Poeming: Halfway House.

Halfway Down: Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard

The Poetry Prompt for November 18th was to write something i'd never heard of before, a glosa. Here's how that's done: 

This involves an epigram of 4 consecutive lines from a favorite poet that the challenge participant believes they can write successfully to. Then, write a poem consisting of four 10-line stanzas where the final line of each stanza is a line from the epigram, in order. Within each stanza, lines 6, 9 and 10 must rhyme.

So i laughed a while and set that (insane) project aside, after all, the other people on the Poetic Asides site seem to actually read "real" poetry from which they may select favorites. i haven't read any of those since school some (terribly long) time ago. What to do what to do?
After trying (in vain) (i'm really diggin' the parentheses today) to find something by Plath or Poe or Whitman, i turned to my childhood favorite, A.A.Milne, and my favorite childhood poem, "Halfway Down." So, paste a Stepford Wife smile on my face and imagine me reading you the (mostly) entirely fabricated:



HALFWAY HOUSE.
(or "the devolving of a mood.")

"I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where I always stop."

Moods are funny things
affected by so much
but health and wealth and diamond rings
don’t even always touch
your inner Pollyanna (as
I know I’m seen by some)
for even when my mood declines
I try to think of happy times,
so as most moods come,
I’m not at the bottom.

Moods are funny things
affected oft by little
"My tea is cold" "my socks don’t match,"
I couldn’t give a fiddle.
But when it comes to cleaning
I’m not the housework cop
but there’s dust on the railing
and I’m very nearly paling
As my good moods stop,
I’m not at the top.

Moods are funny things
affected by minute
beings doings happenings
of children being “cute”
and whether they’re intentional
or merely unaware
I’ve got to put a stop to it,
the time-out step, you little sh**!
now place your bottom there--
so THIS is the stair!

Moods are funny things
affected by vermouth
(it really helped the other day
when I lost my tooth.)
But the children, they were screaming
so before their heads I’d lop
I had to put a stop to it
or else I’d be a wasted git.
Before my mistakes plentiful
yield a bumper crop
 's where I (nearly) always stop.


(should i claim this?) jle 2012

My (literary snob) daughter made a snearace, or a snimace? anyway a snearing grimace when i read part of it to her. But aitch ee double toothpicks, i'm having (rediculously) too much FUN here to let a little thing like that stop me!

*sniffle*