0011 Contragulations To Poemhunter's Damnable Mini-Quiz Poem by Michael Shepherd

So, you're sitting comfortably here at the PC
with a few precious minutes to spare -
escaping the family,
or waiting for a message at work,
or the boss isn't around;

you're a poet,
you need to keep in practice.
Now's the time to knock off a haiku
that will knock the Japs off their cherry trees into the snow,
maybe a limerick to throw those
silver-tongued Irish into the murky
black-and-tan Guinnessy Liffey out of sheer envy,
slag off a rival poet (poet!) on the Forum,
generally feel that life's for living,

but no - there's that damn 'quick quiz'
lurking with a wink on the Home Page -
wouldn't you think management could spare the time
to fix the spelling of dropp and delet, instead
of wasting our precious creative powers
on that damn quiz?

I mean, there can't be many people in the world
sailing the 'largest inland stretch of water' right now,
do they care that it's - no, I'm not going
to tell you - water's just water when you're on it

and you'd be pretty silly to set off
in your hired ice-breaker for a jolly weekend
in northern Canadian waters
without knowing which is the northernmost island -
oh silly me - we should have turned right at Baffin Bay...

and either you've read Balzac, Bronte, or that comic strip
the rest of the world never heard of - or you haven't -
and anyway, you've only got to do the damn thing
four times for each question you don't know...

and - oh just a minute - gotta check the stats...
as if I cared that Reece Kay got it all right
in only 12 attempts, I don't know him
but I hate him already...

Bukowski never had this problem