Once Works Well was pure technology. Now it seeks merely to divert.
Pansy subjects - Verse! Opera! Domestic trivia! - are now commonplace.
The 300-word limit for posts is retained. The ego is enlarged

Thursday 18 November 2010

The ideal guest

Verse (second, if not third, division poetry) should never be explained but this sonnet deserves a word or two. A week ago I met Plutarch at The Blogger’s Retreat and subsequently posted my travel itinerary. But a fortnight before that I was invited to a more populous BR event to meet Lucy and her sister, Plutarch and his brother. Unfortunately this was on a Friday when both Mrs BB and I seek to develop our intellect in other ways. However I envisaged a high-charged, ribald lunch on The Aldwych at which I would be represented by what you read below.

Alas Lucy and her sister were forestalled from attending. Because I come from the West Riding and cannot abide waste I am forced to post these lines without legitimate reason.

Sonnet – Retreat from The Retreat
It suits me well, the role of absentee.
One mention, then perhaps a genteel cough;
Soon lost in bouncing waves of repartee
And swallowed by a curried bellylaugh.
Vacant and mute, I’m so much better than
My prying, hurtful, low reality.
A void instead of foghorn Yorkshireman
My views a trailer of eternity.
For I was born to tap and stare and wait,
For you to stop and let me in edgewise.
Think of the bonus that my empty plate
Has wrought. Think of a use for unused sighs.
I am the un-sat chair, untrammelled chat,
The unshared chutney, Erwin's twin-state cat

9 comments:

Rouchswalwe said...

BB! This one read at a quick clip. The last two lines had me laughing out loud ... but who is Erwin?

Unknown said...

It seems even sharper when I read it the second time round, and the final couplet justifies your addiction to this particular sonnet form.

Hattie said...

I had to laugh. You are both funny and skillful and I'm sure a treat to know in person, in spite of what you say.

Roderick Robinson said...

RW (zS): Schrödinger, the man who carelessly enraged cat-lovers round the globe. Seeking to explain the apparent paradox of quantum theory, he cited an imaginary box in which an imaginary cat could be - theoretically - both dead and alive. Various people, some of whom comment on this blog, accused him of wanton cruelty.

Plutarch: "Chutney" makes all the difference.

Hattie: That's a very dangerous premise.

herhimnbryn said...

Answer to your comment over at my place.

Unknown said...

This time, I'm glad to see that I'm not in a pickle.

An unbelievable vw "pububl"

Unknown said...

This time, I'm glad to see that I'm not in a pickle.

An unbelievable vw "pububl"

Lucy said...

Look, I know it wasn't a real cat, honestly I do, I'm not that daft and sentimental you know. It's Seligman's dog that really bothers me, because that was real and tortured and for a spurious cause and bad science... oh here I go again.

Anyway, I'm sorry to keep missing you at the BR, I look forward to sharing chutney and possibly even poppadoms with you one day...

Roderick Robinson said...

Lucy: I'm not entirely sure I had you in mind when I wrote what you take to be my felinophile-ophobe comment, although I do dimly recall some argy-bargy on the topics. A more prominent reference point was a cat-loving woman I knew while I was still in work and who would scream irrationally if anyone used the phrase "room to swing a cat". I am pretty sure she would have reacted similarly to Erwin's thesis.