BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.

Subject: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:09 PM

THE FAITHFUL DOG FIDO
by William McGonagall

Little Fido's master had to go on a long journey,
So Fido followed her master, and ran cheerfully,
And often the master would speak kindly to the dog,
As along the road together they did jog.

Her master rode on a very beautiful steed,
And Fido followed behind at slow speed,
And so they travelled on and on,
And the road was dusty, and they felt woe-begone.

The sun shone hot, and the horse was covered with sweat,
And poor Fido was tired and began to fret,
And she felt so tired that no farther could she go,
So Fido lay down and whined with her heart full of woe.

Then the master dismounted near a cool shady wood,
And tied his horse to a tree while in an angry mood;
Then he took from the saddle his heavy bags of gold,
And laid them beside Fido, and to watch them she was told.

Then he drew his cloak about him, and lay down
With the saddle bags under his head, without a frown;
Then little Fido close to her master did creep,
And in a short, time was fast asleep.

But she didn't sleep sound, because her master had her told,
Not to fall asleep, but to watch the bags of gold,
So she pricked up her ears in fear any one coming,
And around the bags of gold she kept running.

Her master was tired and slept right soundly,
But little Fido began to feel rather weary,
And she thought her master was long enough in that place,
And at last she awakened her master by licking his face.

The dog knew it was time for her master to go,
And for fear of sleeping too long Fido's heart was full of woe,
And she began to bark loud and strong,
Then her master jumped up, troubled because he'd slept so long.

Then he quickly mounted his beautiful steed,
And rode away at a very quick speed,
And calling Fido! but Fido paid no heed,
Which caused Fido's master to feel angry indeed,

She ran after the horse and bit at his heels,
But poor Fido's master indignant feels;
This she did several times, but her master paid no heed,
And he began to think Fido was going mad indeed.

At last the dog sat down by the road side,
And looked sorrowfully after her master, as onward he did ride,
Then she ran after him, and him she overtook,
Just as he had stopped to water his horse in a brook.

And there she stood beside the brook, and barked so savagely,
That her master thought her really mad, she acted so strangely,
Then she ran down the road barking with all her might,
Until her master was now convinced Fido wasn't right.

And taking out his pistol, he aimed at the dog,
And fired, and poor Fido lay there as dead as a log;
Then with a sad heart he rode hastily away,
Spurring on his noble steed without delay.

But he hadn't ridden far, when he stopped as in dismay,
And searched for his bags of gold, but they were away,
And pondering in his mind as spell-bound he stood,
Had he dropped them, or left them behind in the wood.

Then he turned and rode back as fast as he could go,
And crying on his little, dog, with his heart full of woe,
And all along the road he still saw drops of blood,
Which brought tears into his eyes in a flood.

And oh! how guilty he felt as he galloped by the road side,
And found the bags of gold, and there lay beside
The faithful dog Fido alas! quite dead,
And when he saw her he was terror-stricken with dread.

And taking the bags of gold with him he rode away,
lamenting the death of Fido, who's life he'd taken that day,
Who was true to her trust in protecting her master's gold,
And an ill reward for doing to, be it told.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amergin
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:11 PM

such a deep masterpiece...I am in awe....I wish I could write so well...

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:21 PM

Right, Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Cluin
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:22 PM

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:28 PM

A real heartbreaker, isn't it? You should read MacGonagall's epic about the little matchgirl. Not a dry eye in the house, I can assure you.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:28 PM

Such a fine word, wretched. Thanks for the McGonagall interlude, LH.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Peace
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:43 PM

The little poem about the dog
Has clutched my heart and made me sad,



I'll leave the other lines to a bard. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make the last two lines as wretched (thanks, CarolC) as the poem at the top of this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: GUEST,Jimmy
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:56 PM

It reminds me of how once as a wayward child I blew up a tiny frog
And the guilt thereof surely shall drive me quite mad

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Joybell
Date: 04 May 04 - 11:21 PM

I opted to have a McGonagall poem sent to me every three days from the website devoted to the wonderful poet. They're all gems. I'd be hard pressed to name my favourite. I am very keen on the ones about disasters and about his visits to various cities.
He's here: http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/poems
                                                             Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: LadyJean
Date: 05 May 04 - 01:21 AM

I didn't know that McGonagall poem. It truly deserves the name doggerel.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: SueB
Date: 05 May 04 - 02:13 AM

Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm going to bed to weep in my pillow. Poor dog.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 04 - 02:25 AM

I think those of us in Little Hawk's circle should raise the portcullis and lift the drawbridge, and guard all through the night.

He is highly toxic.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:42 AM

A pox from Maine to Donegal
On the scribblings of McGonagall
Who cannot rhyme to save his peter
And doesn't understand plain meter
Iambs, dactyls, or rhyming schemes!
This man a POET? In your dreams!!
His words ill chosen, scansion bad,
As sensitive as a Brillo pad
He is unclaimed by any school
Who is no poet, but all fool.

A. H. J.
May 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amergin
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:49 AM

Oh come on amos he is brilliant! his poetry will be taught in schools for centuries... ;) anything to scare the kids from literature.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:25 PM

Nathan:

I'd rather teacch your stuff to kids than this clown. He offendeth mine eye and disrupteth mine ear with clanging ineptitude. Little Hawk is just being a sucker or playing the fool.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:36 PM

No, I'm Amos-baiting. It's fun. Have you heard Shatner's new recording of "Starman", Amos? Totally awesome!!! It takes the song (originally recorded by David Bowie) into whole new levels of nuance and feeling.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Peace
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:50 PM

AwEsOmE

ShAtNeR

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Kim C
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:51 PM

"Clanging ineptitude"! I love it!

I don't know anything about that poet, but I can tell you that most 19th century poetry was at least as dismal as that, and worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: GUEST,Noddy
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:15 PM

The sheer pathos of MacGonagall's story about little Fido is like a vise that grabs me by the nuts and won't let go. I have a strong feeling that Fido was a poodle. This sort of awful thing frequently happens to poodles for some reason...especially toy poodles. I think that Fido's master should have been drawn and quartered and then hanged and shot. Or maybe the other way around.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:17 PM

LOL! Well, Leedle Hack, I am sure I deserved baiting, and I am sure you are the Master of it, too.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:22 PM

I know it's hard to believe, Amos, but some of us actually enjoy bad poetry (especially if it's spectacularly bad, as with McGonagall). There's a perverse, and yet elegant sort of irony in this. My guess is that irony is not a significant element in your humour repertoire. Please correct me if I'm wrong ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:31 PM

I am sure I have never used irony, in all my history of posting sardonic ripostes here on the Cat. But if I were to do it I would try to do it with more grace than that cross-eyed oatmeal-headed namby-pamby half-wit. But I haven't, and I am not about to start now, since obviously good irony requires a much more subtle command of similarities and differences and nuance than I am blessed with.

I appreciate the irony, but I believe we need to make note of the fact that the author did not intend it--he literally believed (it seems to me) that he was offering poetry to his readers. If he had an inkling of its wretchedness he would have desisted.

Besides, I really LIKE my "Pox from Maine to Donegal" poem. I think its better than anything he wrote. :>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:40 PM

Julia Moore tops McGonagle any day!

WILLIAM UPSON
   
Come all good people, far and near,
Oh, come and see what you can hear,
It's of a young man, true and brave,
Who is now sleeping in his grave.

Now, William Upson was his name --
If it's not that it's all the same --
He did enlist in the cruel strife,
And it caused him to lose his life.

He was Jesse Upson's eldest son,
His father loved his noble son;
This son was nineteen years of age,
In the rebellion he engaged.

His father said that he might go,
But his dear mother she said no.
"Stay at home, dear Billy," she said,
But oh, she could not turn his head.

For go he would, and go he did --
He would not do as his mother bid,
For he went away down South, there
Where he could not have his mother's care.

He went to Nashville, Tennessee,
There his kind friends he could not see;
He died among strangers, far away,
They knew not where his body lay.

He was taken sick and lived four weeks,
And oh, how his parents weep,
But now they must in sorrow mourn,
Billy has gone to his heaven home.

If his mother could have seen her son,
For she loved him, her darling one,
If she could heard his dying prayer,
It would ease her heart till she met him there.

It would relieved his mother's heart,
To have seen her son from this world depart,
And hear his noble words of love,
As he left this world for that above.

It will relieve his mother's heart,
That her son is laid in our grave yard;
Now she knows that his grave is near,
She will not shed so many tears.

She knows not that it was her son,
His coffin could not be opened --
It might be some one in his place,
For she could not see his noble face.

He enrolled in eighteen sixty-three,
The next day after Christmas eve;
He died in eighteen sixty-four,
Twenty-third of March, as I was told.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:44 PM

I've seen sarcasm and sardonic riposts from you, Amos, but those forms of humor are not really the same critter as subtle irony.

At any rate, it doesn't need to be intended in order for it to be appreciated. I actually enjoy poems like those of McGonagall better than those of "respectable" poets. But then, I'm really am a very strange person.

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:50 PM

A curse I caston Julia Moore,
A half-breed literary hoor;
With all the wit and rhyme, you know,
Of a bowl of day-old cookie dough.
Her grace and rhythm, style and wit
Appealing are as rhino shit
And if she'd made her poems more pretty,
I'd not have made remarks so shitty.
So, leave her musings in the bog,
Replacing Sears' catalogue!

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:06 PM

LOL! Lovely, Amos. If only we could send your poems back in time to those who inspired them...

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: GUEST,Shlio
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:13 PM

Little dog
crossing street -
motor car
sausage meat.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:14 PM

Carol:

I think your appreciation of unintended irony (such as Moore's and McGongal's) is a virtue and a charm, not strange. Perhaps my own applications of irony are just too hamhanded, and I should strive for a subtler touch.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:31 PM

I think you should do whatever tickles your funny bone, Amos ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Bill D
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:40 PM

you want BAD?
from a bad poetry site:

Oh Destiny...

A part of me wants to be comfortable and familiar...
I seek tenderness, while my heart is in despair.
Wanting to run to the fields, and drive to the mountains....
I search for the answers, I cross the bridge, and climb the fence.
totally bare and open, exposed to the world....
Wanting to love, to run, to be free, oh... this lost little girl.
Should I go back to familiarity in my practical world?
Here I will cling to my creativity and learn how to pale...
All the while leaping into myself and crawling like a snail....
Why do I feel this, Nay.. what should I do?
For no-one can see this I carry, my hidden tattoo.
It's me, and me alone..to further my search...
I may not be understood, but this I will learn..
To love, to laugh to commit no sin.
I want to bury myself or let someone in!!
Oh destiny....betroth me I beg!
Give me a chance, let me breathe, let me go...
I will be enemy to none, I will be sunshine..
To lay upon the hillside, the mountain tops,
across the lakes and ocean, and into the sublime.
A ray of sun...a token of my life, the lips to my mouth.
Hello are you there? For it is me coming out!

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Peace
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:46 PM

I understand irony: The grenade exploded near my leg, and now my leg is very irony.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:48 PM

That's pretty funny, Bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Bill D
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:55 PM

hey! If you can't write wonderful poetry like Amos, you can try this site...give it a line and it will add some more for you.

Here's what it did with brucie's challenge
(I don't think it makes much differenct WHAT you type!)


The little poem about the dog Has clutched my heart and made me sad,

Yellow as the sun and bright as the day.

The bubbles pop and we are sad

But a small womble from Norway is on its way

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:58 PM

Wow!! The sheer intensity of the writer's inadequacy is shattering to the unsuspecting reader's placid center!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 04 - 06:39 PM

Well, they have absolutely no understanding of classic higgledy piggledys, but I did enjoy their attempt:


higgledy piggledy

and in the all the chip-monks will know

I shat on my tree

Funny Clown, bunch a balloons

Never mind the peaches momma, never mind the tree!

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 04 - 09:25 PM

Sometimes I yearn for days gone by,
And for them heave a sorry sigh --
When circus clowns were kept in tents,
And not made into Presidents,
And things occasionally made sense!
Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: JennyO
Date: 07 May 04 - 03:08 AM

Then there's Vogon poetry:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:30 AM

Bill, that poem you posted is the worst I have ever read! It's abysmal. Even MacGonagall would blanche and stagger back after reading it. It's a masterpiece of bad writing. Even Shatner could not do worse that that, not even if he tried! It bites.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:45 AM

Worse than doggerel, it is plagiarism. MMario sings a song of a mastiff who was guarding the laird's infant son when wolves attacked. The master returns, finds his baby alive but covered in blood and assumes the dog attacked him. He kills the dog and then discovers a dead wolf nearby. A mastiff was added to the family crest to honor the fallen beast.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:14 PM

MacGonagall was not above plagiarism. Come to think of it, there isn't much he was above.

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:16 PM

I don't see the plagiarism -- the wolf and mastiff story is pretty different from the 'guard my gold under a tree' story. Both dogs die wrongfully while really doing their duty, but the differences are significant, no?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:40 PM

I am awfully nice to be defending such a shmuck after all he's done to besmirch the name of the fair art of poetry. Humph!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 04 - 08:25 PM

LOL, Amos! I was just being a tad sarcastic above...but I can see the charm in something so horribly done...think of the charm of something like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Return of the Living Dead...

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Joybell
Date: 07 May 04 - 09:31 PM

Amergin just hit on a point I was about to make.
Ed Wood (Plan 9 From Outer Space) was touched by the same Muse who guided McGonagall, I reckon. Both were artists with great conviction, enormous creative drive, and self-belief. Both were truly called. Although neither had talent in the conventional sense both were inimitable. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:10 PM

So..lessee if I understand this... if we are inspired but inept, all is forgiven because ... because... lack of talent is more readily forgivable than lack of inspiration, right? Or, let's see...lack of ability to communicate is okay but not having something TO communicate really sucks?

Hmmm...I'm-a gonna hafta ponder on thet one, podnuhs...

Hmmmmmm.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: GUEST,Ms Penelope Rutledge
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:26 PM

I am familiar with MacGonagall's "work". It is, of course, simply dreadful, but it is dreadful in such a completely unerring and unconscious way that it remains highly amusing and topical, and will probably never be forgotten. You see, that is the charm of the man...number one, the fact that he had absolutely no idea just how bad his poetry was, and number two, the fact that he was so enthusiastic about it and wrote so much of it! This is fairly rare. Most people who are astonishingly bad in the field of art are not all that motivated or determined. They dabble in it for awhile, then give up and do something else...but NOT MacGonagall! Oh, no, the man was utterly besotted with his sacred duty to lavish his poetic gifts upon an eagerly waiting empire. This is what made him so memorable. We frequently read MacGonagall aloud at Rutledge House on special occasions, strictly for amusement. Winston loves reciting MacGonagall in the most dramatic terms possible while the rest of us are simply splitting our sides, and gasping for breath.

Thus MacGonagall has unwittingly delighted generations of people who never met him and ensured his own immortality in the process.

Now do you understand, Amos? To become legendary in this fashion one must not be simply bad at poetry...one must be bad "to the bone" at it...and yet not have the slightest idea. That is the ticket. Whatever else MacGonagall lacked, he certainly did not lack confidence.

I think your President Bush may yet prove to be the William MacGonagall of politics...but he has some stiff competition. He's not nearly as funny though, sadly.

*PR

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:45 PM

Penny:

I think your folk are the ones to whom we owe the Great Korzybskian Debt -- the people who built a map that was so clever you could defend confusing it for the territory. Only the English, and later the 'Murricans, could claim to have possession of a symbol-set so profound, complex and multi-hued as to be replacement for reality itself!!

Of course this laid them open to all kinds of charges of intransigent arrogance and hubris, but the truth is they were simply swelled up with the cleverness of inventing a language that could get close!!

And folks have been striking out against whitey ever since. especially whiteys like your revered self who seek to perpetuate the myth of matching maps to ground truth. The fact is you never did it, and you never came close, and it is all a silly gaseous vanity on your part. But believing it made it possible to overwhelm the Malay, the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Turk!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:51 PM

Or, to put it in more earthen terminology, you really need to pull your fair head out of your pearly-pink.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: GUEST,Ms Penelope Rutledge
Date: 08 May 04 - 12:20 AM

Amos, you are a cheeky reprobate, and were you here I should feel obliged to soundly slap your face for that last remark.

You may be onto something, however, with your analyis of British empire-building. It is true that an overweening sense of innate cultural superiority and God-given right to rule the Earth can be a very effective weapon indeed when running roughshod over other people's lands and societies while feathering one's own parochial nest in the meantime...but your bizarre ramblings about the "map" are so incomprehensible that I really don't know what you are talking about. How does one "defend confusing something for the territory"?

I think you have had altogether too many glasses of whatever strong stuff you are imbibing, and should call it a night.

*PR

Subject: RE: BS: Wretched poetry about a little dog.
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 04 - 05:40 AM

Penny:

If you had but followed my last suggestion, the whole thing would be much clearer.

All fanaticism comes from a confusion of things and labels. Whether the individual is mad with his belief in Empire and the Queen, or mad with his belief in Conversion for Jesus, or mad with his desire to fulfill Allah's will, or some other confusion, it is always a mixuop between a picture in his head and what is really right before his eyes.

The arrogance of Empire starts with an arrogance of language. One's ability to help his fellow human is directly proportional to one's ability to face what is (in truth) rather than a false overlay induced by his language system -- in other words deal with the territory itself, not the map.

I hope this helps. And should you wish to slap any part of my anatomy, you'll have to make the trip over here. I'm sure I can offer you accommodation and some first rate slap and tickle or whatever you call it...

Cheekily,


A