A Crocodile

Brendan Wenzel

A Crocodile




Hard by the lilied Nile I saw

 A duskish river-dragon stretched along, 

The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled 

With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl: 

And on his back there lay a young one sleeping, 

No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads, 

And a small fragment of its speckled egg 

Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout; 

A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch 

The baulking merry flies. In the iron jaws 

Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul 

Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew 

A snowy trochilus, with roseate beak 

Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin

Here's an example of a poet in full, exuberant vocabulary display .
Beddoes opens up a peacock fan of a poem - "brown habergeon" = a sleeveless coat
of mail or scale armor, "sanguine almandines" = blood-red coloured gemstones, "rainy pearl" = we all know what this means, but what a description! Rainy? Pearl like a liquid! I had to look all these words up, and that's exactly what I like. New-to-me words, toothsome mouth-full, potent words, words that give you something to chew over. 

And tell me how often you come across a phrase like "baulking merry flies"? What an image! They do seem merry, dancing and dipping and hovering hopefully. Or that wonderful "like a pale soul fluttering in rocky hell", gosh if I don't have an illustration by Edward Gorey appear in my head when I read that. A "snowy trochilus" is a kind of hummingbird, apparently. And "hairy leeches"? Good grief. What a fulsome poem.  

 

Somebody Else

Jan Mankes

Somebody Else

If I was not myself, I would be somebody else.

But actually I am somebody else.

I have been somebody else all my life.

It’s no laughing matter going about the place

all the time being somebody else:

people mistake you; you mistake yourself

Jackie Kay

“I have been somebody else all my life.” At first this poem sounds like clever talk in a light tone, easily read and dismissed. If it weren't something I think about a lot anyway, I might have smiled and turned the page. But it so happens that curiosity about what it would be like to be someone else, or the question of what a particular individual is made of, is universal. We all wonder. Rimbaud's poem from "Childhood" shows different characters, as if we slip from one role to another, depending on our circumstances. Derek Mahon in "Heraclitus on Rivers" questions whether we can even think of ourselves the same being that initially came into the world, considering how many times our cells have died and renewed themselves, and that our physical bodies are constantly changing. "You are no longer you." he says. May Sarton ("I Now Become Myself"), writes of being as a ongoing "gathering" rather than losing or moving. "All fuses now, falls into place." Jackie Kay's "Somebody Else" makes a lot of sense to me. Aren't we all strangers to ourselves? The people we think we are (if we think about it at all), may look very different from the outside, to others. And what about those moments when, looking in the mirror, we see someone we've never seen before? No, I do not know myself. It turns out, all this time, I've been somebody else. 






 
 

Slug

Rosetsu Nagasawa

Slug

How I loved one like you when I was little! -

With his stripes of silver and his small house on his back,

Making a slow journey around the well-curb.

I longed to be like him, and was,

In my way, close cousin

To the dirt, my knees scrubbing

The gravel, my nose wetter than his.

When I slip, just slightly, in the dark,

I know it isn't a wet leaf,

But you, loose toe from the old life,

The cold slime come into being.

A fat, five-inch appendage

Creeping slowly over the wet grass,

Eating the heart out of my garden.

And you refuse to die decently! - 

Flying upward through the knives of my lawnmower

Like pieces of smoked eel or raw oyster,

And I go faster in my rage to get done with it,

Until I'm scraping and scratching at you, on the doormat,

The small dead pieces sticking under an instep;

Or, poisoned, dragging a white skein of spittle over a path -

Beautiful, in its way, like quicksilver -

You shrink to something less,

A rain-drenched fly or spider.

I'm sure I've been a toad, one time or another.

With bats, weasels, worms - I rejoice in the kinship.

Even the caterpillar I can love, and the various vermin.

But as for you, most odious -

Would Blake call you holy?

Theodore Roethke 

My hunt for a slug poem has not been very successful. Pablo Neruda didn't get to the humble slug, it seems, or I've missed it somehow. For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to write one myself. Well, Roethke does pretty well, although I was hoping for more of a hymn. I like slugs, strangely. They impress me. You know, they glisten - and my gosh, what IS that stuff they make to slide on? The poem is right - they make silver trails. As a child I remember summer mornings when the sun shone at just the right angle on the doorstep to reveal a map of the slug's night-wanderings. I wondered where they got off to. Turns out, not far away - right under the doormat. A congregation of them right underfoot. (What would that be called? A slew of slugs? No way! I looked it up. A group of slugs is called a "cornucopia"! How very odd!) But now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, I get to see the primo slugs - Banana and Leopard - glorious slugs, if you appreciate that sort of thing. Very large, and royal in their procession. Nonetheless, and this is why I (reluctantly) decided to add Roethke's poem to the scrapbook (in spite of that gaff about the "small house on his back" - does he not know the difference between a slug and a snail?), because as much as I admire them, they eat my iris leaves, and this is not to be borne. Something has to be done. And it's not nice. Hence, this poem seems very true to life. (Even though I consider slugs holy.)

This Poem

Unknown

This Poem

This poem is dangerous: it should not be left

Within the reach of children, or even of adults

Who might swallow it whole, with possibly

Undesirable side-effects. If you come across

An unattended, unidentified poem

In a public place, do not attempt to tackle it

Yourself. Send it (preferably, in a sealed container)

To the nearest centre of learning, where it will be rendered

Harmless, by experts. Even the simplest poem

May destroy your immunity to human emotions.

All poems must carry a Government warning. Words

Can seriously affect your heart.

Elma Mitchell


Just for fun.

 

 

For Our Children

Albert Edelfelt

For Our Children

Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying;
We are praying for our children.

Keep them from the powers of evil,
From the secret, hidden peril;
Father, hear us for our children.

From the whirlpool that would suck them,
From the treacherous quicksand, pluck them;
Father, hear us for our children.

From the worldling’s hollow gladness,
From the sting of faithless sadness,
Father, Father, keep our children.

Through life’s troubles waters steer them;
Through  life’s bitter battle cheer them;
Father, Father, be Thou near them.

Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleadings thronging,
Holy Father, for our children.

And wherever they may bide,
Lead them Home at eventide.

      Amy Carmichael 

A hard day. Too often, as a parent, I don't know what to do or think. I'm in that place again. I'm heartsick for my boy. What is happening? There are too many questions without answers. What can I do to help him when I don't even understand what's happening?  Fear, fear, fear - sometimes it floods me and carries me away with it. I know better. I know better. But it's got it's grip on me. God help me. God help him. God help us all. "Read the language of our longing."