Facebook Note: Ye Olden Poetria

Written and published to Facebook on July 17th, 2012

Author's Note: Some of the references made here will not make sense, as you people (or person; can I kid myself into saying that I'll receive hits from more than one person on this?) are not the originally intended audience. For one, I mention "the 20 of you who raised your hands" in the first paragraph, and that was referring to all of the people out of all my Facebook friends who had ever read anything which I had written onto Facebook Notes. I think that 20 was an optimistic count.

For another thing, I mention "my other poems," and tell people to check out some of the other ones that I had written onto the same Notes. Well, I haven't included all of them here, and I will probably keep it that way. There is one specific poem that I mention called "Chemeone, id est Scorchfrost" which you will not be able to find here. That one is largely personal by nature. And besides, the last line of the poem is my full name, something that I don't think any of you few readers out here need to know. Don't worry about it, though; it's not important to know that.

You will see one further note beside the poem that it explains. Other than that, carry on.

So, has anybody out there ever read one of my poems?

Ok, now the 20 of you who raised your hands, you'll have some context for what this is about. For the rest of you, you might want to take a look at a poem I wrote in recent years so you get an idea about my style of writing poetry. Well, maybe check a few, since I've experimented with different things and once you've read a few you can get a general idea. They should be here in the Facebook Notes, somewhere. In fact, I think I'll make a page break here so you can go do that if you really want to.

Hi again, everybody! How are you feeling now? A little more depressed or inspired? Heh, sorry, or you're welcome. Well, let's carry on.

You get the idea of what I write, or I'm assuming that you did get the idea. Sometimes people have told me that they like some of the poems that come out of me. I try to make them be about feeling, now, even more than I try to make them about cadence and rhythm and rhyme scheme and structure. Sure, the organization of thoughts is important, but I think that even more important than that is that a poem clearly expresses something that the poet sees, senses, or feels inside. When I read the things that others have written as such, that's mostly what I look for in their work. To me, that's what makes the best poems.

But you see, I wasn't always thinking that way. The first time that I thought of doing a poem out of my own free will and choice was when I was 15 or so. If you read the whole Note on here called "Chemeone, id est Scorchfrost," you'd see the write-up there as to why I took that poem on, why it was that I decided that poetry could be a vehicle for more than a required grade in English language arts at school, and could be more than a few amusing words thrown together in rhyming couplets. It was a great day of discovery for me when I found that if some livid passion or some seething, corrosive poison started overflowing from the basin of my heart, if it was too much to be expressed through the normal venue of spoken words, then I could use poetry to extract the essence of the feeling that would come more quickly and easily than carefully constructed sentences and expressions. I'm still grateful to have been granted access to such medicine.

Before that, though, do any of you know what kind of poetry I wrote in those early years?

Ha ha ha, you're about to find out!

I was talking to a friend, not long ago, about how we shouldn't feel discouraged if we don't feel like we're naturally talented or naturally full of faith or other virtues; natural talent (which is known as "proclivity") will only carry you so far, and even those with natural talents have to develop the talent or else it will take them nowhere. Worse, if they don't try to constantly improve they will probably get frustrated by the lack of challenge and progress, and they will stop being so interested in their own areas of expertise.

In order to show my friend those principles - that we shouldn't worry if we don't see natural budding talents immediately in our lives, and that we have to develop even what we "naturally" have - I told her some examples of my own life, how it had taken me so long before I started to find things that I was actually good at. I didn't take up trumpet until I was 13, and then I found for the first time that I liked music and had potential with it. I didn't take up the harmonica until I was 20, and found that with a lot of patience I'm able to teach myself to play music. I've needed to keep working with whatever talent I've shown, so that I can get better at the music.

Now, another example is with poetry. I didn't start off by writing these poetic things that were actually expressions of what I was feeling. I didn't think that my poetry of the time was good, and I didn't even really like most of the poems that I produced. Today I want you to see some of the old ones I wrote, so that you see that I'm not just making this up.

I have to recall most of these from memory, since I don't know where the written copies are right now. Maybe I'll come back and edit this someday in the future.

Ok, enjoy it, people! Or you can just laugh with me, and that's fun too.

*****

Blank Mind (first assigned haiku)

Some kids lack talent

They cannot write a haiku

I am one of them

*****

Murphy's Law (assigned poem of some weird structure)

Bad luck

Cursing, bewitching

[some line I forget]

Can anything go wrong?

It will.

*****

Dullness (assigned poem based on an adverb)

Dully

The train is as dull as dust

And it's covered in a crust

Of dull and red and moldy rust

I think this train's gonna bust

Dully.

*****

Stinkily (rejected version of the poem based on an adverb)

Stinkily

The stinky panda smells like *BEEP!*

Because it decides to keep

All its droppings in a heap

How in the world can it sleep?

Stinkily.

*****

Author's Note: I gave the name that I did to the following poem because at the time I was in junior high school, so my 14-year-old brain didn't have a lot of experience to draw upon. Bishop Greschuk was the name of a Catholic school very near my house, so I thought that added personal relevancy to my writing. Just so you know, this poem was in no way meant to make fun of the Catholic school system... though some students at my elementary school did consider Bishop Greschuk School to be our rivals, so my 14-year-old self had no reservations about mocking my former "rival school."

But, to modify that, I mean no disrespect to the Catholic school systems, the Catholic Church itself, or any members of it - least of all Bishop Greschuk, whom I am sure is a great person with an honoured history, if his life is commemorated by a school being named after him. If anything, this note being about my early and primitive poems, this should show you just how bad I was at making poetry legitimately good.

Last of all, my junior high school was named Rosslyn Junior High and the principal was named Mr. Darling. I mean no disrespect to him either; he was actually rather nice to all of us students, even as horribly obnoxious as teenagers between the ages of 12 and 15 can be.

Ok, did I cover all of the bases? No offense is intended to anyone, and I hope that you enjoy this either by enjoying the content or ridiculing the person who wrote it (I know that I sure ridicule my past self for this one).

Bishop Greschuk (parody of "Bishop Hatto")

The school enrollment had been so low

That if you lined the kids all in a row

You would reach just half a class

At report card time, none did pass

Every day the "population"

Gathered at the office for information

Of Greschuk's magic pencils which gave knowledge,

(Ideal for brains the size of a midge)

Exasperated, the Bishop scheduled a day

To silence the kids without delay

Quickly and ruthlessly, when they were in the hall

He wrote up a note to expel them all

"Halleluiah! They're gone! Finally!" he said

"Never again will those failures tread

On the grounds of this school, that's for sure!

I'm rid of those ignoramuses, yessir!"

He drove home happy after school

But beware - danger is coming, fool!

At home he watched TV in his den

But as Bishop he never did so again

He drove to work next morning (don't ask why)

When an enormous shadow blotted the sky

"Bishop Greschuk! Look out!" his secretary yelled

"Drive away! The students you expelled

Unleashed an ignoramusaurus on you!

Hanging around is a bad thing to do!"

"Wait, stop!" said the bishop. "I see what's happening!"

(He stopped time in my ballad, and everything.)

"In the real ballad, the Bishop flees to Rhine

Then on his carcass the rats dine."

"But I'm smarter than that, you see!

The same thing will not happen to me!

Remember at the beginning of the story?

My magic pencil will rewrite history!"

With a rapid, near superhuman pace

Bishop Greschuk began to erase

The treacherous dino, the whole situation

Then he changed his personal information

When asked to transfer, he said 'muchas gracias'

When at the new school, he used an alias

The new school where he'd put them to the test

Was Rosslyn. "Greschuk" chose the very best!

What was his new name?

Find it a strange thing-

The character's new name

Was Mr. Darling?

The moral of the story is:

Don't become a principal if you hate kids.

*****

The Sock (first assigned limerick)

Writing limericks is a pain

It almost makes me go insane

When in writer's block,

Write about an old sock

Its stench will soon be my bane

*****

When Zeddy Meets Santa (a poem written when I was six or seven years old, about my teddy bear)

When Zeddy sees Santa Claus

Zeddy will clap his paws

When he sees the presents, little and big

Zeddy will do a little jig

When he rides the sleigh through the air

Zeddy will try not to be scared

When the morning sun makes snow gleam

Zeddy realizes it was just a dream!

*****

You get the idea.

'Til next time, eh! Keep up the good work and practice.

- [TAB III]