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Hello friends, Samm Bennett here. Like many folks these days, I spend a lot of time on the internet. I'm active at a site called Metafilter, and at Facebook and Flickr, where over the past few years I've posted a fair amount of poetry and songs in threads at those sites: stuff that I've usually written quickly and at the spur of the moment, specifically referring to some link or topic of discussion in some thread. Just for fun, mainly, but I also find it kinda keeps my writing muscles in shape: a little practice here and there, you know. Compiled here are some of these little bits of verse. Most of it is lightweight, often silly. Like I said, it's just for fun.
Each poem here is preceded by a bit of background context. In many cases, the poems were sparked by a quote from a linked article or video, or a comment made by someone in a thread, and I've included those quotes or paraphrasing where necessary.
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Hello friends, Samm Bennett here. Like many folks these days, I spend a lot of time on the internet. I'm active at a site called Metafilter, and at Facebook and Flickr, where over the past few years I've posted a fair amount of poetry and songs in threads at those sites: stuff that I've usually written quickly and at the spur of the moment, specifically referring to some link or topic of discussion in some thread. Just for fun, mainly, but I also find it kinda keeps my writing muscles in shape: a little practice here and there, you know. Compiled here are some of these little bits of verse. Most of it is lightweight, often silly. Like I said, it's just for fun.
Each poem here is preceded by a bit of background context. In many cases, the poems were sparked by a quote from a linked article or video, or a comment made by someone in a thread, and I've included those quotes or paraphrasing where necessary.
William and Ludwina Puke
The image above was posted to the PLONSKY group at Facebook, and I wrote this for it:
William and Ludwina Puke
she played kazoo, he played the uke
their fame, my friend, it was no fluke
for they played well, the family Puke
but once they played a joint in Maine
onstage, Ludwina felt a pain
and so did William, and they knew
twas what they'd eaten: twas the stew
alas, the poisoning killed the wife
it ended poor Ludwina's life
without kazoo, Will stopped the uke
and died soon after, William Puke
they left six kids, to carry on
and play the dear old Puke-y songs
they've played for Kings & Earls & Dukes
they're very good, the Little Pukes.
William and Ludwina Puke
she played kazoo, he played the uke
their fame, my friend, it was no fluke
for they played well, the family Puke
but once they played a joint in Maine
onstage, Ludwina felt a pain
and so did William, and they knew
twas what they'd eaten: twas the stew
alas, the poisoning killed the wife
it ended poor Ludwina's life
without kazoo, Will stopped the uke
and died soon after, William Puke
they left six kids, to carry on
and play the dear old Puke-y songs
they've played for Kings & Earls & Dukes
they're very good, the Little Pukes.
Downloaded in Seconds
Metafilter thread: this comment appeared in a thread about music
and the internet:"Now, even the rare stuff can be downloaded in seconds with a simple search string in Google." The comment inspired this little poem:
downloaded in seconds,
paid nary a price.
added to iPod,
half-listened to twice.
who sang it? forgotten.
who wrote it? don't know.
someone is texting me now,
gotta go.
Farting on the Moon
Metafilter thread: under discussion was a YouTube video someone had posted,
about one of the Apollo astronauts, specifically, his radio transmissions about his
having gas while on the moon! It inspired this poem:
farting on the moon
a spaceman passing gas
it stays there in his suit
it lingers round his ass
and if some fumes escape
well, ain't no one to smell it
and no one would've known
if spaceman didn't tell it
but there it is on tape
he told us he broke wind
it's all there on the record
ain't no denying, friend
when man walked on the moon
he cut the cheese, it's true
and hey, if you went to the moon
well, you might do it too
Tacos Round the World
Metafilter thread: This pull quote from a linked article:
"Jeffrey M. Pilcher, professor of history at the University of Minnesota,
has traveled around the world eating tacos." inspired this poem:
had tacos in Miami, had tacos in Bombay
over in Saint Petersburg, and down in San Jose
ate 'em up in Reykjavík, and in Toledo, too
but never had a taco babe, that tastes as good as you
I've munched 'em in Madrid and Mons, Accra and Amsterdam
Havana, Warsaw, New Orleans, and down in Birmingham
Lagos, Philly, Dublin, Rome, and hey! Kalamazoo!
but never had a taco babe, that tastes as good as you
I've swallowed 'em in Singapore, Seville and Santiago
I've chewed in Chula Vista, Corpus Christi and Chicago
tasty tacos in Taipei, Tangiers and Taos too
but never had a taco babe, that tastes as good as you
Ol' Bill Burroughs
Saw this image
posted to Facebook.
It inspired this poem...
Saw this image
posted to Facebook.
It inspired this poem...
- ol' Bill Burroughs
stood on his head
aimed *near* the apple
shot his wife dead
I Can Rhyme Albania
There was a thread at Metafilter about old bunkers in Albania.
Someone in the thread posted this: "Not a whole lot of words
rhyme with Albania." Ah! A challenge! So...
I don't wanna pain ya
and I never would disdain ya
but let me just explain ya
and maybe entertain ya
see, I've got rhyming mania
sometimes it's quite insane-ya
man, it can really drain ya
ain't too much it'll gain ya
it's quite a mental strain-ya
I'd rather drink champagne-ya
and catch the midnight train-ya
but here inside my brain-ya
hey, I can rhyme Albania
There was a thread at Metafilter about old bunkers in Albania.
Someone in the thread posted this: "Not a whole lot of words
rhyme with Albania." Ah! A challenge! So...
I don't wanna pain ya
and I never would disdain ya
but let me just explain ya
and maybe entertain ya
see, I've got rhyming mania
sometimes it's quite insane-ya
man, it can really drain ya
ain't too much it'll gain ya
it's quite a mental strain-ya
I'd rather drink champagne-ya
and catch the midnight train-ya
but here inside my brain-ya
hey, I can rhyme Albania
The Old Bulbs
Metafilter thread: under discussion was Pete Seeger-style folk music,
and someone posted this little joke:
Q: How many folksingers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to change the bulb, and one to write a song about how good
the old one was.
The joke inspired this poem, to be sung in your most earnest Pete Seeger imitation::
ah, the old bulbs were the best
they had that certain glow
why friend, they'd burn so sweetly
these folks today don't know
we'd pick guitars and sing old songs
beneath their amber light
these bulbs they make today, my friend
they're way too gosh darned bright
bulbs that lit the union halls
where men would sing their songs
about how we were brothers
we'd right the bosses wrongs!
the bulbs that lit the stages
of the Greenwich Village dives
where old black men showed white kids
how to play guitars with knives
so don't forget the old bulbs
they were the best, my friend
but now this little light bulb song
has reached its bulbous end
The Bagpipes of Lisbon
I believe it was a Facebook thread: someone mentioned "the bagpipes of Lisbon",
which inspired this little poem:
oh the bagpipes of Lisbon were blowing, were blowing
the lawn mowers of Oshkosh were mowing, were mowing
the tow trucks of Pittsburgh were towing, were towing
and me? well i've got to be going, I'm going
It Rolled on Down
Metafilter thread: someone linked to a video of some guys who managed to roll an enormous tractor tire down a steep hillside and finally into a lake. It bounced very high at various points on its way down.
The clip inspired this poem:
we rolled a tire down the mountainside
it rolled on down
it rolled on down
a crazy beautiful bouncing ride
it rolled on down
it rolled on down
it made us happy, don't you see
it rolled on down
it rolled on down
that tractor tire, we set it free
it rolled on down
it rolled on down
Directive
One of the subsites of Metafilter is called MetaTalk, where users can make posts concerning Metafilter itself (i.e. complaining about deletions or bugs, making feature suggestions, etc). Someone made a MetaTalk post saying users should stop using the tl;dr abbreviation, and framed the suggestion as a "new directive". And that inspired this little poem:
your directive is subjective
(one couldn't say collective)
though free of foul invective
it's clearly non-objective
it seeks to be corrective
to make folks more selective
but being so protective
will never be effective
One of the subsites of Metafilter is called MetaTalk, where users can make posts concerning Metafilter itself (i.e. complaining about deletions or bugs, making feature suggestions, etc). Someone made a MetaTalk post saying users should stop using the tl;dr abbreviation, and framed the suggestion as a "new directive". And that inspired this little poem:
your directive is subjective
(one couldn't say collective)
though free of foul invective
it's clearly non-objective
it seeks to be corrective
to make folks more selective
but being so protective
will never be effective
A Wall of Text
From the same MetaTalk thread as just above, someone made this comment concerning posting style:
"I'll take walls of well-thought-out text over favorite-grubbing one-liners and pointless snark any day."
The comment inspired this poem:
I came to a wall
of well-thought-out text
and I thought to myself
"hey, I'll read this next!"
but then was diverted
by some pointless snark
then looked out my window
outside to the park
saw a pretty young girl
sitting there on the grass
and I thought
"man, I oughtta get up off my ass
and go down to the park"
which I did, while a-thinking:
"maybe I should bring something
that she might like drinking"
then I thought to myself:
"am I oversexed?"
but forgot all about
that well-thought-out text
Rooftop Solar KILLS!
This one isn't a poem, more of a mini-wall 'o' text. From a Metafilter thread about nuclear power. Someone was (I ain't kidding) trying to make the point (albeit in humorous fashion) that solar energy is more dangerous than nuclear energy. This was the comment:
"Interestingly, rooftop solar kills .44 people per TWh, which is 10 times more than nuclear. I guess people fall down a lot..." That comment inspired this little story:
Did you hear about that guy who fell off his roof installing a solar panel? He landed on his son's skateboard, which went careening down the driveway and into the street, where a truck, swerving to avoid it, hit a pipeline carrying natural gas, which exploded. The explosion was heard by workers at the nearby nuclear power plant, who stepped away from their control panels long enough to miss the warning signals of an imminent criticality accident. The nuke blew up and irradiated all livestock and vegetables in a 100-mile radius, followed immediately by a torrent of online and media statements of support for nuclear power, most of it pointing to the fact that nuclear power is much, much safer than putting a solar panel on your roof.
Cassettes that Went Down in the Flood
In a Metafilter thread about cassette tapes, someone mentioned that their cassette collection had been destroyed in a flood. Then another person mentioned the comment, saying that he felt an odd connection to the flood comment and then wrote: "looks hopefully at flapjax for a song" (my Metafilter username is "flapjax at midnite" and yes, I occasionally get requests like that). So, I wrote and posted this:
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there came torrential rains
they fell from all direction then came that mighty flood killed my cassette collection the classic rock, new wave and punk the deluge took it all the David Bowie and the Smiths the Damned, the Cure, the Fall all hip hop was submerged the Wu Tang Clan was drenched Chuck D and Flava Flav were soaked the P.E. fist unclenched the mix tapes all were drowned i'd worked so hard on those they'd vanished in the waters like cocaine up Rick James' nose so, gone was all my music and what i did, you see, was go and buy it all again in brand new form: CD |
I know, I know - this is a Sneetch. Couldn't find a Skink.
The Skink
In a Metafilter thread about animals, someone mentioned the skink,
which is a lizard, and wrote: "A skink sounds like a Dr. Seuss animal"
This inspired a Dr. Seuss-style poem...
From a forest down deep in the land of Gazink
Came a slithering, dithering creature, the Skink!
He skinked cross the valley, he skinked cross the sky
for the Skink could go this way and that, and could fly!
He burrowed and furrowed and churned up the ground,
then rolled cross the fields, without making a sound.
Then one day he said: do you know what I think?
I think I'll go back to the land of Gazink!
From Gazinkian rivers I now want to drink!
And that was the last we all saw of the Skink.
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The Fleeting Tweets of the Deceased
Someone made a post at Metafilter linking to a site called
The Tweet Hereafter, where Twitter posts that were the "last tweets" of now deceased people may be read. The site was described in the post as a place where one could find "the fleeting tweets of the deceased", a phrase which immediately inspired this poem: the fleeting tweets of the deceased their laundry done, their trousers creased their lunches bought, apartments leased the fleeting tweets of the deceased while still alive, the things they said are here forever, though they're dead what time they ate, or went to bed and now they're gone, their tweets still read those little tweets, all quite mundane 'bout something stuck down in the drain or having missed their evening train or getting caught in sudden rain and we still here, out on the street we ain't got that grim reaper beat we, too, will go down to defeat reflect on that, next time you tweet |
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There was a Metafilter post about the video to the left, an amazing moment when a concert pianist, expecting to play one Mozart concerto, was suddenly faced with having to play another, from memory, when the orchestra started performing one that she hadn't expected! It inspired this poem:
i played the wrong concerto i played it note for note i played it all from memory just like ol' Mozart wrote but when they called the next tune i ran out of the place i just can't play like Jerry Lee and rock "Chantilly Lace" |