Tuesday guide to not writing haiku
March 15, 2020
Straining to create
seventeen syllable pups —
such stillborn haiku
That’s about the type of haiku where the number of syllables dictates everything. It’s a bit of an example of what to avoid, though I am rather fond of the second line.
Tuesday poem: Future lungs
December 9, 2019
Future lungs
Everyone mining air
and everyone a canary —
the future is coughing.
Invest in inhalers.
King Asthma ascends —
his sceptre
a smoke cigar.
PS Cottier
I’m sitting in Canberra at 11am, and it’s almost like twilight because of all the smoke in the air from the bushfires near Braidwood, and possibly even from down near Batemans Bay. We may be having a foretaste of the future, when even the bravest firefighters (like those we have now) won’t be able to put out the climate change induced fires.
There may be no more telling the kids to ‘leave that computer and go outside and play’, because they might find breathing a tad difficult.
Still avoidable, but only if we did something serious about tackling climate change. The Firefighters Union knows what it is talking about.
Tuesday poem: Three first world concerns
September 27, 2019
Three first world concerns
The scholastic affliction —
virus transmits an urge
to write a PhD
Paleo or vegan diet?
Debate attracts more comments
than Palestine
American spelling triumphs —
well color me cheeks,
what’s wrong with ‘u’?
PS Cottier
This one is inspired by some of the whingey conversations overheard at my local café. Hats off to the woman who was complaining about how expensive marble is in kitchen renovations, as if it was a human rights issue. The second stanza (or pseudo-haiku) is based on newspaper debates on-line.
I do feel an itch of discomfort about American spelling, so the last part is a go at myself. And the sign has no relation to the poem, I think.
Tuesday poem: How I hate you
September 10, 2018
How I hate you
Reality TV, bastard child of documentary and soap opera,
I hate you more than competitors hate the dishes served
up by the other teams; their yucks and carefully edited
smirks are nothing to the pure flame of hate I direct at you.
I will buy one of those little devices to make crème brûlée.
Nay, I shall buy twelve of them, and hang them from
a bandolier, all Sergio Leone, only French.
And I shall discover the producers and brûlée them, irrevocably.
Custard hearted slop buckets are those who reduce
something like food to these fiendish competitions,
and pit like infamous olives the spitting couples.
Let there be an end to these spectacles!
I open a can of baked beans.
I heat bread.
PS Cottier
After lengthy delay, here’s a very slow-cooked poem. Enjoy!
On the shocking spread of unregulated materials
Gnomes
Despise
Picnic
Rugs
PS Cottier
Pun based acrostics have their place at my place. Particularly when one has been tormented by numerous emails about one’s privacy for weeks. If you’ve never heard of the GDPR, you have my felicitations. Which is not to say that it’s not A Good Thing, but let there be an end to the emails, please. And this is from someone living in Australia; I dread to think what it’s been like in Europe (which includes the UK, at least for now).
