Musing


At a loss for a topic this month (not an uncommon experience), I resort yet again to gap-filling nonsense.


Bringing enlightenment

We sit in our studies and think
Of the time we can stop for a drink.
Then in through the casement 1
Comes welcome displacement
And, forthwith, we feel in the pink.2

The reluctance of our fickle muse
To produce a rondeau we might use
Or a haiku or ode
Or a Da Vinci Code 3
Plunges us into Keatsian blues. 4

But we rise to each challenge. We’re fighters,
Agents provocateurs and inciters
Of readers to sample
Each thrilling example
Of purple prose what’s wrote by writers. 5

An Abecedarian rap,
Ballads Bawdy or just arrant pap,
Cunning Cantos Dramatic
Epics Extra-Emphatic,
We can really write any old rubbish.

Of our value this verse is the proof
We litterateurs aren’t aloof.
To supply what you read
We follow the creed:
‘Troof is beauty and beauty is troof’. 6



1 No, of course I don’t have a ‘casement’ but ‘window’ or ‘door’ wouldn’t rhyme.

2 Of course I never use such an expression or experience such a condition as ‘in the pink’ (I’m an existentialist, after all), but again, it’s the tyranny of rhyme, dear people, rhyme.

3 It’s important to note that, however complaisant my muse, I’m incapable of writing any of the forms or works mentioned.

4 Academics are advised, before using any of the above in a scholarly publication, to verify that Keats did have the blues or even knew what they were.

5 This is a first draft and may need some editorial input.


6 See 5 above.



Comments

Chris Longmuir said…
Now, how on earth did I know that despite the lack of the name of the writer at the top of the blog post that this was a Bill Kirton piece. Great stuff, Bill.
Umberto Tosi said…
Nice switcheroo, there Bill! I once attempted a dissertation on Keats and the Blues. As you indicated in footnote 4, I could not verify the connection. I did discover, however, that in 1806, the sickly boy-poet, seeking to improve his health with "fresh air," played on a proto-baseball/cricket stick team in London, The "Moorgate Moors" (later changed to "Mugs" as a gesture of ethnic sensitivity). This led me to my subsequent paper: "Was Chapman's Homer an Urned Run?" You could look it up. It still holds the "length traveled for a bad pun" record.
Bill Kirton said…
Thanks, Chris. Your tolerance for my absurdities is a great comfort.

Umberto, what a joy to have become inadvertently associated with a little aspect of your academic output. As a point of order, are you sure the change from 'Moors' to 'Mugs' was not provoked by the quality of their play rather than the nobler anti-racist impulse you ascribe to it? On the other hand, I applaud the perspicacity of whichever judges acknowledged the degree of learning in that pun. Chapeau, Sir.
This made me smile a lot - I love the rhymes (casement is such a great word in a poem).

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