Folly

Dear Editors:

Frankly, in these perilous times, I don't see that there's any place for satire and parody. In the face of a policy that seeks to bring enlightenment to a benighted world; of stalwart government officials who are tirelessly distributing contracts to trustworthy corporate moguls who as tirelessly work to improve the lot of the common folks everywhere; of those who work to move our country and the whole world towards greater purity of purpose - do we really want to bother with two modes of expression as outdated as Moliere and Mark Twain?

Yours in gravitas,
Joyce Nower

Dear Editors:

I was uplifted by the sanity and outspokenness of Joseph U. Slaymi. Poetry has become the toy of tree-huggers and discontented women. Even self-expression is beyond them since they have no self to express. In these troubled times we need stronger poetry.

These words of traditional Australian poet, M.B. Dunderhead, illustrate my point:

Depleted

The bombs crashed as the cry went out
“On on to freedom”. These insurgents
wash away when our detergents
cleanse the world of lingering doubt.

There is no metrical or philosophical ambivalence here. He continues in galloping dactyls.

Bugger them bugger them blast them to hell,
kick out their grommets and tinkle their bell.

(He is not so stiff that he cannot resort to a little playfulness.)
He then resumes a more respectful tone:

Mr and Mrs Collateral died
waving the banner of freedom with pride.
See how the sunset embalms ancient lands.
Only the Wizard of Oz understands.

What could be simpler and yet more transcendental.

Respectfully,

Emma Chisit (vice-president of the Woy Woy tea-ladies poetry circle.)

Dear Editors:

I am shocked—nay, horrified—that you are treating poetry as though it was an artistic medium capable of invoking laughter. As any true scholar knows, modern poetry only has three legitimate purposes:

1) Making the average reader feel he's too dense to understand real poetry
2) Making other poets feel they are too dense to understand real poetry
3) Making the originating poet feel good because only he understands real poetry

The excessive accessibility of the works I find on your site is disgusting. Not once did I get a headache, despite the fact I read the entire issue. Several times, I laughed out loud, which proves that your site is the work of the devil. Please don't be alarmed. Many literary editors are directly guided by Satan's will and are unaware of it, because it is their nature to be evil. It is not your fault you have been duped by malevolent, supernatural forces but now that you have been warned, be vigilant.

Please cease your levity at once and begin publishing inscrutable, cumbersome poems, preferably about suicide, self-destructive drinking binges, or why the human species is doomed and has been from the beginning. It is a proud tradition and one that poets abandon at their peril.

Thank you for attention to this serious matter,
Cyndi Kirkpatrick

Editor's Note: You'll be happy to know we've taken at least part of your advice and included a poem about a self-destructive drinking binge in the current issue. It's neither inscrutable nor cumbersome, however, and for that I most humbly beg your pardon.

The Hum of a Dying Mosquito

The hum of a dying mosquito
requires such a good pair of ears
that likely they’ll find that they need to
embellish that sound, it appears.

It’s said by a scribe that this hobby
is dead as a form of the arts.
Recited, we head for the lobby!
The beauty it held left our hearts.

So bring back the joy of real versing
and dose it with rhyme and with wit.
At last we’ll be truly disbursing
a form that we’re proud to transmit.

To Joe who will slay me with brilliance,
a man who knows just what is true;
The forms of the past have resilience.
So soon all that free verse be through.

Dear Editors:

Something about the Chicken Crossing the Road series left me cold: the concept. The executions were creative, but the concept lacked nonsense. You'd have to be tanked to laugh at the first three groups below:

Not funny enough: Conti's "Across Narragansett Bay and Into the Woods"

Fascinating, but not real funny: D. W. Clark, Renate Micallef

Cute is the best I can say: Geller, McKenty, Chris O'Carroll

Good and cynical: Longworth's "Rude Fat Woman"; Cantor's "Just Click Here"; Don Zirilli

Yes! William Blagaaawk, Washington Snow, Christine Potter, Scott Free, Jim Hayes, Dan Halberstein

Best laughs and top of the charts: the Slaymi essay. More put-downs than sentences, just like the original.

Signed

Carious Canon

Editor's Note: I hardly think O'Carroll's Calvary Thunderdome deserves to be termed "cute." But perhaps you mean the man himself? De gustibus...

Dear Editors:

What would a Chucklemag like "Folly" do without a darn chicken and a darn road?

Seriously, many congratulations on your recent great June 2005 issue. Keep up the good work!

Best regards

Chris George
Editor, Desert Moon Review
http://www.desertmoonreview.com/

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