A Lyric Playlet

A Lyric Playlet in One Scene

or Opus 15, My First Contribution to the Christmas Tradition.

Joseph (J.) (soon-to-be step-father of God) and his old lady Mary (M.), who is majorly preggers in every way, both in rags, approach a door. The words "Ye Last Chance Inn" appear above it. After a few knocks the Innkeeper (I.) appears and this conversation ensues.

J.: Innkeeper - please don't let us down -

We've tried every other inn in town!!

As you see my wife is miles around

And soon her Son'll drop to the ground!

I.: What, are you nuts? Haven't you yet been

Made aware that "there's no room at the inn"?

J.: But Sir, though, our taxes paid, now we are poor,

Couldn't you just let us crash `hind your door?

I.: I'd like to be kind but the rich folks have said

"Don't be lettin' no poor folks have a bed."

And the rich folks pay the bills - so it is -

You know we've got to look out after our biz.

M.: Oh - Ohhh - Ah - Ahhh - Oh - Ohhh - Ohhh - Ohhh!

Oh - Ohhh - Ah - Ahhh - Oh - Ohhh - Ohhh - Ohhh!

High-pitched Voice from Mary's Stomach:

Oh let me be born in a warm room Sir!

I won't even mind if it's only a manGER!

J.: Oh no! My wife Mary is about to give birth

to a most important Baby for all planet Earth!

I'll ask one more time, for whatever it's worth

Can you give me, her, and your God a berth?

Else we'll be homeless all the night long

And to do that to God would surely be wrong.

I.: You're "homeless"? Why didn't you say so before?

I had presumed you just disgustingly poor!

Our company policy says there are enough

Grounds for me to offer you free stuff.

So what'll it be: T-shirts, chips, fuzzy dice?

Travel mugs, baseball caps, boxes of instant rice?

Ash trays, fanny packs, hand-painted coasters?

No folks I'm sorry we don't carry toasters.

You want the chips? Here you go and from me

a couple of cigs.

Now both of you get jobs if you really

want good digs.

Offstage Voice:

And so it might have been if then were now.

They say times are better but I'm not sure how.

Finis

-Merry Christmas!- © Dr. Wes Browning

What Could Be Verse?

It has come to my attention, last month, that I have been "laid off" by my "employer." This is good news and bad news. The bad news: i.e., I've been screwed. The good news: as an Artiste, all of Life's Travails are but Grist for my Mill!:

I got Grist in My Teeth!

or Opus 13, My Life Stinks

© Dr. Wes Browning

I cannot contain my elation:

I have an unplanned vacation!

Sure, my life stinks

(And bosses are dinks)

But: due to the fact that I have worked my ass off for the past six years to

earn a living rather than take payment for that permanent mental disability I

am now gratefully fortunate (thanks largely to the Great Depression and its

attendant Administration - I love you Rosy! I really do! I will vote Democrat

forever, just because of you!) that I am going to be able to live like a

jolly starving dog for up to half a year by means of jolly unemployment

compensation.

Here's another easy way to write poems for all you poetry neophytes out there! Say you want to write a poem, but say you're drunk or hungover, or you're bummed out cause you lost your job, or say you're clinically stupid, or all three, or whatever. What should you do? Well, just what any lame artist would do: collage!

Let's see right now I want to write a poem about oh I don't know, oh hell, I'll just write one and see. So I grab my copy of "All the Poems You Were Forced to Read in School So Now You Hate Them and All That They Represent" (by Dead White Poets' Press) - or equivalent - and pick out 3 or 4 at random. Then I "cut'n paste and disregard the waste!" Maybe I kick in a scrap or two from memory and out she comes, another masterpiece!

Un Verset Collagesque

or Opus 14, What Could be Verse?

Copyright Dr. Wes Browning

The gingham dog and the calico cat

side by side on the table sat -

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?

It's nothing against you to fall down flat,

(The) Living shall forfeit fair renown,

and, doubly dying, shall go down

Then they'll do the hokey pokey

And turn themselves aroun'!

That what it's all about!

-Thanks to Eugene Field ("The Duel"), Edmund Vance Cooke ("How Did You Die"), Sir Walter Scott ("Love of Country"), and a scrap from memory. And thank you, poetry reader, for reading, and a special big thank you to The Fisch, Marion Sue, for her hot French pointers!

My First Sonnet

Since I have embarked on these Adventures a number of you have asked "Why?" A poet in the full grip of his Muse, when asked this least poetic of questions, might answer "Why not?" But as my Muse has stepped out for a smoke, I say "Why indeed?"

Is it boredom? A neurological imbalance? Poor nutrition? Revenge against high school English teachers?

Yes, it is.

Let's talk about the poet's craft! Occasionally, an admirer of my Art will ask "© Dr., where do you get your ideas?" and usually I answer "I steal them" or "go away" or "what ideas?" So instead of talking about where I get my ideas - let's talk about the poet's craft!

OK. Once you have a poetry idea you still need:

1) A vocabulary

2) A mold to put it in.

Such a mold is called a "form." Forms come in many forms. Today I'll consider the so-called "sonnet" form. As you'll see, I won't need to know what this means.

To illustrate what we've learned so far, let's "craft" a "sonnet" right now! We'll begin with the idea "sidewalks are hard".Then we'll take someone else's sonnet to be our mold. We'll then change the words - here's where the vocabulary comes in - until they express our idea instead of the other guy's. The sonnet I'll use is Shakespeare's #1 - which by the way being his first, was not one of his best.

And here's what we get!

My First Sonnet or Opus 10, We're Into Two Digits!

© Dr. Wes Browning

Of city benches we desire increase

That THERE our weary ends might ever lie.

Though as the benches may by time surcease

Our childish rears might share their memor-EYE.

But SIDEWALKS 'tached to thine own thick thighs

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel*

Making a sore butt where fatness lies;

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet ass too cruel.

As that art now your prize, best ornament

(Though - Hardly - Herald - To - The - Gaudy - Spring!)

Upon thy own butt forsaketh thy conTENT

Your tender tush made waste by your sitting.

Pity the world, for lest these benches stay

Our precious ends will end as puree.

(*: I didn't understand this line so I didn't change it.)

Isn't that great? Try it yourself! Start from this sonnet or any other poem, use your own "idea" and you'll have your own brilliant poem in minutes. Or wait until next month and I'll you an even easier way to write poems! Until then, happy poesing!

Speaking of Haiku

Speaking of haiku

The consummate poet al-

-ways has one or two.

If you don't recall what a haiku is check out my first:

CHECK IT OUT

or Opus 3, My First Haiku

First: five syllables

Second: seven syllables

Last: five syllables.

Cool huh? O.K., here's one more haiku to whet haiku-appetites, one which I'm sure will be well-received by all your "poetry-cognoscenti." Like many great poems it seeks the Universal in the Particular. It is after all that only by staring unflinchingly at each "pixel" of our reality in this world that we can create a gestalt of our other-than-realities in this world, such as the Universal Objective. So have some gestalt on me!

The Beer Drinker's Haiku

or Opus 5, My First Haiku with Content

H! A! I! K! U!

Don't be drinking all the brew!

Or you WILL upchuck!

Having surmised my views on the Seattle Commons plan Peter Powers, a local building contractor, writes:

Dear Selfish Ex-homeless Jerk -

Let me explain something to you and your kind about the Seattle Commons. We
are not trying to "make people homeless". For every apartment we lay waste,
we will build a new "low income" apartment to replace it. So you see, our
goal is not to increase the total number of homeless but instead to pass the
experience of homelessness to people who haven't already had it. You've had
your chance to be homeless; now let's see some other deadbeats and losers hit
the streets!

But - just to show you I'm a nice guy - here's a poem you can stick in your
"column":

I'm not a bad person you know,
I'm just a guy seeking to grow.
But messing up lives
By leveling dives
Fulfills all my needs to get dough.

I believe you, Peter. But next time could you please keep to a hundred words or less? THANKS!! I have needs, too!

And THANKS!! to you, Reader, for reading. Read next month, and learn something about the poet's craft.

Greetings Poetry Lovers!

Greetings Poetry Lovers! As many of you have noticed, this rag prints lots of poems. As an editor here, I have noticed this also. Have you ever wondered what goes on in the minds of all those people who write all those poems?

Of course not. Who cares? But now and then, there is that exceptional case, that poet of such brilliance, of such note, of such extraordinary differentness, that his/her work begs for clarification, even demands it, with every well chosen word, every masterful line, etc.

I AM that poet.

This IS that clarification.

And THIS is my OEUVRE.

Since writing my first poem last month, what follows is perhaps my most revealing work yet. It is entitled "Home Was a '69 Rambler" or "Opus 7, I'm tired of Haiku Just Now, Thank You." Before proceeding to the poem let's discuss its deeper meaning: its Signification.

The poem has one "stanza", followed by what we call a "chorus" which is imperfectly repeated one time. Now "chorus" is merely an ancient Greek word meaning "all together now", while "stanza" is short for the Chico Marx expression "HE stanza there, we stanza here," id est, "HE stanza-lone." This notion of "stanza" reverberates strikingly with the predominate image of the stanza it denotes, namely that of a broken-down '69 Rambler rolled off the road and left STANDING there to be someone's home, ID EST, mine. Could this possibly be more poignant? Not to me!!

With this in mind we are ready.

Home Was a '69 Rambler

© Dr. Wes

Home was a '69 Rambler

I'd rolled it away from the road

Home was a '69 Rambler

Until the state ha-ad it towed

(chorus:)

O Rambler,O Rambler

Bring back my Rambler to me,to me!

(imperfect repetition:)

O Rambler,O Rambler

Bring back my Rambler to me!

Please note there is one less "to me" in the repeated chorus. And SO it IS in LIFE. Thank you readers for reading and THANK YOU, Stan and Marion, fellow editors, and 1995 Attention Deficit Disorder Poster Children, for making this column so mercifully short.