Category Archives: LoSoRhyMo

WordPress is currently giving me a reminder each day of posts published on that date over the years. Because my month of versifying has always been November, some seasonal subjects recur, such as jacarandas, Sculpture by the Sea and the Melbourne Cup (but that one only once). No subject has been more insistent than US elections.

And I’ve done a US election verse this year. But first, here are my previous efforts:

4 November 2016, appended to a review of Overland Nº 224:

Verse 4: To Overland on Eight-eleven
Unhappy land that needs a hero.
Orban, Hitler, Donald Trump,
elected (unlike Stalin, Nero)
masters of the campaign stump
who feed on people’s desperation,
fan the myths of race and nation,
harness hate, despair and fear.
A heedless will for change is here.
We do need change. The seas are rising.
The profit motive hurts us all
and holds our governments in thrall.
I’m grateful for the organising,
analysing work you do.
It gives me hope we’ll make it through.

Nothing on the 2018 midterms. Then, 4 November 2020, written before the outcome of the vote was known:

Verse 4: Midnight Tuesday over there
(4 in the afternoon Wednesday here)

Two hundred million odd decisions.
Aggregate them, that's our fate:
a fresh start, maybe some solutions,
else the planet on a plate.
It's midnight last night where they're voting,
now all over bar much shouting,
counting, claim and counter claim
and – who knows – civil war's the game?
Here, next day, the sun is shining,
noisy miners bash the air
the magpies don't pretend to care,
and clouds are mostly silver lining.
'Six million Frenchmen can't be wrong' –
whoever said that is a nong.

6 November 2024, starting with a line from Montaigne:

Verse 4: We do not weigh the vices fairly
We do not weigh the vices fairly,
thumb the scales to suit our whim:
I exaggerate, quite rarely –
you tell fibs – but look at him!
His lies destroy the trust that binds us,
lead us where no truth can find us.
Crowds have wisdom, mobs can rule,
electorates can play the fool.
He's murderous and self-regarding,
incoherent, vile, inane.
He once could boast a showman's brain,
but principles are for discarding.
Lord of Misrule, theatre's Vice:
How could you choose him once, then twice?

So what now? Here goes, using rhyme words from its predecessors:

Verse 4: A turning point, perhaps
Unhappy land that needs a hero
badly so that, when his vice
and love of gold could rival Nero,
land just sighs and picks him twice.
But now a little light comes shining. 
on that pool with ruptured lining.
Turns out that you just can't fool
all the people always – rule 
to live by. But the rising
tide of reason won't lift all
the boats. The man's a thrall
to savage impulse. Organising
this defeat may be too late.
I tremble for the planet's fate.

Since November 2010 – can it be that long? – I’ve challenged myself to post fourteen 14-line poems on the blog in November. You can browse past efforts here, or you could even buy one of the seven little books I’ve made out of them – here. Pretty much all the poems are in the form of the Onegin stanza, so called because it was used by Alexandr Pushkin in his epic poem Eugene Onegin, which you can read in translation at this link.

Oddly, given that the starting date has been 1 November for 17 years, I haven’t tackled Halloween until now (unless you count this from 10 years ago).

Here goes:

Verse 1: Halloween 
Hip-high vampires, ghouls and witches,
bog-roll mummies, Pikachus,
hats with horns and bonkers britches,
parents walking shotgun, cruise
the suburb, toting bags for lollies.
Zombie skaters practise ollies.
E-bikes keep sheet-spooks afloat.
Someone's made a pumpkin coat.
Samhein once threw death's gates open
letting ancient terrors in, 
to make all sinners rue their sin.
Now terror has a snowflake's hope in
hell at Halloween. At most,
we mock the old religion's ghost.

This morning we managed to get to the beach. We got there before the Nippers.

November verse 14: A swim at Clovelly

Seven thirty, from Clovelly 
Road, the sea's a silver sheet.
Once there, rub sunscreen on the belly,
back and shoulders, then the sweet
and icy plunge. Today no gropers
show themselves to interlopers
such as us, but one bold gull
dive-bomb swoops us, for the thrill.
And now the beach is full of nippers,
energetic, pink-clad, young,
reminding us that we belong
to boundless life. Ah, flat-white sippers,
once more dry and clothed, we sing
our farewell to another spring.

I have written this blog post on the land of Gadigal and Wangal of the Eora nation, after visiting Bidjigal land and water. I acknowledge Elders past and present of all those clans, and welcome any First Nations readers.