"... If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first"
(The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams)
While I don't think my poetry is objectively quite as bad as that of the Vogons, I'm not claiming to be Shakespeare. You read this lot at your own risk, and realise that I wrote a lot of it as a teenager, while I was in effect hormonally insane. The rest was written under the influence of depression.
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I enjoy the challenge of a sonnet - trying to get the ideas I'm trying to express down to 14 lines of iambic pentameter, and also to comply with a particular rhyme scheme. It's an interesting exercise, and very good for broadening the vocabulary.
Roj Blake (Fanfic sonnet, Blake's 7)
Jenna Stannis (Fanfic sonnet, Blake's 7)
These are poems written to commemorate the deaths of various people - whether related to me or not. I find free-form poetry is the best way I have of expressing a lot of the rather complicated emotional tangles that are part of grief.
Douglas Adams
Raymond Walter Hodges
_redpanda_
Antti Lehtola
Filksong is a song where the tune remains the same, but the lyrics have been rewritten. This happens quite a lot in traditional folk music, and in hymns. In these days of performance rights, and copyright infringement lawsuits, the public performance of filksong tends to be frowned upon (unless you're someone like Weird Al Yankovic, who makes a living as a parodist). Admittedly, this may be due to the talent (or lack thereof) of various filkers. The information in parentheses at the end of each title is the tune that the filk is meant to be sung to.
Dwarven Lady Marmalade (Lady Marmalade)
Gondor's Depraved (Scotland the Brave)
Heroes Theme (Take a Little Good Advice) (Goodies Theme Song)
John Brown's Body (The Battle Hymn of the Republic)
My Favourite Things (My Favourite Things - from The Sound of Music)
The UN Weapon Inspector's Lament (The Cap Me Granda Wore)
As with grief, political events tend to bring out the poet in me. I find it's easier to write something short and pithy and poetic than it is to try and explain at great length in essay format, just why something makes me want to hit people very hard.
11 September 2001
Bloody Mary
A Response to Events in Colorado
Mururoa
The CNN Version
Kosovo
The UN Weapon Inspector's Lament (The Cap Me Granda Wore) (Filk)
Sorry, We Have Religion
S.T.A.R.T 2
A Possible Solution
Ethnic Cleansing
Pauline Hanson
The worst of both worlds, I suppose.
From Denethor's Notebooks
Gondor's Depraved (Filk)
Heroes Theme (Take A Little Good Advice) (Filk)
Mary Mordor Sue Writes
Sonnet: Roj Blake
Sonnet: Jenna Stannis
To Rosalind (The Forgotten woman in Romeo and Juliet)
"Now Earthlings... I present you with a simple choice! Either die in the vaccuum of space or..."
he paused for melodramatic effect,
"tell me how good you thought my poem was."
(The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams)
(okay, so I lied about the vaccuum of space)