It’s been so long since I wrote like a poet
My hair is like grass,
I feel a need to mow it …
Apparently, April is National Poetry Month in America. According to US constitutional law, this means that for a whole 30 days, citizens must converse only in Haiku form or rhyming couplets. Those who refuse are labelled communists and have their feeding tubes removed. I know, I know, it sounds freakin’ crazy, but remember folks, this is America we’re talking about. Home of the catchphrase: “Only in America”. Oh, and that one that goes “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”.Golf Widow is doing her patriotic best, by doing all her posts in Haiku form this month.
I hate trying to write Haikus. Because I can’t count.
A haiku is meant to be an “unrhymed verse form, having three lines containing usually 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively”.
But when I try to do a haiku, it generally comes out something like this:
This may not work like (5)
A haiku is supposed to (7)
Because I suck at Maths. (8)
We don’t have a poetry month in New Zealand, probably because most of us are illiterate. We can hardly even manage to fill out court documents and unemployment benefit forms properly. And when we do attempt poetry, it’s normally about hookers, hand-jobs, drunkenness and/or sheep.
Anyway. Here’s one of my offerings in honour of National Poetry Month:
(I know most people hate long poems, so I’m keeping it really short.
It’s dedicated to The Pope and anyone who’s ever been down the Walkers Lane alley in Soho, London, and wondered “Gee, I wonder what would happen if some stinking, drunken bum decided to go on a stinking, drunken rampage through here…”)
Anyways, on an unrelated topic …
It’s always good to visit your folks. Journey back to your home town. Trip down journey lane, and all that. Or is it?
Today my parents told me an interesting story. They do that sometimes when I take home brew beer with me.
They told me of how when I was about 2-years-old they used to tie me to the clothes-line to stop me running away and getting into trouble. They even had a special collar made up for me, and everything.
The neighbours once complained to Social Services, but apparently they said they couldn’t interfere, as it was clearly an SPCA matter. The SPCA let my parents off with a warning, provided they agreed to make my leash a little longer and buy me a flea collar …
