
and underwear from door to
bed, a hurried one-night stand
with somebody—they don’t
quite catch the name—
and whoosh, they’re gone.

Pressing in to what
he’s left behind, a slavering
crowd approves—why not,
for what could safer be
than catching drifts of
someone else’s ripples,
seventh hand seduction,
quick! Spectator’s game.

I know poets who
with charcoal palettes
draw precise and gloomy
verse that mostly sounds
the same, convincing all who
somberly agree to congregate
and read, of vast intelligence—
the poet’s, not the readers’.

I’d rather know a poet
who takes time to rise above
the melancholic, with wit enough
to shake his trousers upside down
for change, who knows my name,
feels eager in the dawn’s cool
light to spring from bed and
plant bare feet on new
and higher ground.

And more than this,
I know that readers too
who aren’t me would wriggle
deep and breathe a-fresh
to see the naked poet
pick his clothes up
off the floor and
put the coffee on.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
The gorgeous image comes from
http://www.thelatinoauthor.com

Ode to the Valued Customer

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Elaine Stirling, form poetry, humourous verse, parody, The Corporate Storyteller, villanelle

A Villanelle

All I need do is rush you and bore you,
tool die and stamp, units sold, merely digitize
and score you, dear valued customer, woo-hoo!

Smoothly and daily, I frazzle your view
with photoshopped beauty & health, hypnotize.
All I need do is rush you and bore you

with numbers and flow charts, I know what to do
to poison your innate good sense, then to sanitize
and score you, dear valued customer, woo-hoo!

Persuading, dead easy! I’ve built a whole slew
of doubt traps to enslave, victimize.
All I need do is rush you and bore you.

As long as you never slow down to ask who
is in charge, I’ll continue to aim custard pies
and score you, dear valued customer, woo-hoo!

Beyond this cheap dazzle, a market true
thrives where I can’t push in with baubles and lies.
All I need do is rush you and bore you
and score you, dear valued customer, woo-hoo!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

Time

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Elaine Stirling, poetry for fun, The Corporate Storyteller

I don’t have time.
I don’t have time
to have time.
I don’t know who
took it, but I’m always
in a rush, feeling
on the verge
of being crushed
by forces colder
and meaner
than I, through
lack of time,
am being
forced
to be.

Everything
I do, I try to save
time, so where the hell
has all the time
I’ve saved
gone?

It isn’t here,
so where
is it going?

I don’t know.
I don’t have time
to figure that out.

Right now
is our busy season—

it’s always our busy
season, but this one’s
even worse

—so I’m super
strapped for time,
sending stuff out
as fast as I can
send it, scanning
incomming as fast
as I can scan—
what are these
people talking
about? Does
no one know
how to spell
anymore?

but it’s never
enough. We’re
not making our
numbers

and numbers
are everything

numbers seem
to have become
my reason for being

that doesn’t
feel right, but I
don’t have anyone
to ask about it

and anyway,
who would care?
Everyone’s so busy
moaning, I don’t
dare interrupt.

I barely have
time to moan.

I clearly need
a break, but I’m
decades from
retirement

and I don’t
have time for
holidays

last time
I took a week off
I got so sick when
I got back, I had to
work ten times as hard
to make up for lost time

I don’t know
who keeps
all the saved
time or finds
the lost time

I don’t know
anyone who spends
time responsibly

I think I would like
to know such a person

but they wouldn’t
be real. I don’t think
they exist

they’d probably
be boring. What would
we talk about? All the time
in the world they have…
to do what?

Well, enough
of this. I gotta get
back to what I was
doing. I’m already
past deadline…

no time
no time
no time
no ti—

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image from http://www.whoisgarybledsoe.com

The Two-Mile Blues

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Billy Connolly, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, glosa, humourous poetry, medieval Spanish fixed verse, satire

Before you judge a man, walk
a mile in his shoes. After
that, who cares? He’s a mile
away, and you’ve got his shoes.

Billy Connolly

~~~

I’ve a case of the two-mile blues
in the back of my truck
that broke down on the outskirts
of a dangerous town where the folk
are known to be mighty and prim
with their sensitive talk
about feelings and wings, always
flapping political, never nonsensical—
makes me want to scribble in chalk:
Before you judge a man, walk!

I’ve drunk half the case
of my two-mile blues, so I’m
just about ready to float
into town. Prepared for their issues,
I’ve brought lots of tissues
to wipe tears of laughter
that spurt when I’m supposed
to be mad. I’ve a date to go
dancing with a velociraptor
a mile in his shoes, after.

The town looks deserted, but that
could just be the two-mile blues
distorting my vision of crowds
with their heads in my business,
yak-talking, and me with my usual
cluelessness, needing to be here a while.
I feel someone stalking my every
move, so I spin around quickly and…
whoa! I cover my eyes. I’m going to file
that, who cares? He’s a mile

high widget with sky-high opinions
stacked on his head like slices
of onion and a girl on his arm
with eyes that keep rolling. They’re
judging my walk and my words
and the pickles I choose
for my sandwich, but the two-mile
blues remind me to cruise how-so-ever
I want. Just throw their whiny views
away, and you’ve got his shoes!

~~~

This poem is my umpty-third glosa, a form you can learn more about here, with the opportunity to buy a whole book of them and a novella to match.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

My Treasure House

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Elaine Stirling, humourous verse, poetry

I locked myself
out of my treasure
house.

With nothing
left to do until the
locksmith arrived,
I spent my time
justifying
margins
left right
center
profit
why I love
and why I ache
and why you’re wrong
and why I wait…

until I tired,
oh, I tired
of the locksmith
never coming and
the race to prove,
disprove, improve,
approve, and said
to hell with it, and
stole my way
inside

to find
that hordes
of mongrel graces
had preoccupied
the treasure house
while I was gone

and all
of them with google
eyes and hairy
scary countenances
stared at me and asked
me why I’d stayed
away from riches
that belong
to me
so long

and all
that I could
think to say was
I have been
preoccupied.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Fans of H.P. Lovecraft will recognize the scary beast image as one of Chthulhu, who’s quite adorable when you get to know him.