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

[scfrankles]

Now, last time we were lent Mr. Holmes’ telescope. This time, Mrs. Frankles has used her contacts to supply us with another interesting object: Dr George Merryweather’s Tempest Prognosticator!

Though it never went into full production, I believe it was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 to much excitement. It is a form of barometer to warn when a storm is coming, and we have been allowed to keep it for the month to study it and to use it for creative stimulation.

Would you like to explain more, Mrs. Frankles...? These twelve bottles at the bottom for instance—what do they contain?

I’m sorry, did you say “leeches”?

And they do what, dear? Climb up the bottle when a storm threatens and set off a bell?

Where did you hear about this again? Via a… tumbler. Was it full of gin, by chance?

(Great heavens…) Anyway, they’re here now and we must be thoughtful towards our guests. What do leeches eat, Mrs. Frankles? Oh, they don’t need to be fed for at least another month! Pity. I was thinking Mr. Holmes might have been of some use for once…

But please, everyone, gather forward and examine this fascinating device.



As added inspiration here is a quotation from Dr. Watson’s story, “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez”:


As I turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker.



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

And so, let us talk about the weather!

Comments

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Where did you hear about this again? Via a… tumbler. Was it full of gin, by chance?

Oh, Frankles, this is why you're a Supreme Commander. :)

And, FYI, the red leech, according to The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, a pastiche of what Holmes was up to in the Hiatus, is a Hirudinea Himalayaca Giganticus or The Giant Red Leech of the Lower Himalayas.

[happyeverafter72]

A blackout poem showing Watson's feelings after Holmes's death (actual blacking-out shown on tumblr here)

gales with exceptional violence
the wind screamed
elemental forces shriek untamed
the wind cried Holmes

I was deep in the howl of the gale
and the splash of the rain
my old quarters do not encourage visitors

vacant

A heartfelt rhyme

[smallhobbit]

I’m tired of all this rain
Even the Regent’s Park duck
Can no longer give a cluck
Which goes against the grain

I’m tired of all this rain
The buckets are full of drips
Overflowing and causing slips
Before disappearing down the drain

I’m tired of all this rain
The pavements are awash
The cabs splash plain and posh
It really is a pain

I’m tired of all this rain
The only way to win
Is to fill my glass with gin
And then top it up again

English sonnet, Tempest prognasticator

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

a silence roars before the storm; ignored
by creatures gross and frank, its reckoning
is a stealth shift of air, the bored
rush, heedless of the change that’s beckoning

but residents of twelve clear jars begin
to stir, to sense, to turn awareness up
towards cabled sky; though gross and frank, the thin
disruption heralds tea in tempest’s cup

to bulbous gobs of prognostication;
they edge and ooze with sensitivity,
then rise above their much-maligned station
displaying gross and frank proclivity

they climb to peal, to selves themselves conform;
the bloodful, thus, ascend to toll the storm