Authority Interrupted: My Giddy Aunt!

 

Prompted by W3#200 at The Skeptic’s Kaddish 

It seemed fair and reasonable to break the rule for Option 1. Not to do so leads (me at least) to silliness like: 

All blustering cowards declaim eggcorns –
false, garrulous hokum – inane, jittery kvelling –
like miseries, nervous on poltroonish quicksand.
Raucous sophistry, tossed utterance,
vicious whacks – xenophiles yielding zero.

The Case of the Broken Beat:  A Dual Abecedarian Debate

Here’s a  literary face-off with two poems battlng it out while also following the rules of the two A-Z options.  One voice defends the “sturdy feet” of traditional meter, while the other offers the “barbaric yawp” of anarchy. It is a confrontation between the virtuous poeteer and the reckless rebel. Choose you side!  It’s a poetic commentary (not indictment)  of those who set the rules but then ignore them. The bloke from Porlock waits for no-one.
 
After all if iambic pentameter can have eight syllables, what’s a few extra lines? 

After Porlock

As Emily Dickinson
Boldly said: Tell it slant
Cut the crap
Don’t be somebody
Enjoying life like the
Frog burping away in a dreary bog
Going gently into that good night.

How?

I say: murder and dissect –
Just break the rules, keep
Kicking on.
Let
Me
Not
Oversell
Prompts which set
Quaint rules and then
Recognise those who fail to fold, and follow through.

Spill the blood-dimmed tide. 
The center …? Bah!
Unmoored from lines, the apple carts are tossed,
Virtuous poeteers – their labor’s lost.
Wronged like Kubla Khan in
Xanadu, whose pleasure dome got a barbaric
Yawp
Zapped by the bloke from Porlock. 

When Iambic Pentameter Lost Its Footing

A poem written in this way,
Betrays the rules it should obey.
Count out the iambs – eight per line –
Do not suggest that this is fine.
Each line that keeps a shorter beat,
Fails five iambic, sturdy feet.
Give heed to that? My giddy aunt!
Honor the ones who write it slant?
Iambs are missed by lazy minds,
Just as the fool no treasure finds.
Keep to the rules, obey the law,
Lest every stanza show a flaw.
Many will claim that rules are dry,
Neglecting form on every try.
Offensive whims are all they know,
Promising seeds that never grow.
Quietly now the standards slip,
Rigor has lost its steady grip.
Surely the form defines the art,
Truth is no cage within the heart.
Under the wild and lawless word,
Virtue is lost and goes unheard.
Words without frames are thin and cold,
X-rayed and found with nothing bold.
Yes –  when the lawless vein is tapped,
Zeal for the truth sees folly zapped.

Featured images: Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, by Jackson Pollock: The Third of May by Francisco Goya; New York City, Piet Mondrian; Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix.

21 thoughts on “Authority Interrupted: My Giddy Aunt!”

  3. Josie, I enjoyed reading these three together. “Raucous sophistry” and the nod to “the bloke from Porlock” made me smile—it feels like a playful back-and-forth with poetry’s rules!

    Much love,
    David

    Reply

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