FOR SARA - During the past week our Church Rector Sara wrote an impromptu and posted it on FB from her mobile phone.  I've since learned that she may have been in Denver when she wrote it.
I do confess that "re-writing" another's poem certainly is height of callous conceit.
Temptation. Guilty. Sorry.

I wonder, will she ever read this?

FOR SARA

New England Spring Rain
Just does not feel the same
To one who can just stand and listen

Of all these commuters
With Iphone computers
Just who's a young Rector to christen?

All await the same bus
and now most make a fuss
as into dry doorways they hasten

But you in the rain
are the only one sane
and baptized into Spring you do glisten

THE ANGLICAN ANGLER - the problem with Sundays is after church I have to clear out the echoes before I can write anything secular.
So today in addition to earworms of Proverb s and Hymn's in my head, in the WSJ (yesterday's) I read a review of a book called "The Compleat Angler", a sort of 17th century combination of poetry and fishing guide.



THE ANGLICAN ANGLER

The angular Anglican angles the angle
A place where 3 streams come to meet in a cross

Expertly drawing his line with no tangle
He whips and he whizzes and casts his fine floss

I ask cross the ford if, "Might I have a word?"
"Friend sure," what he said, and then pinched his fine halyard

 "What need have you fisherman, for your basket has bread
What hunger now haunts you, is your spirit unfed?"

"I don't fish for me," was his modest compline
"Those like you, who've not heard, I must call with a line."

TOUGH CAT

It's been a few weeks - so long I had to reset my password on Blogger.
I've been working on 2 longer poems, maybe I'll post them next week.

In the meantime, another one-off.


TOUGH CAT

Pink cut spots on my left hand
Like acne dots on a young man

With Max the cat, who can be tough
The fault is mine for playing rough

Yes his claws all need a trim
And surely I'll clip him again

But I don't think it any sin
To catlike grasp and claw at him

He grabs my hand and pulls clamped down
With back feet kicking all around

He makes a tough cat growling sound
As I don't mind he sinks claws in

 

PANTS

I may have had too much to drink last night. Today was not a bad day, just one of those wherin nothing feels quite right.
Of note - when I googled "pants on the floor pic" to find a photo, it lead me to a a fingerpost poet, from whom I "borrowed" the pic. His/her work can be read here (but read mine first!)
http://damiensfingerpost.blogspot.com/2011/05/sometimes-life-seems-like-dream.html

PANTS

These pants are not the same ones that I wore just yesterday
And how I came to put them on I really can not say

No wallet in the pocket and no pens no pad no keys
Just remnants of a tissue from a long forgotten sneeze

This pair were too dirty so I left them on the floor
When yesterday I others wore and thought of these no more.

When I awoke this morning sleepily I took no care
And I stepped in footfirst into the first pair I saw there

But these are not the same pants that I wore yesterday

A momentary panic came as I did comprehend
Could someone else in my new pants all of my wallet spend?

Or break into my house or steal my car with my own keys?
I only knew that they'd not have what they'd need should they sneeze

Of course a moment later common sense dispelled that doom
As I recalled that last night I'd undressed in another room.

SWISS CHEESE

It's a funny thing, sense memory. A little over an hour ago I heard a radio commercial for Finlandia Real Swiss Cheese, and the memory came back to me of how I was once cheated at a French Restaurant.


SWISS CHEESE

So how does this work?
Ah Monsieur, I show you

First there is le caquelon, the pot
Which I rub garlic on
Then le rechaud we call this stove
Which I will spark to light

He added cubes of cheese devine
And with a splash of wine
Set all on to the flame and stiirred
Just stirred, from time to time

And this is Swiss Cheese?
Yes, Monsieur.
Real Swiss Cheese?
Of course, Monsieur. See I tip the pot. The cheese it has the holes. Only real Swiss cheese has the real Swiss Holes.
Proof, Thank you I agreed.

Soon the scent of warm fondue
I savored in my head
And took a long thin fork which then
Was layed beside my arm
And in a basket peered within
And speared a crust of bread
Which at his invitation
I then dipped into the pot
My expectations more than met
Nno flavor had been lost
But what were once fine cubes of cheese
Had all turned into sauce!

I stared down the bread upon my fork
all covered in fondue
Perceiving that there'd been a trick
As I observed the clue

Monsieur, is everthing all right?

You say it is but I think not
I yet reserve a doubt
For how can this be Real Swiss Cheese
With all the bubbles melted out?

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?