A Red Letter Day

Today is my father's birthday. Because he is the poet laureate of our family, I had toyed with writing a poem for him to match the one he wrote for my 60th birthday. I re-discovered how hard it is to write poems -- especially the old-fashioned kind that rhyme, which is his style.

Rhyming is much harder than most people appreciate. It's hard not to end up with a meaning that doesn't make much sense just to use a rhyming word. Or there are those words that nearly rhyme but really don't and just sound jarring. I would bet it is no coincidence that there are no words to rhyme with "poetry". I certainly had my share of problems trying to write my Dad's life story in rhyming couplets.

His names - John or Red - are easy enough to rhyme, but what do you do with the rest of his story? Is there a rhyme for Kennedy? He was raised in Wallingford (galling lord? falling board? calling horde?). And let's not even think about Vermont.

His Navy time was in San Diego, which probably rhymes with lots of other Spanish words but none that I understand. And he worked for Keebler in Rutland, Syracuse and Philadelphia.

OK, Keebler rhymes with feebler but I need to figure out why I would mention Jutland in a poem about my Dad who has never been to Denmark. I've come up with "fear a noose" to rhyme with Syracuse. The challenge really becomes how to work all of that into a poem about my father's life since I am quite sure he has never been chased by a lynch mob. And I still haven't tackled Philadelphia, but it's probably OK to cheat with Philly in which case there are scores of rhymes.

Here's the draft I was working on:

And so the young man from Wallingford
Answered the plea of the calling horde.
He packed his bags and move to Rutland,
A lovely town that's not in Jutland.
He had married a girl named Norma Faye,
And their marriage lasted more 'n a day.
Over time they had two sons
Whom they called their honeybuns.
By now he was working for Keebler,
But the lure of Rutland proved feebler.
So Red and Norma and Bob and Don
Packed their bags and soon were gone.
Off they moved to Syracuse
Where an angry crowd made them fear a noose.

See what I mean? It's really hard to work that lynch mob into the story. I mean, this is a real life, not an episode of The Simpsons. I did toy with:

Off they moved to Syracuse
Where they would never hear a goose.

I suppose that at least has the merit of being true, but really it was about this time that I had to admit that this poetry gig just wasn't my forte.

So with a profound sense of how much work it is for him to write his poems, I leave the field in disgrace. Nope, no rhyming poems from this son. The king lives. Long live the king. Happy birthday, Dad.