50th Anniversary: The Trouble With Tribbles

It was 50 years ago today that "The Trouble With Tribbles" -- an episode of Star Trek -- first aired. In honor of that, I hope I can be forgiven for putting a limerick in the mouth of Montgomery Scott:  

There once were wee creatures called tribbles

That wreaked havoc with endless nibbles

  They ate triticale

  And gorged themselves daily

And turned the seed grain into kibbles

Here's to Classic Trek!

Haiku - Nature

I know that poetry isn't my strong suit, so I limit myself to posting it only rarely. But not too long ago I wanted to write some haiku. It's one of the few types of poem you can complete in just a few minutes, where only one clear thought or image is needed. Syllable sudoku meets crossword puzzle. Poetry for a time-challenged age. So ...

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Myriad flowers
Fast-winged bees in the sun
Honey spicy-sweet.

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Lightning's crackling spark
Shatters dark and shows the storm
Thundering closer

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Quiet foggy dawn
Spiders with their spiral webs
Catch the shining mist

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Ok, and now I'm going to spoil the whole effect of all the previous ones with a haiku designed for a first-grader:

Busy buzzy bee
Pick up all the pollen, please
More honey for me!

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Yes, I'm aware that haiku is not usually used with other poetic devices. But, really, it's fun to mix and match.

Against my better judgment ...

Dr Platypus is up to something, which will come as no surprise to those who know him. He's suggested summarizing each book of the Bible as haiku, and has started us off with a few of the epistles of the New Testament. Another fellow has joined in with the Pentateuch.

I'll confess freely: my aesthetics are offended. (Tongue in cheek, for those who don't know me well!) Haiku are clearly meant for short topics that can be sketched in three clear artists' lines. While Jude may qualify for that kind of treatment, it's a breech of genre to try to bonzai the Psalms until they become a single haiku. (Now, 150 haiku, possibly ... so long as Psalm 119 gets to be 5 haiku, each beginning h-a-i-k-u ... or if the whole book becomes an acrostic haiku a-l-l-e-l-u-i-a; but I'm losing my own thread here.) Exodus is clearly an epic (no disrespect intended to the fellow who did the Torah, and did a nicer job than I thought possible with it), and Song of Songs ... well, if anything in the Bible is a limerick, that's the one. So, against my better judgment:

Song of Songs
There once was a king and his lover
Who joyfully went under cover
With lilies and myrrh
We're quick to aver:
Wonder is great to discover

Poetry / experiments

It's been nearly 2 years since I posted any poetry here -- and it was with the promise that I wouldn't do it often. I still promise I won't do it often -- but having been nearly two years, I feel I'm not pushing the limits of "often". These are mostly standalone haiku; if they bear any relationship to each other it's that my quiet time is often spent in the woods or, when I can, at the beach.

Forest Verses

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A forgotten path
A half-remembered journey
A glimpse from the trail

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The twig's snap echoes
Announcing the intruder
The trees hold their breath.

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A mossy blurred shape
Winding vines wrapped round the tree
A serpentine wreath

Obscuring the trunk
Caduceus' hidden form
Conceals the flowers.

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Ocean Verses

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Steady my heartbeat
I feel your breath on the shore
The pulse of the earth.

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The child waves the bread
The gull in the ferry's wake
Turns his wings and dives.

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Neighborhood Walk

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The squirrel bounded
Tracing a wave through the air
Seeking out his tree.

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So that's my haiku collection from my latest verse experiments. It will likely be another year or two before I inflict any more poetry on you. I am curious -- does anyone else try verse?

Prelude: Children of the Age of Apathy

I won't make you readers suffer my poetry -- or experiments with verse, really -- very often. But I've been trying to get the feel for certain meters, and have also been thinking about reaching out to some of the frighteningly apathetic people I have known. And if this doesn't rhyme it's probably a mercy, really. I've read too many poems that the best you can say for them is that they rhyme a lot. This doesn't have even that to offer ... ;)

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Have you looked on beauty once too many times
To be gladdened by a flower or the sky?
Have you reached for hope to watch it slip away
Too often to stretch out your hand again?
Have you blown out all your wishes every year?
Considered death to be a well-earned rest?

Has a hardened heart become a commonplace?
And smiling hope now seems the lot of fools?
Has your frustrated and despairing cry
Gone unanswered til you give it no more voice?
Would honest tears now seem a sign of life
To know your soul is not beyond repair?

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I know, I know, some of those lines could be reworded easily enough if I wanted rhymes. But rhymes seem jarringly wrong for reaching out to people who smirk at the whole "smiling hope" scene.