Poem rejected

rogersgeorge on December 14th, 2011

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our ninth anniversary of wedded bliss. We have a tradition that I write her a poem every year to celebrate. For your amusement, here is a quatrain I wrote, then rejected.

A nine-year party, now who’d’a thunk it?
With me so old, that’s quite a junket
‘Cause she’s a young, good lookin’, chick,
At least she likes my manly oops

(You didn’t think I’d really write that, did you?) The one she got was much nicer and more romantic, and I set it in an old-fashioned font (small x-height) nicely formatted on a page. She has a picture frame in her office where she puts the most recent poem. The bad poem, above, is a quatrain consisting of four accentual feet each, rhyme scheme AABB. The good poem, which I’m not sharing unless my wife asks me to, contains four couplets, each consisting of a double dactyl and a molossus. (Look it up. They’re not supposed to exist in English poetry, but I can do ’em.)

Update: Not only does my wife want me to post the “good” poem, but she wrote me one! so if you can stand all the sentimental treacle, here are two more poems. Mine first:

Year nine

Valerie George is my
Dear sweet wife.
Hug her and kiss her my
Whole sweet life.
Tease me and please me my
Whole life long,
Mess me or bless me, my
Life a song.

Just so you know: Four couplets, each consisting of a double dactyl and a molossus.

She said the footnote was very me. (I should add that I read her to sleep every night when I’m home.) Here’s her poetic reply:

Read to me
All my days
Of Science and farming
And kids and their ways.
Your voice fills my mind
With beautiful phrases.
Whether couplets or dactyls
To me it amazes
The love of my life
Gives the gift of his voice
Reassuring to me that I made a wise choice!
The sound of my love fulfills all my wishes,
The only thing sweeter…one of his kisses.

You might be wondering what we look like. Here’s a picture of us.

Valerie and her curmudgeon

3 Responses to “Poem rejected”

  1. Wow. Love the treacle! Even more meaningful now that I have met your sweet companion…and you know what was said in Il Postino–poetry does not belong to the one who wrote it, but to the one who needs it…so there may be re-purposing!

  2. I have never met a couple more perfect for each other besides my own parents. You both are an inspiration to couples out there that true love does exist. May you spend many more wonderful years together. You have a beautiful wife and family!

  3. You haven’t met my kids. They all have perfect marriages.

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