Admin Post: The Poetry Page: Social Distancing with Mrs. Hudson

[scfrankles]

Welcome, everyone! I thought for easing into this new year we could have an evening of singing parlour songs together, which might lead into inspiring you to come up with your own. Sentimental… stirring… amusing… What’s that, Mrs. Frankles? Yes, “ribald,” is a possibility too.

To get things started I thought I would play a favourite love song of mine on the gramophone. “Love’s Old Sweet Song” by James Molloy, sung and played by Professor Derek B. Scott of the department of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds.


Let me just set the needle on the record…


Oh, lovely. Now do feel free, everyone, to rummage through my record collection to get more inspiration.



And here is a quotation to assist you from Dr. Watson’s story “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman”:


”Well, leave it there, Watson. Let us escape from this weary workaday world by the side door of music.”



Here as usual is the list of poetry forms:

221B verselet, abecedarian poetry, acrostic poetry, alexandrine, ballad, barzelletta, beeswing, blackout poetry, blitz poem, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cherita, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, clogyrnach, colour poems, compound word verse, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, débat, décima, descort, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, echo verse, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, enuig, epigram, epistle, epitaph, epulaeryu, Etheree, fable, Fib, florette, found poetry, free verse, ghazal, haiku, hay(na)ku, In Memoriam stanza, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, lies, limerick, line messaging, list poem, lyric poetry, mathnawī, micropoetry, mini-monoverse, musette, nonsense verse, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, puente, quatern, quintilla, renga, rhyming alliterisen, riddle, rimas dissolutas, rime couée, rispetto, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, shadorma, sonnet, stream of consciousness, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, tricube, trine, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle, xenolith


All right, I believe Mrs. Frankles has now volunteered to sing “A LIfe on the Ocean Wave” for us…? Off you go then, dear. Do try not to go “overboard”!

Yes.

(Good luck, everyone…)

Comments

[smallhobbit]

A life on the ocean wave
Is never a good idea
You'll find a watery grave
If Holmes is anywhere near
The minute you take to a ship
We know what will happen to you
You'll be taking an early dip
To the bottom of the briny blue
You see, you see, you need to stay on shore
Take heed, take heed, I cannot warn you more

[scfrankles]

^__________^

I'm particularly taken with: You'll be taking an early dip/ To the bottom of the briny blue

Eloquently put, madam ^____^

[smallhobbit]

Thank you. I'm glad you liked those lines, they seemed appropriate.

[debriswoman]

Absolutely:-)

[smallhobbit]

We all know what happens.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Wise words!

[smallhobbit]

Indeed!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I think the song is lovely, and I've printed out the lyrics to see what I can do with them.

[scfrankles]

I'm really pleased you're finding it inspiring ^___^ I think a lot of Victorian era ballads can be sentimental to the point of being risible, but I find this one genuinely beautiful and touching ^__^

Xenolith with Love's Old Sweet Song [The Retired Colourman]

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

old tale, a treacherous friend and a fickle wife;
once in the dear dead days beyond recall,
they must’ve been happy, full of love and of life,
when on the world the mists began to fall,
betrayal, jealousy, which the drum, which the fife?
though the heart be weary, sad the day and long
still to us at twilight comes love’s old song
of spider’s web spun shrewd and sharp as palatte knife,
just a song at twilight when the lights are low,
and the flickering shadows softly come and go,
‘pon overgrown garden and noxious plumbing rife
though the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
though the faults entombed and painted over the strife
still to us at twilight comes love’s old song,
old tale, a murderous man and his murdered wife.

Heroic verse, Music, Holmes, then Watson

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Let us escape the world by the side door
of music, abandon workaday chore.
Let’s lose ourselves in pretty melody,
exchanging toil and thought for revelry.
Let’s listen, hark, allow the mind to rest,
be swept away on tides at song’s behest.
Let’s journey on a trill to foreign shore,
then steal, refreshed, right back by that side door.

I’ll follow where you lead by the side door
of music, though I’m not wont to explore.
I’ll watch a dreamy rapture slowly creep
across your face as sirens draw you deep.
I’ll listen, too, but not as you will do;
my thoughts will drift away and back to you.
With harmony, ignore my nod, my snore
until we must return by that side door.

Re: Heroic verse, Music, Holmes, then Watson

[scfrankles]

That's so lovely ^____^ I particularly like Watson's half - the romance of him watching Holmes and Holmes always ending up at the centre of his thoughts, easing into that cheeky little bit of humour at the end as the music sends him off to sleep ^____^

Re: Heroic verse, Music, Holmes, then Watson

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you! It was a good quote that you pulled out. I must've read it more than once but I didn't remember it--the part about escaping through the side door of music.

Re: Heroic verse, Music, Holmes, then Watson

[smallhobbit]

This is such a lovely look at Holmes and Watson and their own approaches to music.

Re: Heroic verse, Music, Holmes, then Watson

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you very much!