For Rick
If you want to say it,
say it--
don't rhyme it or sing it
or play it
straightforward, clean
say what you mean.
No waste, no excess
no gingerbread or mess.
Just power and speed,
form fitting need.
But if the need is not
brain to brain but heart to heart?
Does beauty have to be
leather upholstery,
steel, aluminum and chro-em?
Can't the form be a poem?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
HUMOROUS POEM: Sleeping Beauty: Silver anniversary
What happened to my Prince Charming
Who swept me up on his horse?
He's middle-aged, overweight, balding,
He has bad breath and he snorse.
Who swept me up on his horse?
He's middle-aged, overweight, balding,
He has bad breath and he snorse.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
SONG: The Banana Slug Song
CALIFORNIA STATE MOLLUSK?
BANANA SLUG SONG
The banana slug
is the slug for me.
He's what every mollusk
wishes he could be.
I love him.
I can hardly stand
to touch the creature
with my hand.
Nothing's quite as ug-
ly as banana slug.
In March, 1988 the boys and girls of a Campfire club in Redwood City, mostly 8-year-olds, were studying government and natural resources. California already had an official reptile (desert tortoise), an official insect (California dog-face butterfly), and an official rock (serpentine). They wanted to sponsor legislation declaring the banana slug official state mollusk.
The children did not choose the slug lightly. They argued that the banana slug is a protector of vulnerable seedlings in coastal redwood forests, a hungry consumer of poison oak and decaying leaves Its droppings help fertilize the forest.
Assemblyman Byron Sher sponsored AB3007 and the state legislature passed the bill 42-30. But the Senate shot it down 18-3. "Banana Slug Squashed as State Mollusk," read the Los Angeles Times on May 30.
Some senators complained that such bills trivialize the legislative process. One of them said, "This is one of those items that makes you wonder why we are here. It's embarrassing." Others argued for the red abalone instead. Another called the slug "repulsive." He added, "Those things are not only not edible, but they are horrible. I understand they are so salty they can't be used for anything."
Googling banana slug just now, 22 years later, I found sites that say the bill passed Assembly and Senate only to be vetoed by the governor and I found sites that claim it is the state mollusk. But as far as I know, the only time it reached the Senate, the bill failed and to date, the position of official mollusk for the state of California has not been filled.
I say if we can have an official rock, we can have an official mollusk. And I don't see what tasting horrible has to do with it. Since when do we determine our state flower, reptile, insect or rock on the basis of taste? Since when do we eat our state bird? Why would we eat our state mollusk?
Photo by Greg Bodi via Wikimedia Commons.
Song by Jessica Shaver, to be sung to theme song from The Pajama Game
The banana slug
is the slug for me.
He's what every mollusk
wishes he could be.
I love him.
I can hardly stand
to touch the creature
with my hand.
Nothing's quite as ug-
ly as banana slug.
In March, 1988 the boys and girls of a Campfire club in Redwood City, mostly 8-year-olds, were studying government and natural resources. California already had an official reptile (desert tortoise), an official insect (California dog-face butterfly), and an official rock (serpentine). They wanted to sponsor legislation declaring the banana slug official state mollusk.
The children did not choose the slug lightly. They argued that the banana slug is a protector of vulnerable seedlings in coastal redwood forests, a hungry consumer of poison oak and decaying leaves Its droppings help fertilize the forest.
Assemblyman Byron Sher sponsored AB3007 and the state legislature passed the bill 42-30. But the Senate shot it down 18-3. "Banana Slug Squashed as State Mollusk," read the Los Angeles Times on May 30.
Some senators complained that such bills trivialize the legislative process. One of them said, "This is one of those items that makes you wonder why we are here. It's embarrassing." Others argued for the red abalone instead. Another called the slug "repulsive." He added, "Those things are not only not edible, but they are horrible. I understand they are so salty they can't be used for anything."
Googling banana slug just now, 22 years later, I found sites that say the bill passed Assembly and Senate only to be vetoed by the governor and I found sites that claim it is the state mollusk. But as far as I know, the only time it reached the Senate, the bill failed and to date, the position of official mollusk for the state of California has not been filled.
I say if we can have an official rock, we can have an official mollusk. And I don't see what tasting horrible has to do with it. Since when do we determine our state flower, reptile, insect or rock on the basis of taste? Since when do we eat our state bird? Why would we eat our state mollusk?
Photo by Greg Bodi via Wikimedia Commons.
Song by Jessica Shaver, to be sung to theme song from The Pajama Game
Monday, June 14, 2010
POEM: Sonnet Boom
("Nuns fret not" meets "The Windhover")
The mighty Wordsworth, like Prometheus bound
Who mortal man with fire did illume
Served time so long within his narrow room--
His sonnet's scant, tho' fecund, plot of ground--
That in its very narrowness he found
The tranquil recollection of the womb
Nor ventured out, conditioned to assume
Its walls his rhyme and rhythm must surround.
Thus, surely at his window he'd have stood
In disapproving wonder at the whim-
blown Hopkins, who had gall enough to skim
toward reaches Wordsworth wouldn't if he could:
wrestling wind, loving the freedom, finding it good
and teasing staid stanzas out to soar with him.
(Published in Inklings, Summer, 1994)
The mighty Wordsworth, like Prometheus bound
Who mortal man with fire did illume
Served time so long within his narrow room--
His sonnet's scant, tho' fecund, plot of ground--
That in its very narrowness he found
The tranquil recollection of the womb
Nor ventured out, conditioned to assume
Its walls his rhyme and rhythm must surround.
Thus, surely at his window he'd have stood
In disapproving wonder at the whim-
blown Hopkins, who had gall enough to skim
toward reaches Wordsworth wouldn't if he could:
wrestling wind, loving the freedom, finding it good
and teasing staid stanzas out to soar with him.
(Published in Inklings, Summer, 1994)
POEM: Post-Enlightenment Enlightenment
Back
from the edge I cringed,
back from the abyss to which
the existentialists
inexorably led--
crawled
unsteadily instead
into Christ's sense
to catch my breath
and balance
and be fed.
Today
I ventured forth to view
how far we've come
since Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus
only to find
semesters out of mind
They're still waiting for Godot.
(Published in Inklings, Summer, 1994)
from the edge I cringed,
back from the abyss to which
the existentialists
inexorably led--
crawled
unsteadily instead
into Christ's sense
to catch my breath
and balance
and be fed.
Today
I ventured forth to view
how far we've come
since Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus
only to find
semesters out of mind
They're still waiting for Godot.
(Published in Inklings, Summer, 1994)
Sunday, June 13, 2010
POEMS: The Trembling
No words, no thoughts, no sonnets come.
My heart a hummingbird in flight
Does quiver, hesitate and hum
Between the pains of past, grown numb,
And distant yearnings out of sight.
Let down your wings, O heart, and cease
Your trembling fear to trust His vow.
Your Lord has promised to increase
Your joy, supply His precious peace
Not sometime, future tense, but now.
(Published in Time of Singing, February, 1990)
My heart a hummingbird in flight
Does quiver, hesitate and hum
Between the pains of past, grown numb,
And distant yearnings out of sight.
Let down your wings, O heart, and cease
Your trembling fear to trust His vow.
Your Lord has promised to increase
Your joy, supply His precious peace
Not sometime, future tense, but now.
(Published in Time of Singing, February, 1990)
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