Scat.

Because poos ain’t poos.

Sooner or later, every Facebook discussion turns to shit. Yesterday, my friend Jo, who is a nurse quite familiar with the workings of the bowel, practically dared me to write a pome about the brown stuff. I so seldom get the chance to take up a dare these days, so I thought I would re-invent The Bristol Stool Chart in rhyming ploplets. 

You know. 

For shits and giggles. 

One is separate rock-hard lumps, and very hard to pass.
Two’s a lumpy sausage shape, a strain upon one's arse.
Three is like a chocolate bar, but cracked (not hard or knobby).
Four is smooth and serpentine, an easy-going jobbie.
Five consists of clear-cut blobs that don’t require a push.
Six has fluffy edges, ill-defined and boggy mush.
Seven’s got no shape at all; a watery suspension.
If you’re not doing threes or fours, your tummy needs attention.

Illustration by Jo Thornely (a completely different Jo)

The Penguin.

Because some ideas won't go away until you feed them some fish.

I really do like penguins. Especially Emperor Penguins. I've felt the urge to visit them, the urge to cuddle them and the urge to shout "WHY DON'T YOU JUST MOVE TO QUEENSLAND?" whenever I see them. But I've never felt the urge to write about them. Until my darling sister, in one of her rare visits to Twitter, popped this out:

And that was enough to get me thinking. Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven. Antarctic. Penguins. BING!

So here, with sincere apologies for mangling a masterpiece for the sake of whimsy, is a Poem about Penguins in the style of Poe.

Every frigid southern winter, as the sea begins to splinter,

Into slowly-creeping daggers frozen hard with icy hoar;

With the sunlight fast abating, penguins’ fancy turns to mating,

They’ve spent all of summer waiting, waiting patiently offshore;

Eating bucketloads of fish and tiny squid and krill offshore,

‘Til they can’t eat anymore.

Paying heed to ancient yearning, every penguin starts returning,

To the patch where they were hatched, like all their ancestors before.

Sometimes waddling, sometimes sliding, every now and then colliding,

Silent instinct gently guiding, guiding thousands with its draw;

Called to trudge a vast ice-desert by its mute, compelling draw;

Like a well-dressed army corps.

When it’s time to start their courting, male birds wander ‘round, consorting,

Strutting past the nubile females as though on a nightclub floor.

With their masterful displaying, they are elegantly saying,

“Hear my trumpeting and braying!” Braying, “Darling, I implore!

“Lie again with me this year and let’s make babies, I implore!”

Quoth each she-bird, simply: “Phwoar”.

When the deed is done and dusted, to each male an egg’s entrusted;

Warmly sheltered in their pouches, kept aloft behind each claw.

While the mother, done with breeding, and her energy receding,

Waddles off for two months’ feeding, feeding, knowing what’s in store.

Gorging gladly for herself and keeping some of it in store,

For her baby’s hungry craw.

As the females are retreating, and the squally snow starts beating

On the backs of stalwart stayers wanting vainly to withdraw;

Shielded snugly and unknowing from the cruel, relentless blowing

Is the precious cargo, growing, growing fast amidst the roar

Of those blasting, biting blizzards. Safely cloistered from the roar

Nearly sixty days and four.

When the chicks break from their coddling and start working on their waddling,

And the fathers’ famished figures are impoverished and raw,

From a distance come parading mothers calling, serenading,

To their once-plump lovers, fading, fading, creaky-boned and sore,

Who in turn will drag their thinning bodies, weary, spent and sore

For the ocean to restore.

So the cycle keeps repeating: parents parting, parents meeting,

Taking turns to forage, feed and keep the babies they adore.

Several months after conceiving, when the families start perceiving,

That they’re old enough for leaving, leaving huddled on the shore,

Chicks remain in crèches, waiting ‘til their folks come back to shore.

Soon the icy shelf will thaw.

Christmas. Han Solo. Row, row row your boat.

Because crowd-sourcing is a thing.

Today I'm waiting for a client to get back to me. Too lazy to do something constructive, I thought I'd write a rhyme. Too lazy to think of a topic and rhyme scheme, I asked Twitter for ideas. I asked for:
1. A topic;
2. A character; and
3. A popular tune, to which I would set the metre.

The gorgeous Bec Pobjie came up with the winning idea:

So here it is:

Ring, ring, Christmas bells,

Tinsel hung above;

Merrily, Han Solo shops in Mos Eisley Mall

For his Leia love.

White frocks, bobby pins,

Cozzies made of mesh.

“None of this stuff is original”, mutters Han,

“I need something fresh.”

Wand’ring up and down,

Through each franchised store;

Body Shop, Pie Face and Gloria Jeans are on

Every frikkin’ floor.

Then, lo! There it is:

Leia’s perfect gift.

Sitting in Myer’s big sparkly perfumery

Just outside the lift.

As he reaches out,

It’s snatched gleefully.

“Greedo, you clown!” protests Solo, quite crossly, “I

Saw it first!” says he.


Thanks also to @rachelnes94, @ozlangur, @WhoobieMe and @burgotastic for other equally wonderful suggestions, which shall see the light of day if I get around to it.

Ipsedixitism

Because I said so.


Every so often, I hear a word that is so delicious, so sublime in its syllables, that I want to say it over and over again, to roll it around the inside of my mouth like a lolly until it dissolves into my vernacular. Such a word was recently introduced to me by my friend Chrys Stevenson, here.

And every so often, a friend, colleague or follower will throw down a poetry challenge, suggesting a word or topic and challenging, nay daring me to pen a verse about it. The person who does this most often is my friend Chrys Stevenson. You may have heard me mention her before.

This one's for you, Chrys.

“Why? Because I said so!” - we’ve all heard this one before,

When spoken to defiant kids aged three, or maybe four.

But once you’re all grown up, you shouldn’t hear it any more;

Especially not in academic texts or courts of law.

This bare assertion fallacy, as rhetoric depicts it,

Throws status at a problem, in a vain attempt to fix it,

And can’t disprove, with logic, any stance that contradicts it.

It’s known in legal circles by the Latin “ipse dixit”.

If you’re involved in some debate or argument or schism,

And adversaries resort to simple say-so when you quiz ‘em,

Don’t fall for their non-sequiturs and base antagonism,

Just raise an eyebrow, smile and say “That’s ipsedixitism”.

Hayfever

Because allergies can bite me.

At the edge of the stratus-strewn skies,

Peeks a timid blue moon on the rise.

As the daylight adjourns,

My hayfever returns

And I want to stab out someone’s eyes.

Bits

Because they really are quite important. 

I’m a fundamental requisite for most of life on Earth,
I’m important for allogamous conception and for birth,
Evolution’s seen my basic functionality maintained,
In my midst, the code of future generations is contained.
Every human being in history’s had me clandestinely swaddled.
From my form, great monuments of towering granite have been modelled.
Every king and queen and conqueror have had me on their thrones,
I’ve been carried ‘round by famous movie stars and by unknowns.
So you’d think I’d earned a modicum of reverence and acclaim,
But instead I’m given every kind of base, ignoble name.
Like ‘the squidgy bits below yer tits’ or ‘hoo-hoo’ or ‘hair pie’
Or ‘the man in the pink helmet’ or ‘the python with one eye’
Or ‘the map of Tassie’, ‘whisker biscuit’, ‘velvet glove’ or ‘quim’
Or ‘the strumpet thumper’, ‘Dr Wang’ or ‘Todger’ or ‘big Jim’
All I ask is recognition for accomplishments unsung;
For the fecund folds of flesh from which your foetal form was flung;
For the pendulous appendage that bore people-making fruit;
Just a tiny, whispered “thank you”. And perhaps a small salute.

With thanks to Chrys and Daphy for ideas, inspiration and titillating euphemisms.

Supermarket Atheism

Because I went to the shops.


So I was at the supermarket this afternoon, and as I turned past the chill of the sausage cabinet, I overhead part of a conversation between two employees, which included an admission of sorts. Like most people who can't wait to let the world know about their food shopping, I tweeted about it. And like most smart-arse sisters, Jo decided to turn it into a poetry challenge (or at least that's how I saw it):

So, this:

Negotiating shopping trolleys
Through an aisle of chips and lollies
Overheard:
A single word:
‘Atheist’.

I turned my head. The one who spoke -
A sandy-haired shelf-packing bloke.
I may have stared
As he declared
Godlessness.

The Woollies at Umina Beach
Has room for walking frames in each
Wide parking spot.
It’s also got
Infidels.

Sesquipedalian

Because I love a challenge.

When I was in my twenties, a close friend suggested that I would do anything for a dare. While I'd like to think this is still true in essence, I tend to take up fewer of the touching-the-police-officer-on-the-pants-type challenges, and concentrate my efforts on the more sedentary, less going-to-jaily ones.

Like this one, from my friend Chrys Stevenson:

All right then:

There once was a Mr J Sesquipedalian:
Quite an unusual sort of a bloke.
He never (unlike every other Australian)
Shortened the phrases and words that he spoke.

In fact, this young gentleman always preferred,
No matter what topic was being discussed,
To use the most lengthy and tiresome word;
He could think of, which left all his listeners nonplussed.

“You seem a bit aggro this arvo” said one
Of his colleagues. “Indeed it would seem,” replied he;
“The horizon of my basal exasperation;
Has been somewhat broadened, postprandially”.

He thought, “My loquacity’s commonly known
For the air of ingeniousness that it lends.”
But alas, on this point he was sadly alone:
He had many more syllables than he had friends.