A Christmas Ode

Fisher-Price is the king of toys
What is the meaning of all this noise?

My evil stepmother told me to not touch
The Christmas tree
It might fall over
So of course I touched it
And of course ...

Fisher-Price ... king ...
Xmas marks the spot
Come out come out whoever you are!

All together now (with feeling):

Fisher-Price is the king of toys
Whatever
is the meaning
of all of
this noise?

Ode to Morrie

I'd LOVE to spend Tuesdays with Morrie!
(But, unfortunately, Tuesday's my hair-day on Alpha Centauri...)

Ode to Scientology

Oft-times
Off-lines
...

Ode to Baudelaire

Tho' picture be worth
A thousand words
The poet adorns the baudy angels
With artful nouns
The beauteous arse
With divined verbs ...

Scylla In WWWonderland Introduction

Book One
[Publisher's Note: This is a Working Edition]


Scylla In WWWonderland


An Epic Poem, Comprised of Cantos, Annotated,
Edited and Introduced by Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke,
Literary Advisor to the Queen


----------
Introduction

Certain Individuals are born with special talents, some so rare as to not appear on this dusky bauble upon which we silently perch more than once in a century. Herein is presented a new Master-Work from just such an Anointed One, an Authoress of already searing world-wide renown - Baroness Scylla vom und zu Karybdis.

I commend her heartfelt, and astonishing, wisdom and words to you all.

- Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke
Literary Advisor to the Queen

Scylla In WWWonderland Canto V

Book One



Canto V
The "Email" Canto



To: Director@cia.gov
Bav@vatlib.it
Charles@princeofwales.gov.uk
Gloria@vanderbilt.com
George@soros.org
From: Scylla
Date: (withheld)
Subject: The World

Hi!*



*EDITOR'S NOTE

Ascending to the stage of World-Importance is not something that comes naturally to most of us, be we of high or low station. But in the case of the amazing Scylla vom und zu Karybdis, it is evidently as instinctively natural as accepting the mother's teat when new-born.

And while, for most of us, the words "Hi World" are limited to a form of sophomoric self-mockery indulged in only (with the emphasis on ONLY) during the elementary courses in computer science with the first attempts to produce output at what the cyberneticists call a "terminal", we find here an altogether transmogrified potentiation of those same words in the glorious hands of a Master Artist.



END OF BOOK ONE
Scylla In WWWonderland

Ode to Gloria Vanderbilt

Out the window with the old!*
Time for a bold new view
Sic transit Vanderbilt mundi
I'm Scylla --

Who are you?


________________________________
* Scylla is here, rather rudely I fear, referring to Ms. Vanderbilt's eldest son committing suicide by jumping out of her bedroom window as she watched, helplessly ...

- Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke
Literary Advisor to the Queen

Scylla In WWWonderland Canto IV

Book One



Canto IV



Eenie, Meenie
Mein Kampf Moe
Catch a George Soros
...

By the Jean Cocteau?

For Authors Who Commit Suicide

I've been remembering that old movie I liked so,
"Picnic", whose author William Inge took
"Stop the World, I Want to Get Off"

Too literally, I'm afraid.
Ah well - perhaps I can repair the damage
with the comic book I'm planning:
"For Authors Who Commit Suicide
When the Critics Start to Scoff".

Scylla In WWWonderland Canto III

Book One



Canto III



Eenie, Meenie
Chanson Moet
Have you sung
A Meister-song today?

A Pinata Regatta

The Mountbattens and Windsors
Can have their regattas
When I want to let loose
I just swing at some pinatas!

Scylla In WWWonderland Canto II

Book One



Canto II
The "Nutcracker" Canto



Tchaikovsky died
So Gelsey could get fried*




*EDITOR'S NOTE

This deceivingly and, if I may say so, devilishly simple canto is, perhaps, the most amazingly complex of this entire Master-Work, and will arguably require extensive editorial elucidation for virtually all readers. We've little time to lose, so let's get started!

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky is undeniably the most popular composer of all time, as beloved by the Power Elite (cf. his shocking and [literally!] ground-breaking use of cannons in his immortal 1812 Overture) as by the chimney-sweep, scullery-maid, and bar-hand.

Unfortunately, Pyotr Ilich committed suicide because of his unrequited love for his own nephew.

(Um, I didn't say this editorial analysis wasn't going to be without its, ah..., "rough" spots.)

Gelsey Kirkland, alternatively, is undeniably the most beloved American ballerina of the Twentieth Century. She is especially well-known to us today through the incessant - rather, the compelling annual Christmas season rebroadcast of her divine interpretation of Tchaikovsky's (supra) Nutcracker Suite.

Also unfortunately, Gelsey was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, at the height of her career, for more than two years, by her jealous mother, for doing nothing more than what the rest of New York in the 1970's was doing - partying on cocaine.

(Not TOO bad a wobble there, I hope!)

And so there you have it. The most brilliant Poetess of our time, Scylla vom und zu Karybdis, has condensed as much Greek Tragedy as is contained in all of Homer, throwing in Electra, Oedipus, and Sisyphus like icing on the cake, into what I like to think are among the two most brillliant lines ever written in the English language.

- Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke
Literary Advisor to the Queen

Ode to Phil Hendrie

Margaret Gray -
You are a vestal sage!

(Too bad Henry
Can't afford you minimum wage ... )

Scylla In WWWonderland Canto I

Book One



Canto I



To compose
With mellifluous precision
...

I can't

OH !!!!!!!!!!!

Ode to Mycal Phelps

My calf helps fatten Queen Mary's Land
And my quantum economics its ladies and lords
And when I conduce my Bright Supremacist to ball more
The world must admit I've -

"The Penis Mightier than the Sword"

Poetry Chair

From T. Sedgwick's speech at the elevation ceremonies for Scylla v.u.z.-Karybdis' appointment to the Poetry Chair in Paris:



Scylla has left the Foundation
To take the Poetry Chair at the Sorbonne
Word's fail me
Be well and succesful
Scylla, my dearest -
Well done!


* [for the Study of World Importance - ed.]

Ode to Obama

When next Obama picks a Tsar
Please don't laugh or scoff
Just go to see my West End play
Called -

"Noises Romanoff" ...

J'espere

J'espere
Are you there?
If you are
Wunderbar!

SCYLLA IN WWWONDERLAND

An Epic Poem, Comprised of Cantos, Annotated,
Edited and Introduced by Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke,
Literary Advisor to the Queen



----------
Introduction

Certain Individuals are born with special talents, some so rare as to not appear on this dusky bauble upon which we silently perch more than once in a century. Herein is presented a new Master-Work from just such an Anointed One, an Authoress of already searing world-wide renown - Baroness Scylla vom und zu Karybdis.

I commend her heartfelt, and astonishing, wisdom and words to you all.

- Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke
Literary Advisor to the Queen




----------
Canto I


To compose
With mellifluous precision
...

I can't

OH !!!!!!!!!!!



----------
Canto II
The "Nutcracker" Canto


Tchaikovsky died
So Gelsey could get fried*


---
*EDITOR'S NOTE

This deceivingly and, if I may say so, devilishly simple canto is, perhaps, the most amazingly complex of this entire Master-Work, and will arguably require extensive editorial elucidation for virtually all readers. We've little time to lose, so let's get started!

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky is undeniably the most popular composer of all time, as beloved by the Power Elite (cf. his shocking and [literally!] ground-breaking use of cannons in his immortal 1812 Overture) as by the chimney-sweep, scullery-maid, and bar-hand.

Unfortunately, Pyotr Ilich committed suicide because of his unrequited love for his own nephew.

(Um, I didn't say this editorial analysis wasn't going to be without its, ah..., "rough" spots.)

Gelsey Kirkland, alternatively, is undeniably the most beloved American ballerina of the Twentieth Century. She is especially well-known to us today through the incessant - rather, the compelling annual Christmas season rebroadcast of her divine interpretation of Tchaikovsky's (supra) Nutcracker Suite.

Also unfortunately, Gelsey was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, at the height of her career, for more than two years, by her jealous mother, for doing nothing more than what the rest of New York in the 1970's was doing - partying on cocaine.

(Not TOO bad a wobble there, I hope!)

And so there you have it. The most brilliant Poetess of our time, Scylla vom und zu Karybdis, has condensed as much Greek Tragedy as is contained in all of Homer, throwing in Electra, Oedipus, and Sisyphus like icing on the cake, into what I like to think are among the two most brillliant lines ever written in the English language.

- Enid Evenson Haddow de Burke
Literary Advisor to the Queen



----------
Canto III


Eenie, Meenie
Chanson Moet
Have you sung
A Meister-song today?



----------
Canto IV


Eenie, Meenie
Mein Kampf Moe
Catch a George Soros
...

By the Jean Cocteau?



----------
Canto V
The "Email" Canto



To: Director@cia.gov
Bav@vatlib.it
Charles@princeofwales.gov.uk
Gloria@vanderbilt.com
George@soros.org
From: Scylla
Date: (withheld)
Subject: The World

Hi!*


---
*EDITOR'S NOTE

Ascending to the stage of World-Importance is not something that comes naturally to most of us, be we of high or low station. But in the case of the amazing Scylla vom und zu Karybdis, it is evidently as instinctively natural as accepting the mother's teat when new-born.

And while, for most of us, the words "Hi World" are limited to a form of sophomoric self-mockery indulged in only (with the emphasis on ONLY) during the elementary courses in computer science with the first attempts to produce output at what the cyberneticists call a "terminal", we find here an altogether transmogrified potentiation of those same words in the glorious hands of a Master Artist.



----------

END OF BOOK ONE

Ode To J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling
You have the world at your knees!
(Too bad those god-awful Harry Potter books
Make me do nothing but sneeze...)

Some light froth:

How do you hoist a Poetaster
By his own petard?
Simple -
Just rhyme "Hunks of Abalone"
With "Heloise and Abelard"!!

Ode to Gore Vidal

The Simplon Orient Express
Was an eventful ride
We kids laughed at the overweight adults
Our comments undisguisedly snide ...

We'd intended to go to Gstaad!
To bask in Greta Garbo's aura
But Mother got lost somewhere in the Paris Metro
We ended up in Venice ...

Then a boring summer on Capri ..
Strolling at night in the Emperor's Villa
Something makes you keep looking up as if to see
Beauteous glowing orbs
Arriving from some place like Neptune ...

And on to Rome
Our new Home!

Quick Change of Scene:
Benedict Canyon Drive, Los Angeles, twenty years later
(Twinkle twinkle little star!
The Polo Lounge was our neighborhood bar!)
And there in the kitchen
My stupid mother
After kvetching on and on about becoming a "grass widow"
Hearing me ask "Did you ever know Gore Vidal?"
(He's got some idiotic house on the mainland opposite Capri
So he can ride the bus and pick-up snotty Italian teenagers)
Says

"I always meant to go say hello to Gore
But I never got around to it."

The Dont Ask Dont Tell Overture

Of Scylla vom und zu Karybdis





I shot an arrow
Into the air
And where it lands . . .

. . .



I was told not to care

Ode to McLuhan

The medium is the message
Or so McLuhan said
(Oh, waiter - I'll take that steak medium-well
And don't you DARE skimp on the bread!)
But what really matters most here
What's really disgusting
(MY GOD! - THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
IS CALLING MY CELLPHONE!!!)
Is ...

Sound-bites and fury
Signifying nothing

As Aeolian Harps

As Aeolian harps
On yon pavilion play
And skateboarders careen
Their cotillions where they may
Let all men give condolence
On the hills and by the bay

As Aeolian harps
On yon pavilion play
And skateboarders careen
Their cotillions where they may
Let all men give condolence
Wherever the homeless lay
. . .

V for Vom!

When "dot-dot-dot-dash"
Became deprecated for "dot-com"
Beethoven rolled over ...
...
And a Baroness added the "Vom"!

Adieu

Every Writer must make a decision
When amusement is at an end
When taunts and the critics' derision
Not even Heaven can forfend

So with career now wrecked and in tatters
Unable any longer to compose
This Poet bids the World adieu
Nevermore to ask . . .

FOR WHOM THE NOBEL TOLLS !!!

he Rime of the Ancient Poetaster

RHYME

"In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. It is the part of the syllable used in poetic rhyme, and the part that is lengthened or stressed when a person elongates or stresses a word in speech. The rime is usually the portion of a syllable from the first vowel to the end. For example, /aet/ is the rime of all of the words at, sat, and flat. However, the nucleus does not necessarily need to be a vowel in some languages. For instance, the rime of the second syllables of the words bottle and fiddle is just /l/, a liquid consonant. "Rime" and "rhyme" are variants of the same word, but the rarer form "rime" is sometimes used to mean specifically "syllable rime" to differentiate it from the concept of poetic rhyme. This distinction is not made by some linguists and does not appear in most dictionaries. The simplest model of syllable structure divides each syllable into an optional onset, an obligatory nucleus, and an optional coda.

"There exist, however, many arguments for a hierarchical relationship, rather than a linear one, between the syllable constituents. This hierarchical model groups the syllable nucleus and coda into an intermediate level, the rime. The hierarchical model accounts for the role that the nucleus+coda constituent plays in verse (i.e., rhyming words such as cat and bat are formed by matching both the nucleus and coda, or the entire rime), and for the distinction between heavy and light syllables, which plays a role in phonological processes such as, for example, sound change in Old English scipu and wordu ... "

???

Ananyms!
Anonyms!
Anacronyms be DAMNED!

I hear only SILENCE!


The silence ... of the iambs ...