Category: Not my work!

Squirrels in the church.

On By Joseph R. MasonIn Fiction, Not my work!, PlagiarismLeave a comment

A light hearted look at a squirrel problem.

The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.

At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.

The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.

But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.

Gwawdodyn: Belief

On By Joseph R. MasonIn Not my work!, Plagiarism, Poetry3 Comments

Post borrowed from The Twisting Tail. Murdochmouse.wordpress.com

Desperation aids faith through beliefMystical hope can welcome reliefBut suffering sin, is an act withinNothing but time helps release the grief Quatrain form with an ab rhyme scheme.The gwawdodyn is a Welsh poetic form with a of couple variations. However, both versions are comprised of quatrains (4-line stanzas) that have a 9/9/10/9 syllable pattern and […]

Gwawdodyn: Belief

Beautiful, Broken Creatures (new poem)

On By Joseph R. MasonIn Not my work!, Plagiarism, PoetryLeave a comment

There are too many truths here not to reblog.

Broken People

“Some days, some hours, we soar.
Hawks, eagles, miles above sea level, worshiping the splendor below.
The wind lashing around us, we are boundless…complete…

Other times we bleed – dreadful children,
scraping our way through a field of shattered glass and dreams.

Yet we carry on, feigning normalcy;
actors, playing the part assigned to us by the others,

All the while perishing.

All the while feeling as if we’re unique to desperation.

Can no one feel the tears?
Can no one see our heartbreak?
Has no one the same perception of hopelessness we possess?

Hanging in the eternal balance,
somewhere between life and death,

We watch the years tick-tick-tick by,
soul gradually unburdening itself from skeleton,
ever so gently, as mortality snakes in.

Frantic, we grasp the nearest olive branch,
be it friend or foe,
cleaving to any veneer of chance.

As water sashays through our fingers, though,
we frightfully…

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About the Ha’sonnet

On By Joseph R. MasonIn Ha'sonnet, Not my work!, PoetryLeave a comment
Picture ©Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
The Ha'sonnet

It takes some thought
but once you start
a simple plot
can become art
in the confines
of seven lines
and rhyme sublime

Ha’sonnet

Ha’sonnets are a short form of poetry invented in the RhymeZone poetry site by poets MHenry and Grant Hayes in May of 2016. They were created in the comments section for the poet Suz-zen’s wonderful poem ‘Farewell, Farewell,’ where Grant Hayes and MHenry discussed what to call four syllable line poems. This led to the additional constraints on the poem creating the Ha’Sonnet form.

Being short poetry makes the form best for describing vignettes, little moments of life, or the thoughts that pop into your head. It also lends itself to lighter, more humorous topics, though that is not a limitation.

Ha’sonnet Description

Ha’sonnets are roughly half of an Elizabethan style sonnet, and follow some of those sonnet rules in how they are created. They consist of seven lines of four syllables each. The first four lines set up the poem like the first two stanzas of a sonnet. The fifth and sixth line contain a little turn, or volta, preferably unexpected, like the third stanza of a sonnet. And the seventh line a resolution, or turn, like the final couplet of a sonnet.

For MHenry and Grant Hayes rhyme was optional, but if used the end rhyme scheme tended (but is not limited to) to be a b a b c c dd with the seventh line (dd) rhyming on the second and fourth syllable. MHenry added a four syllable title rule suggestion later. Rhyming ones in the scheme described are easier for me, and I find them quite fun to write.

Ha’sonnets were originally planned to be short form, single stanza poems, but sometimes I’ve created poems with multiple ha’sonnet stanzas (see the first blog post), or connected multiple ha’sonnet poems with a common theme into what could be a single longer poem.

To sum it up, to be considered a ha’sonnet the minimum requirements would be the syllable and line counts, the volta and the turn; the rhyme scheme is an extra level of challenge

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© Stephen W. Buchanan 2020