A Man Named Lear

"..Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer..."
~Lennon/McCartney 

I have to admit, when anyone mentions the inimitable Edward Lear, the above song is the first thing I think of, so that's why it's the opening for my response to Kerry's challenge at Real Toads on this versatile and surprising man whose birthday falls in May. As an inventor of amusingly surreal figurative language in his popular nonsense rhymes for children, often inset with his own quirky drawings, Lear was a big influence on John Lennon, among many others.

Lear also legitimatized and popularized the limerick, so  I started out with one of those:

Limerick

There once was an author of silly

who dressed up as a thoroughbred filly

in a mauve feathered hat.

He liked it like that,

but for racing a dress was too frilly.

Yes, well...moving on.....

I also learned from Kerry's article that Lear was a landscape painter and illustrator, and she suggested we might write something inspired by his visual art, so here is my moderately nonsensical response to that:

The Anthropomorphic Imperative

'I believe, old boy,' I heard Parrot say

to Tortoise, 'it was yesterday

as you were artfully, amphibiously

pontificating in a pondmud sea,

that you stated it wasn't faith, in fountains,

but bitching that moved mountains?'

Tortoise lifted his leathery head,

he swallowed twice, Oh, yes,' he said,

'I'm sure the stars are nagging the moon,

and the moon yells the sun up to every noon

for without the blessed safety of blame,
who would leave its shell, or know its name?'

Parrot looked down from his monocle-tree,

'Respectfully, sir, I must disagree.
As a bird, I may know only one thing

and that is I don't know anything,

but whenever I squawk in a cave of swallows,

a confusion of shadows bursts up from the hollows.

When the May wind finally decides to blow
  tulips throw petals like coloured snow,

green rain dances sideways. I've come to see
 that where we are stranded luminously,
perilously, between earth and sky,

  everything living decides to fly...'

~May 2013

 posted for   real toads

Weekend Challenge: Edward Lear

 Kerry O'Connor discusses the work of English author, painter, illustrator and poet Edward Lear, and challenges us to deal with his nonsense. I've cast the tortoise in a rather negative role here, tho I'm actually quite fond of them--but someone has to be the heavy.

Images by Edward Lear, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons