08 Mar 2010
Obama at the Bat
Barack Obama, Health Care Reform, Humor, Parody, Poetry
Excellent 4:50 PJM video.
From Vanderleun via Karen L. Myers.
Category Archive 'Poetry'
25 Dec 2009
Night Before Caddis
Angling, Christmas, Fly Fishing, Poetry
Via a bamboo fly rod list:
T’WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CADDIS
BY
RICHARD FRANK
Twas the night before Christmas when down by the stream
The full moon looked out on a chill winter scene.
A lone trout was sipping a midge in his brook,
Untroubled by worries of fishers with hooks.
Then from above a small sleigh did appear
Pulled by a brace of eight tiny reindeer.
It swerved of a sudden and down it did glide,
Settling its runners along the streamside.
The fat, jolly driver dove into his sled
And emerged with his three weight held high over head.
“Thank you my elves for this wand smooth as silk.
This break will be better than cookies and milk.”
So saying, he jumped from his sleigh with a chuckle,
Hiked up his boots and cinched up his belt buckle.
Santa meant business that cold winter’s eve.
A fish he would catch – that you’d better believe.
Looking upstream and down, he spotted that trout,
Then he open his flybox and took something out – “Size 32 midges are only for faddists
I’ll go with my favorite tan reindeer caddis.”
So he cast out his line with a magical ease
And his fly floated down just as light as you please.
And it drifted drag free down the trout’s feeding lane,
But the fish merely wiggled a fin of distain.
“Oh Adams, oh Cahill, oh Sulphur, oh Pupa,
Oh Hopper, oh Coachman, oh Olive Matuka!
I’ve seen every fly in the book and the box.
I’m old and I’m wary and sly as a fox.
To catch me you’ll need an unusual gift,
For a present this common no fin will I lift.”
Old Nick scratched his head for his time it grew short
The reindeer behind him did shuffle and snort.
He looked once again in his box for a fly
When a pattern compelling attracted his eye.
“The Rudolph!” he muttered and grinned ear to ear
“Far better to give than receive, so I hear.”
So he cast once again and his magic was true,
And the trout it looked up and knew not what to do.
“This fly has a body of bells don’t you know,
And if that’s not enough there’s a shining red nose!
I know it’s fraud and I know it’s a fake,
But I can’t help myself. It’s I gift I must take!”
So he rose in swirl and captured that thing,
Flew off down the stream. Santa’s reel it did sing.
“Ho!” shouted Santa, “You’re making my day.
If the heavens were water, you’d be pulling my sleigh.”
So, Santa prevailed and released his great rival
First taking great care to ensure its survival.
He then mounted his sled and he flew out of sight
Shouting, “Merry Caddis to trout and to all a good night!”
Hat tip to Wilmer Price.
24 Dec 2009
Now Winter Nights Enlarge
Music, Poetry, Thomas Campion
Lucas van Valckenborch, Winter Landscape, 1586. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o’erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys
They shorten tedious nights.
Hat tip to Stephen Frankel.
08 Aug 2007
Poem
Poetry, Zbigniew Herbert
MR COGITO ON UPRIGHT ATTITUDES
l
In Utica
the citizens
don’t want to put up a defense
in the city an epidemic broke out
of an instinct of self-preservation
the temple of freedom
has been turned into a flea market
the senate deliberates on how
not to be a senate
the citizens
don’t want to put up a defense
they enroll in accelerated courses
in falling to their knees
passively they wait for the enemy
write servile speeches
bury their gold
they sew new flags
innocent and white
teach children to lie
they’ve opened the gates
hrough which a column of sand is now passing
apart from that as usual
commerce and copulation
2
Mr Cogito
would like to rise
to the occasion
that is
look fate
straight in the eye
like Cato the Younger
see Plutarch’s Lives
he does not have a sword
however
or an opportunity
to send his family overseas
so he waits with the others
pacing an insomniac room
despite the Stoics’ advice
he’d like to have a body
of diamond and wings
he watches from the window
as the sun of the Republic
sinks toward the West
not much is left to him
really only
the choice of attitude
in which he wishes to die
the choice of a gesture
the choice of a last word
so he does not go to bed
to avoid
being throttled in his sleep
he would like to rise
to the occasion fully
fate looks him in the eye
in a place where he once
had a head
28 Jun 2007
Derbyshire Updates Betjeman
Amusement, Congress, John Betjeman, Parody, Poetry
Today’s Congress evidently provoked John Derbyshire to update John Betjeman’s Slough. The Corner’s link simply never produced anything for me. The lovely and talented Dr. Sanity, however, both linked and quoted it. My thanks to her.
Come, friendly bombs, fall on D.C.!
It’s not fit for humanity.
There’s nothing there but villainy.
Swarm over, Death!Come, bombs, and blow to kingdom come
Those pillared halls of tedium—
Hired fools, hired crooks, hired liars, hired scum,
Hired words, hired breath.Mess up this mess they call a town—
A seat for twenty million down
And rights to the incumbent’s crown
For twenty years....
And smash his desk of polished oak
(Paid for by honest working folk
Toiling ‘neath taxation’s yoke)
And make him yell.
09 Mar 2006
Coursing Poem
Coursing, Lisel Muller
From Steve Bodio:
SMALL POEM ABOUT THE HOUNDS AND THE HARESAfter the kill, there is the feast.
And toward the end, when the dancing subsides
and the young have sneaked off somewhere,
the hounds, drunk on the blood of the hares,
begin to talk of how soft
were their pelts, how graceful their leaps,
how lovely their scared, gentle eyes.
(Lisel Mueller)
