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Admin Post: The Poetry Page: Social Distancing with Mrs. Hudson
Aug. 20th, 2021 11:22 pm![[admin post]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png){kind=small}
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holmes_minorAs we are currently experiencing traditional British summer weather—rain and overcast skies—I thought this month we would stay cosily inside, and I could show off my recent purchase. Yes, thanks to Mr. Holmes’s most recent and generous rent increase, I have bought myself a digital watch!
If you’d all like to— MRS. FRANKLES!
Mrs. Frankles, did you just spit elderflower cordial all over my soft furnishings?
Yes, well, I can understand your being impressed, but I don’t quite comprehend the level of your surprise…
Anachronistic? I don’t really see what you’re driving at, dear. Digital clocks and watches have not been in production for that long. You could call them bang up-to-date even. I must admit I find them rather fascinating—the concept of using clockwork to show individual digits through windows on a dial, instead of hands moving around a clock face.
What, Mrs. Frankles? Yes, clockwork. Well, what did you think I meant? Mrs. Frankles…?
(I don’t know.) Anyway, perhaps you’d all like to come forward and examine my new timepiece—carefully, please!—and I hope it will inspire you all creatively.
And as added inspiration here is a quotation from Dr. Watson’s story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”:
Far away we could hear the deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.
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 now, let us take some time to compose!
If you’d all like to— MRS. FRANKLES!
Mrs. Frankles, did you just spit elderflower cordial all over my soft furnishings?
Yes, well, I can understand your being impressed, but I don’t quite comprehend the level of your surprise…
Anachronistic? I don’t really see what you’re driving at, dear. Digital clocks and watches have not been in production for that long. You could call them bang up-to-date even. I must admit I find them rather fascinating—the concept of using clockwork to show individual digits through windows on a dial, instead of hands moving around a clock face.
What, Mrs. Frankles? Yes, clockwork. Well, what did you think I meant? Mrs. Frankles…?
(I don’t know.) Anyway, perhaps you’d all like to come forward and examine my new timepiece—carefully, please!—and I hope it will inspire you all creatively.
And as added inspiration here is a quotation from Dr. Watson’s story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”:
Far away we could hear the deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.
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 now, let us take some time to compose!
Just in Time
Date: 2021-08-21 06:53 pm (UTC)Goes the clock
Time is running out
Splish splash
Watch him dash
Holmes is now about
Ring ding
Hear the doorbell sing
Scotland Yard has brought its clout
Crash bang
Holmes’ fist sang
And Watson can now shout
Heave ho
His head does show
He’s rescued without doubt
Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-08-21 08:04 pm (UTC)Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-08-21 08:13 pm (UTC)Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-08-22 02:52 pm (UTC)Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-08-22 03:15 pm (UTC)Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-09-02 12:58 pm (UTC)Re: Just in Time
Date: 2021-09-02 01:14 pm (UTC)One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-08-22 02:53 pm (UTC)A pocket watch: a past concealed;
Its features, closely studied, yield
A history from each commonplace,
Well-worn and battered mark and trace.
A brother's grief and loss revealed.
~o~
No fifty guinea watch can shield
The truth and nothing can replace
The words unsaid and wounds unhealed.
A pocket watch.
~o~
The power which drink and debt can wield
Ensured his brother's fate was sealed.
Four numbers, scratched inside the case,
Count down a tragic fall from grace.
Memento from a battlefield;
A pocket watch.
~0~
Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-08-22 03:17 pm (UTC)Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-09-03 05:17 pm (UTC)Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-09-01 04:43 pm (UTC)I'm particularly moved by the last verse: Four numbers, scratched inside the case,/ Count down a tragic fall from grace./ Memento from a battlefield; It's a sad parallel to Watson's own suffering - both brothers had their battles to face.
Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-09-03 05:18 pm (UTC)Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-09-02 12:59 pm (UTC)Re: One I wrote much earlier…
Date: 2021-09-03 05:19 pm (UTC)The Seven Clocks
Date: 2021-10-06 01:01 am (UTC)Seven faces hide behind fourteen hands.
Seven dials. Grain by grain, the seconds fall
on seven lone dunes of hourglass sands.
‘Twas three o’clock. ‘Twas five. ‘Twas one. ‘Twas two.
‘Twas a quarter of twelve. ‘Twas half eight.
‘It’s seven!’ croaked a raspy coo-coo-ckoo,
the only one not early or too late.
“I saw this in a novel,” Watson said.
“They tell the combination of a safe.
The hours are the numbers, just so, read.”
“Oh?” sighed Holmes. “Such simplicity doth chafe.”
He found the frame, the switch, the lock behind,
and set his Watson to the cracking task.
“Thirty-five, twelve, thirty-four,” he assigned.
“That sore-throated cuckoo we needn’t ask.”
A yielding ‘click,’ a squeak of hinge, a groan.
“The bloody thing is empty!” Watson cried.
“Just as I deduced, nothing to bemoan,”
said Holmes. “Simplicity is oft belied.”
He cast his glance upon the wall and strode
until he stood before the ticking clock.
A flick and stick and pry, he left exposed
and gutted, time in pieces, lock and stock.
He smiled and beckoned me to come at once.
“Our thief likes drama, his little jest.
I’m glad you read such tripe, just for the nonce.”
And lo, I spied the gems in cuckoo’s nest!
Re: The Seven Clocks
Date: 2021-10-06 07:44 am (UTC)Re: The Seven Clocks
Date: 2021-10-06 12:11 pm (UTC)Re: The Seven Clocks
Date: 2021-11-01 02:26 pm (UTC)Re: The Seven Clocks
Date: 2021-11-01 09:48 pm (UTC)