Without Rhyme or Reason

[cookala]

Cheers Dunc!
That Saturday with Ros - oh, you cheeky tweaky man you!
Anzac Day - love the romp, the joy in celebrating.
Haiku - lol! of course - there MUST be food!!
Salute to Pepper - brings to mind all the movies made about this, like Terminator and Blade Runner. nice metrics, too.
Executive - clever, and very Dunc. balrog aura. yes.
Near Wyalong - starlight shadows squat is lovely, as is the poem. nice!
April Riddle - I've no idea about this one, but I still enjoyed it!

so, old friend, congrats on finishing another grueling napo! it is always such a joy to read your wit, wisdom and creative take on things. thanks you also for all your visits, comments and support in my thread this month - it wouldn't be the same without you! and don't forget! meet you later in the watering hole for our traditional celebratory dance - woot!

[Sorella]

I needed to google Harry Potter first, but rereading Executive, it seems like N uses his charm (ha!) to get the susceptible and practical Jo (his lucky wife maybe, to have such a willpowered husband) to prepare fishes and bake loaves ...

Fun insight by N if I am right.
Any prizes for solving the April riddle?

[Donner]

Hi, Dunc,

As always, you have expanded my horizons by making me google a few things. I'm not sure I prefer a view of God as magician over Santa Claus - He after all spoke and things did go *poof*, accordingly - but enjoyed your take in Executive regardless.

Near Wyalong again made me curious, so I googled some images. I was struck with how the photos reminded me of so many main streets and mining/gold rush towns from the same era here in the US:



It's all different, yet all the same. Good stuff as always.

Donner

[Featherless Biped]

I cut out just before the dirty cat poem! (I hear that at night, all cats are the same colour, which might explain things.)

I must admit that I'm confused about the intended meaning of the untitled fragment. (Probably the jet lag, and the fact that my brain has been depleted from too much intense philosophy conversation.)

Love the metonymy in Reunion! Sounds like excellent food and conversation, despite the sadness of ageing.

True Romances wins for the punchline (the emtic and the etic) but has many jolly definitions of the same thing beforehand, which I quite like.

I don't know where you find the 2.03repeating hours for your poetry, but then, that's why I've done such a lousy job fluffing this month!

Captain Australia--at least you manage to make wonderful funny out of the sad. Especial compliments on the Captain Sierra Leone stanza. ("Your sandwich is salted with sand"!)

Prayer and Manifesto is a philosopher's tune if I ever heard one! Surprisingly hard to prove that your prayers are answered.
I approve of Blue Evening on the grounds that it uses unusual colour names in a non-commercial setting. (I guess we probably wouldn't have names for those colours if we didn't have artefacts whose colour properties we could control, but it's clever to take them and apply them back to the natural world.)

Lament for Monserrat Figueres calls for music. I like how you depict her voice as a sort of mist--it seems perfect for that voice.

The dialogue with the muse is a wonderfully funny self-deprecating toast to OG. ("Old girlfriend," I assume?) Who could object, really, when it's told in such style? Although I suppose it's more about N's relationship with himself and his own emotions than about her. Maybe not one to send out on nice stationery, then.

Late Train captures the atmosphere beautifully. That "efficient" is well placed, and you've got another strong punchline.

To Richard Dawkins is deftly aimed. Reminds me that I just saw Philip Kitcher give a talk about atheism, and thought he was orders of magnitude better than Dawkins as both a reasoner and an ambassador. I think you correctly pinpoint the sense of humour as the afflicted organ.

The prologue to The Brunswick Papers is surely exaggeration! The gorgeous sounds make me want to believe it, though. I enjoyed the well-born/Melbourne rhyme, which also occurs in this comic song.

That Saturday with Ros is almost painfully realistic teenage awkwardness. Grapple/nipples is an inspired rhyme.

Anzac Day at Gallipoli: I have a colleague who went to it! Deft use of low register here. Despite my dismal failure to pick up the local accent, I want to read this in an okka voice.

The haiku (clever innovation with the two voices) correctly pinpoints an important topic of poetic discourse. I have been to the land of burritos. My deal with the universe is that all pains are compensated with poems. I do not yet know if this applies to burrito-related weight gain.

Another killer punchline in Pepper (ugh, I'm getting boring, noting all the killer punchlines in your thread), plus that wonderful poets/inchoates rhyme. Pepper itself is giving me serious uncanny valley sensations, though.

The speaker in Executive makes a nice pair with Dawkins. Is the punchline "alohomora", the thing from Harry Potter that I just frantically googled, or have I missed a reference?

Near Wyalong goes from lighthearted (I love the dig at Ashbery) to suddenly serious and atmospheric, between lines 2 and 3. The relationship stuff is understated, but effective. I really like the emotional arc of the thing.

April Riddle: I know the answer! I'm reporting it in rot13 and converting to lowercase to avoid spoilers: ancb sbby. Do I win a free drink?