Fragment

A reefer of banana slugs,
A shard, but not a clump --
Eheu fugaces!  Coffee mugs!
Fried chicken!  Camel-hump!

The agitating branches stir
Far from the madding crowd;
We climb the towers of Barchester
With whispers soft and loud.

A handsome devil, charming man,
Abandons kith and kin --
His own reflection's biggest fan,
He sees the blue moon spin.

The bald Horatian classicist
Drinks shots of stinging Scotch;
Bitterly fifty, never been kissed,
He coughs and winds his watch.

The murdered crow is loath to fly,
The slain sparrow indites
Profuse hendecasyllabi
Beneath the northern lights.

Exuberance

Exuberance!  My buxom chum!
O fortunate parcel of girl, wreaking sweet havoc
Amid the striped sheets and pale pillowcases!
Poetic nymph, gracing a windy December
With glasses of cheer and eyes of wild surprise!
When will you invade my temperate precinct,
Bringing flakes of snow and cereal,
Blinding the lively statues with your candor
As ineluctable as the seventh star?
O choicest parody of fleeting trends!
O ample-breasted heap of curves and bends!
Yours are the words of sonnets I cannot write
Unless I am drunk on life's farcical rainfall
As if the skies were pelting cabernet.
Exuberance, my comrade!  Sister, friend!
Let us feast on cheese that is fragrant and flagrant
As we sit by the chilly brink of the Mystic;
Or, in the purple bedroom stacked with novels,
Let us wrestle each other to feckless ecstasy!

An Advent Sonnet (penultimate draft?)

Few leaves cling to the gust-whipt gale-stript tree;
Frail flesh, fall-flesh, thrills to a weather wild!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling weak light on a world no longer mild.

The screech of a lone black crow pierces the cold,
Presaging winter's brunt of snow and ice:
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice.

Some souls there are who watch, grace-parched, light-starved,
For love's long-prophesied nativity
In a stone-hard, bone-chilled place: a fear-wracked time:

Unvisited, it seems, unblessed, unmoved
By him who makes all dead life live anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

An Advent Sonnet (fourth draft)

Few leaves cling to the gust-whipped gale-stript tree;
Thrilled is the flesh that craves a weather wild!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling weak light on a world no longer mild.

The noise of cackling crows pierces the cold,
Presaging winter's nights of snow and ice:
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice.

Some souls there are who watch, grace-parched, light-starved,
For love's long-prophesied nativity
In a stone-hard, bone-chilled place: a fear-wracked time:

Unvisited, it seems, unblessed, unmoved
By him who makes all dead life live anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

An Advent Sonnet (third draft)

Pale leaves cling fast to the wind-battered tree;
The autumn-craving flesh is deeply thrilled!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling its feeble light upon the world.

The noise of cackling crows pierces the cold,
Presaging winter's nights of snow and ice:
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice.

Some souls there are who watch, grace-parched, light-starved,
For love's long-prophesied nativity
In a stone-hard, bone-chilled place: a fear-wracked time:

Unvisited, it seems, unblessed, unmoved
By him who makes all dead life live anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

Boobyhatch practice

Every once in a while, I practice for the mental hospital. I hope and pray that my days of hospitalizations are long since over and done with, but one never knows.

So I practice my answers to questions like, "Who is the President of the United States?" If I am ever hospitalized while the current occupant of the White House is in power, I shall say, "I slept through the last election. Did anything interesting happen?" Or I shall begin my rapid-fire recitation of the most recent presidents, backwards, for the span of one century:

obamabushclintonbushreagan.
carterfordnixon.
johnsonkennedyike.
harrytrumanfdr.
hoovercoolidgehardingwilsontaft.

Or, my answer to the other perennial question, "Can you count backwards from 100 by sevens?"

My answer will be in Italian: "Cento, novantatre, ottantasei, settantanove, settantadue, sessantacinque, cinquantotto, cinquantuno ..." Et cetera.

In the spring of, I think it was 2000, I was being examined for a possible hospitalization by a German woman doctor (Dr Eva Something-beginning-with-G) at New England Medical Center, and was asked, among other things, to "please write a sentence." The sentence I came up with was: "George Carey is the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury." The doctor's eyes widened slightly while reading that relatively simple but grammatically perfect gem.  I was not hospitalized on that occasion!

But believe it or not, I practice my answers to boobyhatch questions. Which in and of itself is probably insane.

Dr Rowan Williams is the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury.

An Advent Sonnet (second draft)

Pale leaves cling fast to the wind-battered tree;
The autumn-craving flesh is deeply thrilled!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling its feeble light upon the world.

The noise of cackling crows pierces the cold,
Presaging winter's nights of snow and ice:
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice.

Some souls there are who watch for signs of grace,
Expecting love's fabled nativity
In a chilly and unfavorable place

Apparently unvisited by Him
Who makes all dying life rejoice anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

An Advent Sonnet (early draft)

(Dear Reader or Readers:  Be politely unsparing!  There's something not-quite-right about this poem, I suspect, but am standing too close to it to know precisely what it is.  It was, I should note, written just for practice' sake.)

Bleak leaves cling fast to the wind-battered tree;
This autumn weather thrills the sin-sick soul.
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling its feeble light upon the world.

The cackle of the crows pierces the cold
Presaging winter's stoic days (snow; ice;
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice).

And yet some souls there are who watch for grace,
Expecting love's fabled nativity
In a chilly and unfavorable place

Apparently unvisited by Him
Who makes all dying life rejoice anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

Heather Greywolf answers my haiku

(i)


Perhaps it said "and ..."
Because it wanted to know
What would happen next!


(ii)


Leaves falling on me
Glad it is not the squirrels
They are heavier

Two quasi-haiku-type poems

(i)

Thrown on the bed,
why is my belt
an ampersand?


(ii)

Aw, sweet! --
straight outta Cummings,
"a leaf falls ..."