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.
