#3, "I can sympathise, really. You're tiny and frail"

I forgot to do this on Friday and remembered late last night. The theme this week is a request from Zenbie.

“I can sympathise, really. You’re tiny and frail”

20 January 2008

I can sympathise, really. You’re tiny and frail
And you’ve no armour-plating, not even a tail,
Not to mention those teeth come to little avail—
You’re like wise little worms—
So this saddling business I’ll let you assail
On conditional terms.

But the nose-mounted maser is awkward and square
And the tack to support it unpleasant to wear
For it pinches and rubs—it’s as well I’ve no hair
Or I’d suffer a pluck—
My reptilian muzzle’s more comf’table bare
So you’re shit out of luck.


The form is called a Burns stanza, which I grabbed at random because it’s Burns supper season. The meter is anapestic tetrameter and dimeter. Or it is unless I screwed up, ROFL.

As a bonus because this was late, I’ll transcribe my notes from last night with the crap stanza I wrote purely to remind me how the format I’d chosen is supposed to go.


“With a dog and a cat and a goat and a sheep
And a ferret and bat and some roaches that creep
And a kangaroo joey preparing to leap
And a hog and a switch
In the cold and the wet and the murky and deep
With a wandering itch

Theme: dinosaurs with lasers/in space/who are ninjas/robots/pirates/pirate ninja robots

Lasers. Because lasers.”

[edit: Oh yes, and this is why Zenbie suggested laser dragons in the first place.]
[And yes, “maser”. Yes, it was alliterative and I can’t resist it, ok?]

About Herm

Worlds Built Cheap
This entry was posted in dragons, poetry. Bookmark the permalink.