Gate-Keepers & Fate-Reapers
Time was, when a budding poet
Only needed to send a sample in
To a magazine or publisher,
For them to recognise their kin –
A fellow wordsmith, to be lauded,
Calliope’s very twin !
I guess their sheer class shone through –
By which I mean their bourgeoisie.
For had a working-lad likewise,
There’s be no welcome-mat for he.
These days, of course, they snub us all the same –
Well, that’s equality…
Let Our Freak Flags Fly
These days, ev’ryone has their flag,
Their brand, their team –
I see them as their colours stream upon the breeze.
I don’t know what they mean,
Not any of these –
But they sure look grand !
These layer-cakes in purple, pink, and green
To folks in far-off lands
That will never be reached by me first-hand,
But it’s good to know they’re there,
That they still get seen.
And those who fall-out inbetween,
The citizens of elsewhere,
Who are ev’ry bit as keen to share –
Not part of this, nor part of that,
Yet part of where our culture’s at –
They’re hesitant to wear the stripes we’ve flown,
Or sport our crest –
Well, there’s always room within the nest
For strangers with another face –
They get to make a banner of their own,
To fly with all the rest.
Eventu’ly, I’ll see it grace
A new lapel or wedding dress –
Another flag I cannot place,
But somebody salutes, I guess.
Well, good for them – what’s one more more-or-less ?
Finally, allow me to introduce the strangely Irish-looking Edgar, as voiced by my decidedly London-born friend John Dobson.
Finally, we have an avatar with a real human voice, provided by my good friend Jo Matthews. Thanks Jo !
Young and Byronic, Hereward is the moodiest virtual poet since Speak & Spell
Death by Plot Device
From Juliet and Cio-Cio-San,
By way of Emma Bovary –
They each were halted by a man,
Intent to plot and oversee
Their ending with his fatal pen –
All killed by their creators yet agen.
Come Brünnhilde of the Norse,
Jocasta of the Greeks, come too,
And Thelma and Louise, of course –
Cecilia Lisbon’s joining you.
So young and clichéd, full of romance –
Farewell. Alas, you never had a chance.
For Anna Karenina, Hedda Gabler,
It will never be a wonderful life –
Each felt a fatalism grab her,
With a well-placed gun or foreshadowed knife.
Like all of the tragic women above
In their man-made suicides for love.
Normal service is temporarily resumed, before continuing to the audio poems tomorrow.
Having completely failed to make my previous passing, I have decided to mark my half decade instyle (Is that a quintade ? Or is this the epitome of Unnecessary Latin ?)
Thanks to recent advancements in AI, it is now possible to create avatars of never-existed people in Midjourney, and voices of never-spoken tongues in Prime Voice, and then get the former to speak the latter thanks to D-ID. Although you won’t get to see that last part, as videos can only be included for premium WordPressers – after all they have to keep us riff-raff out…
And so, all this week I shall be unveiling my new Readers, who are definitely attempting to scale the slope out of uncanny valley and almost sorta kinda sound perfectly natural ! Well, as long as the poem doesn’t contain a question mark, as they can’t change their intonation. And as long as you don’t mind them sounding thoroughly middle class, as the British voice samples all tended towards the RP – which is a pity, as I always intended for my words to be read in an ‘Educated West Country’ accent.
However, saving the best for last, I have persuaded a couple of friends to read for me as well, and you can heartheir delightfully-human tones at the end of the week.
Rhyming Couplets 