h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thought For The Day

We're wearing our poppies with pride
For all those who've suffered and died
In the battle for peace -
But will war ever cease?
I'll leave that for you to decide.

November 11 is Sunday.
Warmaking's got to end one day.
I won't hold my breath
There's money in death.
We might all be dead on that fun day.

Does anyone know what's happened to Jabs?
He's become an absentee host
In spite of the wonderful poetic slabs
We put out for him here to tempt him to post.
Has he gone fishing? Is he out catching crabs
Or looking for starfish on some rocky coast?

I'm worried about him; it's hard to keep tabs
On a virtual spirit adrift in the ether.
So please log in soon and touch base with us, Jabs
- Have you chucked it all in and gone to Ibiza?

I have not heard any news of our dear friend Jabberwock.
It has been nearly three months since he lasted posted.
I hope that he's won the lottery and bought a cottage by a loch
and that he attends Scottish ceilidhs where he's well toasted.

Brillig does not come too often.
When next it comes, maybe a coffin
Will have poor Jab's body,
So drink a hot toddy,
And hope he is off somewhere quaffin'.

For my first breakfast I'll have porridge followed by Welsh rarebit
on toast and a compote of berry fruits served with buttermilk cream.
For second breakfast I'll have my herrings rolled oats to help me keep fit.
Then it will be followed by a glass of pumpkin juice which tastes like a dream.

From far across the frozen wastes he came,
A half-starved wraith, unshaved, dirty, half lame.
"The snow men!" he would say again and again.
His haunted eyes exuded angst and pain.

And then we saw them, armies of frosty foes,
Toting weapons, trudging 'cross the floes.
'Twas then that Mother Nature kindly saved the day.
Spring weather came, and they melted away.

I am an unique person with many special gifts.
I have many hidden attributes waited to be found.
I am a peacemaker and a reconciler who heals rifts.
I help people to care and look after their family hound.

Sorry for the spelling errors.

I am an unique person with many special gifts.
I have many hidden attributes waiting to be found.
I am a peacemaker and a reconciler who heals rifts.
I help people to care and look after their family hound.

I am one with nature and I can commune with all creatures.
I roam the woods and forests as I take in all their beauty.
I listen to their messages for me as they are my teachers.
They tell me to protect the fragile ecosystem is everyone's duty.

The marshes shed many a tear.
"Those youngsters come here to drink beer.
Their beer cans they leave.
Such waste makes us grieve.
The quicksand makes them disappear."

It has been a quite an overcast day with scattered showers.
Tomorrow will be another wet morning but with sun later on.
I hope that the rain will refresh the autumn trees and flowers
along with my herbaceous bushes growing on my garden lawn.

THIS IS NOT A POEM


Timing!
Some say brevity is the soul of wit
but I believe the essence of humour
is Timing. And some of the funniest
bits are achieved with unexpected and
arhythmic scansion in verse.

>> scansion
the analysis and visual representation of a poem's metrical pattern. Adapted from the classical method of analyzing ancient Greek and Roman quantitative verse, scansion in English prosody employs a system of symbols to reveal the mechanics of a poem-i.e., the predominant type of foot (the smallest metrical unit of stressed and unstressed syllables); the number of feet per line; and the rhyme scheme. The purpose of scansion is to enhance the reader's sensitivity to the ways in which rhythmic elements in a poem convey meaning. Deviations in a poem's metrical pattern are often significant to its meaning.
<<

The key to all that is the last line:
"Deviations in a poem's metrical pattern are often significant
to its meaning."

And with that understanding I bow once again to the Thinker's
uncanny knack for doing sidesplitting poetic pratfalls that
rival Wile E. Coyote's suspension of belief in gravity.

http://youtu.be/VEFmFMeXV3E


~jwf~

Poetic pratfalls, you claim?
For me, rhythms ought to seem tame.
My last lines, it's true,
Far afield often skew.
And I think that 2Legs is to blame!

Here is a simple verse from an alternate and diverse universe.
On learning ways of keeping you very healthy and fit
through walking in reverse when the weather gets worse
to keep on and not to quit even when trying to learn how to knit.

Walking backwards, I find,
Is bad for my mind.
What was my mistake?
Why can't I catch a break?

[...Sonnet 155 recently discovered in the rafters in Silver Street..]

Shall I divert thee with a different rhyme?
This is less aptly fit for all but dopes;
Tough life doth shake the optimist in time,
And gradual wearing lessens all our hopes;
Sometime too late the penny finally drops,
And often is it into such soft sand;
And inattentive ears hear not the plops,
Deafed as they are by our own o'er loud band;
But even as we speak the chatter fades,
And self possession loses self in trial;
And shadow of our final end is made,
Lengthening in the sunlight's last denial:
So long as hitchers hike and thinkers think,
So long lives this, and time for one more drink.

#6196

Indeed!

~jwf~

Ah, soliloquey,
you make me free
to be me.