A pair of Haiku (haikus?): In Honor of the Olympics

The greeks played naked,

but only in the summer.

That was a good plan.

Sibling rivalry,

but intercontinental.

Hockey is like that.

Epic

Some background: the assignment was to write a creative sketch in the style of Homer, with prize going to the best epic simile.

Further background: We're singing "Glory to God in the Highest" from Handel's Messiah in choir, and the basses (no doubt out of habit formed by singing along with the CD) keep jumping in where they shouldn't. Dr. Erb is our choir director.

Sing, goddess! Sing for Erb with all your might,

for in his sight, yea even you are merely a soprano,

brought down with countless souls unto the depths of

degradation when you flat a soaring E. Sing the day

when Handel's music last proclaimed

it's mighty voice in the great Andrean ranks.

As the puff of windy breath, when sweat rolls down

a migrant worker's back on a scorching August day

while he walks behind his mower, refreshes him

and turns his thoughts from beer and la-z-boy

recliners, then, sudden, tosses back his trucker hat

and trees it in the whipping branches

while the sky to graphite turns and birds return

to gather in the eaves, away from threatened rain

and thunder, it blasts a sudden chill into

his marrow and flashes from the firmament

appear to smite him in his supposed innocent pleasure,

So Erb appeared unto the basses when they

unlicensed sang.

An old declamation

I was sorting through some files, and came across this old declamation. I don't remember what the assignment was, but it seems like something fun to post. For those of you who don't know, Helen is my cousin.

When the world was young, O best beloved, everyone whas short. The giraffe had not yet had his neck stretched, and the elephant had not got his trunk. And there was a child named Helen, who delighted in everything fiercely gleaming and glistening, and everything loudly squealing and wailing, and everything brightly green or plaid. And she wandered through the wide rolling earth until she cameto the lovely land of Scotland where the twirling swirling mists float over the hills, and there she made her home on the rugged shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth.

And then, O best beloved, when the world was a little older and Helen was quite settled in her home on the rugged shores, the Creator sent out a notice to all the inhabitants of the wide rolling earth telling them that on Wednesay fortnight he would give them all more height. But as everyone knows, the Scottish mails are notoriously late when it comes to delivering delicate missives or official notices, and Helen did not hear about the great gathering of the inhabitants of the wide rolling earth until it was Monday evening. So, being a person of infinite-resource-and-sagacity, she packed her gleaming throwing stars and her wailing bagpipes and threw her bright plaid shawl across her shoulders and left her home on the shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth and hurried to catch the last ship across the English Channel.

But when she arrived at the ship, she got the last ticket, and the boatman told her (o best beloved, you will weep to hear it) that there was no room for any luggage. For, you see, there were so many people who had just gotten the notice (owing, of course, to the notorious lateness of the Scottish mail) that the ship was very nearly in danger of sinking already from the great weight of the passengers. It was the last boat before Wednesday, and none of them wanted to be late when the creator gave out the height (indeed, some of them were very greedy and asked for double portions, but we won’t name any names here). But Helen looked at her glistening knives and her squealing pipes and her warm bright shawl and turned to the boatman and said that she would rather not leave her beautiful things behind, thank you very much (for she was a polite girl) and turned around and went back to her home on the rugged shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth. There she lived quite delightfully, content to sharpen her weapons and play her pipes in the twirling swirling mists.

And that, O best beloved, is why Helen is short to this day