Ode to Lunch

Yummy yummy in my tummy
A monster sandwich
to match a monster hunger

Monster hunger bugging me

Can’t survive on snacks and tea

Looking forward to my lunch

What’s in store, I have a hunch

Not just any lunch will do

Satisfy my taste buds too

Ask politely ‘Tum, wassup?’

‘Monster sandwich, conjure up!’

Have not eaten one for many

Years gone by, not eaten any

Surely I’ve been missing out

Now my daughter has some clout

Like a scratch unto an itch

Pesters Gran for a sandwich

‘Make it huge, as huge can be

That’s what we shall have for tea!’

‘Fill it with all kinds of stuff

Don’t go easy, teeth are tough

Load it up with meats and spreads

Fancy cheese and many breads’

‘Philly, butter and Nutella

Vegemite is also stellar

Capers, onion, salmon smoked

Add pineapple - I’ll be stoked’

‘Meat delight with every bite,

Somehow it just tastes so right

Even ox tongue, on a dare

Tasty, swiss and camembert’

‘For some beetroot and an egg

Please, oh please, don’t make me beg

Mayonnaise, a can of tuna

Could you make it ready sooner?’

‘Layer fruits and veggies too

Nothing (almost) is taboo

Carrots, honey, sweet sultanas

What the heck, just go bananas’

Mind if I have a few nibbles?

Juicy! Down my hands it dribbles

Every bite, a brand new taste

Makes me want to eat with haste

Peanut butter… crunchy munch

Mustard pickle… munchy crunch

Monster sandwich satisfies…

What a grand old lunchy lunch!

Mathematical Gymnastic Linguistics

I'm a pestic what?!?

Who would have thought that coming up with a story and then making it rhyme was the easy part? 

I am currently working on a re-write of Chasing Tail and am mostly focussing on getting the rhythm consistent.  When talking about rhythm, one enters a whole new realm.  A whole new language.  The linguists have made up lots of funny sounding words and even taken common words from the English language and given them new meaning, just to describe… <drum roll please> how the English language works.

Navigating the shores of diphthongs, triphthongs, schwas and demi-syllables (linguistics)… and the stormy seas of iambic, dactyl, anapestic and trochaic patterns of feet in lines of trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter or hexameter (mathematics)… one must also be somewhat flexible (gymnastics) in order to bend the words into coherent verse (let alone a complete story).

Needless to say, I’ve just developed an even stronger appreciation for the likes of Theodor Geisel (aka Dr Seuss) who was obviously a grand master mathematical gymnastic linguist.

Just for the record, I am aiming for rhyming couplets in anapestic tetrameter for my re-write.

da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM

da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM

And be damned how many syllables the dictionaries claim are in the word “smile”; I’m counting it as two beats J