Love Poetry for Dummies: "The Canteloupe Tale"

For those who weren't aware of it, I am a bit of a poet. Or, at least, I like to say that I am.

As a senior, I was on the staff of my high school's literary magazine. Four or five of my poems (and one essay) were published in that year's magazine, too. I also took a couple of creative writing classes in college towards my English literature minor, for which I had often had to write poetry.

The results of my poetic endeavors may not always be that great. Honestly, the results are often cheesy rather than memorable. But it's still fun and challenging for me to try to compose rhymes.

I have kept a file of a lot of the poetry I've written over the years. If I were to ever try to get it published, I would definitely call it Love Poetry for Dummies - not that I'm qualified to instruct "dummies" in writing poems, but because I like to think of my poetry as "by dummies, for dummies." In other words, I realize it's not Shakespeare, and I make no secret of that fact.

From time to time, I will endeavor to publish some of these poetic efforts here on "The Epistle of Jon." Not all of them are love poems, per se, and not all of them are based on real-life experiences - although some of them are - but the category "dummies," as previously explained, almost always applies.

First, I present "The Canteloupe Tale," which I wrote when I was a student at Weber State University. (I actually entered this into a contest, at my professor's invitation; I'm not sure how I finished in the contest, because I was off on my mission soon afterward.) It is based on Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, part of which I had to read for said English class. The concept behind this is that Middle English is, quite often, a tough language to understand. Further, I have a cousin named Geoff who lives over in England, and the in-joke here is that even my own English relatives are sometimes quite hard to understand when they speak - despite the fact that we're speaking the same language.

The Cantaloupe Tale

And so it befell that on All Hallow's E'en,
to honor Geoff Chaucer, on whom they were keen,
the folks that were in the town's poetry club
gathered together and met at the pub.
Tonight, on the night of the goblins and ghosts,
they would call up his spirit and drink him a toast;
they would read from his tales and would speak of his brilliance--
his great contributions for millions and millions.

For this séance they went to the cantaloupe patch
and hoped that the spirit of Chaucer would hatch.
No passing out candy or costumes this evening--
they would see the great author before thinking of leaving.
The group was all those who had hobbies as poets:
a plumber, a waitress, and, wouldn't you know it?
A lawyer, complete with his briefcase and papers,
whose clients were never convicted in capers.

An actor, a yuppie, spin doctor, and the likes
of a disgruntled basketball player on strike.
Lagging behind them, now who could that be?
A sign-toting worker of the UDOT.
They waded through carrots, tomatoes, and peas,
found the cantaloupe patch, and got down on their knees,
held hands, and cast their eyes up to the sky;
for Chaucer to visit them, much did they cry.

All that remained was the short recitation
of a passage from Chaucer's own work--a quotation.
With all confidence and all his faith still intact,
the spin doctor tried, but he failed in the act.
The words were too strange and they made little sense,
befuddled, confused him, he went mad, and hence,
the others decided to give it a go--
but they failed, too, and what do you know?

Even the lawyer, with his vast expertise,
Couldn't make sense of the strange English-ese.
They struggled for hours and hours and then,
with no energy left and the hour at ten,
more likely were they to see a flying saucer;
no way were they going to get to meet Chaucer.
Their hopes were destroyed, and thus, with no meeting,
they stormed from the patch and then went trick-or-treating.

The moral of the story: Enjoy Halloween!
Don't try to call spirits at a vegetable scene.
And most of all, it's really not worth the anguish
Of trying to comprehend Geoff’s Middle English.