Best Case Poems
A double sonnet in which the great detective and his faithful sidekick, Dr. Watson, alternately deduce the cause of Sherlock’s latest malady…
Part the first
Sherlock could not deduce his source of pain
at first. “Try as I might, I cannot find
the cause – is it contusion, or a sprain?
Perchance a mere psychosis of the mind?
“Yet by deduction, I’ve ruled out the plague,
consumption, smallpox, cholera, and mumps.
My symptoms, although serious, are vague –
this lack of answers has me in the dumps!
“Where’s Watson? He would have a quick prognosis –
I’ve never seen him err in all our years”.
Then! Churn of stomach yields its diagnosis
just as his friend, the good doctor, appears:
“What seems to be the problem, troubled one?”
“It’s alimentary, my dear Watson!”
Part the second
But from the learnéd doctor’s point of view,
there yet were tests and readings still to take.
He’d learnt the ill effects of poor review
and on his friend would not make that mistake.
“Stick out your tongue! Now, turn your head and cough!
Say ‘ah’. Hold this thermometer in place,
and while you’re at it, take your trousers off -
we’d better check your prostate, just in case!"
But Sherlock dashes to the water closet
in dire urgency and grave chagrin
to make a loud and liquidy deposit.
“It’s diarrhea!” Doc yells with a grin.
“How did you know?”, shouts Holmes. “How in tarnation?”
“Why, Holmes, mere process of elimination!”
written 17 Jan 2020
My eyes have not grown too weak or dim
to ignore what they've long been seeing
pretenders who wear a mask of disguise
like a skier who's not proficient at skiing
Everyone who labels him/herself a 'poet'
thinks he's composed brilliant words, versed
but lacks ability, and some of us know it,
and receives high praise; payback reimbursed
Is it because some seek insincere empty words
to gain a like response as a misbegotten debt?
Could it be they want undeserved admiration
for posting things a serious poet would regret?
And what of time consuming contest entries
that tower in skilled verse above most of the rest,
only to see everyone received a first place finish
when theirs is ignored but clearly one of the best.
IT'S A SLAP IN THE FACE!!!
Let's not overlook when the final results are in
those who give nods to each other as number one
It's obvious they don't always deserve the win.
Doesn't that spoil both the challenge and the fun?
Go ahead and point out that I shouldn't complain
because I stopped entering contests months ago
and seldom post on a site where some would reign.
but I discover things that make me say, "WHOA!"
Not so many fake names appear by a cheating judge
and I thank all of those who plowed that farrow
There are times when we all need a bit of a nudge
to make sure the path we walk is straight and narrow
Now I've learned that the advertisement displays
are prohibiting Connie Wong from enjoying her part
in reading and commenting in her loveliest of ways.
Connie is a talented poet, with a pure, loving heart.
My premium membership is up at the end of May
by now you've gathered that I'll not be renewing
but I'll still occasionally post on any given day.
Thank you for reading what has long been brewing
Comments are welcome if you would like to share
your thoughts, agreeable and even if they're not
We all have opinions; a community should care
about problems...unless you just don't give a squat
and if that's the case, I totally understand that, too
'Twas the Perpetually-Missing Soup Poets case,
With Homes and Whatsup hot on the chase.
Poets leaving was not breaking news,
So they slowly perused the usual clues.
Dr. Whatsup said, "Why do they go?"
Homes replied, "You mean you don't you know?"
"Though they tend to blame some bully's voice,
Poets disappear because they make a choice!"
Muddy Water's Gramma gave us licorice
I walked the old Kenwood neighborhood with my twin little brother and sister in tow,
'hold there hands and look both ways before you cross the street'
No use trying to talk my way out, knew it was the only way mom would let me go.
October's new moon, peaked in and out of passing clouds,
leaving the night gloomy in stygian darkness.
Faces painted, carrying our paper bags, dressed in raggedy linen pillow case shrouds.
Low sad sound of a guitar's slow lick, pitch in open E, played a few doors down,
accompanied by a soulful song sung:
'Well, my mother told my father,
just before hmmm, I was born,
"I got a boy child's comin,
He's gonna be, he's gonna be a rollin stone,
Sure 'nough, he's a rollin stone..'
I knocked on the door, our shrilled chorus trio called out Trick or Treater's round,
Clutching a Bible in her hands 'to ward off evil spirits'.
Gramma Della turned on the porch-light, framed in screened doorway,
emitting a joyous whooping sort of laugh, invited the three of us in.
The bright-eyed man sat at the kitchen table, looking up from his guitar emblazoned in Formica reflected glory.
In the corner, a pretty girl, dressed as Cinderella, sat cross-legged on the floor..
with what looked like a million dollars worth of candy.
Muddy, who had ceased his song at our knock, nodded our way.
With curious smile that was both happy and sad, in smooth, measured voice said
'Oh don't you look a fright'.
Della handed out licorice that year, the same as all the years we once knew.
But what us kids remember best, and last, the man who sung & played the Catfish Blues.
What I didn't learn 'til later, a picture placed in Muddy's view of the living room.
Little Walter, with his harmonica cupped in hands,
who died just a year earlier, a day after Valentine's moon.
Inspired by McKinley Morganfield and his Grandmother Della Jones
You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice? -Muddy Waters
Rex wondered if it really was true,
and developed a case of the blues:
He heard he was out
He was ready to pout--
When he brightened: "It must be fake news!"
Written by Gail DeBole
on March 13, 2020
Fictional poem
The First Real Case of the Coronavirus
(or The Coronavirus Stew Recipe)
Nobody knows that this is really the way
The Coronavirus came here to stay.
A witch who was looking for a new supper brew
Concocted a recipe of a tasty bat stew.
The recipe was easy, a few this and thats
One frog’s ear and a big black rat.
The ingredient that would make the stew fine
Was a bat’s wing marinated in wine.
All served on top of a Yew Tree Leaf
Who needed steak when she had bat beef?
The meat was cooked rare with a slight tinge of pink
And smelled like a mixture of evil and stink.
The next day her witch friends found her alone
In a position that could only be prone.
Cry not for love
Fore love
Is the greatest
Of all things’
Be not of despair
For the Heart withers’
Not ...
Less it be incomplete
With all the completeness
Of an empty Heart
-----
Fear not its’ memory
For whatever is lost
In thought ...
Can only be recaptured
Through the imagination
What-ever is of the
Mind and Heart
Shall never be forgotten
By time
But, shaped by circumstance
GF
In case you were wondering...
I'm not okay...But I say I am.
You just don't know it.
And you sure can't see it.
Cause on the outside, I'm fine.
But on the inside...I'm bleeding.
I fake a smile, I fake a laugh.
Just so you can't figure me out.
In case you were wondering...
I'm not okay...But I say I am.
But what you don't know can't hurt you right?
I'm in pain, I have breakdowns, I cry myself to sleep at night.
But you don't know that.
So you think I'm fine.
See how this all works?
Your not worried, your not hurt.
But I am.
In case you were wondering...
I'm not okay...But I say I am.
Sometimes I wish I could just tell you how I feel.
Maybe then you would really understand.
Maybe then you would be smart enogh to know that when I say "I'm fine...Really."
You'll ask me over and over until I tell you the truth.
But I can't tell you how I feel.
So you think I'm okay.
You think I'm happy.
Well I got news for you.
In case you were wondering...
I'M NOT.
The world's changing so fast
forever dreams no longer tend to last.
Time swiftly slips away,
it seemed, but yesterday
life was all about play,
and yet, those moments all lie in the past.
My hair is mostly gone,
old age advances with each breaking dawn.
I can no longer run
and have no time for fun;
friends have dwindled to one,
and I've learned that I'm no king; I'm a pawn.
Cell phones befuddle me,
their screens are complex and too small to see.
And they connect online;
though most would say that's fine,
I can't even use mine;
and what's an alternate reality?
I'm like yesterday's news,
just a cranky old man with a short fuse.
And to tell you the truth,
it does not take a sleuth;
to see, I spent my youth,
and it's left me with a case of the blues.
Contemplate just in case I meet my one true love
Just to see him actually the man that I dream of.
Silky soft material upon myself was draped
Underneath a magic moon with a sky star-scaped.
A fresh gentle breeze with every step I’m taking
The closer I now become the more I am awakening.
Florescent night flowers lighten perfect setting
God has truely blessed me with such a natural wedding.
For he’s so sweet I repeat so sweet and charismatic
To finally be in his arms can’t help but feel ecstatic
Just incase the time may come imagination paints
A future life with me his wife where there are no constraints….
Marriage need not be a sacrifice nor prison
Though rather a work of art creating love precision.
The spiral staircase made her high heels sing
as quickly she descended to ground floor.
She’d pulled it off! Her briefcase held the proof.
How proud of her would be her paramour!
How carefully they’d planned the pefect heist.
He’d groomed her well in all she had to do.
She’d faked credentials and gained trust in them.
Then precious relics she had access to.
From here, the City Churches pierced the mist
where they would meet. Her man made no mistakes.
She’d take a case identical from him,
return to the museum with the fakes!
While making the exchange, she nervously
had dropped the case of relics! He was there
to quickly stuff them back in their briefcase.
He closed it, and now smiling, crossed the square.
The fakes in hand, back to her job she ran,
clueless that her man she’d not see again!
June 6, 2018
for Viv Wigley's One Nine And Sixteen Upgrade Version Poetry Contest
Beard or bard? queried chief counsel, The Spit.
Bared wit: "alike drunkn greif".
Berkspeller loose in the fief!
Beware, none sings from his lIEf...
A waste paper basket, a trash can, a bin
Whatever you call it, some things won’t stay in
The things that you write
Long into the night
May make, when discarded… one hell of a din
*
Don’t write by moonlight at midnight
Do not trash your tale late at night
For powers unseen
And terribly mean
May use it to give you a fright
I know, for it happened to me
I tell for I need you to see
I binned every word
And later I heard
A screech of malevolent glee
*
I lie wide awake in my bed
My discarded verse in my head
I tiptoe downstairs
With prickling neck hairs
For something smells like it’s long dead
A full moon sheds just enough light
In the room where I sit down to write
But somehow I know
It won’t let me go
This thing I created tonight
It lives for it never can die
I think I now understand why
I wrote about strife
My words gave it life
And you can’t kill words, though you try
The waste paper basket taunts me
It’s dark in the room but I see
A claw on its rim
My thoughts turn to Grimm
It mutters my name… and I flee
A case of the blahs
evening blues
dark too early
nothing to do
8:00 p.m., Monday
Why go out
Bars are dead
Drunks passed out
Clubs are closed
Who would come
Weekend burnout
Twiddle-dee-dum
Turn in early
sleep all night
Wake up tomorrow
rested and right
Light will eventually find its way
through the dark. No one lives in it
forever, so never give in to suicide
Just wait until the light comes out
It will find you in the dark
You are loved more than you'll ever know
And you are special, even though
you don't feel it. Never give in to suicide
It's not the answer. Refuse to let
your demons defeat you.
Let life breathe into your lungs.
It's not your time to go. Hang tough
You're stronger than you know
Life is still shaking its tambourine
for you. There's a lot of life to live!
Whatever you're going through, remember this...
Someone out there understands your pain
Someone out there lives in the same darkness
that you're living in now. But you eventually
see the light. Please be strong enough to wait!
Never give in to suicide. You can't escape
your misery without trapping those
you leave behind in the same cocoon.
Seek refuge in God when darkness
engulfs you; lean on friends and family.
There's no shame in seeking help
People care. They're more than willing
to help you pull through the hard times
Light will eventually find you in the dark
It's going to be alright.
Submitted for...
Strand Choice 3, Any Form, Any Theme Poetry Contest (Winner: Honorable Mention)
Sponsored by Brian Strand
Date: 01/22/2020
Date: 01/05/2020