The siren’s angry wail disturbed my sleep,
and now I lie awake, though it has passed
while someone, somewhere, gets to rest in peace
I must face a flock of sins amassed.
A father who forsook his infant son,
a mother with no time to ease his pain,
a wife who simply will not be outdone,
a life so boring, brutally mundane.
The tyranny of gears advancing time,
and rules (and guilt) to keep me in their way;
the scourge of form, the nagging shriek of rhyme,
and hidden in the mist a waiting grave.
The angel never passes unannounced
and I would never miss a chance to pout.

Thanks for your contribution for the sake of the Form and Function Man. I can only wonder what Mr. Breslin thought of this droll commentary on the vignette that he painted for us.

wr ()()

It doesn't bother me at all, for three reasons.

1) Everyone has the right to like or dislike a poem. If I wrote a poem that pleased everybody, I would become suspicious of it, wondering just what sort of pandering it was up to.

2) Scads of poets whose work I'd love to have written have been skewered, often brilliantly, in satires;

3) This satire is not attentive enough to the language and style of its object to draw much blood. The best satirists are great close readers of the writing they satirize, though their reading is driven by scorn rather than appreciation (or, sometimes, an ambivalent mixture of both). They zero in on exactly what bugs them about the writer they're attacking. The siren’s angry wail disturbed my sleep, (but who said the speaker was sleeping?)
and now I lie awake, though it has passed while someone, somewhere, gets to rest in peace (nothing said about others "resting in peace," either literally or in the euphemistic sense of an epitaph) I must face a flock of sins amassed.
(Nothing is said about "sins"; no judgment is passed on the justice or injustice of the voices' accusations) A father who forsook his infant son, (who says he did?)
a mother with no time to ease his pain,
a wife who simply will not be outdone,
(No motives imputed to either mother or wife) a life so boring, brutally mundane.
(No complaint of boredom) The tyranny of gears advancing time,
and rules (and guilt) to keep me in their way;
the scourge of form, the nagging shriek of rhyme,
and hidden in the mist a waiting grave.
(Again, nothing said about tyranny, gears, rules, form, or rhyme; no metaphor of grave in the mist) The angel never passes unannounced
(No pronouncement on the existence or nonexistence of angels) and I would never miss a chance to pout...................... This satire, it seems to me, condemns a poem that does not exist.

PB: Bravo! You have not only grown thick skin but also talons...Yes! And very sharp talons.

Now you've done it...now I'm wondering how Foobs will react to all of this. :)

By the way, Mr. Breslin, Foobs is at his absolute best when the Tuesday Poem is at its absolute worst. And I (the Other Surviving Infamous Parodist of the Fray, since NoStar shows up so seldom) don't have the heart to skewer "Siren" ... because, after all, it wails for me.

wr ()()

There's no need
for a 'response' of that sort.

As you should know
(and why would he?)
I do not parody in the strict sense.

I mock, certainly,
should it be called for;
but mostly I re-imagine:
attempting to call, from the ashes, life.

My sonnet is not,
of course,
without it's flaws.

What do you expect in 15 minutes?

But I responded
to verse
in verse,
while he responded
to verse in prose;
all the more ironic when you consider
that, to make something
verse,he need
only hit 'enter'
a few

times.

Killer!

This is getting more fun as it goes... :)

Point taken: I keep forgetting the difference between my style of parody and your style of mockery (or of resurrection).

Bon weekend,
wr ()()