poems

Yesterday was the last day at work for my boss. It was hard to say goodbye to him as he was the one who brought me on board when I came back to California from New Orleans many years ago. Harder for him as he had been with the company over 21 years. All the poems I found about saying goodbye were about people dying which was not at all appropriate. However he is a delightful Frenchman (who has never lost his accent) and this is a delightful poem by a Frenchman with just the sort of attention to detail I think he’d appreciate.

This is from More Beasts for Worse Children by Hillaire Belloc. Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was a French born writer who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. More on Belloc at wikipedia

The Microbe

The Microbe is so very small

You cannot make him out at all,

But many sanguine people hope

To see him through a microscope.

His jointed tongue that lies beneath

A hundred curious rows of teeth;

His seven tufted tails with lots

Of lovely pink and purple spots,

On each of which a pattern stands,

Composed of forty separate bands;

His eyebrows of a tender green;

All these have never yet been seen–

But Scientists, who ought to know,

Assure us that they must be so….

Oh! let us never, never doubt

What nobody is sure about!  

The round-up for Poetry Friday is over at the hostess with the mostess, Kelly at Big A litte a. Next week’s round-up will be HERE!

I went looking for a poem about a little rhino and came up with this one instead by Guy Wetmore Carryl.

How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted

A POET had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that—
(I might make a little pun about the Mews!)
But what is really more
Remarkable, she wore
A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
And I doubt me greatly whether
E’er you heard the like of that:
Pointed shoes of patent-leather
On a cat!

His time he used to pass
Writing sonnets, on the grass—
(I might say something good on pen and sward!)
While the cat sat near at hand,
Trying hard to understand
The poems he occasionally roared.
(I myself possess a feline,
But when poetry I roar
He is sure to make a bee-line
For the door.)

The poet, cent by cent,
All his patrimony spent—
(I might tell how he went from verse to werse!)
Till the cat was sure she could,
By advising, do him good.
So addressed him in a manner that was terse:
“We are bound toward the scuppers,
And the time has come to act,
Or we’ll both be on our uppers
For a fact!”

On her boot she fixed her eye,
But the boot made no reply—
(I might say: “Couldn’t speak to save its sole!”)
And the foolish bard, instead
Of responding, only read
A verse that wasn’t bad upon the whole.
And it pleased the cat so greatly,
Though she knew not what it meant,
That I’ll quote approximately
How it went:—

“If I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree”—
(I might put in: “I think I’d just as leaf!”)
“Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough”—
Well, he’d plagiarized it bodily, in brief!
But that cat of simple breeding
Couldn’t read the lines between,
So she took it to a leading
Magazine.

She was jarred and very sore
When they showed her to the door.
(I might hit off the door that was a jar!)
To the spot she swift returned
Where the poet sighed and yearned,
And she told him that he’d gone a little far.
“Your performance with this rhyme has
Made me absolutely sick,”
She remarked. “I think the time has
Come to kick!”

I could fill up half the page
With descriptions of her rage—
(I might say that she went a bit too fur!)
When he smiled and murmured: “Shoo!”
“There is one thing I can do!”
She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.
“You may shoo me, and it suit you,
But I feel my conscience bid
Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!”
(Which she did.)

The Moral of the plot
(Though I say it, as should not!)
Is: An editor is difficult to suit.
But again there’re other times
When the man who fashions rhymes
Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!
Read more about this funny poet who died too young at Wikipedia

William Allingham (March 19, 1824 or 1828 – November 18, 1889) was an Irish man of letters and poet. He was born at Ballyshannon, Donegal, and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent. He obtained a post in the custom-house of his native town and held several similar posts in Ireland and England until 1870, when he had retired from the service, and became sub-editor of Fraser’s Magazine, which he edited from 1874 to 1879, in succession to James Froude.

In 1874 Allingham married Helen Paterson, known under her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at Hampstead in 1889, and his ashes are interred at St. Anne’s in his native Ballyshannon. You can read more about him in Wikipedia

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Fairies

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We darent go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owls feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

William Allingham

This week’s Poetry Friday round up is at Literary Safari

A side note – I know I am not the first person in the history of the world to move but I must be one of the last to ever get settled. Soon, I hope, to be back to more regular posting. Thanks for those who have written to check on me. So for Poetry Friday, a little nonesense seems to be in order.

THE POBBLE WHO HAS NO TOES

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said “Some day you may lose them all;”
He replied “Fish, fiddle-de-dee!”
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said “The World in general knows
There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!”

The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose
In a piece of scarlet flannel.
For his Aunt Jobiska said “No harm
Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;
And it’s perfectly known that a Pobble’s toes
Are safe, — provided he minds his nose!”

The Pobble swam fast and well,
And when boats or ships came near him,
He tinkledy-blinkledy-winkled a bell,
So that all the world could hear him.
And all the Sailors and Admirals cried,
When they saw him nearing the further side –
“He has gone to fish for his Aunt Jobiska’s
Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!”

But before he touched the shore,
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
And when he came to observe his feet,
Formerly garnished with toes so neat,
His face at once became forlorn,
On perceiving that all his toes were gone!

And nobody ever knew,
From that dark day to the present,
Whoso had taken the Pobble’s toes,
In a manner so far from pleasant.
Whether the shrimps, or crawfish grey,
Or crafty Mermaids stole them away –
Nobody knew: and nobody knows
How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes!

The Pobble who has no toes
Was placed in a friendly Bark,
And they rowed him back, and carried him up
To his Aunt Jobiska’s Park.
And she made him a feast at his earnest wish
Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish, –
And she said “It’s a fact the whole world knows,
That Pobbles are happier without their toes!”

— Edward Lear

Not that I would know a thing about burning my candle at both ends, mind you, but this short poem spoke to me today.

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light! 
— Edna St.Vincent Millay

Trying to get back into the Poetry Friday habit I went looking for a poem to make me laugh. I found this one by Kenn Nesbitt on his site http://www.poetry4kids.com

Sick Fish

The fish in our aquarium
are looking rather ill,
and most of them are turning
kind of green around the gill.

I might have fed them too much food,
forgot to clean their tank,
or maybe they’re allergic to
the toys and junk I sank.

Perhaps I broke the thermostat.
I could have cut their air.
What’s certain is they’re sickly
from my downright lack of care.

But even though they’re looking ill
I still have cause to gloat;
they’re obviously talented–
they’re learning how to float!

–Kenn Nesbitt

A poem about poetics from Andrew Lang, author of the popular coloured fairy books.

RHYME OF RHYMES 

Wild on the mountain peak the wind
Repeats its old refrain,
Like ghosts of mortals who have sinned,
And fain would sin again. 

For “wind” I do not rhyme to “mind,”
Like many mortal men,
“Again” (when one reflects) ’twere kind
To rhyme as if “agen.” 

I never met a single soul
Who SPOKE of “wind” as “wined,”
And yet we use it, on the whole,
To rhyme to “find” and “blind.” 

We SAY, “Now don’t do that AGEN,”
When people give us pain;
In poetry, nine times in ten,
It rhymes to “Spain” or “Dane.” 

Oh, which are wrong or which are right?
Oh, which are right or wrong?
The sounds in prose familiar, quite,
Or those we meet in song?

To hold that “love” can rhyme to “prove”
Requires some force of will,
Yet in the ancient lyric groove
We meet them rhyming still.

This was our learned fathers’ wont
In prehistoric times,
We follow it, or if we don’t,
We oft run short of rhymes.

Andrew Lang

If you read my post yesterday, you know I am stuck in a painful parenting place. Once again, I turn to an animal poem to make me smile. If only we could all just bounce a ball and wiggle and jiggle and feel happy with who we are.

SEALS

The seals all flap
Their shining flips
And bounce balls on
Their nosey tips,
And beat a drum,
And catch a bar,
And wriggle with
How pleased they are.

by Dorothy Keeley Aldis
1896-1966

This poetry Friday contribution sums up a lot of the conflicting feelings in me of late. ’nuff said.

A MAN SAID TO THE UNIVERSE
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
“A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/582.html

Susan Polis Schultz and the poetry of Blue Mountain Arts were a big part of my junior high to high school years. Like Rod McKuen, her words often went to the heart of what I was feeling (lost, broken-hearted, dreaming of something just out of reach or deeply in love with my current boyfriend or crush) My mom and I didn’t always get along and back then she didn’t understand (or I didn’t think she understood) my overwhelming obsession with words, with poetry, with telling stories on paper. Being a writer was never taken seriously as a career option; it was something you did “on the side” after your normal job as a teacher or secretary. I wanted her to understand my need to write but I feared she never would. But one year for Christmas I received this poster with a poem. It was about 24×24 and packaged against a hard piece of cardboard and shrink-wrapped to keep it from bending. It was a glimmer (for me) of hope that she understood, or was trying to understand me. For all all I know she bought it on a whim and didn’t study the verse at all but I took it to mean it was okay for me to focus on my goal of writing.

For years (and I mean YEARS) I didn’t take the plastic off. I leaned it against the bookcase in my mostly-purple bedroom so it was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night. When I got married and moved, it went with me, getting a little bent around the edges. So off came the plastic and I had to trim a bit around the edges to fix the broken parts. Over the years, each time I moved, something got ripped or bent a little more. It was, is, by now, just a faded piece of paper reduced to about 12×12 from all my cutting around the edges. It has a home now, in a frame under glass, and sits in my office.

If you have a goal in life

that takes a lot of energy

that incurs a great deal of interest

and that is a challenge to you,

you will always look

forward to waking up to

see what the new day brings.

If you find a person in your life

that understands you completely

that shares your ideas

and that believes in everything you do,

you will always look forward to the night

because you will never be lonely.

Susan Polis Schultz

In searching for a poem to share this week I came across this old friend. In my teen years, like many teens, I spent weeks upon weeks (okay probably months upon months) wavering between manic highs when everything in my world was wonderful (he likes me, he really likes me) and horrible, depressing lows when I couldn’t understand the point of getting out of bed in the morning (he dumped me, I can’t believe he really dumped me.) During those emotional roller coaster rides, this poem spoke to me loudly. I often had it copied on the inside cover of my notebook. Was I a melodramatic teen? You bet!
 

FIRE AND ICE
Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

POETRY
 
She comes like the hush and beauty of the night,
  And sees too deep for laughter;
Her touch is a vibration and a light
  From worlds before and after.

By Edwin Markham
From Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833?1908).  An American Anthology, 1787?1900.  1900.
 

This poem is for every writer who has a day job. Every person who has to work a job they don’t want to work but they have to, if just to pay the bills, or keep that all important medical insurance. 

We had a big layoff this week at my day job. The mood around the place is quite glum and those of us left behind, still employed, are not too sure that we were the lucky ones. 

  
WORK WITHOUT HOPE
  
ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—  
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—  
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,  
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!  
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,         
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.  
 
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,  
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.  
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,  
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!  
With lips unbrighten’d, wreathless brow, I stroll:  
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?  
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,  
And Hope without an object cannot live. 

  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772–1834
from Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

A small update for poetry Friday.

WHERE MY BOOKS GO

All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken’d or starry bright. 

William Butler Yeats.
1865 – 1935