On honoring a respectful request (I've had my fun)

Odd's bodkin, man, a SONNET?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>You're definitely raising the class here, David. A limerick would have been one thing, but a sonnet?

Re: chasseur de sanglier

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>That is truly incredible, David. You should be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

I'm posting this one on the wall (assuming I can find an empty one) in my shop. I might even frame it. I wouldn't be surprised if Joel posts it in his shop, too.

But it needs a title (I dare not suggest one), and an umlaut over the a in Wildschweinj�ger.

You sure you still wanna visit this month, Wm.?

David Barnett

>Kind praise, Sir Wm. And you're right; I didn't have the late-night keyboard courage to attempt the missing umlaut (somewhat Freudian, perhaps, that castrato 'a'? -- which leads to more associated angst below).

Now... the title, the title, the title... yes. That IS a problem. The brief (but inspired) act of writing and the post-response neurotic remorse was sufficient to temporarily drain my diction well and likewise exhaust my Muse who tends it, a somewhat squat, grubby, dingy drudge who claims Muse status, but whom I suspect is an opportunistic homeless ex-English teacher from Arkansas or somewhere Ozarkian or West Virginian, and there are cigarette butts and MD20-20 bottles everywhere which just doesn't seem Muse-like, somehow, if you know what I mean.

My four title efforts seem somewhat... wordy -- at least to my ear. But here they are, nevertheless, which is why I think it best to leave it to you, William, as ad hoc editor, to perhaps suggest something a bit more succinct or leave it altogether undone.

_________________________________________

"Lines Written At 3AM In Venice -- Unfortunately Venice FLORIDA aka "God's Waiting Room" -- But At Least I'm Not Ezra Pound"

"Hastily Crafted And Even More Hastily Edited Sonnet With A Hendecasyllabic Trailing Couplet Line (g2) Which Augmented Syllable Forms A Less-Stringent 'Sicilianate' Leading Ligature* Lending A More 'Finished' Less 'Formal' Sense of Finality -- Or That's My Story And I'm Sticking To It"

"Reflecting That The Last Four Letters Of My Surname Are "N E T T" Rather Than "S T O N E" Which Is Five Anyway -- Which One Might Think Would Get Me Closer To That Pulitzer If Only My Given Name Was Also "W I L L I S" Instead Of "D A V I D" But Which Would Really Only Seemingly Do So Sort Of Like Having That Almost Winning Lotto Ticket That Misses By Just One Unfortunately Significant Digit**."

"Lines Written Then Posted Then Worried About In Trepidation That Writing Such Lines Might Mean That Some Kind Of Closeted Gay Gene May Have Been Triggered Late In Life And Caused Me To Write A SONNET Albeit A Manly SONNET -- One Hopes -- At Any Rate I'm Getting Rid Of My Pink Ivory And Signing Up For Male Hormone Replacement Therapy And Where The HELL Is My Prozac"

*Actually, not uncommon in the ababcdcdefefgg form. The strictly pentametric (g2) would have read: "Reference to this bodkin most un-Kosher", 'reference' being pronounced clearly in two syllables.

**Willis Barnstone did title one of his sonnets "Resignation to the Luck of Waking Out of the Night to Scrawl a First Poem and Having a Czech Friend to Read It"

Odd's bodkin, indeed! But raising the class?

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>Believe me, it was just a flash in the pan. A singularity (see my response to Wm.Duf'dOTC, below).

However, I do suppose I should write a limerick and a haiku or two for my upcoming "Recollections Of My Esperanto Homeland", and of course, there's the odd poetic musing or two in the footnotes to my recently declassified "The Flatulence Theory Of Crop Circles".

There. Got that level of discourse back on terra firma before it was too late.

Re: You sure you still wanna visit this month, Wm.

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Ode to a Pigsticker, maybe, thus undoing everything?

At this point, I can imagine a certain merchant of the Big Apple muttering under his breath, "If you prick me, do I not bleed?" But another, in Ashby MA, might be more likely to utter, "If you stick me, do I not oink?"

Re: chasseur de sanglier

Joel

>I realized after spending a good 6 minutes on a lymrick in vain that this sonnetting thing is both hard to do and time consuming. I applaude bard Barnett on his effort and am once again astounded on the versitility of his talets.

As for posting in the shop - it's a good idea but I am afraid that the language is far too complex for my plainspeaking staff and myself and might be mistaken for an OSHA warning.

joel (who tried writing a couplet on joinery tools but only ended up with tenonitis )

With slightish tweak doth another meaning make...

David Barnett

>"Owed On A Pigsticker"

$50 dollars plus postage.

Send to:

PO Box 43

Ashby, MA 01431

OSHA warnings against limericks in the workplace?

David Barnett

>Oh, dear... don't get me started on limericks! Mine tend to the ribald, to put it bluntly.

And talents? Well, that's very gracious. We all have those, of course, and I must own up that whatever inclinations were so generously lent by my Creator, I've largely squandered; proverbial pearls before swine, which is where we got 'stuck' in the first place (sigh). It never ends.

"My new holdfast from Joel is excitin'

but it slips when it oughta be bitin'

dada da da da da

dada da da da da*

And the doghole's not likely to tighten."

*this short couplet would, of course, render the context as far too vulgar for the genteel Mssrs. and Mesdames Galoots

A pigsticker by any other name

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>would chop just as sweet.