Three hundred and nine

I'm feeling lazy today, so I'm going to throw something up here I wrote last year and thought I'd posted, but then probably thought better of it because it's poetry and stuff and in all likelihood I got scared that nobody would come back once they read it but now of course y'all know that I'm likely to do anything and post any brand of mundane crap just to put something out there for your consideration because I'm a giver like that.

So, poetry.

On Wednesday! I know! What's the world coming to! I could wait until tomorrow, the accepted poetry posting day of the internets to get this out of my system! But NOOOO, it's poetry Wednesday, dammit, because, as I said, I'm feeling lazy about the writing today.

I originally wrote this as a lark, riffing on someone's challenge to write a terrible poem about autumn, and then, horrifyingly, I started to like it, and tried to make it good. See? I can't even follow the rules of snark properly!

(Hey, at least it's not the Popup Camper Man song lyrics again!)

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Come beautiful Autumn,

Daub with golden light

Paint with brilliant colors

Bring the nearing night

Cloak the path with crackling leaves

Gold and brown and red and green

Rustle them with gentle breeze

In sunlight’s dappled low-slung sheen

Melancholy Autumn

Toss high the harvest moon

Chill the lawns and lakes in morning

Warm the stones in afternoon

Nature's lasting brilliant gift

Warns of winter's frozen blast

Autumn plays with hue and light

Before the die of ice is cast.

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You may commence to giggling now. I don't blame you a bit.

Once you've recovered from you little amusement at my expense, might I offer a few words on this whole poetry thing? The few words are as follows:

It's HARD to write poetry. It's difficult to not get all bashful about the words and withdraw them to someplace private so only YOU can caress and love them. Poetry is personal, mostly, a flutter of heart or a drop of soul.

Unless you're Ogden Nash, of course.

I was introduced to O-Nash (his hip-hop name, yo) in the fourth grade by my friend Kathy Oggins. Kathy knew "stuff", I thought she was fascinating. She could recite verse like a pro, and shared my love of all things Laura Ingalls Wilder. So, naturally, I become an O-Nash fan as well.

My favorite childhood Nash-ism was this:

The Cow

The cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other milk.

(As a kid I thought this was HILARIOUS! What an odd child I must have been......)

My favorite "mature" Nash-ism is this:

What's the use?

Sure, deck your limbs in pants.
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance,
Have you seen yourself retreating?

(hehheheh......well played, O-man)

So, if I ever do poetry seriously, I'm going at it O-Nash style, to save myself the anxiety of having to suffer for the art. I'm just not big on the suffering, you know??

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Feel free to offer up your thoughts on poetry or poets in the comments. Also, it's open season on mockery of my poem, so have at it!