Comments on "The Faux Pas"

The Faux Pas

 (Pentameter)

The frivolity of youth is its charm;

Slowly fades away with the aging soul;

A fancy dress party raised the alarm;

The harried Prince, some way, has lost control.

Skeletons in the closet do have sway;

Secrets are tied to the bones in the chest;

In graveyards they no longer want to stay,

But invade young minds that want to impress.

Constant in battle are young rolling stones;

The ancestral flaws they like to expose;

Hypocrisy lies in these bags of bones,

So let’s throw a party and wear their clothes.

The stage was set for the ball of the year;

Tom, Dick and Harry wore mask in the crowd;

Common guys were not supposed to be there;

And their ragbag clothes made a Nazi cloud.

The commoners’ streets are not paved with gold;

So the hair comes down in any spotlight.

Top of the line, comes from a different mould,

So a faux pas is very impolite.

 In the lens, paparazzi shoot the Crown;

No vetted shots, from them, for royal folks,

Who throughout the country they bring renown;

This mystic feeling, royalty evokes.

Mistakes are made so old folks reprimand,

But with every error something is learnt.
History as a core, not taught in England!
So youth do not know what folks Hitler burnt.

How well one seeks to correct every wrong,
Indicates the true measure of the man;
So you eat humble pie, to make you strong,
And reflect on the way it all began.

© Paterika Hengreaves

(Summer 2005/New Zealand)

This poem the “Faux Pas” is written in Pentameter style.

The Pentameter is a literary device that can be defined as that verse made up of five strong metrical feet or beats. The Pentameter functions are to govern the individual verses in the poem and to provide a structural form to a poem. The Pentameter also gives arrangement to words through the regular use of accents on the syllables, and help in emphasizing the specific words which the poet wishes to use. This is the major reason for variations in the text through stressed/unstressed patterns.

"The Faux Pas" was composed during my stay in New Zealand in the summer of 2005, to capture the universal outcry when Prince Harry one of the sons of Prince Charles threw a fancy-dress ball. Unknowing to the Prince, a picture of him wearing a Nazi war symbol was taken by the paparazzi. This royal blunter caused eyebrows to be raised among the Jewish community as well as with Leaders of Commonwealth countries. They felt his behavior was not in keeping with someone who could be heir to the British Crown. This conclusion was drawn from reports carried via the dead tree and electronic media on the matter. The distraught Prince after many days of mulling over this faux pas made a royal apology. This apology is seen as a very heroic act executed by the Prince. This brought him back in good favour with the people around the globe. This serves to strengthen the notion that any sincere apology can heal wounds.

The politics of 2016-2018 America among candidates for the various political positions have exhibited behaviors that are social mistakes and more often than not are impolite or beyond the pale. They have showcased their jungle-like behaviors so unbecoming of a nation that is supposed to be civilized and a leader of the free-world. However, no human being is perfect, but educated and civilized people of America seeking ruler-ship positions in those political establishments should take pause. They should not indulge in a barrage of ‘false steps’ and especially the forty-fifth occupant in the White House. Sadly this is the cycle of the present-day. One is left to say that candidates running for the highest office in the land should avid for starters:  nasty comments or the faux pas. These embarrassing social mistakes should never become the main dish in the political food-basket. I am mainly sounding the warning bell on the disgrace-full conduct in political arenas aired on electronic communication devices and in the “free-press”. God bless the United States of America.

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Structure of the Villanelle Poetry

Kadooment Day Villanelle

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask
Revellers from everywhere, including France

In brazen wear and tear, they bask

In the sun, sipping fermented juice from a bamboo flask

Tourists, jumping, whirling and twirling have come to prance

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk away from cane-trash

Chanting calypso songs, in native parlance

In brazen wear and tear, they bask

Sea of people on Spring Garden, round a cask
while vermin grind, sweet grass, with a weasel-mouth lance

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask

So Crop Over comes many months after Pasch

All through the day and night they sing and they dance

In brazen wear and tear, they bask

All year these wild cats, make camouflaging an easy task
in the cane fields to flex the Ministry of Finance

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask

In brazen wear and tear, they bask.

© Paterika Hengreaves

(July 2018 (Barbados)

Structure of the Villanelle Poetry

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask (A1)……
Revellers from everywhere, including France (B) ………………     Tercet stanza

In brazen wear and tear, they bask (A2)……………………………. 

In the sun, sipping fermented juice from a bamboo flask (A)……

Tourists, jumping, whirling and twirling have come to prance (B)....Tercet Stanza

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask (AI…….

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk away from cane-trash (A)…

Chanting calypso songs, in native parlance (B)……………………. Tercet Stanza

In brazen wear and tear, they bask (A2)………………………….

Sea of people on Spring Garden, round a cask (A)…………………..
While vermin grind, sweet grass, with a weasel-mouth lance (B)…… Tercet Stanza

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask (A1)….

So Crop Over comes many months after Pasch (A)…………..

All through the day and night they sing and they dance (B)……. Tercet Stanza

In brazen wear and tear, they bask (A2)………………………

All year these wild cats, make camouflaging an easy task (A)…….
In the cane fields to flex the Ministry of Finance (B)………...……Quatrain Stanza

Jamming on kadooment day, from dawn to dusk, playing mask (A1)......

In brazen wear and tear, they bask. (A2)…………………….............

The "Kadooment Day" poem is written in the form of the English Villanelle. The Villanelle is of French origin. This poetic form uses repetition. The English equivalent of the French Villanelle is a fixed form poetry consisting of:

Nineteen verses of any length divided into -:

- 6 stanzas
- 5 tercet stanzas
- 1 concluding quatrain

Verses 1 and 3 of the initial Tercet rhyme. These rhymes are repeated in each subsequent Tercet (aba) and in the final two verses of the quatrain (abaa)

Verse 1 appears in its entirety as verses 6, 12 and 18

Verse 3 reappears as verses 9, 15 and 19.

Crop Over is a Bajan-Caribbean cane harvest festival in the West Indies. The festivities run for several weeks to celebrate the end of the sugar cane harvest.

Kadooment Day is the last day of Crop Over which commences on July 1 and ends on the August 1. It is a summer street festival with all the noise, colour and vibrancy you’d expect from a Caribbean festival. Folks get into the furrow with local drinks and cuisine; join the throng as bands and calypso musicians parade through the streets. Glittering costumes and plenty of “bare skin” are on show amidst a melee of revellers, stilt walkers, musicians and entertainers. Such fun and celebrations continue well into the wee hours of the morning so you’ll need plenty of stamina. Tourists world over are drawn to this festival annually.

“fermented juice from a bamboo flask” = rum in bottle
“sweet grass” = sugar cane

The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation, part 2

Dr. Philip Kariatlis- Orthodox Perspective and Dogma of The Holy Trinity

Dragonfly

Gone is the rain, chased by sky candle. Everywhere is blooming, on bird-road the dragonfly, devil's darning needle, ear cutter, snake doctor. Earth dwellers' dreadful names you wear; your translucent wings soar in the sun. You stalk. You prey, in broad daylight. You open mouth to prey, a predator on the loose. Mosquitoes, gnats are in your noose. Flying high, you search for a mate. Rest, you must on blade of grass. In careful watch, you must; children passing by, your wings wishing to pluck. How they laugh at you, you standing on your head on the grass; tail straight, the giraffe. In the groove, in the notch you conjugate. Mating wheel clear to watch. Audible impact, the lust; teasing and fussing a dragonfly on my callaloo; oh ho! you are the tantaboo.

Comments on the Dragonfly Poem: 

Two Versions of writing a prose poem are shown below: 

Version 1

Gone is the rain, chased by sky candle. Everywhere is blooming, on bird-road the dragonfly, devil's darning needle, ear cutter, snake doctor. Earth dwellers' dreadful names you wear; your translucent wings soar in the sun. You stalk. You prey, in broad daylight. You open mouth to prey, a predator on the loose. Mosquitoes, gnats are in your noose. Flying hing, you search for a mate. Rest, you must on blade of grass. In careful watch, you must; children passing by, your wings wishing to pluck. How they laugh at you, you standing on your head on the grass; tail straight, the giraffe. In the groove, in the notch you, conjugate. Mating wheel clear to watch. Audible impact, the lust; teasing and fussing a dragonfly on my callaloo; oh ho! you are the tantaboo. 

Version 2 

The rain is gone and the sky glows in the sun. Everywhere is blooming and in the sky is the dragonfly. The dragonfly is also known by such names as the "devil's darning needle" , air cutter and snake doctor.

These names have been given to the dragonfly by people who have seen the way it behaves. People have observed that dragonfly is a predator for mosquitoes and gnats while flying in the air. 

When not searching for food the dragonfly can be seen perched on the grass with a keen eyes out for its predators. When the dragonfly is not preying on mosquitoes and other flying insects it can be seen perched on grasses in a provocative stance. Its head is down on the grass or whatever, and its tail is straight in the air like the neck of a giraffe and kids find this stance of the dragonfly to be amusing while they plot to sneak yup quietly while its head is down on the ground and pluck its wings so to proof if the dragonfly can still fly.

Structure of the Dragonfly Poem 

This "Dragonfly" poem is defined by rhythmical prose. Prose poems are set on the page in continuous sequence of sentences without line brakes. It establishes its poetic qualities through cadence, heightened imagery, parataxis and emotional effects as shown below:

These names have been given to the dragonfly by people who have seen the way it behaves. People have observed that the dragonfly is a predator for mosquitoes and gnats while flying in the air.

Parataxis is what defines Prose Poetry. Normal Prose is defined by subordination conjunctions; line breaks and paragraphs. Parataxis is a poetic device that favors short simple sentences, with the use of coordinating rather  than subordinating conjunctions. Examples of the use of paratactic syntax and as taken from poem "Dragonfly" are shown underlined in the excerpt below:

Gone is the rain, chased by sky candle, on bird-road You stalk. You prey, in broad daylight. You open mouth to prey, a predator on the loose. In careful watch, you must; children passing by, your wings wishing to pluck, tail straight, the giraffe. In the groove, in the notch Mating wheel clear watch. Audible impact, the lust 

The Simile is a poetic devise found in poems. In order to be a simile the word "like" or "as" must be present. This rule is broken in paratactic syntax: for example, take this excerpt from the prose poem, Dragonfly:

...you standing on your head on the grass; tail straight, the giraffe...

Would you not say that "tail straight, the giraffe" is a special kind of simile, the "implied  simile"? Some would say it is not a simile because it does not include "like" or "as". Some would say the phrase simply says that the giraffe tail is straight...and that would be correct. Some would say that the phrase is a  simile because it is in a paratactic syntax. You know what, the answers supplied are correct because parataxis creates heaps of ambiguity and is only used in prose poetry and not used in regular prose or rhetoric. So yes, "tail straight. the giraffe" is an "implied simile".

Bear in mind though, that "parataxis" is a poetic device that favours short, simple sentences with coordinating rather than subordinating conjunctions. Parataxis  is also refers to a technique in prose poetry in which two images or fragments usually startle dissimilar images or fragments, are juxtaposed without a clear connection. Readers are left to make their own connections by the paratactic syntax. The "implied simile" can be found in prose poetry.

Another poetic device used in Prose Poetry is "kenning" where a phrase is used to describe a common thing. Some kennings can be more obscure than others, and then grow close to being a riddle. Kenning can be more obscure than others, and then grow close to being a riddle. Kenning is a much-compressed form of metaphor; and object is described in a two-word phrase. Here is an example:

"Sky-candle" for the "sun"

Characteristics of the Dragonfly 

The dragonfly mates in the air in what is known as the mating wheel. The baby dragonfly is called a larva but its proper name is a nymph. It is an aquatic insect because the female dragonfly lays its eggs in stagnant water where they hatch and fly away as dragonflies.

Here are more facts concerning the dragonfly. It is an insect in the order  odonata; with multifaceted eyes, two pairs of transparent wings and an elongated body. It is different from the damselfly because the damselfly's wings are not held along and parallel to the body when at rest and its eyes are separated. They do share similar morphing skills.

The dragonfly is an important predator feeding on mosquitoes and other small insects like flies, bees, ants, wasps. Very rarely does the dragonfly eat butterflies. Stagnant water because any army of dragonflies keep hovering it. The dragonfly's egg is the larva and the proper name for it is nymph and lives in the water for a long time before morphing into a dragonfly and is therefore aquatic. Though the dragonfly is predator, birds, lizards, frogs, spiders, fish, water bugs and even other large dragonflies are its predators. 

©Paterika Hengreaves

(July 2003)

No Compassionate Consideration

Just real thoughts to you we say

Elizabeth we love this Queen

And her father George the same way

Not that trumpet so crude and mean

God bless this Royal Queen on Thrown

Royalty love, around the globe

America’s trumpet bemoan

Music of hate fills his wardrobe.

So when your own big dog bit you,

You are properly well bitten;

He likes pudding’s plate and souse too,

But walked in front Queen of Britain,

Where does his manners lie pray tell?

Queen circled him, took back her spot,

No real manners in him doth dwell

More manners in Royal teapot,

(Wait for the continuation)

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