A Book Trout Poem

THE BAITE

Come live with mee, and bee my love,

And wee will some new pleasures prove,

Of golden sands, and christall brookes,

With silken lines, and silver hookes.

There will the river whispering runne

Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the Sunne,

And there the’inamored fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swimme,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,

By Sunne, or Moone, thous darknest both,

And if my selfe have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poore fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowie net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies

Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.

For thee, thous needst no such deceit,

For thou thy selfe art thine owne baite;

That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,

Alas, is wiser farre than I.

-John Donne

Same as it Ever Was

Today I sold an elegant little collection of poems about the author's life as a newspaperman and printer: Bulldogs and Morning Glories, by John Edward Allen (Brooklyn, NY: Linotype 1945) and almost felt like canceling the order with bookseller's remorse. The verse is doggerel but it is an interesting and well made volume that I coveted once someone else wanted it. My consolation is that it is going to an excellent home.

Here is one of the author's poems to enjoy. It seems politicians never change their stripes. They only wear them from time to time:

Psalm to Politicians

"Again a flood of hackneyed words
Comes pouring from the noisy throats
Of many office-seeking birds
Who promise, in exchange for votes,
To dedicate their massive brains
(And strictly gratis, understand!)
To ridding us of social pains
And making this the Promised Land!

They spout-and many lumber-jacks
Stride about again among the spruce
To ply the peavy and the ax
For paper mills that must produce
The newsprint that the papers need
To keep their presses on the go
That bunk-demanding saps may read
The platitudes of So-and-So!

They squawk--and mining men reduce
Vast stores of coal and copper ore
That power plants may shoot the juice
Required to make the presses roar,
The Linotypes produce their stuff
And reading-lamps illumine homes
That yearning boobs may read the guff
That emanates from brainless domes!

They rave--and many idle men
Return to plant and mine and loom
To soothe their minds to sleep again
With thoughtless motions toward the tomb
As they were wont to do in days
When war-time profiteering gents
Enveloped hem within a haze
Of adjectives devoid of sense!

But let's not chloroform the yaps
Who strut about from stage to stage
Releasing balderdash for saps
To gobble from the printed page.
For, while their blatant spiels resound
With third-rate tommy-rot and cant,
They help our dizzy world zip round,
Despite themselves. So let them rant!"

-John Edward Allen

The French have a nice phrase for this phenomenon: "Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change" (The more things change, the more they stay the same).

On the Importance of Art

As a farewell to National Poetry Month, I offer the following Spring poem:

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

-By Sadi, Persian Poet (1184-1291)

April Snow

Argh! This is what I woke up to this morning. I feared that the South Glens Falls school district would cancel school thus adding an extra day to the ten day April vacation the kids have off. But no, my fears were groundless and the little darlings skipped off happily to school. Well, trudged sullenly to the bus stop.

Here's a poem to ward off winter...

Fear Mo More the Heat o' the Sun

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

-- William Shakespeare

The Bard knows all.

Snowdrops for the Soul

At least ten years ago, I planted a bulb garden in the center of my front lawn. I had lots of Spring bulbs carefully selected from three different garden catalogs and as many local garden stores. Visions of gently nodding pastel beauties danced in my mind's eye. This carefully tended plot thawed the following Spring and then, horrifyingly, filled over with water from the melting snows. I had forgotten that this was a low spot in our yard and so most of these flowers just rotted in place. When things dried up, I dug out some the slimy bulb remnants and tried transplanting them on higher ground. I didn't notice until later that some of the snowdrop bulbs had heroically flowered. Each year they come back and it's a nice reminder that the migrating birds will return and things will green up and flower again.

Here's a snowdrop poem from Louise Gluck's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, "The Wild Iris" (NY: Ecco, 1993) to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

SNOWDROPS

by Louise Glück

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

Got Cheese?

April is National Poetry Month and in celebration I cracked open my
copy of "Very Bad Poetry", edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras (NY:
Vintage, 1997, not for sale). From these pages I offer the following
poem by Canadian furniture maker and poet James McIntyre (1827-1906).
McIntyre created this dairy ditty after viewing a four ton cheese on
display at a Toronto exposition in this pre-television era. No word
on what type of cheese was so inspirational, but it musta been Gouda.

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
(Weighing Over 7,000 Pounds)

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at year ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,
Or as the leaves upon the trees,
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.

May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great world's show at Paris.

Of the youth beware of these,
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek, then songs or glees
We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.


(I like to image Michael Ondaatje reading this.)