So the poetic odyssey continues its first faltering steps, this time with a 46-line effort, split into two verses (or is it stanzas? I forget my GSCE English education!), with each and every line containing seven syllables. Not sure at this stage whether plucking such an arbitrary figure out of thin air was a hindrance or not, or even what a good reason for it might be, but hopefully the effort is comic enough. Or vaguely readable at the very least.
This quest to write poetic verse is either semi-serious or semi-joking, depending upon what mood I find my brain to be in. Whenever I become too conscious of what I am doing, or simply want a laugh, I picture myself becoming some sort of 18th century Lord Byron-type figure. However unlikely that might be - and it is extremely unlikely - two simple truths exist: (1) I am not someone who ever seemed cut out for such non-prose endeavours, and (2) if this should become 100% serious at some point in the future, and it turns out that maybe I am cut out for such things, I ain't half going to have a tough time trying to convince a majority of people I know!
Portmanteau Of A Pastiche
Allow me to set the scene:
In a rustic country pub
on the … um … bleak, windy moor,
where cliché piles on cliché
and a fierce open fire
welcomes drinkers old and new,
two upstanding gentlemen
take a table every week
to do the Sunday pub quiz.
The very definition
of regular pub-goers,
like the last entrenched stalwarts
of a Wild West trading post
(one has a most impressive
full-grown, bushy white moustache).
In-keeping with that image,
and in warm-up for the quiz,
they pit their wits against each
other in a friendly but
competitive game of crib.
The name they’ve given to this
fusion of mental rigour?
Why, ‘quib night’, of course; what else?
Allow me to set the scene:
In a rustic country pub
on the … um … bleak, windy moor,
where cliché piles on cliché
and a fierce open fire
welcomes drinkers old and new,
two upstanding gentlemen
take a table every week
to do the Sunday pub quiz.
The very definition
of regular pub-goers,
like the last entrenched stalwarts
of a Wild West trading post
(one has a most impressive
full-grown, bushy white moustache).
In-keeping with that image,
and in warm-up for the quiz,
they pit their wits against each
other in a friendly but
competitive game of crib.
The name they’ve given to this
fusion of mental rigour?
Why, ‘quib night’, of course; what else?
But this is a sorry tale,
of bad luck in table choice
and windows simply aging.
A creaky old latch might fail
at any time, day or night,
caused by lack of maintenance.
Paucity of funds, maybe,
because the brewery have
raised the high rent yet again.
This, though, a splendid free house
and favourite of CAMRA,
must have different reasons.
Whatever those reasons are,
on one particular night
a window latch did fail by
the table of our quibbers,
letting in the lashing rain
and flooding their cribbage board.
Morose it made these elders,
with pints of Cornish Doom Bar
in their aged-but-sturdy grasp,
and the quib night did become
a very damp squib indeed.
of bad luck in table choice
and windows simply aging.
A creaky old latch might fail
at any time, day or night,
caused by lack of maintenance.
Paucity of funds, maybe,
because the brewery have
raised the high rent yet again.
This, though, a splendid free house
and favourite of CAMRA,
must have different reasons.
Whatever those reasons are,
on one particular night
a window latch did fail by
the table of our quibbers,
letting in the lashing rain
and flooding their cribbage board.
Morose it made these elders,
with pints of Cornish Doom Bar
in their aged-but-sturdy grasp,
and the quib night did become
a very damp squib indeed.
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