A couple years ago my daughter was asked to contribute a few poems for some "zine" that came out quarterly, and since they were to appear in the Winter issue, it was suggested she write stuff that had to do with snow, or cold, or that sort of stuff. Three of them she wrote on her own, and they were utterly inspired - e.g.; "I wanted to write a poem about Winter / The only word it rhymes with is 'printer'" [note that this is not factual; she knew perfectly well about "sprinter," "splinter," etc. - instead she had the energy and imagination to wrestle with language]. The fourth, much longer poem, I helped her with, but it was very much a collaboration, and of a rather interesting kind - she came up with the entire story, down to very small details, and my role was to convert it all into meter and rhyme. I could find no mention of it anywhere on the web, to my horror, and I didn't have a copy of it, so I've reconstructed it from memory. I know parts of it differ from the original, but I've tried to be as close as I could. There's a lot of Shel Silverstein here, but I happen to like Shel Silverstein a lot. And he wrote the song appended hereto.
The Ice Queen and I
This Winter I plan to surmount the North Pole With a team of genetically engineered moles Or some kind of steam drill, to drill a huge hole Where I’ll fish for the Big Ones – so big is my goal
That I’ll settle for only the Magical Walrus As the moles and I watch it will sing and enthrall us And through it the voice of the Ice Queen will call us The Ice Queen! Who still owes me two hundred dollars!
So the drill is shut down and the moles are unfettered They watch as the walrus and I leave together I’m drawn on a sleigh by a long silver tether To the Hall of the Ice Queen, who doesn’t know whether
I remember those two hundred dollars or not You want it played cool? Well, cool we got So she points out a few more spectacular spots And I tell her I like them; I like them a lot
Still, she senses it’s coming. It hasn’t come yet But you don’t often see her break into a sweat It’s just not something either of us would forget And an outstanding debt is an outstanding debt
Why she needed the money’s a bit of a fuzz Did her credit max out, as it so often does? But I can’t dwell on issues of “why” or “because” I was there when she needed me. That’s all it was
But Queens don’t carry cash, so I have to assuage her There are protocols; right and wrong ways to engage her I suggest it be settled by some sort of wager To gain time, she pretends there’s a beep on her pager
“Your pager won’t work here,” I chuckle and say, “So let’s stick to those two hundred bucks you can’t pay We both knew this was coming; it came here today Since you need a way out, I’m providing a way.”
And right then from the sea leapt a hideous fish It slid right to her foot, which she lifted to squish The foul thing on the spot, but I granted its wish Saying “This is a fugu! They’re simply delish!”
“In Japan there are chefs who devote their whole lives Learning what tiny bits one can eat and survive And behold! By some miracle fate has contrived That I have on my person a full set of knives!”
Having found the appropriate knife and filleted it I cut out a rather small piece and displayed it I would leave to Her Majesty which of us ate it Then wait the ten minutes we’ll need to have waited
The Ice Queen, of course, must put something at stake I’m already down two hundred bucks, for Christ’s sake! And since someone might die here, the risk she should take Should reward a bet mortals don’t normally make
She might eat it, and live, and in that event she Is absolved of her debt. Possibility B Is she eats it and dies. Possibility C Is I eat it and live – and her force goes to me!
Possibility D is the one where I die But I already see that cold gleam in her eye She suspects my bravado conceals a lie And what fool would eat food its own chef wouldn’t try?
Hence the lot fell to me, as I might have predicted I ate it, and lived, and the Queen was evicted There was some in my teeth, so I quietly picked it Dug it out, glanced at it, leaned back and flicked it I’ll conclude, having weighed it for three or four hours There are too many rainbows, and too many flowers! Let snow fall in blizzards! Let ice fall in showers!
Now what will I do with my new, God-like powers?Where they least expect snow, I will make it snow first Where the weather is best it shall henceforth be worst Stratocumulus clouds will assemble and burst Every trace of our species will soon be immersed
I will snow on the world without mercy or favor No allowances made with regard to behavior You’ll look back on the Pleistocene Era with savor Then I’ll feast on my shave ice – Planet Earth-flavored!
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I don't know what went wrong with that third-from-last stanza. It should read:
Now what will I do with my new, God-like powers? I'll conclude, having weighed it for three or four hours There are too many rainbows, and too many flowers! Let snow fall in blizzards! Let ice fall in showers!
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Rather apocalyptic ending there...
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This explains a lot....
Fine work, friend.
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At least ivylander can still spot a poem It's zarpex here, people! You trust him! You know him! I bear seeds of genius! On you I bestow them! The majority eat them - the smarter ones sow them
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Zarpex! Your work is outstanding!
please sir we want some more....
You must know that there is a market out there for the words you have put together in this post. Have you ever considered publishing your writing? (or have you already?) If not you should.... I say this with complete honesty. .
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Also, "Lucy Jordan" is a Shel Silverstein song? Well, kiss my guitar and call me Eric....
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I have been fed at the table of Silverstein era, and though quite filled, I find my hidden side of gluttony rising, desiring more. You, Z-har, are da man.
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I'm suspecting you may be the secret love child of Phillip Pullman and Lewis Carroll.
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or not so secret, baby's on the half tit. yeth!
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I resolved yesterday to write only in verse And the habit, once formed, becomes hard to reverse When I woke up, I churned out a few words of prose But the muse wasn't there, and I go where she goes You can't reason with muses. I doubt they know how She insists on dactylic tetrameter now
waydutch, I was rude not responding to you I confess I was hurt by a four-word review And when narratives end, as we know they all do Is it not best the human race end with them, too?
Sir yummy! Forgive me for trimming your name If it's metrically difficult, you're not to blame Since you ask, I am published. I may not know fame But between you and me, I have tasted acclaim
Tyler Durden, you nut! Never once have I seen Tastes so warped and depraved in a soul so pristine Eat your gluttonous fill of the Great Silverstein! Oh; and what, for all love, does this "half tit" thing mean?
Jonh, how can you share such great stories for free? Or such marvelous insights so casually? The Pullman (which I had missed previously) Is the work of my daughter. The Carroll stuff's me.
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Tyler Durden, you nut! Never once have I seen Tastes so warped and depraved in a soul so pristine Eat your gluttonous fill of the Great Silverstein! Oh; and what, for all love, does this "half tit" thing mean?
by far the funniest part of my day thus far -> thanks -> I will take that as a half attempt at insult ending in admiration -> just let me pretend for a moment about the admiration thing ->
while making fun of my complaining colleagues, I would repeat this quip in an unmistakeably sarcastic voice, "My name's __(<- insert various colleagues names) blah, blah, blah" -> but after this has made all of us laugh uncontrollably for a few weeks as they all picked it up and even used back against me -> I adopted a line from a rather horrid movie, you may have seen it "Lady in the Water" and though I admit to liking horrid movies, this one was pretty bad -> a group of hippy pot heads endeavor to make up a slogan to get rich possibly, and they burst out laughing with 'baby's on the half tit' -> I since adopted it as my own due to the lack of following for 'Lady in the water' -> to mean a whiny child that nestles into the bulbous breast of it's mother when not getting it's way -> quite genius if I say so myself -> and in the last 7 days since pawning it off as my own, I have seen it grow into a monster -> The UPS driver comes in and sees me arguing with a customer and proceeds to yell out "Oh I see baby's on the half tit" -> then all the fight goes out of me as I burst out laughin .Even the customers I had no recollection of sharing this line with have come in and announced, "my mexican laborer Pedro's on the half tit again." -> It is actually quite refreshing to hear morons who don't quite understand my severe level of stupidity for making this up proclaim this with authority.
As I've said before -> I am an idiot -> But one who may be rich soon for patenting the new olice colored 'baby's on the half tit' shirt emblazoning a giant fist with middle finger protruding and an arrow pointing next to me ->
Z-Har -> you asked me to help you design religion 2.0 a while back, not sure I'm the brightest candidate anymore.
VOTE FOR MONICA'S BOYFRIEND'S MANLY-LOOKING WIFE!
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Johnston said 'only a dolt writes for no money'. It was a harsh evaluation, but accurate.
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Ty, mate; I actually hope you don't think it's even a "half attempt at insult." I'd have said the first two lines are obviously quite friendly; I myself am a nut. I thought "tastes so warped and depraved in a soul so pristine," if anything, it would be praise. Telling someone who's thinking about rediscovering Silverstein that he would read it gluttonously is saying Silverstein's very good, and I trust you'll like reading it.
As for the "half-tit" thing, I'll try to work it in at least once per sentence from now on... And why are there all those little arrows in your writing?
And that's a bit cynical, Jonh. And I still think you could probably come up with a commercially successful and well-written memoir. And besides, what, you don't just enjoy writing? Sharing funny anecdotes? I bloody love it; so do you.
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Cynical? Moi? There was a time when I lived and breathed Sam's aphorism. But a few years ago when I started to write again, I quickly learned that the new generation of editors worked to templates and formulae dictated by "focus groups" and weren't really interested in quality and good stories. I got tired of the hustle and bullshit very quickly. What thrilled me and gave me enjoyment was piling up the nouns against the verbs - as you say, the enjoyment is what it's about. And with the Net at hand, I can publish to the world even if I'm not getting paid. I wasn't thinking of "dolt" as a negative, more of a description. A book publisher has made a verbal commitment to publish me; it would be fun to do.
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Verses in cascade, now I know what the blizzards of May are like. Thanks Zarp
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Z-Har -> I took all you said as an uplifting sort of banter -> and the arrows, another of my annoying quirks -> well at least they annoy me -> seperates my thought good I think ->
I read Silvertein to my son -> his capacity of learning is great -> Oh, to be young again with a sponge for a mind -> If I had another go-round, I would soak up the good instead of the bad -> While my parents wanted me to learn and experience everything on my whim, I disagree with their parenting due to the results in my life, so I try to give my son all the knowledge I wished I woulda recieved from my parents -> (Yes, you pscyo-analyzers, i obviously have issues with my parents and childhood!) ->
Uh, what was I on about again? Dang, I swear I had a point -> Oh yeah, so my son is randomly attempting ryming, and I love it, I only need to correct minor issues ->
So we've discussed my beliefs before -> my parents wanted me to figure life out on my own -> and I respect that, they took from how their parents raised them and simplified, spliced, disregarded, and added to their methods -> And in my journey, I chose all the wrong ways, which lead me to 'rock bottom' -> living in the woods for almost a month, no friends, wacked out on acid and mushrooms and whatever I could get -> to eventually decide on 2 options -> 1.) Suicide -> or #2.) Get some bloody help. -> And for taking option 2, it brought me to a place where I found God (in my opinion) and he saved my life and turned me into a new person -> So, without my parents giving me freedom to search life's aisle's and shop to my heart's extent, I never would have ended up where I'm at now -> I know for a fact I would have gotten a long term sentence in prison for all the dirt I was involved in, or 6 feet down ->
But in my son's case -> he's interacting with kids at church, at school, and he's only 4 -> he doesn't have the severe shyness and embarassment I had when faced with situations like classrooms full of kids, all a different color than me -> I wasn't slowly grafted into that life, I was 'thrown to the wolves' -> and with all the mental problems I had when I was young, I bombed with interaction toward schoolmates and became a dangerously introverted person -> My son does so well with other kids, and I am proud of him, even a little jealous that his childhood is so much better than mine was, and I thankk God for the fact that he doesn't have any of the problems I had.
WOW, thanks doctor Z-har for letting me vent a lot there. I expect a full report on this dissertation by 4 pm.
Take her easy -> apparently Tyler's on the half tit again.
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zarpex, not meaning to be rude just saying what hit me you prose is astonding it's true but the end of humanity for me doesn't do
(and now you know why I'll leave the writing in verse up to you)