Werewolf of Oz Classic Sydney Literary Nonsense Poem

Hope you had a happy Halloween, and didn’t get too scared out there. Those humans on the blog yesterday posing with the dead wolf sure did scare me.  Moreover, the scariest thing was what was behind their masks. I guess  they’d have preferred it to be a dead ‘witch’ they were posing with; a human demonised enough to retain their good self-image and image in the good community; but the wolf’s about as good as it gets for them legally.

Werewolf of Oz in Sydney’s Greycliffe House 

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. Anyway, enough about Halloween horrors, and on with the Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps serialisation of something quite sensational… which I just noticed avoids hunters in the first paragraph. 

This episode is much more comedy classic than travel quest epic, and can perhaps be called classic due to the episode building up from Watsons Bay-inspired Sherlock Holmes and Greycliffe House-inspired Grey themes to a poem that is perhaps the most nonsensical in the whole book.

Chapter 119.  Dr. Watson and the Case of a Greycliffe House Mouse 

The Spit Reserve was so relaxing we didn’t want to leave, and they had to spit us out at closing time. We wondered where to go next.

English: greycliff house, sydney. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not liking the sound of Hunters Bay, we thought about the Sydney Harbour National Park. The headquarters and visitor centre was called Greycliffe House, which I thought was worth investigating. So we walked that way.

Dr. Watson of Watsons Bay

Upon arrival at Greycliffe House, I was surprised to find it was neither particularly grey nor built on a cliff.

As we looked around, a gentleman introduced himself as a guide, and said his name was Dr. Watson.

I asked him why the house was called Greycliffe. He apologised for not knowing, explaining that he was only an expert on nearby Watsons Bay. The expert on Greycliffe House, a chap called Holmes, was away researching some other homes at the moment.

The Greycliffe House Mouse

Not long after I’d thanked Dr. Watson and turned away,
in a triangular hall containing a square ball,
I was accosted by a small mouse of my colour grey.

It said its name was Cliff and the house was named after him,
I replied it was built in 1852 so how could that be true,
It said it was on a special diet and low-fat cheese kept it quiet.

I thought, Now, that’s nonsense.

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Notes

Walk This Way – Aerosmith song, later shared with Run DMC.
The author had been reading about Edward Lear’s literary nonsense poems just before writing this, and the poem is perhaps the closest to Lear’s style in this book.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detectives).

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Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords. 

Oz Werewolf WWW Wordplay, Literary Nonsense Poetry

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. It only seems like two days since the last episode of Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps. Maybe that’s because it is! Yes, that’s one great thing about having a late first episode of your favourite werewolf travels Australia to a Wizard of Oz theme travel quest epic comedy classic. And that’s the start of the satire.

This episode combines travel quest with comedy as the questing quartet continue their sea journey up the Oz east coast , with Shell Cove, Warrawong, Wollongong and Scarborough providing most of the wordplay inspiration, supported by a literary nonsense poem perhaps worthy of Edward Lear.

I wouldn’t really call the episode a comedy classic or travel quest epic, but it’s pretty good in a greenygrey hodge-podge of the two.

There’s not much dialogue in this episode. I asked Grey why, and it said their voices felt husky after leaving Huskisson. Enjoy…

Chapter 115.  Wall on Gong in Wollongong Keeps us Moving On

We continued travelling north up the east coast, thinking we’d overnight in Wollongong. We stopped in Shell Cove to re-energise, and were served by a friendly snail called Michelle.

Her shell reminded me of lobsters, and I told her I hadn’t seen any around. ’chelle replied with the cove-shaped Ode of Shell Cove:

There were 110 lobsters eating pears
contentedly up a crab-apple tree.
When along came a storm
and swept them out to sea.
They made themselves at home
and decided that’s where they’d be.

I thanked her for letting me know, and providing the energy, before bidding farewell.

War gorillas, War is wrong and Wall on gong 

Warilla-Lake South Gorillas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As we passed Warilla we saw gorillas warring on the beach. I was amazed to see this, as the gentle giants are usually very peaceful.

This was confirmed when we reached Warrawong, because the beach was full of gorillas holding a peace protest proclaiming ‘War is wrong’.

Strange events relating to place names seemed to be the theme of the day, because approaching Wollongong we heard a deafening gong sound from that direction. I wondered if we should land at Wollongong, as planned. The decision was made for us when we approached the city, because there was a massive wall all around it, just above the gong. 

So we continued past, hearing the gonging grow louder off Wollongong, and reach its decibel zenith parallel with Battery Park. Somewhere between Wombarra and Scarborough we sensed the sounds of silence again.

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Notes

Simon and Garfunkel covered Scarborough Fair, an old British ballad. They also had a song and album called Sounds of Silence.

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Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.

Small Bird Poem Provided by the Werewolf of Oz

Image via Wikipedia

Thanks for all your visits this week. Our sister blog, the Werewolf of Oz, is nearing its conclusion now, after two years of virtual travelling across Australia by google maps to the Wizard of Oz theme, so that has been taking precedence lately.

There’ll be another Folding Mirror especially written for this blog on Monday, but in the meantime, I just noticed that a poem on the WoO blog mirrors, so I thought I’d include it below.

The 70 poems in the WoO story are written in the literary nonsense style pioneered by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, looking at things from the opposite or upside down view, so fit in with the reverse mirror theme of the Folding Mirror form, although most don’t mirror structurally.

The following little poem was inspired by a place called Mollymook in Australia, with Molly Mook becoming the crow landlady of the Rowdy Rook. Here it is:

I said we were doing well,
but the offer sounded as swell

as the wave just approaching,

so how faraway is the Rook
as the crow flies, Molly Mook.

http://australiatraveller.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/molly-mooks-rowdy-rook-in-ulladulla/