Masterpiece (scraps)

[RSaba]

Found amid the remnants of a late-night study session. Thought I'd share this weird nine-liner. Criticism always appreciated, although this (quite obviously) isn't serious at all, just a by-product of procrastination.

masterpiece

we were having
a beautiful conversation
and then you used the phrase:
"that sucks monkey balls"
and ruined my poem
damn you, i said
to the half-moon clippings
as i trimmed my nails at 2 am
this will never be a masterpiece now

[Brownlie]

Found amid the remnants of a late-night study session. Thought I'd share this weird nine-liner. Criticism always appreciated, although this (quite obviously) isn't serious at all, just a by-product of procrastination.

masterpiece

we were having
a beautiful conversation
and then you used the phrase:
"that sucks monkey balls"
and ruined my poem
damn you, i said
to the half-moon clippings
as i trimmed my nails at 2 am
this will never be a masterpiece now

Well, Milton refers to cannon balls that cause "Missive Ruin" so that's sort of similar to Monkey Balls.

[RSaba]

Having an accidental literary reference in there makes me feel better about the whole thing!

[ChristopherSea]

Hey, monkey balls can be fuel for poetry. I have them in an arboretum poem I composed for National Poetry Month. Cheers and welocme to the site./Chris

[RSaba]

Thanks Chris! Good to know there are others out there inspired by monkey parts.

[ChristopherSea]

Thanks Chris! Good to know there are others out there inspired by monkey parts.

For my use, it was sycamore trees raining 'monkey balls' on unsuspecting humans below. Their fruits are a little like small green navel oranges with these brain-like folds in their skins.

[ellajam]

Thanks Chris! Good to know there are others out there inspired by monkey parts.

For my use, it was sycamore trees raining 'monkey balls' on unsuspecting humans below. Their fruits are a little like small green navel oranges with these brain-like folds in their skins.

Testicular-like or brain-like? oh, wait a minute, same thing.

[RSaba]

I'd be interested to read this

[rayheinrich]

Masterpiece is a wonderful poem. I love self-referential poems and this
poem makes excellent use of that device. And the surprise of suddenly
coming upon "that sucks monkey balls" is delicious.


P.S.
'Serious' poems (as Leanne has pointed out in the past) do not have to be serious.
Some of the best poetry ever written is humorous parody. Humor, by side-stepping
our preconceptions, can communicate truths of the world that 'serious' could
never hope to do.

Procrastination as an aid to creativity (muse) has no equal.

'Monkey balls' reminded me of the 'horse apples' (the fruit of the bois d'arctree)
we have around here (Texas Gulf Coast). They are also round and brain-like.
They're the size of horse testicles (a large apple) but weigh twice as much. If one
falls from the tree it hits your head with the force of 2 Newtons. Hurts!

[Leanne]

Never belittle the absurd and ridiculous! I agree wholeheartedly with Ray -- this is a great poem, because only YOU could have written it. If only more people would realise that poetry is in the individual, not in trying to fit into some collective consciousness of cookie-cutter crap.

I enjoyed the fact that the "damn you" was addressed to the nail clippings and not the instigator of masterpiece failure, thus writing him off as insignificant and going on to produce something perfectly artistic anyway

[rayheinrich]

"The duplicity of nail clippings is not strain'd,
It droppeth as a vexing rain from heaven."
                                - William Fakespeare


This isn't on the specific topic of the wonderful poem above,
but it does concern the spirit of the poem. (Hopefully, RSaba
will forgive me.)
----------------
Don Quixote is a good example of humorous 'serious' writing.
I excerpted these two paragraphs from an article by Daniel
Eisenberg that address this topic:

Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature
from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon.
As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the
earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of
the greatest works of fiction ever published.

Spanish as well as foreign readers of the time unanimously considered
Don Quixote to be a funny book. But many modern critics are reluctant
to see Don Quixote as a work of humor. The modern resistance to this
interpretation may arise from nationalism (“Don Quixote portrays the
spirit of Spain, so it cannot be comic”), the low prestige of humorous
writing (“Since Don Quixote is a classic, it cannot be a funny book”),
or a simple lack of familiarity with Cervantes’ literary and cultural
milieu. ...

[billy]

this certainly does not suck monkey balls,
monkey balls and toe nail clippings, how much more original can you get than that. what i really liked about it was that i was in the room with you both, you made it real. thanks for the smile

Found amid the remnants of a late-night study session. Thought I'd share this weird nine-liner. Criticism always appreciated, although this (quite obviously) isn't serious at all, just a by-product of procrastination.

masterpiece

we were having
a beautiful conversation
and then you used the phrase:
"that sucks monkey balls"
and ruined my poem
damn you, i said
to the half-moon clippings
as i trimmed my nails at 2 am
this will never be a masterpiece now

[RSaba]

Thank you guys! I'm glad that you all got something from it.
@rayheinrich: you're right, sometimes humour means more than we think it does! And thou art forgiven for the Fakespeare quote, since it quoth the truth
@Leanne: thank you! I really appreciate that. Who needs cookie-cutters!
@billy: always happy to make ya smile!

[RSaba]

Thanks fogglethorpe! Always happy to make someone laugh

[leesharks]

Found amid the remnants of a late-night study session. Thought I'd share this weird nine-liner. Criticism always appreciated, although this (quite obviously) isn't serious at all, just a by-product of procrastination.

masterpiece

we were having
a beautiful conversation
and then you used the phrase:
"that sucks monkey balls"
and ruined my poem
damn you, i said
to the half-moon clippings
as i trimmed my nails at 2 am
this will never be a masterpiece now

It’s interesting that the poem replies, not to the offending phrase (“that sucks monkey balls”), but to the “half-moon clippings”: “damn you, i said / to the half-moon clippings”. Although it’s the monkey balls that ruin the masterpiece, the poem damns the nail clippings, almost like it distractedly “forgets” to assign blame where it’s due, or transfers the half-attended censure it feels for the external world to its own self as clippings/remnants/fragments/pieces.

This moment speaks to a kind of poetics of distraction that’s central to what’s working in this piece--and perhaps, I would guess, important more generally to your conception of poetry. The poem wasn’t really attending to the “beautiful conversation” in the first place, it was busy superimposing little fragments of that beauty unto itself as discarded clippings. When the monkey balls burst into its attention, it really has no choice but to incorporate that—it’s made and lost, as poem, in the same moment. It could never be a masterpiece, but maybe it could, and that’s what’s endearing about it.

That said, of the poem's nine lines, I thought ll. 4 and 6-9 were more effectively grounded in concrete detail. I wanted the first three lines especially to be replaced with something that does more to embody the abstractions to which they refer.

Or in terms that more openly reveal the derivative and pedantic nature of my criticism, “show, don’t tell.”

-Lee

[RSaba]

Thanks for the feedback Lee!