Cockeyed Optimist

Like many others, I like to try writing fiction and even poetry. You can see some of my efforts on this blog - my Fairy Story and my life story, as well as one or two poems, like this one on a real tragedy.

But before I started blogging, I joined a site, on June 3 this year, called Helium, which publishes on the web and what’s more pays you for your articles and stories if they become popular.

You can see some of my efforts on Helium here. So far I have earned $1.61 for my work, $1.34 of that for a group of haiku - payments are based on popularity, and these poems were rated (by contributors) as No. 3 out of 106 entries.

If you join up you can vote for my articles and increase my massive earnings, as well as possibly becoming a winner yourself.

And you can browse the whole site and its literally thousands of articles and stories, starting on the home page.

Go ahead, there’s nothing to lose!

So tired that it almost makes me weep;

Tomorrow I will be completely dead!

I don’t know why I still can’t get to sleep.

–

It’s no good, there’s no way that I will sleep,

This is the sort of night I always dread -

So tired that it almost makes me weep.

–

They say its good to try to count some sheep -

But all they do is run around my head;

I don’t know why I still can’t get to sleep.

–

My bedclothes are all bunched into a heap,

It feels more like a ploughed field than a bed.

So tired that it almost makes me weep.

–

That’s good – I think I had a little sleep -

(Perhaps it was a trick inside my head).

I don’t know why I still can’t get to sleep.

–

Oh no, that was the clock that just went ‘beep’ -

That means I’ll have to drag myself from bed!

Still tired so that it almost makes me weep;

I don’t know why I never got to sleep.

What is a Villanelle?

The last time he was ever seen alive

Was when they passed by, heading for the peak.

They said he didn’t even try to speak;

They knew he couldn’t possibly survive.

It wasn’t that they wanted to contrive

A likely story, nor to hide a streak

Of inhumanity, blaming his technique;

But that their aim was simply to arrive.

Nobody had forced him to decide

To make the climb without the proper gear;

Maybe it was his sense of pride

That led him to confront his deepest fear.

But now we, each of us, must hide

A guilty conscience and hold back a rueful tear.

[Read the news item]

This is a pantoum on the subject of blogging,
(A Malaysian verse form that has much going for it.)
This is not about logging, nor yet about flogging,
So disregard those who would try to deplore it.

A Malaysian verse form that has much going for it,
A way of ensuring that poems stay quirky.
So disregard those who would try to deplore it,
Their motives are possibly selfish or murky.

A way of ensuring that poems stay quirky;
Appealing to bloggers, more than closed-minded folk;
Their motives are possibly selfish or murky,
And their knee-jerk response is to mock us or joke.

Appealing to bloggers, more than closed-minded folk;
We’re more confident, cheerful and nicer than they are;
And their knee-jerk response is to mock us or joke,
But we carry on blogging, while they fume and despair.

We’re more confident, cheerful and nicer than they are;
This is not about logging, nor yet about flogging,
So we carry on blithely, while they fume and despair
-This is a pantoum on the subject of blogging.

(See a discussion of Pantoum.)

Perhaps it is inseparable from the character of many of our poets, but it seems that there is almost always a tragic element to poetry. Think of the themes that so often come up — death, loss, love, separation, aging, defeat — how can any of these escape being tragic?

And even when the subject of a poem is ostensibly happy, humorous or light, some tragedy intrudes, as though the author were obsessed with the dark side.

The only way this can be avoided, so as to introduce an element of optimism, is to write ‘comic verse’, which ensures that neither the poetry nor its author will ever be taken seriously … so it goes!

How about this, by Harry Graham:

Auntie, did you feel no pain

Falling from that apple tree?

Will you do it, please, again?

‘Cos my friend here didn’t see.