Five Poems by Ken Gosse

 

Oddities and Endities, Five Poems about Poetry

 

The Day The Sky Laughed (a circular senryu)

 

Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. NO!

It’s a Senryu!

Another five-seven-five

almost-a-poem,

like a haiku wannabe

without a season.

Is there really a reason

to write such short fluff?

Without meaning to be gruff,

don’t we have enough

traditional forms to keep

everyone asleep,

lulled off to lullaby land ...

(Shhh—clap just one hand.)

Since there’s no cause for applause

for all their faux pas,

there’s no need to awaken

poets forsaken

who chose the road less taken.

Words bagged and shaken

should be placed in a bucket

stored in Nantucket

on shelves beside those lim’ricks

out of sight and mind,

ensuring that no one kicks,

spilling the contents

to fly to the firmaments.

“Chauncey?” “What, Edgar?”

“You don’t see That every day!”

“Look up in the sky!”

“Letters, like shining doubloons!”

“Senryu cartoons.”

 

 

Poetry: Sirloin or Ground Round?

 

Pretense or profound?

Does its wisdom abound?

Does its message astound

or its nonsense confound?

Does it seem to propound

that life’s meaning was found—

that deep thoughts underground

have arisen, come round?

Or, perhaps, just a mound

of some dirt kicked around.

 

 

A Short Fib (a 100-Syllable Fibonacci Poem)

 

Let’s rehearse

Fibonacci verse

and how it can be hacked, made terse—

of course, some will say this way will only make it worse.

Truncate it at both ends, then headless, without a tail, broken and frail, it condescends

as it wends through its form, short of its norm, a lost storm of words like a lost swarm of birds,

a boat barely afloat, lacking both prow and rudder;

short of breath, its engines sputter,

a wayward cutter

aflutter.

 

 

What Ogden Nash Might Have Said About Limericks

 

The five-line limerick’s quite a feast

but there are some which have increased.

Though six or longer are a beast,

the four-line limerick is deceased.

 

(Inspired by Ogden Nash’s famous poem, “The Lama.”)

 

After the Penultimate Page (a Sonnet)

 

I’ll write my final page—finis, no more—

the day I find there’s nothing left in store

to use to tease a muse or light its fuse

when I debark on ending this short cruise.

 

My poetry might not be read or heard

(much like my voice at home where not a word

I write or speak or murmur in my sleep

will reach another’s heart. For this, I weep.)

 

Perhaps I’ll write a sonnet on this theme

and post it on a social site, a meme

to share the bitterness of my despair

with others who won’t read it and won’t care.

 

But no, I won’t—I’m simply too distraught.

That thought was, after all, an afterthought.

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humour in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he has also been published by Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.