Flying

Officially my new favorite spring poem. Happy Easter!

In the Memphis Airport  

Above the concourse, from a beam,

A little warbler pours forth song.

Beneath him, hurried humans stream:

Some draw wheeled suitcases along

Or from a beeping belt or purse

Apply a cell phone to an ear;

Some pause at banks of monitors

Where times and gates for flights appear. 

Although by nature flight-endowed,

He seems too gentle to reproach

These souls who soon will climb through cloud

In first class, business class, and coach.

He may feel that it's his mistake

He’s here, but someone ought to bring

A net to catch and help him make

His own connections north to spring. 

He cheeps and trills on, swift and sweet,

Though no one outside hears his strains.

There, telescopic tunnels greet

The cheeks of their arriving planes;

A ground crew welcomes and assists

Luggage that skycaps, treating bags

Like careful ornithologists,

Banded with destination tags.

by Timothy Steele
From Toward the Winter Solstice (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2006, www.ohioswallow.com).  

Courtesy poets.org

For Valerie: Novels and Utah on her Birthday

For Valerie, who took me to Utah and encouraged me to avoid this fate with The Hunger Games. I thank her for being so wonderful, for sharing so much with me, and wish her a very wonderful 26th birthday.

 

Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel 

Instead, we sit together beside the fountain,

the important novel and I.

We are having coffee together 

in that quiet first hour of the morning,

respecting each other's silences

in the shadow of an important old building

in this small but significant European city.

All the characters can relax.

I'm giving them the day off.

For once they can forget about their problems—

desire, betrayal, the fatal denouement—

and just sit peacefully beside me.

In the afternoon,

at lunch near the cathedral,

and in the evening, after my lonely, 

historical walk along the promenade,

the men and women, the children

and even the dogs

in the important, complicated novel

have nothing to fear from me.

We will sit quietly at the table

with a glass of cool red wine

and listen to the pigeons 

questioning each other in the ancient corridors.

by George Bilgere

From Haywire. © Utah State University Press

Courtesy The Writer’s Almanac

Chag Pesach Sameach

A Newborn Girl at Passover
Consider one apricot in a basket of them. It is very much like all the other apricots-- an individual already, skin and seed. Now think of this day. One you will probably forget. The next breath you take, a long drink of air. Holiday or not, it doesn't matter. A child is born and doesn't know what day it is. The particular joy in my heart she cannot imagine. The taste of apricots is in store for her.   by Nan Cohen   Courtesy poets.org

Christopher Lee Reads 'Jabberwocky'

Is this how you heard it in your head?

In April, the Need for Frost

Brown’s Descent

Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
”I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He’s celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange.”

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.

“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I’m asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were.
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o’clock,

It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:

No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;

But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s
’Bout out!” and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.

by Robert Frost

Thanks to Stacy McKnight, who was kind enough to post this on her Facebook wall (from which I stole it)

 

Limericks: Rated PG and Beyond

Limericks: they're easy to remember, easy to write and easy to share.  Well, some of them.

Let's start with a few you can easily share, nerdy and for (mostly) general consumption:

There was a young woman named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

There once was a man from Nantucket
whose walrus oh so luved its bukket.
One day walrus groaned,
it had just gotten pwned;
Said the lolcat "O HAI, I JUST TUK IT". 

There once was a man from Australia

Whose limericks were kind of a failure.

He'd be doing just fine

'Til he hit the last line

Then he'd — damn.

Here are a couple I'd consider more PG. Share with discretion, of course.

There once was a lady from Spain

Who got sick as she rode on a train.

Not once, but again

And again and again

And again and again and again.

There once was a woman named Claire

Who had a magnificent pair.

As I watched her one morn

They got caught on a thorn —

Then they, sadly, began losing some air.

What's a limerick post without dirty limericks? I hit a couple of websites and — well, let's just say I never considered using the name Robin Hood in quite that way before. I cannot print them here, but I can give you two websites for your viewing, er, pleasure:

• http://zillagorilla.tripod.com/zillagorilla/id16.html
• http://www.funlimericks.com/dirty-limericks.php

You get far beyond the Man from Nantucket, I assure you.

Thanks to Fun Limericks for most of these. You can decide if you'll thank the really dirty limerick sites.

Billy Collins, as Recited by a Toddler

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and — somehow — the wine.

by Billy Collins

courtesy drchelpka