Burns' Stanza – Jezzie G

Written to the Wednesday Challenge prompt from gc – many thanks for inspiring my writing once again

Well I know I am a kitchen gadget nut as I love cooking but outside of that who needs them – well thinking about it. It seems I do

Not So Old Style
Form: Burns’ Stanza
Theme: Home
Subject: Gadgets

I thought I was an old-style guy
With few mod cons helping me by
Perhaps I’m wrong or so thought I
The DAB that wakes me up
And the morning is still quite shy
As coffee drips in cup

That’s two before my brain awakes
And the mobile vibrates and shakes
Sipping my coffee as dawn breaks
Denmark is calling me
The Viking speaks they need more takes
That’s how it goes you see

I see a message on my pad
The prompt is in, the poet’s glad
He needs the break from working mad
Gadgets? I have so few
And the laptop casts out its shad
That’s five I’m shocked its’s true

And I’ve not started cooking yet
Pasta machine already set
Lasagne for tea a good bet
And the stand mixer waits
The air-fryer and smoothie set
How is there room for plates?

I think it is time to admit
I use more than the one gadget
For in my life they seem to fit
But one I really need
A teasmaid by my bed to sit
Oh yeah that’s one I need

©JezzieGFarmer2022

The Standard Habbie, or Burn’s Stanza, consists of 6 rhyming lines, lines 1, 2, 3 and 5 being iambic tetrameter or eight syllables, and lines 4 and 6 being iambic dimeter or four syllables.

The thyme scheme is aaabab, cccdcd, eeefef and so on.

Example

Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
‘Bethankit’ hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis

Tag: Burns' Stanza

Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge – Not So Old Style

Standard Habbie Notes