Screws and Marbles, a haiku sonnet

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Johnny Crabcakes


A poet, upon 
finding a screw on the floor, 
after head-scratching 

about possible 
provenance, looks up to find 
from where it fell or, 

better yet, gets down 
on the floor and then looks up 
at the undersides 

of tables and chairs.
They look to the undersides 
of things for losses 

and don’t bother looking for 
marbles anymore.

28 thoughts on “Screws and Marbles, a haiku sonnet”

ramblingsfromamum on March 13, 2014 at 00:14 said:

hmm sometimes we start with one task in mind – which only deviates and leads us to another..loved your tags btw SSG 😉

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:00 said:
  
  Oh goody! You know, I kinda put those in there for you–I think you’re the only one that reads them…I try to have fun with them…
  
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  - ramblingsfromamum on March 13, 2014 at 21:10 said:
    
    now that’s sad – but I’m the lucky one ain’t I
    keep having fun – just don’t confuse me too much 😆
    
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    - johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:14 said:
      
      Try not to, doll–
      
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m lewis redford on March 13, 2014 at 06:50 said:

bloody funny;

as my father-in-law would say about a finished meal with all the trimmings and done in the right way … ‘bloody handsome’

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:04 said:
  
  Well thank you very bloody much indeed!
  Glad you enjoyed.
  
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j.h. white on March 13, 2014 at 07:00 said:

You know that game at a carnival that supposedly proves a person’s strength and prowess ? The Big Hammer comes down and the Weight rises to hit the Gong?
Bingo! You just hit a Big Poetic Gong here….but you have to admit …when you’re down on the ground rummaging around is when you’ll most likely FIND the lost marbles, that other earring, a mummified green bean….

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:05 said:
  
  Ooh yeah….lost marbles become found treasures as we age…
  
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Jilanne Hoffmann on March 13, 2014 at 12:44 said:

Interesting form. Brilliant. Of course, the marble rolled away, but the screw could only revolve around it’s head, going nowhere. Easy to find those losses. The marbles, OTOH, are much more difficult to ID and corral.

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:06 said:
  
  Yeah, and much trickier if you step on one…
  
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potterfan97 on March 13, 2014 at 20:49 said:

I LOVE what you’ve done here! 🙂 Bravo, Johnny!

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 21:13 said:
  
  Thank you Natalie–It’s a very rewarding form when the thought fits it. I’m pretty sure I’ve pointed you at David Marshal’s site, (Oh, yes…I think it was that fly poem….still working on mine) but if I haven’t, it’s well worth a look-see:
  http://dsatellite.wordpress.com
  The haiku-sonnet form is his.
  
  He also has a great blog with more poetics/literature/essay stuff:
  http://signalstoattend.wordpress.com
  Really insightful.
  
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  - potterfan97 on March 13, 2014 at 21:18 said:
    
    Nice! Thanks for the recommendation! 🙂 And yes, I agree – your message and the way you delivered it matched perfectly. Love those moments.
    
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Alice Keys on March 13, 2014 at 22:22 said:

While you’re down there can you find my lost marbles? 😉

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- johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 23:01 said:
  
  The problem is keeping track of whose lost marbles are whose….I have a feeling that most of the ones that I’ve found were not my own…
  
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  - Alice Keys on March 13, 2014 at 23:05 said:
    
    HA HA HA! Funny.
    My husband and I call marbles we find “feck”. We think of all the feckless people we know. This must be where those marble are from. The are the lost feck of the feckless. 😉
    Alice
    
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    - johnnycrabcakes on March 13, 2014 at 23:17 said:
      
      Aaah, beautiful. Kinda like mojo or juju….
      Feck, I dig it. Plus it has that Scottish F-word association. I may have to do a piece on that.
      “Can I get mine with extra deck?”
      
      HaHA!!
      
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      - Alice Keys on March 14, 2014 at 12:14 said:
        
        I don’t even know what “feckless” means… I just know that I am. 😉
        
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        johnnycrabcakes on March 14, 2014 at 23:33 said:
        
        You my dear are most certainly and without a doubt quite thoroughly the opposite and are in fact Gushing with Feck!
        😀
        
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        Alice Keys on March 15, 2014 at 05:21 said:
        
        I never thought of “feck” as being wet enough to gush. Hmmm… There must be a poem in here. Perhaps the great River of Feck? 😉
        
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        johnnycrabcakes on March 17, 2014 at 00:43 said:
        
        “Yea, and they journeyed
        far to the great Geyser of Feck…”
        A mythical sounding journey for sure.
        
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        Alice Keys on March 17, 2014 at 14:43 said:
        
        Great Geyser of Feck
        never stays on eruption
        schedule feckless thing
        
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        johnnycrabcakes on March 19, 2014 at 22:30 said:
        
        That is officially my new favorite Exclamation.
        
        “Great Geyser of Feck!!”
        
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        Alice Keys on March 19, 2014 at 23:06 said:
        
        No one will know of you’re swearing or not.
        
        You’ll have to make up a long explanation of the history of the saying. It could be from Iceland where they name all the volcanoes. A former tourist attraction (the great geyser of feck) has gone all cold with global warming and lost. This is the rallying cry of the Icelandic environmental movement.
        
        Or it could be an ancient Egyptian saying invented by the Pharoah’s scribe named Joseph. Yes.The one with the many-colored coat first wrote this after a portentous dream.
        
        There are so many ways to go with the Great Geyser of Feck. 😉
        
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        johnnycrabcakes on March 19, 2014 at 23:09 said:
        
        Well…I kinda just spilled the beans of its true origin to Natalie…but I bet she can keep a secret…
        http://mywordpool.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/apology/
        
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        Alice Keys on March 19, 2014 at 23:22 said:
        
        Thanks. I’d seen this fine poem of Ms Natalie but missed your equally fine comment. It was worth a re-visit. 🙂
        
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ædriam on May 11, 2014 at 22:18 said:

I have a hard enough time getting words to fit into a sonnet or a haiku; I can’t even begin to think about attempting this style myself even if it’s just mostly stringing together haiku. It’s humorous how we have the tendency to completely forget about what was important at the time when we find something else that’s interesting. I got into astronomy that way, but that’s comparing haiku and sonnets, or perhaps screws to marbles…

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- johnnycrabcakes on May 14, 2014 at 00:20 said:
  
  I’ve never been able to write a decent sonnet. Just don’t deal well with accentual-syllabics. Scansion makes my head spin. Counting syllables makes more sense to my brain than counting feet.
  Anyway, there’s more to this form than just stringing haiku together. In fact the stanzas here are all far too enjambed to be haiku on their own. The form was an invention of David Marshal:
  
  http://dsatellite.wordpress.com/tag/haiku-sonnets/
  
  …and he is the master of the form. The idea, for me at least is that the thought behind the poem is “haiku sonnet sized” not “haiku-sized.”
  
  And as to timing, Oh yes, we find what we need to, often in the looking when we knew not for what we searched….
  
  Thanks–
  
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