Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘poetry’ Category

This really had to happen eventually. If you know me, you knew it was inevitable.

Fire Fox One

Foxing with Fire!
I'm browsing to rock
Got my WebDev and Firebug,
Ads and elements block'd
With Fire!
Reloaded and cocked
You'll never miss the Flash when it's gone
Just add some shinies on

(After Sammet)

(Yes, I did write this purely so I'd have links to my favourite extensions. I don't wanna waste no time, 'cause I'm a bad bad dog.)

A Dog jumped up

A Dog jumped up one autumn's night
And said "all right, all bloody right,
What hardware-hogging sportive sprite
Unplugged my tablet's pen-O?"
Pen-O! Pen-O!
"What port-denuding cable-wight
Unplugged my tablet's pen-O?"

He came upon a serial port
Where wires and chargers found it fraught
That their plugs were bent and middles taut
From paws of Mister Dog-O!
Dog-O! Dog-O!
Those knots and tangles all were sport
For paws of Mister Dog-O!

After a traditional favourite of mine.

After I cleared a USB port and plugged it in, the tablet worked better.

I think the part in parentheses says it all…

Black Dog's Curse (To a Paper Dinosaur)

Ambling, shambling life benign
In processed, bleached herbivory:
Let cold-blood Nature, serpentine
Entwine you in her livery

All right, all right, but not bad for improv.

Made up one evening when I was in work late and alone. Mwahahaaa. After having this breathed into its ear, the subject was put on a workmate's desk, there to graze on paperwork through the night. If any urgent reports go missing, you don't know a thing, got it?

I Want a Dog

There's a hole
in my soul
in the shape of a Schnauz
er and thus
I will fuss
and perform lots of pouts.
There's a gap
in my lap
that would fit a retriev
er; my knees
won't appease
this perpetual peeve.

Written for "Vinzin" on the Jack art exchange board, about his character.

Invinzibility

08/08/08

You wonder why I think before I speak,
and spend my moments staring at the sky
across the park or hanging by the creek;
I'm really not an extroverted guy…
My foxy eyes are seeking out a ledge,
a rail, a handhold, routes from there to here.
You wonder why I walk so near the edge?
I ever tell you how I lost this ear?
I'm plotting out the most efficient ways—
a forward flip, a roll to break my fall—
you wonder what I'm thinking while I gaze.
You cannot see the way. You see the wall.
I cannot stand restraint. I need to be:
I'm only Vinzin when I'm running free.

(Spot the evil parkour pun.)

(Written for work's newsletter.)

Frequently Barked Questions

18 July 2008

Thus far I've no sightings of hounds to report,
nor ominous howls in the night.
No shoes have gone missing, no threatening notes,
no relatives perished from fright.
I'll not move to Dartmoor; I'm not keen on bogs.
A city pooch still, after all—
and I keep my address, for my housemates have baulked
at restyling it "Baskerville Hall".

White expanse of fur
Summer moult sprawls open-legged
Licking its fat self

This is not a proper haiku with serious haiku-ingredients, although it does happen to contain a season.

Rescue

10 June 2008

An asphalt rambler, thumbnail-scale
with tentacles a-waggle:
this is, I have to tell you, snail,
a silly place to straggle.

I stoop and, plucked, you soar and land.
I fondly beg your pardon;
you'd thank me, could you understand.
Enjoy your nice new garden.

Draft #1 written for Erin for no apparent reason. It was edited with help from the WritingFeedback bods (because, aptly, it needed a lot of rescuing itself).

My package arrived so I can post this up here too:

Flock

12 May 2008
for Erin, who is sick

In the end, what most surprised me
was that anything could graze
on the morning-jewelled blueness,
on that field of summer baize.
But I saw them shake their fleeces
and I think I heard them bleat,
so there must be something up there
for those airborne sheep to eat.

Written just now while trying to think of witty things to say in an email. Figured I should write something crap rather than nothing at all…

Cheek Addiction

He can't get enough of your rubs.
He'll wear down your fingers to stubs.
You ought to take pause:
he's the neighbours', not yours,
and when Piper finds out, you're in trubs.

I made a number of false starts at a witty satire about the changes at my workplace before ending up with this. Uh. I think people prefer my cat poems, anyway…

Railing

A fence, my sweet!—why, what's a fence?—
a mere eight feet of paling wood.
It's nothing but—you smell so good—
a minor inconvenience—
I've bested worse. The other day
I beat a pit bull and his four,
no, seven cronies, left 'em sore
and yelping. Honest. Look this way—
just sniff me! Don't I drive you wild?
Come on! Ignore these other guys!
I'm strongest. Best. I love your eyes;
they're brown like liver. Bear my child!
We're spar-crossed lovers, you and I.
I wish this fence weren't quite so high.

Catching up with my backlog on the poem-a-week project, here first of all is Zenbunny's 'prize' poem, which I offered a while back to the first person to spot the hidden secret in Tactical Cat-Tricks.

Zen correctly spotted that every line contains the syllable "pi" or "per" alternating—and the poem is about a cat named Piper. (Read Zen's comment carefully.) I hope the following is prizelike enough for that startling bit of detectivework.

Old Book

written 18 Mar 2008

I

Eyesight be damned: it's your spine that you'll miss.
Worst of infirmities coming with age.
(Cliché; one never believes them, and now…)
Joinings that stiffen and crackle on flexing
An effortful venture, the turn of a page.

II

My offspring—I've many, by numerous authors;
A marriage of minds, evolution of memes
(Barring the reprints, the spit of their dad)—
Slight disappointments, the lot of them. Written
In language so modern it dates within minutes.
A paperback culture. Disposable reams.

I unashamedly stole the structure from one of my old, old poems. This reads as awfully brief, but I can't make myself go back and pad it. Someone tell me if it sucks, please; I'm at the "can't look at it" stage.

I had a few thoughts about the other theme Zen suggested, so we may see a pumpkin poem showing up; no promises…

And the next one is for Cerhn.

Mountain lion (source)

Mountainbank

completed 24 March 2008

From the wonderful wavering glass-bottled range
Of Montgomery P. Concolore,
Can discerning enquirers discreetly exchange
For their myriad ailments, a cure.

He has patented nostrums for fever and gout,
For neuralgia and asthma and mumps,
He's electrical girdles in case you are stout
And an ointment to spread on your lumps.

Just confide in this cat the amount of your ill
And elixirs he'll grant without fail—
And present you a neat little itemised bill
Which he'll sign with the tip of his tail.

Monty's fishberry tonic refreshes the brain
Though with adverse effects on the breath,
While his ligament liniment soothes every sprain—
And he claims he can cure even death.

Gingivitis and ulcers Montgomery treats
With a poultice of olives and tar;
Disquisitions he'll give upon sugary sweets—
They have called him the feline Fauchard.

In a drab-coloured coat stands this pantherine sage;
He is white round the muzzle and ears.
But his youthful performance belies his great age
For he boasts over two hundred years.

He has troches for tetanus, bitters for boils
And some gauze for your knee, should you skin it.
Monty makes this great claim of his copious toils:
That a succour is born every minute.

How This One Came About:
Mutt mugged the lovely Cerhn and asked him to gissa theme.
"Mountain lion mountebanks?" suggested Cerhn.
"Catamount quackery! I'll give it a shot," said Mutt.
And there was much disbelief.

Writing this one was like pulling teeth, but I think it turned out ok in the end. I HAD to force "cat amount" in there somewhere, which was a nigh-impossible job given my structure. (Anapestic tetra/trimeter. I deliberately went for You are Old, Father William, only more strict with the line beginnings.)

Unrhymed metered fourteen-liner. My muse wants to kill me!

Tactical Cat-tricks

written Tuesday 4 March, 1 hour, tweaked today

You think I don't discern that I'm despised.
No, no, o Food, I'm perfectly aware.
I'm not the dog for which you pine. Big deal,
you disappoint me too. Disperse pretence:
you feed. I eat. Pray don't aspire to more.
Impersonal near-tolerance at best.
You teach me tricks, despite my playing dumb—
I train you in return. Performing ape!
On shoulder-top I'll pilot you downstairs,
perfect the steering motion of my kneads;
I'll pioneer an armour-piercing stare,
pervade your work with rump and scattered pens,
and moisten up your fingers with my jowl,
and howl, and howl, and howl, and howl, and howl.

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This does not count towards my year's target. This does not count at all. It doesn't exist. I never wrote it.

the dark darkness

the knife rolls relaxedly
down
my arm
with the gentle skinlicktickle of
liquid blood
but the knife is blunt
no blood today

Not-written because I was having a conversation with Anke about writing feedback communities (I'm quite getting into this advice-giving malarkey!) and how I don't always have anything helpful to say to other people's posts, and got onto the sort of poetry I can never help with because I just don't 'get it'. I can't help it. My brain doesn't consider formless, non-rhyming stuff poetry, not in the sense that I enjoy poetry. I do consider this a personal failing, but not one that impoverishes my life to a great extent.

And after all that, I can think of nothing but No Milk Today by Herman's Hermits, a truly fantastic piece of songwriting that never fails to make me happy.

(There's a better title and it's just evading my grasp. Will update if it makes itself known.)

Something Lacking

My hand, when it drops to my side, finds a puzzle:
no skullbone to stroke and no sniff of a muzzle.
No eyelash, no whisker, no cold-sweating nosey,
a cranial dearth. I'm devoid of a nuzzle.

At nights my discomfited feet huddle frozey
despite double duvet. It could be I'm dozy,
or poor circulation's to blame. I've no theory—
yet somehow my chamber is all things but cosy.

Proceeding to work unaccompanied, bleary,
in earphoney trance unaware of exteri
or stimuli. Autist. No sights worth attention.
Except ones that bounce by on leads looking cheery.

My fingerless glove by my side in suspension.
The tram station's cold-shouldered hilltop ascension.
No friend dogs my footsteps. My hearthrug is empty
except for a cat, which is all the more wrenchin'.

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14×14, a sonnet zine (hey, that rhymes) linked to me by chibibluebird. How fabulous.

Particularly liked Advice to a Wraith, Cow Falls…, Oneironaut and especially Old Apple in the first issue. (Snog might like White Feathers, and comic fans Wonder Woman. I giggled at the Shaft theme.) And Going Down and In Her Hip Pocket in the second, which is full of love and therefore not as interesting.

Still. I know I'm probably being grouchy and you're allowed leeway with meter, but I can't help thinking "if only they scanned perfectly". I can't not, you see. Perhaps it's a weakness.

And they're right over at WritingFeedback. Most of the writers in there don't seem to capitalise line beginnings unless they're the start of sentences. That's a completely new idea to me (I'm not the most observant) and I still don't like it, wah wah grumble.

Yes, it's a fictitious song not a poem. Deal with it. :) No, I've no tune in mind.

The Jolly Pirate Ship

as recorded by Sylvette Lastude in "Selected Folk Songs of Central and Eastern Terrimoire"

Call-response requiring two singers (or teams of singers), A and B, with chorus.

A: I saw a jolly pirate ship
(Sing solid, liquid, gas and sand)
B: And what was on that handsome tub?
(Sing liquid, gas and sand-oh)

A: The holds were filled with figs and limes,
all brought aboard from warmer climes.
It was a quirky pirate tub.
(Sing liquid, gas and sand-oh)

B: I saw a jolly pirate band
(Sing fluid, granule, ground and air)
A: And who was on that dauntless crew?
(Sing granule, ground and air-oh)

B: The crew was golds and goblins all,
adroit and hardy in a squall.
It was a motley pirate crew.
(Sing granule, ground and air-oh)

A: I saw a windblown pirate jack
(Sing vapour, droplet, stuff and gloop)
B: And what was on that flutt'ring flag?
(Sing droplet, stuff and gloop-oh)

A: It showed a smirking vixen red
with striped bandana on her head.
It was a crafty pirate flag.
(Sing droplet, stuff and gloop-oh)

B: I saw a scowling pirate king
(Sing grainies, water, ice and steam)
A: And tell me of this fearsome chief
(Sing water, ice and steam-oh)

B: He had three lemons in his grasp
and velvet cloak with silver clasp.
He was a strange feraisai chief.
(Sing water, ice and steam-oh)

Sylvette Lastude was a gentlesapient scholar in the mould of the more famous and gender-ambiguous Gery Illumin. As with all Lastude's recordings, of all possible iterations of the song, the version as written is the most likely never to be heard in real life. This is put down in large part to the effect of a pretty, prim and proper feraisai face on the vocabulary of your average young man in a pub.

In practice, the order of the refrains ("Sing fluid, granule, ground and air") depended entirely on which words the singers in question could remember.

edit: and there are minimal changes to make an Earthling version in the Livejournal mirror comments section.

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