I would never try to parody something so regal as Dust In the Wind by Kansas, but i am just enough of a butthead to try to pay homage in my own small way. so as you read this, sing it in your mind to that marvelous melody.

remember, it goes like this:
"I close my eyes,
only for a moment and the moment's gone..."

Epidermal flakes,
float in my wake and the flakes are gone
bits of me fall past my eyes and forever leave me.*

Mote on the breeze,
i am just a mote surfing a breeze
This new song
is just a bit of sweat that surrounds me
and all the world around me is swallowed by the sea
Mote on the breeze,
i am just a mote surfing a breeze.
Just hang on, forever is impossible to buy.
time slides out of frame leaving only the sky.

Mote on the breeze
Bits of me cascade around me.

Mote on the breeze
As my skin drys it trys to desert me.

[it's not well known, but household/office dust - though it's made of many things - is more dead skin from humans than anything else. just thought you ought to know.]

anyone can pick a direction; defining a dimension is more difficult.
happy trails, ed.

__________________
remember, two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. sometimes you have to go around the block to get what you left behind. happy trails and safe travels, ed.

i don't, as a rule, like poetry.
good poetry is timeless and boundless; however, MOST poetry is not good, by any definition.
face it, percentage wise, how much poetry that you have read, would you call 'good'?
my own pet peeve is that BAD poetry is everywhere, so i mostly just ignore it.

for some reason - probably because some of it is well done - 'free verse' has become the vouge.
probably tho, it's the style al a mode because it's easy to do. avant garde, and all that.
i used to post a lot on a writers forum, and the whole website finally drowned in a see of freee verse insaniteee.
it made me mad.
(not angry. i had been angry already, so one day a spark struck the end of the last straw on my camels back and in the conflagration we both went mad in a hurry.)
i wanted to get even, i wanted to lash out in some way; i wanted revenge on those barbarians murdering my language!
and it had to be done fast, before my inner defenses stopped me from acting foolishly!

so one night, i wrote a poem. not my first time, but not more than about my 50th,
covering my whole life, and mostly in my teen years.
(i do write lyrics, but that's different, and more's the point.)

i wanted to show that the heart of a poem is the emotions in it, but without help, the heart is not enough.

curiosity and imagination are the blood cells the heart moves.
compassion is the oxygen the blood carries to the brain.
and in the mind, it all combines, and continues to climb.

structure and insight are necessary to reveal the beauty of the soul.
a message is only as good as the ears it enters.
any writer or speaker must use words the audience understands.

so in a 'momentary lapse of reason' i set out to show that rhyme and meter matter.
but i could not keep from laughing on the inside as i did it.
as a result, it's a long joke, based on many things.

mostly, it's meant to be a joke at the expense of those who think their set of definitions is the only one.
but that's what i already do, with my prose, at least i try to.

so without knowing beans about feet, except that 'iambic pentameter' is very popular, i plodded along.
i used my tiny algebraic knowledge to establish a formula.
some criteria are obvious, starting with the title.
but other layers lie lurking. i used to have a breakdown, but that was lost since i wrote this long ago.
and besides, if i told you what they are, you would miss the fun of finding them.

i hope it makes you smile.


The common adder is a scary thing,
With fangs that puncture with ease.

A contact batter with a sweet swing,
Means more wins for his team.

When constant chatter makes your ears ring,
Shout “A little quiet please!”

A cushioned damper stops a piano string,
Causing the sound to cease.

A colorful Easter egg in hiding,
Rests amidst the weeds.

A caring father is always loving,
The children from his seed.

The cheery glitter of a diamond sparkling,
Will make your wife go giggly.

A computer hacker leaves your PC crashing,
And makes your hard drive freeze.

A cold Icelander merely skating,
Will later be riding skis.

The carotid and jugular, artery and vein,
Must not be cut or you’ll bleed.

A caretaker or keeper slowly sweeping,
Will leave your driveway clean.

The crummy litter, slowly piling,
Grows higher with every breeze.

A cautious mother watching her offspring,
Keeps both her eyes peeled.

A careful narrator who’s orating,
Minds his Qs and Ps.

A careless orator who’s wandering,
Gets off the topic totally.

A cache of plunder, sits abiding,
Stolen from a Queen.

A cowardly quitter, quickly running,
Is trying to break free,

And carefree rapture on the wing,
Delivers ecstasy.

A candid sculpture shows his thing,
Until they hang that leaf.

Your car’s tachometer quickly climbing,
Gives you greater speed.

A cow’s udder, when you’re milking,
Gets white spots on your knees.

A camping vacationer, with dogged hiking,
Finds a spot high in the trees.

A chancy wager with money riding,
Leaves you making silent pleas.

A calm Xerox-er steadily printing,
Kills a lot of trees.

A constant yammer of loud whining,
May come from drudgery.

And a contrary zipper, oddly binding,
Makes it hard to pee.


This writing isn’t caustic, but rather,
A little stretching to please me.
But harsher writing’s a challenge,
And quite a strain on me.
The Catch-22 of broader writing
Is pulling thoughts I don’t have from inside me.



Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do.
Happy trails, ed.
Copyright 2007, an excerpt from “The A-be-Zees of Life, Learning to Love Living”, by ed elledge.

****

having said that,
COME ON PEOPLE!

lighten up, chill out, join in, act silly, and tell us about it.
this is the fun thread, drift does not exist, and the music in your head never stops.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.
Unknown

the epic, the comic, and the tragic: discuss.

__________________
remember, two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. sometimes you have to go around the block to get what you left behind. happy trails and safe travels, ed.

Now, I'm sure you're all aware that this week is national gall-bladder week. So as sort of an educational feature at this point I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent researches into the career of the late doctor Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall-bladder. Which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological advances since the invention of the joy-buzzer and the dribble-glass. Doctor Gall's faith in his invention was so dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when, for the first time in history, in a nation-wide poll the gall-bladder was voted among the top ten organs. His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day.

Whereupon he switched to the field of medicine in which field he also won renown as the inventor of gargling. Which prior to that time had been practiced only furtively by a remote tribe in the Andes who passed the secret down from father to son as part of their oral tradition. He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age. To the land we all dream about, sunny Mexico of course. The last part of which is completely irrelevant, as with the whole thing I guess, except, it's a rather sneaky way of getting into this next type of popular song which is one of those things about that magic, and romantic land south of the border.

When it's fiesta time in Guadalajara,
Then I long to be back once again
In Old Mexico.
Where we lived for today,
Never giving a thought to tomara.
To the strumming of guitars,
In a hundred grubby bars
I would whisper "Te amo."

The mariachis would serenade,
And they would not shut up till they were paid.
We ate, we drank, and we were merry,
And we got typhoid and dysentery.

But best of all, we went to the Plaza de Toros.
Now whenever I start feeling morose,
I revive by recalling that scene.
And names like Belmonte, Dominguin, and Manolete,
If I live to a hundred and eighty,
I shall never forget what they mean.

(For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this
world than the sight of a lone man facing singlehandedly
a half a ton of angry pot roast!)

Out came the matador,
Who must have been potted or
Slightly insane, but who looked rather bored.
Then the picadors of course,
Each one on his horse,
I shouted "Ole!" ev'ry time one was gored.

I cheered at the bandilleros' display,
As they stuck the bull in their own clever way,
For I hadn't had so much fun since the day
My brother's dog Rover
Got run over.

(Rover was killed by a Pontiac. And it was done with
such grace and artistry that the witnesses awarded the
driver both ears and the tail - but I digress.)

The moment had come,
I swallowed my gum,
We knew there'd be blood on the sand pretty soon.
The crowd held its breath,
Hoping that death
Would brighten an otherwise dull afternoon.

At last, the matador did what we wanted him to.
He raised his sword and his aim was true.
In that moment of truth I suddenly knew
That someone had stolen my wallet.

Now it's fiesta time in Akron, Ohio,
But it's back to old Guadalajara I'm longing to go.
Far away from the strikes of the A.F. of L. and C.I.O.
How I wish I could get back
To the land of the wetback,
And forget the Alamo,
In Old Mexico. Ole!

-- Tom Lehrer