A ball that’s lost should never cost
____A one-stroke penalty.
Where now it dwells finds someone else—
____It’s stolen property!

When perfect putt lips ‘round the cup,
____No stroke need added be.
For physics claimed the putt was drained
____By law of gravity.

If hook or slice, it isn’t nice
____To suffer grievously.
Don’t blame your swing, ‘cause frictioning
____Behaved mischievously.

Should drive you top or skyward pop,
____View not as casualty.
Seems underground some worm just found
____A way to move your tee.

Golf’s sacred rules were made by fools
____Devoid of empathy.
So if you stink, don’t even think
____That they apply to thee.

 

 

Raymond Gallucci is a retired Professional Engineer who has been writing poetry since 1990.


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23 Responses

  1. Paul Oratofsky

    Delightful, and technically well done. I love the inner rhymes of each stanza’s first and third lines, and how the poem curls into a cute & fitting climax at the end. Although the content is light, the structure is a work of art.

    Reply
    • RAYMOND GALLUCCI

      Thanks for the positive response. This format ([A-A]/B[C-C]/B) is one I have used for a long time.

      Reply
  2. C.B. Anderson

    Well, technically not all of the rhyme has been handled well. In stanza 1, “penalty” & “property” are at best trivial identity rhymes, because you are rhyming “-ty” with “-ty.” And that is not much of a rhyme. The rhymes in stanza 2 are OK. In stanza 3 you’ve done it right: “mischievously” & “grievously” are lovely rhymes because you’ve rhymed the stressed syllables “grieve-” & “-chiev-,” with the tailing syllables serving simply to complete a three-syllable rhyme. In stanza 4 you’ve made the same mistake as in stanza 1, but in a homophonic manner. In stanza 5, I like the “-thy/thee” rhyme because “-thy” is unvoiced & “thee” is voiced, distinctly different initial sounds. Other similar pairs of unvoiced/voiced consonants include t/d, f/v, p/b, ch/j, & s/z.

    Reply
    • Raymond H Gallucci

      I do not consider these “mistakes” since I am not seeking perfect rhyme. I am most interested in the tale, so relax the need for perfect rhyme, approaching it as an ideal but not a requirement.

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        Well-executed off-rhymes I can appreciate, but “rhymes” that betray an author’s misunderstanding of how rhymes work is another thing altogether. Are you saying that you are deliberately seeking bad rhymes? What an unusual quest that would be. If it be important to rhyme at all, then, Raymond, I should think it best to rhyme well. I am not challenging your right to write as you please, or suggesting that you flog yourself over this, but it did seem that it would have been easy enough to master this common poetic device.

    • Paul Oratofsky

      Those near misses didn’t bother me – because so many of the rhymes are correct – and there are so many rhymes in the poem that a few being approximate actually appeals to me – almost (but not exactly) like well-done off-rhymes. And the meter works throughout the poem. I’m more put off by lines that cram more in than can fit – but you don’t do that here. The third line’s “dwells” and “else” are also not quite rhymes, but that also work better – for me.

      Reply
      • raymond gallucci

        The quest for perfect rhyme –
        A noble one at best –
        Achieve it some of time,
        But with it not obsessed.

        Though critics often feel
        Such quest be paramount,
        I share not in their zeal –
        For me it’s tales that count.

        To query, “Why not both?”
        I answer always same:
        “To spend more time I’m loath.
        New poem I have to frame.”

      • Paul Oratofsky

        Meter and rhyme, language, playfulness, music – are paramount for me – not content (story, message, etc.) But I fell in love with off-rhymes, and lately I find I have some wiggle room for some transgressions – but not all. Cute reply – well done for the pinch it seems to have been done in.

      • C.B. Anderson

        Actually, Paul, if you look at my first comment in this thread, then you will find that I mentioned the s/z (unvoiced/voiced) pair of sounds to be nearly identical. The sounds are different enough as initial consonants (e.g. sounds/zounds) to be rhymed, but close enough as final consonants (e.g. kiss/his) to be rhymed. So “dwells” and “else” effectively rhyme, in my opinion.

  3. Raymond H Gallucci

    What I am saying is that I try for “good” rhymes, but do not pore over a poem to make the rhymes “perfect.” I write multiple poems every week (I’ve written over 1,000), so prefer to get to a point where I’m satisfied with the rhymes so I can move on to another. (I’m more of a rhythm stickler than rhyme stickler.) What I try to do is not repeat the same rhyme within a poem unless it is really long and, therefore, unavoidable. So, while I don’t deliberately “imperfectly rhyme,” I don’t view each poem as a work of art worth spending what, to me, would be an undue amount of time interfering with the writing of a new one that comes to mind. Most poems do not perfectly rhyme, including “great ones” (“what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry”), so I view that as an ideal, but not a requirement.

    Reply
      • RAYMOND GALLUCCI

        I prefer to think that the quality is fine as well. As I said, some of the “great ones” imperfectly rhymed.

  4. Wic E. Ruse Blade

    How right Mr. Gallucci is. He need not flog himself, when others will do it for him. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe too, thought meter more important, at times, than rhyme. I give the poem a perfect ten…nose dive! Keep up the drive!

    Bantams in Pine-Woods
    by Wallace Stevens

    Chieftan Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
    Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

    Damned universal cock, as if the sun
    Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

    Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
    Your world is you. I am my world.

    You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
    Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

    Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
    And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

    Reply
  5. Monty

    Don’t waste your time, CB. If the author of the poem – which is riddled with immature diction and amateur rhyming – believes “the quality (of his poem) is fine” . . then there’s no getting through to him. And as the supporters of said poem evidently don’t know any better . . there’s obviously no getting through to them, either. Leave ‘em to it . .

    Reply
    • RAYMOND GALLUCCI

      I was wondering when I would get treated to the “Full Monty” as per my other poems. Now the circle is complete.

      Reply
      • Monty

        I disagree. I see the circle in the same way as I see your poetry . . incomplete.

  6. Raymond H Gallucci

    Since will will never agree (see previous comments/responses on Golf/Flog, Irrelephant, et al.), I will terminate any further responses to your comments with these final observations and, if you choose to comment in the future, will merely respond with “The Full Monty,” and reference this response. 1. “Immature diction and amateur rhyming” – I hope the purpose of a website such as this is to encourage “amateurs” who prefer rhyme and rhythm, even if “imperfect,” to free verse. I have no qualms about being an “amateur” poet, and so long as a website such as this encourages my poetry by accepting it, I will continue to submit and be grateful for the publication. So far as “immature,” I bow to your as the “KOPP,” Keeper Of Poetry Perfection. 2. I wrote the following poem in response to your comments on my poems Irrelephant, et al., but held off adding as a comment at that time:

    TROLLING

    You dislike my poems –
    “Diction you reverse.”
    To your Sherlock Holmes,
    “Baskervillain Curse.”

    “An abomination!”
    Earned my place in Hell
    By your condemnation –
    Apple to your Tell.

    “Articles you drop
    As if spreading seed.
    All your stuff is slop
    None should ever read.”

    “English of the King
    Dare you bastardize.
    Rock I’d love to sling
    ‘Right between your eyes.’”

    But I don’t get paid
    For “poetic freedom.”
    Since you’re so dismayed,
    Bother why to read’em?

    Reply
    • Monty

      I decided after your other ‘Golf’ piece a few months ago that I would never again comment upon anything you submitted to these pages; having decided then that I knew what to always expect from you. Hence, I had no intention of commenting upon the above piece; instead choosing to make a personal comment to CB . . which you intercepted. I think you misunderstood CB’s comment about “your preference for quantity over quality”; my guess is that he was referring to your (oft repeated) claim that you’ve ‘wrote’ over a thousand poems. I say you’ve done no such thing, You may’ve ‘started’ over a thousand poems.. but they’re not finished!

      I can assure you that you’ll never again see one word from me (even to a third person) under anything you submit. I’ll save my comments for poetry . . and poetry only.

      Reply
    • RAYMOND GALLUCCI

      I forgot to add #3 above: Those who can just do it; those who can’t pooh pooh it.

      Reply
      • Monty

        There are some who’ll always try,
        But they simply just can’t do it.
        And some who simply can
        Will always just pooh-pooh it.

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