Re-Say learned from a friend of Mr. Chanticleer where Ms. Goldspeak was. When she visited her teacher she learned Ms. Goldspeak would be willing to give back Sean’s phone for his helping to save Jayne’s life if each of her students wrote a poem: either a Shakespearean sonnet, an Ode, a Haiku, or a Limerick, just like the ones she read to them, or they overheard from Danette Bermea when she’d visit the farm. Here are some of the versions with which they came up.
Review from high school: Shakespearean sonnets have 14 lines of 5 pairs of unaccented and accented syllables per line, plus the lines ending rhymes are abab cdcd efef gg
An Ode is a poem honoring something or someone. In this case Chuck is trying to mimic one stanza of John Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn.
Short-Cut Sean’s Limerick to Walt
I once bought some duct tape for Walt Whose mouth put my phone in a vault
It stayed there all day I had nothing to say And Walt was the primary fault.
Nothing-New Sue’s Haiku: Not My Cup of Tea
Brown sugary sweet
Add milky cream to the brim,
An Earl Grey tea bag.
Parody of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s We’ll Go No More A’Roving, written by Chanticleer for Ms. Goldspeak
I’ll go no more a strutting So late into the dusk Though my pulse is still a pounding And the moon is orange as rust
For the spurs outwear their youth And the plumes get dull with time And the crow begins to rasp And courting loses prime.
Though a wink invited mating And the eyes now droop too soon Then I’ll go no more a strutting E’en ‘neath the brightest moon.
Lyrical poem from Peter to Lily about her eyes
You say cat-green, I see Caribbean hue tickled by the sun:
Merlin’s moon, Circe’s wine, magic carpets that wrap me up away from the world
And whisk me off to Calypso.
Lyrical poem from Lily to Peter (apparently about her eyes) after he left
Haunting orbs – a pale insipid hue;
Two ghosts that bled their blue for you.
Street-Talk Walt’s Shakespearean Sonnet to Jayne
This Barred Rock pullet has a yacking beak
This Barred Rock pullet’ll diss and gripe all day
Our Barred Rock pullet ‘s nothing but a freak
Let’s have this pullet plucked and chick- filleted.
Jayne chilled my bones down to their very core
By knocking me down onto the very ground.
She stared me down and creeps me even more
Then stomps my ego as others stand around.
I thank you, Chuck, for coming too my aid,
For teaching me my errors and my flaws.
Pray one day, too Jayne’s armor will be frayed,
She’ll understand that kindness is a cause
That lets us live in harmony and love
By following the flight o’ the snow white dove.
Chuck’s Ode on a Grecian Fern
Thou still unfamished bride of quickness,
Thou poster child of Violence and slow Rhyme,
Sylvester historian, who can thus impress
A flowery snail more neatly than our crime
What reef-trimmed legends flaunt about they nape
Of draperies or portals or both
In Hemp or the veils of Arcades?
What men or clods are these? What madness loaf?
What rad pin suit? What rumple to evape? What tripes and tinsels? What mild temporary.
The first ten lines of Keats actual Ode: (its important to note Keats was engaged, but dying of TB, so he knew he would never marry)
Thou still unravished bride of quietness ( you virginal bride frozen in time on the urn)
Thou foster child of Silence and slow Time (you mute child of stillness)
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express (quiet, woodsy historian who can then express)
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rime (a flowery tale sweeter than my poem)
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about they shape (what leaf-fringed story haunts the urn’s shape: the urn represents death but the picture represents the passion of life)
Of deities or mortals, or of both? (what gods or men or both?)
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? (In all of Greece)
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? (who are these men or gods these maidens are avoiding?)
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?(how the groom chases; how the bride teasingly escapes)
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? (what unheard music they play; what wild ecstasy they evoke?)
Peggy Marceaux 