Poem Theft

The Ballpark

Brian Frisch

The bat cracks, as clean as the break

of a ripe limb from a douglas fir.

Under the lights, the arc of the ball in flight

decorates the night sky.

Shamrock green grass, freshly cut,

leaving lines as sharp as a checkerboard.

This is a lawn. Precise. It stands

as erect and proud as a four-star general saluting

his heroic men and women with a tear in his eye.

The stadium itself, attractive

as a one-hundred-year-old Cathedral in a city where the white money is

going...going...gone.

For these majestic parks are not limited to just baseball.

Grandmothers are happy here.

They become newborn children who never left their crafted rooms.

Here they can see the most perfectly painted

clear blue ceiling.

Oh, what's the score you say?

Ask grandma, she'll probably know.

But baseball is the last thing on my mind.

The   park

          as clean as the break

a  limb from a douglas fir.

Under the the acre

the night sky.

Shamrock green grass  

This is a lawn. Precise. It stands

 attractive

as a one-hundred-year-old city

going

For these majestic parks

happy here.

 the most perfectly painted

clear blue ceiling.

http://home.earthlink.net/~sscutchen/baseball/Poetry/the_ballpark.htm

Blog assignment 3

Computer Use

You come home and walk straight to your laptop.

If you have an older model that would be called a desktop

You push the

         

Hurry Up!

Technology is never fast enough 

The background of you and your friends comes up

As icons slowly appear where you left them

You ignore updates and warnings

‘Your system might be at risk’

Oh well!

Click the small blue 'e' or the sly orange animal icon

                                

You wait.

Click.

Wait

Nothing.

Click click

Wait

STILL NOTHING!

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

‘We are sorry this program is not responding’

Your whole day is ruined!

You can’t go outside or do something productive

Because you NEED to check out what’s going on with your friends…

Who it would seem, are also unable to go outside because of social networking

You start to regret all of that clicking

As twenty Google pages appear

Muttering under your breath at how the computer is so dumb for opening all of them

You finally are able to see what your friends have been doing!

You stare at the screen, re-clicking ‘top stories’ and ‘most recent’

After half an hour of refreshing pages you still have found nothing interesting

You finally have the sense to power off and go do something productive

The computer smiles as it goes to sleep

Knowing

 You’ll be back within an hour to do it all again

image from http://www.geeksailor.com/mozilla-firefox-3/

Poetry and Music

'Knee deep' Zac Brown Band

Gonna put the the world away for a minute

Pretend I don't live in it

Sunshine gonna wash my blues away

 Had sweet love but I lost it

She got too close so I fought her

Now I'm lost in the world trying to find me a better way

Wishing I was knee deep in the water somewhere

Got the blue sky breeze and it don't seem fair

Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair

Sunrise there's a fire in the sky

Never been so happy

Never felt so high

And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise

Wrote a note said be back in a minute

Bought a boat and I sailed off in it

Don't think anybody gonna miss me anyway

Mind on a permanent vacation

The ocean is my only medication

Wishing my condition ain't ever gonna go away

Cause now I'm knee deep in the water somewhere

Got the blue sky breeze blowing wind through my hair

Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair

Sunrise there's a fire in the sky

 Never been so happy

Never felt so high

And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise

This champagne shore washing over me

It's a sweet sweet life living by the salty sea

One day you could be as lost as me

Change you're geography

Maybe you might be

Knee deep in the water somewhere

Got the blue sky breeze blowing wind through my hair

Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair

Sunrise there's a fire in the sky

Never been so happy

Never felt so high

And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise

Come on in the water it's nice

Find yourself a little slice

Grab a backpack a lunch

You never know until you try

When you lose yourself

You find the key to paradise

 http://www.lyricsty.com/zac-brown-band-knee-deep-lyrics.html

 http://youtu.be/qTU0p3_ra5A

When I listened to this song I first noticed the 4/4 time.  It is easy to ‘feel the beat’ and tap your foot to this song.  When I found a copy of the lyrics and read them as I listened to the song.  I realized each verse, or stanza, had three lines and for the most part the rhyme scheme for the verses was A A B.  The second verse does not follow this pattern, but when it is sung the artist sings the final word very quickly as if to make it follow the same pattern.  The song pattern follows a two verses, chorus, two verse, and chorus pattern.   

In this song I think the speaker is speaking to anyone who is going through tough or stressful times who need to take a break.  The lyrics are upbeat and positive.  There are several examples of poetic language in this song.  During the chorus there is talk about being knee deep in the ocean, with blue sky and a breeze blowing wind through hair.  This gave me a good mental image, and I could really picture what it would be like there.  There are also examples of alliteration in the chorus.  Several words in the chorus start with the same letters.  “…in the water some where” and “Blue sky breeze blowing…”  By adding alliteration to the chorus it makes the song catchier.  There are also a couple of examples of personification.  In the first line of the first stanza the singer talks about putting the world away for a minute.  You can’t actually put the world away for a minute but you can stop caring about your worries for a little while. 

I wasn’t sure what song to pick for this blog entry, so I just started listening to my music until I found this one.  While I was on the road for work in the summer this song would be on the radio a lot.  Eventually it became one of my favourite songs.  I like it because it is really laid back and relaxing.  It talks about ignoring the problems of the world and just relaxing for a little while.  I like the imagery of this song because I can imagine exactly what it looks like, being on a beach with a nice breeze.  I also like how it talks about being on a vacation, and the ocean being the only medication.  I felt like this when I first got to university, I wished it was summer and I was back biking in the mountains.  No matter what my problems are, biking always makes me relax.  I like how the song talks about being so relaxed that the only worry is if the tide will come in to where he is sitting.                    

Flowers have sprouted

The sparrows sing cheerfully

Cool mornings warm nights

There once was some meat on my plate

I thought the steak and ribs were just great

But I got indigestion

It was ugly no question

It wasn’t the best meal for a date

I think the format of limericks, AABBA, does influence them being comical.  I find that the first two lines are longer in length and lead into the story of the poem.  The third and fourth lines are short and have the comical aspect to the story.  Wrapping up the story with a longer line like the first two lines and ending with the same sound as those lines also adds to the comical nature of the poem.  Limericks seem witty to me because you have to be able to tell a story in five lines where three lines end in one sound, and two lines end in another.

There is just something about the format;

Longer line A

Longer line A

Shorter line B

Shorter line B

Longer line A

that makes these poems seem comical.      

1st blog

This is a test run to see if the blog is working.