Brent Raynes has written a book about my old friend John Keel, called John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and The Ongoing Mysteries. It’s not really a biography, but a catalogue of forteana, with John’s theories and opinions about them, as well as interviews with people who knew him, including me. It’s now available on […]
Entries Tagged as '*Words'
John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and The Ongoing Mysteries
October 13th, 2019 · Comments Off on John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and The Ongoing Mysteries
Complements
October 6th, 2019 · 3 Comments
This alphabet appears in The Doug Skinner Dossier. Buy a copy! Buy another copy! COMPLEMENTS Acid — Base Clean — Dirty Empty — Full Glum — Happy Iffy — Just Keen — Listless Messy — Neat Old — Puerile Quiet — Raucous Slim — Tubby Unvoiced — Voiced Wet — Xeric Yawning — Zipped
Acrostic Couplets
September 30th, 2019 · 5 Comments
Acrostics are usually used in longer verses. Here, they’re put to probably unsuitable use. ACROSTIC COUPLETS I mention that it might be fun To eat a picnic in the sun. It would at that, you answer back, So we select some food to pack: A jug of wine, some garlic knots, Some nectarines and apricots. […]
Rhymed Haiku
September 15th, 2019 · 2 Comments
I add yet another formal constraint to the roster. Rhymed haiku observe the strict 5-7-5 syllable count of traditional haiku, but add rhymes. Here are seven examples: Look at all the salt Sprinkled on my frosted malt It’s the waiter’s fault You thought it great sport To commit a grievous tort I’ll see you in […]
Herrick Rerhymed
September 8th, 2019 · Comments Off on Herrick Rerhymed
All of Robert Herrick’s rhymes are replaced. This is what he’d be like if he were different. HERRICK RERHYMED Gather ye Rose-buds while ye might, Old Time is still a tilting: And this same flower that smiles so bright, To morrow will be wilting. The glorious Lamp of Heaven, his place The higher he’s a […]
The Isle of Dogs
August 27th, 2019 · 4 Comments
“The Isle of Dogs” is a story in my collection The Snowman Three Doors Down. In it, a group of scholars investigate the play of that name, by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe, which was suppressed and is now lost. The French play mentioned here, Caquire, is also real, but its use in the story […]
Baron Aaron
August 19th, 2019 · 2 Comments
A rollicking fairy tale told with stringent poetic constraints! Here are the first six stanzas of thirty-three. BARON AARON The Baron Aaron, though of great nobility, Did not appear particularly noble. His face was red and round, his features mobile, His body squat and scot-free of agility. His intellect was frivolous and trivial; He wasn’t […]
The Pope’s Mustard-Maker
August 11th, 2019 · 2 Comments
The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner! Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy three-act […]
Epiphanies
July 22nd, 2019 · 6 Comments
People seem to like epiphanies. EPIPHANIES I walked out to the back acre Where the hawthorn climbed shyly over the sagging fence Like a little girl at a birthday party I looked off to the east At the darkening clouds And realized Why my mother was never home on Sunday I walked out into the […]
An Aria from “The Pope’s Mustard-Maker”
July 16th, 2019 · Comments Off on An Aria from “The Pope’s Mustard-Maker”
I’m currently translating Alfred Jarry’s operetta Le Moutardier du pape for Black Scat Books; it should be out later this year. I’m translating Jarry’s rhymed verse as rhymed verse; it always requires some compromise, but I hope the result is more faithful than a literal, unrhymed rendition would be (and more faithful than Jarry’s own […]