FARMER CHRIS
In an attempt to write about blooms in Spring I actually wrote about a Fall event instead.
Oops! Oh well....

Dedicated to my love,

FARMER CHRIS

Kneeling on a gardeners bench
she pushes dibble down
Then spinkles loving fingers full
of phospahte in the ground

Then takes a bulb and drops it in
Sings "Happy Birthday Tulip Bulbs,"
And buries it within.
"I'll see you in the Spring." she adds
And so sets all its kin.

 

DO NOT RAZE YOUR CHILDREN

Well I'm not sure I like this, but anyway Last Sunday I bought both Smiley and Wests "The Rich and the Rest of Us," and a $2 used treasury of American poetry. So after 5 days reading Travis and West for a chuch book group, and thumbing through the Poetry re-read Ginsbergs "Howl."
The result was this, which I don't like for 3 reasons
1) Seems more of a rant than a poem. I mean I could re-work it in meter and rhymes, but Oof!
2) Seems to be telling the poor they should own their own businesses and purchase stocks. Reality check? Would that they could.
3) Yes the title is a pun.
So as for blending Smiley and West with Ginsburg it was a fun experiment. Read at your own risk.  


DO NOT RAZE YOUR CHILDREN

Do not raise your children
Believing you are graced by throwing them to the fires
Of Moloch, Baal or Mammon
For the earth must be yours and the rain must be yours and the plow must be yours
For the seed is yours.
And what can meek inherit when they are slaughtered?

Do not raise your children
To return them to the grinding brickyards and the slavery of Pharoah
Who made them a commodity and worthless and once cast out great Moses
For the sea must be yours and the pillar must be yours and the commandantments must be yours
For the seed is yours.
And what can meek inherit when not taught freedom?

Do not leave your lands to the Inquisitions wrath
And leave to your children the inheritance of living on the margins
of holy great estates who won't employ or tithe to them and teach them only obligation
For the church must be yours and the prayers must be yours and the host must be yours
For the seed is yours
And what can meek inherit with souls oblidged?

Do not raise your children
To be job slaves at the lowest wage for Moloch Corp or Pharoah Inc or fear their jackboot cops of       Inquisition
To be a commoditiy for labor whom they will always trade for the bottom line
For the company must be yours and the enterprise must be yours and the stock certificate must be yours
For the seed is yours
And you must be a partner own as yours incorporate
Or what will they inherit when you've consigned their wealth away?

 THE TARTAN PIPER

Several weeks ago my cousin Terry posted a joke on Facebook. I read it, thought I heard the echoes of Alfred Lord Tennyson on the horizon and decided to retell the joke in the Tennyson meme.
I'm sure real Tennyson scholars will take issue with my success, but as I didn't really ask them I am content they can just have and keep their opinions.


THE TARTAN PIPER

I am the tartan piper and there’s nowhere I won’t go
Bar Mitzvahs and Kiwanis Clubs I’ll always timely show
Graduations and parades I play, my pipes I faithfully blow
But where I’m piping next, my friend, the fookin’ Lord don’t know.

I got a call from an old friend, a funeral man by trade
A time and place to me he gave, lamentation there he bade
Quoted my fee, ok said he, then down my phone I laid
No doubt some soul come to an end, a prayer I quietly said.

Upon the day I tuned my pipes, and in my car I went
To find the peaceful mourners where I was solemnly sent
But as I sped along the road my map was blown and turned
The error of this happening I only later learned

I am the tartan piper and there’s nowhere I won’t go
Bar Mitzvahs and Kiwanis Clubs I’ll always timely show
Graduations and parades I play, my pipes I faithfully blow
But where I’m piping next, my friend, the fookin’ Lord don’t know.

When I arrived no mourners- none- not any there were found
Just a back-hoe and some workmen and a hole dug in the ground.
I’ve played for paupers many times, and blew a solemn sound
The workmen they removed their caps and then all gathered round

With heart and soul I piped my dirge as never I've before
I felt a man who’d died alone must surely deserve more
No family, friends, to mourn him, a poor pauper all alone
Ave’ Maria on my pipes, Benedictus I intone

When I was done the workman still were with me all about
And by the tears upon their cheeks I swore there was no doubt
That soon enough in Heaven this poor soul shall surely be
Escorted by the Angels and into the arms of He

And then one of the workmen said
“I’ve laid sewer pipes and septic tanks for forty years, but never one like this.”

I am the tartan piper and there’s nowhere I won’t go
Bar Mitzvahs and Kiwanis Clubs I’ll always timely show
Graduations and parades I play, my pipes I faithfully blow
But where I’m piping next, my friend, the fookin’ Lord don’t know.

FOR THOSE WHO WATCH THE COOKIE

Here is the second of two peoms inspired from last weeks Maundy Thursday vigil at oour local church.

For those not in the know, Maundy Thursday is the night before Good Friday. We celebrate the first Last Supper not only with communion but also ritual foot washing (it's not as icky as it sounds, but yes those are feet!).
The vigil which follows commenorates the moving of Christ and the apostles to the garden, where  while Christ prayed the apostles all famously fell asleep.
During the Mass a special loaf is consecrated, and then set on an altar in the choir room. Ours really did look like a 5 inch oatmeal cookie, and our Rector tells us that in seminary they fondly termed this ritual "watching the cookie."
At the vigil we each take a hour or so to "stay up", but this bothered me. If the apostles fell asleep, yet we stay awake all night, do we think we're better than the apostles?
Oh, and I had fun breaking up the meter with this one. The 2nd and 4th lines of most stanzas are that way on purpose, to break you out of the normal "poetry" meter and make you speak like a normal human. And the interjections are just Holy Anger!

FOR THOSE WHO WATCH THE COOKIE


I think I shall sleep well this night
For I was never chose as an apostle
Without ordainment I'm alright
I've no fear that Our Lord should soon turn hostile

 AWAKE AND PRAY!

We washed our feet on Thursday night
Our sacred blessed tithing
The breads been blessed, placed on a plate
And candles light our vigil night, all night, we muddle in the choir room

ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?

I think I shall sleep well this night
I just don't know what is it that I should fear
For I with pink and rosey feet
am clean by all the work He came to do here

THE HOUR HAS COME!

I think I shall sleep well this night
For while you're ever in my prayer
There is one thing of which I care
...to be.. awake.. at your.. arising

A WALKING MEDITATION

This is the first of two peoms that came out of a recent Maundy Thursday vigil at oour local church. While others sat, prayed, read books and etc..., in the choir room, I chose instead to pace in a slow meditative manner around the nave, aka "doing laps."

I only actually conceived the first stanza that evening, the other 2 came about with more examination and revision over the following week.

It is not really meant to be a poem, nor a mantra, but a prayer.
Fold your hands in your lap, look down slightly in reverence, and walk slowly. Say or read the prayer at a rate of 2 syllables per footstep (excepting when "I"' begins a sentence, which is one).

When you get to the end repeat over and over and over again, and walking in the dark helps too.

A WALKING MEDITATION

Without Love I no one know
Without Charity I owe
Without Faith nowhere to go
Without Grace I am just so

I shall meet someone in need
With Your gift to give in deed
For in Faith from fear we're freed
And thus can let Grace intercede

Did I meet you sick or poor
And did I recognize that you're
The Charity and Faith most pure
And Grace that ever shall endure?

 

YOU WILL RUN WITH THE PACK

Spent this Saturday afternoon reading the Wall Street Journal and listening to Ogden Nash recite his poetry. Why that inspired me to write this I'll never know.


YOU WILL RUN WITH THE PACK

A lone wolf runs through field and steam
and mountains of free thinking dreams
But when he meets a new wolf pack
He checks his speech and holds it back
He will run with the pack

A red state I once lived in too
Or was it blue? I never knew
In freedom I did pay my due
To all that ambiant hullaballoo
I once ran with that pack

I sought to move without pretension
Attendant at a new convention
My old beliefs passed without mention
I should not peak their apprehension
I will run with this pack

Perhaps you don't like what you hear
And move to find some new freinds dear
But when they know you held views queer
They'll bark at you and teach you fear
You will run with that pack

You think your views are all your own
But none of us can live alone
We join our state our church our home
The dominant make us atone
We do run with the pack

 

Song Sparrow Reveille

 

This was wrote while on Martha's Vineyard with Christine, in 2007 (same as If Mary Had A Cat).


We had just a month or two before learned Christine had MS, and most morning she wasn't moving as quick as in past years. So while waiting for her to arise I would take bird walks.
One thing about that year was there were Song Sparrows everywhere, and the Song Sparrows on MV had a very distintive manner of song.

All of them, the males anyway, would sing like this:
Cheep cheep chrip Trillllll cheep
chrip chirp chirp
Cheep cheep chrip Trillllll chirp chirp
(now repeat endlessly throughout July and August)

So with this and our sorrows in mind, while ruminating on my morning walks, I composed this in the meter of the birdsong.

Song Sparrow Reveille

(July 27, 2007)

It’s time to gehhh-t you
Out of bed
It’s time to greee-t the day

Please rise and Shyiii-ne you
Sleepy head
You’ve only gohhh-t today

No need to wurrr-ry ‘bout
your health
No need for connn-cern dear

Do what you haaa-ve to
To take care
Then you’re alreahhh-dy there

Open your eyeee-s to
hours of sun
You’re missing alll-l the fun

Come whistle wihhh-th me
On a wire
I’ll show you haooo-w to fly

It’s not that harrr-rd as
You can see
You only kneee-d to try

It’s time to gehhh-t you
Out of bed
You only have to-

 

SEND A FRIEND A POEM

Another whimsical object exercise, and don't think I haven't noticed that 7 & 1/2 foot ballad meter isn't something I've used before, or twice, or always.
The preamble comes off as something snarky but I meant it to poke friends, and it got some attention.

April 1st, 2013
 You likely forgot that today, as is the first Monday of every April, is National Poem day, and usually celebrated by people sending poems to each others.
Well I haven't received yours yet, and I'm waiting.... ?!
In the meantime here's mine:

SEND A FRIEND A POEM

Cannot think a thing to say
So send a freind a poem
Even on a foggy day
Just as long as you know'em

What to write, have not a clue?
It's still simple thing to do
Just a line from me to you
So send a freind a poem

Must each stanza have a rhyme?
At the end of every line?
And metered feet to keep in time?
Don't know, let's go ask Owen.

It just takes a loving thought
Jotted down on paper bought
You'll get it wrong if you feel fraught
In peace keep your mind open

It has been the height of fashion
To pronounce ones instant passion
With worlds wild and without ration
Since long ago the time of Jereboam

So have no care 'bout what you say
No one will read it anyway
But make sure that you write today
And send a friend a poem!

I got 3 responses directly and one indirectly, so I guess being snarky gets results.

This was sent by Mogie Lilly Kinosian
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/albert-and-the-lion/
This by Julianne Endler Heckert
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/o-captain-my-captain/
Indirectly Rev Sara Irwin posted this on her own blog (I don't think she ever posted her own poetry before so I take credit for making the suggestive motivation)
 http://saraiwrites.blogspot.com/?spref=fb

and a Haiku from Christine:

"Haiku for the Crocuses"

Crocuses flower
in March's brown bower.
Spring splashes
on dull earth.

C.A.P.

Cute rhyme, 'Stine.

After I posted a link to "The Cat Hater's Handbook," on FB, Christine wrote this comment and rhyme:

Christine Powers I have never understood ailurophobes, nor will I ever. With me, it's always been, "If you love me, you love my cat!"
That said, here is an impromptu rhyme:

Joy is when our Maxie talks
about his spotless litter box.
"Mrroww," he sings, "It is so clean!
Thank you, dearest Ken and 'stine."

C.A.P.

And the Cat Haters Handbook:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/21/cat-haters-handbook-tomi-ungerer-william-cole/

 

ODE TO A DOG WITH NEW GLASSES
(Nothing like a crazy picture for inspiration. Not my best but what ho!):

Oh, Ode to a dog with new glasses in style
I thought that he can't read, and yet all the while
With his paper turned up we would think he'd no sense
But he reads with his his nose, and of news, he knows scents.

From his paper he gleans where are cops on the beat
And also where she dogs are at, and in heat
Thus his life, as a dog, is made full and complete
For Grace to a dog with new glasses

I'd bet him, one Chris Moore, his dog hasn't a clue
But I'd be money down, now, payment would be due
Except there is a headline I've just seen and now new,
Skunks are out, on report, spewing gasses.

If Mary had a Cat

In summer 2007, while Christine and I were on Martha's Vineyard we met her friend Dan Waters at an arts show. Dan does amazing old school print things, and had made a woodblock or litho portrait of Our Lady holding a cat.(Note, not the pic you see here - I'll have to find and scan it in later),
Long story short, it inspired the poem below, which Chris and I used with the picture of Mary for our Holiday cards.



 

 

If Mary had a Cat

(July 26 & 27, 2007)



 Suppose that Mary had a cat,
Instead of Baby Jesus
Then early up on Christmas morn’
What presents there would please us?

Hairballs, dead mice, you’d give to me
I’d stalk a partridge, for your tree
And when the wise kings came, to see
We’d scratch the ankles of those three!

No frankincense, no Magi myrrh
No mistletoe, just catnip pure.
No midnight hymns, all silent night
We’d lay about and purr

The badge of winter colds, would pass
No red nose blown in honor
We’d proudly get cat allergies
To fur, and disdain Donner.

Suppose that Mary had a cat
Instead of Baby Jesus
Knee deep in cat toys, we would be
Exchanging Christmas sneezes!