Poetic Parody
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:43:51 GMT

If mimicry is the greatest form of compliment, then it stands to reason that parody is the most complimentary form of ridicule. The humor usually relies on the imitation of the style of another work, writer or genre on a subject that is trivial to the subject of the original work, or by exaggerating the self-importance of the original work to achieve comic or satirical effect. A familiarity with the original work usually enhances the appreciation of the parody, but often the parody stands alone. For the writer, parody can be an exercise to hone ones own work, overcome writers block, and to gain a deeper insight into the mind of an established writer and the craft of writing in general. It is also a lot of fun.
Here are a couple of my parodies. The first pokes fun at Lewis Carol's "Jabberwoky " and the second, a "dig" (pun intended) at the necessary speculative nature of forensic anthropology using Theodore Roethke's wonderful poem "I Knew A Woman ".

Cyberstalky

Torre DeVito
(with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

So willing, were the slimy perves
To gyre and gambol on the world-wide-wabe;
Their whimsy is to ogle curves,
And in chatrooms, outgrabe.

"Beware the cybertalk, my dear!
The claws that type, the jaws that chat!
Shun computer nerds, in fear,
Like that humorous blogger, Pat!"

They type their vorpal words to thee:
Meanwhile, the minxsome "ho" they seek--
They tempt you to join youtube, you see,
With your webcam, so they can peek.

One two! One two! And through and through
Their keyboard keys go snicker-snack!
You block their screen-names and I-P's
Ignore their spam attack.

And you, in prudish thought, withstood,
The cyberstalker, with eyes of flame,
So he whiffled off in a surly mood,
To burble on IRC and AIM!

"And hast thou stopped the Cybertalk?
Come to my site, my beamish girl!
Join Amazon! Yahoo! eBay!"
Learn Java, PHP, and PERL!

But beware the other slimy perves
That gyre and gambol on the world-wide-wabe;
Their whimsy is to ogle curves,
And in chatrooms, outgrabe.


I KNEW A HOMINID

Before Lucy became a pile of bones,
When small birds sighed, she would throw rocks at them;
Ah, when she moved, could she have stood or run?
The shapes of fossil bones do not explain!
Of Lucy's virtues scientists will speak,
Hiding ignorance in Latin names, and Greek,
("Australopithecus afarensis," how unique!).

As hypotheses go, we stretched them thin,
How might she turn, and counter-turn, and stand?
With clay we modeled muscle, sinew, skin;
Spent many hours with her ape-like hand;
She was the fossil; I, poor I, a flake,
Had many speculations, all half baked,
But what prodigious theories I did make!

I fleshed her out with clay upon her skull:
Full lips, as if, an errant grub to seize;
I envisioned her: half human yet quite dull,
With eyes and brow resembling chimpanzees,
And simian parts, and mobile primate nose
(All based on speculation, I suppose,
That ran in circles, and those circles moved).

Let bones be cast in silt or tar or clay;
Through processes and circumstance unknown;
Why study rocks? To know eternity?
The ages turned her skeleton to stone.
God alone can count eternity in days,
Yet from old bones I learn man’s wanton ways
(And measure time by carbon’s slow decay).

Note: One rejection slip from a science magazine
accused me of being a creationist. I'm not.
It's a joke, get over it!

I point out that scientists aren't always perfect,
but the line "God alone can count eternity in days"
is not meant to mean that there is no evolution.
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Push Me, Daddy
Tue, 04 May 2010 15:59:41 GMT

When both of my two children were still small
We frequented a tiny, nearby playground
Where too-often their independence would brawl
With their desire of having me around.

Also at odds: instilling confidence and pride
And my desire to fend away bad things.
It was always "No, don't catch me!" at the slide,
And "Higher, Daddy, Higher!" at the swings.

On those swings, where I first taught them how to fly,
To pump their little legs and arch their chests,
And told them point their toes out to the sky,
That's where I learned the final push was from the nest.

And at that park I held their bikes and ran beside
And tried to teach them all they had to know:
Balance, and a smoothness in their ride;
While in their turn, they taught me to let go.
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Another poem in progress:
Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:57:15 GMT

Star Gazing

Lying in the grass
In our yard we watch the sky
You and I, and our two children
To glimpse the Leonids.

I point out Castor and Pollux
Off Orion's left shoulder
"Further left, beyond Cancer,
See the question mark?"
"That is the head of the lion."
"That is the place." I say.
"Just wait."

And in the silence I muse
On how the universe is expanding
Inexorably and Silently outward.
And, I wonder, how many of these stars
Have winked out of existence
In the distant past? Yet
We still see their glow, so that
Looking out is looking back in time.

I keep these thoughts to myself,
Silent as the pre-dawn canopy, until
Out of the constellation of Leo
Stars begin to streak across the sky
A few at first, occasionally, and then
Many and more frequently.

You take my hand as
One meteor leaves a smoking trail
That lingers long after the fireball fades.
It is like this moment in my memory.
I watch you look into the shining eyes of
Our son and the wondering face of our daughter.
Together we contemplate heaven.


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This dog won't hunt....
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:59:21 GMT

Ennui

Like an old dog on the front porch
Lying in a patch of sun
Trying to thaw the winter cold
That sleeps inside his bones:
Waiting on warmer days,
But the spring's long away.
Soon summer too is gone.

Like a fleeting memory that
Dances among the trees:
There's a scent of wild fortune
Drifting upon the breeze.
And the dog thumps his tail,
Dreams that he's on the trail,
How swiftly the moment flees.

I passed the field of a lazy man,
The vineyard of a fool.
Where thorns had come up everywhere
And weeds had come to rule.
A bit of slumber, a bit more sleep
Fold your hands it will keep
'Til poverty takes you to school.


- Torre DeVito March 30, 2010
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"J.D. Salinger is dead."
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:43:13 GMT

"J.D. Salinger is dead."
I said, glancing at the TV
"What's that, Dear?" said she.

"You know, the author, 'Franny
and Zooey', 'Catcher in the Rye'"
Said I.

"We had a strange teacher in tenth
He made us read 'Catcher'" she said,
But I thought Salinger was long dead"

"Nope," I replied, he just managed to go
from being famous to being obscure
And hasn't written a thing since 1964."

"Fans once peaked through his windows
and stole his underwear for souvenirs
then he quietly disappears."

"J.D. Salinger is dead." I said.

"If the world shrugs at the passing
Of one such as he..."
I returned to my book, she to her tea.

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