Carl Nielsen's Sun Piece
As Helios began to rise
Fat woman rose to feet,
Shuffled out for air:
Fiddledy fie for the trains of thought
Of people listening there.
'Well thought, ' thought I,
'to leave the theatre now-
though quiet rise disturbed;
'cause if she'd left it till the sun
was higher in the sky,
she might have fallen in a faint-
whole auditorium perturbed! '
Then, as the sun began to set,
As she set down in her seat,
Ungummed from mama's oozing teat,
Arose the song of baby son-
Dread herald of the treat to come
In Tchaikovsky
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Olympics 2012
Flu Theory of Failure
In the Olympics year of twenty twelve
Flu took gold in Australia.
With gold on the chest of the flu,
Silver was the best we could do-
Thus Silver's Gold, not A Failure.
Boo Hoo Hoo
Peculiar to
Australia,
The sulphur-crested cockatoo.
Other white Australians,
The lot of them are aliens,
Silver is their hue,
Will be Sally's too.
With gold on the chest of the flu,
Silver's the best she can do-
Her silver is gold, not a failure.
Castaway
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Animal Awareness
I had a man
Stand on a point
And look out into a void
Framed by the outline of himself.
The point was at the entrance to a cave.
The entrance,
Shaped like him, legs akimbo,
Each arm outstretched to the side,
Resembled a five-legged star,
The point, the lowest crotch of the star.
To relieve the white of the void,
Behind the entrance to the cave
I painted five conical pines
The apex of each at a crotch of the legs of the star.
The void became a sky
Above the peaks of the pines.
Further back inside the cave
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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After Your Visit
I wished I hadn't returned your two ice packs
When I realized my missing one
Was probably in your Esky.
'I'll be able to make do', I thought,
'I've still got one big one that lasts all night,
Two small blue ones,
And the softpack that stays hard
Beyond all expectations.'
Today will be the big test:
41degrees, they say.
Though surprisingly cool this time of day.
Perhaps I'll find that ice pack
Somewhere you put it that I wouldn't.
Like the colander
In the saucepan in that cupboard instead of
In the salad bowl in the frypan in this!
I'll say, 'O, there it is.'
I won't set out on an expedition to find it
Like I did with the 2012 Symphony program
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Drone
Sunday morning was proving boring
for the team or guy
watching the screens
attached to the CC cameras.
Suddenly!
Someone seen acting suspiciously
in an out- of- the-way pocket
at the university
near an unattended bicycle
with a back-pack leaning against a wheel...
...Someone had finished taking photographs
and was leaving the premises
as two policemen walked past
absorbed in rehearsals:
someone was to think
he was not a person-of-interest.
They would check the set-up.
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Shield Bugs
I was assiduous
organizing my collection.
Had you not been told
what they were,
you might have thought
they were trees and stars,
or an orchard,
a small one of nine large trees,
three to a row,
or a large one of forty-five small conical trees
in nine groups of five,
three to a row,
or, taking part in a contest
to find the largest possible number of trees,
you could add the two together
and have fifty four
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Theory of Naas
In times of yore in Ireland
The jokes came thick and fast
About the town of Naas.
They changed the way they said it.
Instead of rhyming Naas with arse
They rhymed it with a face-
Sounds like the queen says 'nice'.
Irish jokers agreed to wipe
Anal-rhyming with old Naas.
Till Joyce-he couldn't stop himself,
Insinuating smarty-arse.
Why did Joyce call the guy Athy
When he could have called him Naas?
On a map of Kildare
Two towns at a glance
Rhyme with what's found
In a character's pants.
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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Les Fleurs des Mots: tableau numerique francais,0-93, presage
zero
0
un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
dix
10
onze douze treize quatorze quinze seize 10-7 10-8 10-9
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
vingt
20
20-et-1 20-2 20-3 20-4 20-5 20-6 20-7 20-8 20-9
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
trente
30
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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A Father's Tale
I had a recent re-encounter with 'The Nightingale'.
Coleridge considered calling it 'A Father's Tale'.
It was one of those still, dark, quiet, balmy nights.
Three thoughtful friends sat on a mossy bridge near Nether Stowy,
Somerset.
A nightingale began to sing.
Sam thought of melancholy,
Of sorrow not suited to this song,
Of poets diluted by books and balls,
Of Nature's eternality,
Of how a poem should add to all of Nature's loveliness,
And be loved, like Nature itself is loved.
He crafted such a poem.
With delicious notes
He describes wild grove
And delicious music of birds.
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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After 'To Joanna
In his company Joanna laughed:
Clear she thought that he was daft
When he heard the mountains laughing
In his ravishment of mind.
Now the vicar who'd upbraided him
For carving in the rock
Upon whose meditation
The ravishment occurred,
Instead of laughing loudly
At his loftiness of word,
Smiled and looked astonished
Thinking, 'Jackass of a bird.'
Realising that he'd lost him
The poet came to earth,
Told the vicar in plain language
Of Joanna's certain anguish
As she drew into his side
For fear of something that she heard
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poem by Douglas Scotney
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