Confessions of an Anti-Creator

Tags

Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, humourous verse, narrative poetry, parody, rhyming couplets

~~rhyming couplets, ad nauseam, for the reasonably mature~~

I’m chewing on a worry bone, sucking out the gristle
for the grand epiphany, precursing my epistle
that is sure to congregate a fascinating crowd
when I lay out all that’s wrong, particularly loud.

I have such wondrous insights, can gurgitate the worst
of everything that’s going on. I burn to be the first,
reminding you I knew it, so you should have just come here
to get your dose of what to think and maximize your fear.

The secret to this day and age is, always be prepared.
Mistrust could be your greatest friend, if only you would dare
to look askance at happiness and hum-di-dums who share
the best of what they see, as if the rest of us would care.

You want a good analogy? Imagine you’re a cloud.
Me, I’m silver iodide, the element that wowed
the scientists in Cold War years who wanted to make rain.
The army paid them millions. Corporations took the gain.

You’re up there floating, nice and light, dreaming of your honey;
I zap a gram of iodide round about your tummy.
Suddenly, you’re feeling weird, maybe even crummy—
start gaining weight & running late, worried about money.

The chemical reaction of my presence from the get-go
will free you like a laxative, and something has to let go.
You’ll look around and wonder who just shat on your parade,
who turned the traffic lights to red and stopped you getting laid.

If I have now convinced you that my worldview is mighty,
we’ll jointly whip up hurricanes of lefty against righty.
From here on, all I have to do is throw you little bones
of breaking news & random blues, I’ve mastered all the tones.

Antagonists, the task is ours to muddy up your story,
distract you from your purpose, keep you boiling, feeling sorry.
Well, now I’ve tinkered long enough to guarantee a shower.
Confetti? Hail? Precipitates are all within your power.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2017
The wonderful image of a mad scientist comes from Designzz.

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My Love and the Paper Boat

Tags

contemporary mythology, Elaine Stirling, happiness is a decision, humour, interrupted rhyme, love, manifestation, rhyming couplets, romance, taking life lightly

I

My love built me a paper boat
to float upon the sea

across its flimsy hull he wrote
in script too small to see

with eyelash of an octopus
as brush, and ink of squid

the magic words to bring us back
when one sees fit to quit.

A magnifying glass I held
to that wee paper boat

attempting to decipher what
my love had sweetly wrote.

I thought I caught a word or two
but then came Mr. Sun

who lit what I had magnified
and burnt it into crumbs

of ash that blew across the sky.
Oh, crap, I thought, now what?

My love will have a fit when he
sees how I crisped our boat.

In fear, I found myself a clam
and asked if I could rent

his shell to hide myself until
I’d figured how to tell

the news. The clam said yes, but when
you’re done, be sure to leave

the shell behind for someone else
to find and hide inside.

Good shells, they don’t come cheap, you know,
and everyone’s afraid.

II

I hid inside my puny case
and read the daily news;

I texted friends and buffed my nails,
did anything I choose

and wondered why my love had not
come round to say hello.

I cranked the lid and peered outside
in time to see the tail

of Jupiter the Whale before
he swallowed everything.

III

The darkness here inside the gut
has no apparent end

and Jupiter can’t feel me when
I poke him with my nail

so I decide to sing about
my lover’s beauteous ways

his touch and smell, the smile he wears
when life is going well

and as I start to sing I hear
weird stirrings all around

that grow to voices, weak at first,
that rise, a mighty swell

and soon we’re all a-weeping ‘bout
the loves we left behind;

ahead is surely nothing, sniff!
but more, oh, woe betide…

discouraged by the swallowed mob
I wonder how to squelch

their ever-pining misery
when suddenly a belch

erupts that pours the seven seas
across new land—I’m free!

IV

This island with the coconuts
is big enough for two—

a sandy beach, a woven hut,
there’s nothing much I need to do.

The squid whose ink my lover used
to write has told the octopus

whose lashes have grown in,
exactly where I am, and lo!

before the sun has set, my love
arrives upon his boat

full grown, no longer paper, and
I see the words and laugh. What

happens next, we will not share.
You’ll have to ask the birds.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Little Fiendy Whozit

Tags

acting out, children's skipping verse, don't sweat the small stuff, ego, Elaine Stirling, humour, passive aggression, poetry, resistance, response to bullying, rhyming couplets, tantrums

Little Fiendy Whozit has a weeny voice;
he rips away his little gifts and claims he had no choice.

Little Fiendy Whozit thinks he knows what’s right from wrong,
and he likes to teach you lessons with a big bang-bong.

Now Fiendy might be good with wood or teasing little girls,
but push him past his talent zone, you’re in for quite a whirl.

The things you ask he will not do, except to impress others;
to corner him or force his hand, it isn’t worth the bother.

He’ll drag his feet and raise a stink and sooner whack than kiss ya,
then polish up his nasty sticks, insist he doesn’t miss ya.

We’ve all a Fiendy Whozit in our little bag of tricks;
he feeds on disappointment that he fashions into bricks.

The thing you must remember about Fiendy Whozit’s wall
is there’s nothing there worth nothing, so don’t make him crawl.

The time may come when Fiendy finds his R and L,
but until he shows up friendly, let him stay in…well,

for now, let’s keep on skipping rope and holding hands for joy;
there’s plenty good and plenty more for every girl and boy,

And should you meet sweet Whozit on your ever-loving way,
please tell him that I’m sending only happy thoughts today.

And if my little horns and tail occasional appear,
they’re nothing much to fuss about or fear, my dear.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Photo of children skipping by Diamond Mitch
from besteducationpossible.blogspot.ca, 2011

The Bread Inside this Oven: A Cossante

Tags

cossante, Elaine Stirling, fertility chants, form poetry, Galician, jongleurs, Middle Ages, Portugese, rhyming couplets, troubadours

Image from tourist.com, Crevecouer-en-Ange, France

The cook and I did meet ‘neath the oleander tree
till the cuckoo stole his eggs away to Galilee.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

The seaman brought a sturgeon with a rich pink spawn;
we fed each other roe paste till the cod was gone.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

Till the cuckoo stole his eggs away to Galilee,
I’d hoped the stork would help me scrub the chimney.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

We fed each other roe paste till the cod was gone,
no salty little pieces left to nibble on.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

I’d hoped the stork would help me scrub the chimney
But he flew to Santiago for the Holy See.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

No salty little pieces left to nibble on,
it’s time to light fresh coals beneath a different song.
Will the bread inside this oven ever rise?

~~~

The cossante is a Galician-Portuguese folk poetry form made popular in the 12th-14th centuries. Sung initially by women, it contains a weaving pattern known as leixa-pren, a dance term for two alternating lines of dancers and singers. With the rise of troubadours and jongleurs, the humble cossante found its way to royal courts where it became more formalized; but even when sung by men, they often retained the female narration. The oldest known fragments of folk poetry come from 10th century Aquitaine and may have been fertility chants, a theme I’ve scooped happily for this piece.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

La Farandole

Tags

abundance, Court of Love, Elaine Stirling, Georges Bizet, medieval dance, mythology, poetry, Poitiers, rhyming couplets

I met a man who made me feel when I would rather think;

A medieval dance of Languedoc, France, the farandole is said to originate in ancient Greece as “windings of the labyrinth”.

he danced for me a pretty reel before I could scarce blink.

To compensate I threw to him my complicated thoughts;
he answered me by turning my emotions into knots.

After disentanglement, I wove a rich brocade,
while he rode off to Palestine and left me sore afraid.

I hung the golden drapes across the drafty western wall,
which warmed the castle up enough that we could hold a ball.

From east and west, the dukes and ladies gathered for to dance;
I paced along the battlements, suspiciously entranced.

The ancient feuds still criss-crossed our hereditary lands;
if I were just to let them go, I’d have no back-up plans;

If I didn’t know what next to do, whatever would I say
when someone asked to know my goals tomorrow and today?

And if I had to tell them that I didn’t have a clue,
there’d surely be a gravitas, an awkward silence too.

The more I thought the less I knew, while from the ballroom poured
the ever-speeding dance steps of the wildly spinning horde.

The commoners had joined the dukes, the ladies were a fright,
their slippers tossed and hair askew, it was a ghastly sight!

We’d worked so hard to build the walls of pas egalité
and now they were dissolving into shameful disarray.

If I did not return to them and stop this farandole,
the maddening debauchery would claim them, heart and soul.

And so, I took the western stairs, full burdened with my sins
to where the golden tapestry was hung with silver pins.

I tugged the threads and pushed the nails until my fingers bled,
but nothing that I tried or did would roust them from their stead;

And while I struggled thus a gust of wintry wind arose
and lifted me from my travails then dropped me on my toes

To dance a strain of farandole that I could not surcease
and whisked me to the ballroom where a man in tattered fleece

did scoop me up and spin me round in clouds of woolly fuzz,
and not until the dawn had dawned did I know who he was.

It was my noble knight returned safe home from his Crusade,
and I’d become the lady who forgot to be afraid.

With me no longer thinking and with him relieved of war,
we watch our kingdom flourish as it’s never done before.

The message of the farandole, the labyrinthine dance
is throw your fate into the air and trust the god of chance

To gather all you think and feel and spin them bright, anew;
with all things being equal, you will see your dreams come true.

For every heart is joinéd at the center of the ring,
and all Creation thanks you for the merriment you bring.

© “La Farandole”, poem by Elaine Stirling, 2012