No one ever answers when I call

[Hare]

That's a moving poem, Brian, and the picture even more so. It's brought back memories
that are always waiting to surface really.
Root canal is an exhausting business and takes so long. Your dentist surely does deserve an ode.

[W.G.McLeod]

After a toe tapping root canal something more 'substantial'? Try heavy. Our parents are either dropping away or sliding into the poor side of health over here as well. It's a real life changer.

[cookala]

Selfie With Dad - this is such a touching poem, and it brought back a lot of memories of when my step-dad was in the nursing home before he passed on. He, too, had dementia so I understand all to well exactly what you are dealing with and going through. To sum it up in one word - it's heartbreaking. Those lucid moments are to be cherished, as you know. And yes, the poisoning, the "you're out to get me", the hallucinations, getting stuck in the past - those are all common things among people with dementia. My heart goes out to you. It helps to write about it, as you have. Stay strong. *hugs*

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks, All. The latest was a very personal poem, and I am more satisfied with it than I expected to be, since there is so much left out. But this is not a journalism exercise, so it may be best to leave some things unsaid.

I have some other ideas that may involve personal things, and I have usually done a number of such piece in past Napos and Sevens, but I am definitely gong to be branching out to a variety of themes.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Poultricide (Poultry Side)

The sergeant had a certain flair—
that regal way he combed his hair—
a dash or four of debonair,
a soupçon, too, of savoir-faire.

The rooster, too, had quite the comb.
The henhouse was his second home—
he’d strut among the hens, and roam
outside the coop to scratch the loam.

The sergeant to the farmer said:
“Your cocky rooster may be dead.
The fine red comb upon his head
was found in Martha’s unmade bed.”

The farmer sucked a piece of straw.
and shined an apple, red and raw.
“While no man is above the law,
some think they are—like crows they caw—
 
then rumors spread. That’s what I say.”
He paused a moment—grabbed some hay—
“I fear the rooster’s gone away.
Now, where he’s gone, it’s hard to say.”

The sergeant flipped his notebook shut.
He’d heard it all before—all but
the lies and rumors—filthy smut
so foul it pained his ear. His gut

was sure the farmer knew. “Fowl play’s
involved,” he said “I’m sure. The maze
of crime will straighten out.” His gaze
then went from dirt to door—the day’s

work never finished. “I must ask
your wife a question—that’s the task
before me now.” His face a mask,
the farmer led him in. “Don’t bask

in unearned glory—there’s no crime
in chicken soup you know. The time
has come for dinner, sergeant—I’m
a man of habits. Wash the grime

from dirty hands—from scowling face—
and we will set an honored place
at table.” The sergeant glimpsed a trace
of grime, and washed until the lace

upon the tablecloth was not
in any danger. “There’s a lot
I need to ask you. Martha’s got
the right to silence, but it’s hot

and heavy now. The chickens all
want justice soon. It’s left a pall
of fear in henhouse, coop and stall.
The culprit could be in the hall,

or even in this room.” He slurped
his soup, then asked for more. He burped;
he belched. Outside, a sparrow chirped.
“I’ve never said I’m Wyatt Earp,”

the sergeant quipped, “or Sherlock Holmes—”
He paused to watch as Martha roams
from sink to stove, her cooking tomes
all lined up with her “Better Homes

and Gardens”, too. Beside the door,
a calendar—a local store
has passed them out as gifts. What’s more—
the sergeant noticed someone tore

the April picture. “That seems strange,”
he thought, and then he felt a change.
He woke, and had to re-arrange
his thoughts: “Have I got mange?—

Or something worse?” He looked around,
and—to his great dismay—soon found
his hands were tied, his feet were bound,
and feathers strewn upon the ground.

The rooster’s comb had had a trim
(that is the last we heard of him).
He knew his chance was rather slim.
The truth is strange, and harsh and grim—

so don’t ask questions on a whim,
and fill your soup bowl to the brim.

BrianIs AtYou

[Arlene]

the first made me smile, is it a limerick? funny no matter, as is the last, fun to read, and the second tore me up, a vivid picture of a man dying of dementia and the hell the N goes through too.

[PClem]

I bet that's the only dentist with an ode in her honor.
Poultice was hysterically well done. Needs to be put to music. Though I may never eat chicken soup, again. Selfie with Dad was very humans and had moments of real revelation, frustration, humor, compassion and grief. I know these feelings well.

[mjd888]

Hi Brian

I love the rhymes in 'Poultrycide'. The 'Holmes' stanza is hilarious, particularly with the enjambment of 'Homes / And Gardens'. It's impressive in length also, given the time.

Matthew

[Steven]

Hi Brian, thanks for penning 'Poultryside', a real treat of quadruple rhymes -- not easy, but you did it off with panache. Some of the rhymes were hilariously inventive. A pleasure to read.

[casket N orbit]

Hi Brian. All three, engaging. April 3 leaves me with a pleasant sing-songy pace of sound in my head. April 2, wow! I can't wait to find quiet time to read over again!

[cookala]

you've outdone yourself with Pultricide Brian! a chicken pome ot be proud of. love the rhythm and rhyme, the story. big thumbs up!

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

the first made me smile, is it a limerick? funny no matter, as is the last, fun to read, and the second tore me up, a vivid picture of a man dying of dementia and the hell the N goes through too.

#1 is a not-quite limerick, as lines 1,2 and 5 have 4 stresses. I prefer to think of it as a Dublin, rather than a limerick. I've done a lot of these (as well as limericks) over the years.

I bet that's the only dentist with an ode in her honor.
Poultice was hysterically well done. Needs to be put to music. Though I may never eat chicken soup, again. Selfie with Dad was very humans and had moments of real revelation, frustration, humor, compassion and grief. I know these feelings well.

As my brother pointed out before I had the root canal, the procedure isn't fun, but the relief--the relief can be marvelous. (A strange side effect is that my vision has improved as well since the root canal, which seems strange. I wonder if the pain signals being sent down the nerves from the damaged root were interfering with the optical nerve signals, or if that is even possible.)

Looking at the comments, it looks like no one knows how to spell Poultricide (or else auto-correct is being the bane of folks). That one was one of the experiments in doing something extreme that you "shouldn't" do--a method I used in Napo several years ago with my Metapoetics thread. I've thought of doing some of that this year--trying things that "break the rules", or go to some extreme.

Selfie with Dad contains a lot of things that have been simmering for a while, though it is by no means exhaustive or the final word on the subject. Notably, last year my third poem of Napo, Surface Tension, was also about Dad (and Mom). It was around that time that I could foresee the likelihood of my father's decline and death.

Hi Brian

I love the rhymes in 'Poultrycide'. The 'Holmes' stanza is hilarious, particularly with the enjambment of 'Homes / And Gardens'. It's impressive in length also, given the time.

Matthew

Thanks for the comments on "Holmes", I had some fun with that, starting with "Earp" in the last line of the stanza before, enjambing to "Holmes" and then at the end from "Homes" to "and Gardens", as you noted. The length of it was a function of two things: trying to figure out where it was going (or rather, letting it tell me where it was going) and stretching out the difficulty/absurdity of attempting to write stanzas with quadruple rhymes. I've done the same kind of stretching out in the past with my "pie" poems, like Blueberry Pie (a Nursery Rhyme) and Middle-Aged Mary (Eleanor Rigby's younger half-sister). With those poems, however, the technical challenge--rather than quadruple rhyme--was writing until I had stretched the narrative to the breaking point whilst finding as many words as I could to rhyme with "pie" in the final line of each stanza, and then--when all hope was lost--introducing a narrative turn, and bringing the poem to its conclusion. Those other, earlier, poems, I think, have more well-defined narrative turns, while this one is more abrupt and ambiguous (but that is the nature of a poultricide),

Hi Brian, thanks for penning 'Poultryside', a real treat of quadruple rhymes -- not easy, but you did it off with panache. Some of the rhymes were hilariously inventive. A pleasure to read.

Thanks, Steven, it was fun (and difficult from a technical standpoint) to write. I had to balance pacing, sense, narrative structure and the ridiculous idea to write in quadruple rhyme--certainly one of the more difficult challenges I will probably have this month.

Hi Brian. All three, engaging. April 3 leaves me with a pleasant sing-songy pace of sound in my head. April 2, wow! I can't wait to find quiet time to read over again!

Thanks, casket. Glad you like the sounds of #3. #2 has a lot of personal experience in it, and I often wonder whether I need to distill those experiences further.

you've outdone yourself with Pultricide Brian! a chicken pome ot be proud of. love the rhythm and rhyme, the story. big thumbs up!

Thanks, cookala! My chicken pome was a truly frying experience. I almost went clucking crazy. I tried to wing it, but I really had to keep abreast of what the quadruple rhyme in each stanza was. I was afraid I had cocked it up, or laid a bad egg, but instead I seem to have plucked victory from defeat.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Anne Frank in Hollywood

"This is a photograph of me as I wish I looked all the time. Then I might still have a chance of getting to Hollywood. But at present, I'm afraid, I usually look quite different." - Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Watching the stars on Sunset Boulevard,
she imagines herself in a musical show,
or a screwball comedy on the beach.
She remembers her first kiss, and uses that as motivation.

She looks like a ghost. She wonders what world this is,
and pulls out the photo that makes her feel
like she could be a movie star. That smile. That smile.
She knows only that she should be grateful to God

for sending the ship that carried her here.
But who writes movie scripts for bookish,
skinny, Jewish girls? She’s honest with herself:
If I were to die tragically, maybe someone would care, but

Anne Frank in Hollywood is Nobody Special.
She ends up as a chorus girl in a movie musical:
The Story of a Young Girl, and she never makes
another movie. She settles down in Pasadena,

fulfills her journalistic whims by writing an advice column for the local paper.
In later years, she shows her friends clips of “that movie”,
and they laugh with her. She’s not very good, but—that smile.
The movie—it’s totally forgettable—it’s a bad movie—

but, somehow, no one can take their eyes off her.
Always the optimist, she wonders how her life could be different;
she wonders if she could exist in a better world—
she writes these secret thoughts in her diary,

that, thankfully, no one will ever read.

------------------

BrianIs AtYou

[BruisedOrange]

Anne Frank--dark, haunting. Made me sad.

Jen

[prokopton]

Poultricide is great fun. It seems so effortless for you!
I admire that.
and any poem with soupcon in it gets my vote
This was daring:
"Outside, a sparrow chirped"
a poet has to be very sure of himself,
or drunk, to get away with that!

cheers,
Geoff