Rebecca only gave me three words this time: ghost, with and global. I wrote the three words on a stickynote and thought they would do their magic on me, worming their way into a piece of poetic brilliance – or at least a piece of poetic averageness. But nothing happened. My mind played a bit with the alliteration of global ghost, and flickered briefly to global warming and the ghosts we might become if we don’t take stronger action, but that seemed a bit dire for this blog.
So, some weeks went by and the words were still just three words. Till my son asked me whatt heyw ere and I explained that I needed to put all three in a poem. “That’s easy!” he said: “There once was a ghost/Who got some post…” His words trailed off, but my mind started, at last, to tick away. Because I’ve been working on a workshop about forced rhyme, and there was one staring me in the face. “Hmm,” i thought. “I think I can do soemthing pretty corny here.” And the res, as they say, is history.
It’s not poetic brilliance, but it is a bit of fun, and perhaps an example of what happens when you try to force rhymes to a topic. (Sarcel? Thanks for that one, Rhymezone.)
Here’s my effort:
Postal Nonsense
Can you exchange post
With a ghost?
Write mail
To a snail?
Send a letter
To a red setter?
Or a card
To a St Bernard?
Can you write a note
To a goat?
Send a global parcel
To a hawk’s sarcel?
(You’ll want to go
And look that up).
I guess you know
The answer’s NUP.
Poem copyright Sally Murphy, 2017
After a storm, when you run through the garden,
Poetry Tag 