Three Odd Poems for August

 

The Calumny of the Crickets

Here they are, the most learned silverfish in the country, swarm

After swarm, through boxes of old lecture notes, offprints

And printouts, even pencil-scribbled pages,

Smudge-typed essays and reports: oh, the harm

These creatures could have done, leaving only hints

Of what they thought of all my ideas, these sages

Of the insect world. Unlike the crickets who ignored

What I said cogently and wittily all those years ago,

Or the reviewers who seem to have stopped about two

Pages into the introduction, and unsheathed the sword

Of calumny, and slashed away in vain. Another wrote:

His three year old daughter in the tub couldn’t follow

My argument, and thus his philosophical critique

Was splattered out into the world—nothing ever so hollow:

Except the profound professor who, sleeping under a rick,

Sent in his review on somebody else’s book

Which he also didn’t like. In dreams I grabbed their throat.

But now nearly a century later, it is the swish-swish

Of these miniscule invaders I would like to wish

   A hearty future in the heaven of intellectuals—

   Better than the empty hell of ineffectuals.

 

 

Without Rhyme or Reason, a Sonnet

It was the fairies that he wrote of, dreamed

about, believed in, though they were

mere sounds in his head—it all seemed

Like a vision inside a vision. More blur

than distinction of wishes, these shades

in the misty atmosphere,  hallu-

cinations, dizzy spells, and blades

of powerful agency, that cut in two

the regions of his brain. The link

between reality and imagination

was broken, and there on the brink

of an enormous abyss, the sun

exploded into blinding fear and deaf-

ening silence: and swept him, like a leaf,

into the misery of a hopeless self.

 

 

 

 

To the Magpie in our Garden

Handsome you are, you imposing creature,

Black speckled feathers, coal-black face,

Down you came from the Tui’s tree, cock-sure

Of yourself and larger than sparrows and doves: I chase

You off with a sharp bow-wow, and off you go,

Dignity deflated, back to your mate and your brood.

This restaurant is not for you. Though the cats show

They will not spring or lurk, and turn you into food,

This yard is never safe for the likes of you,

For I am here, protean and ironic, with seeds

And crumbs for all the other feathery tribe. So true

To my duty, with my noxious barking, your needs

Are not my concern. Go down the road across the river

And find some other nests to pillage—and come back never!