war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
Isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that
i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
Jim, have you read ee cummings’s book, “The Enormous Room”?
When I was a youth I read his poems kind of as a goof – I liked the wackiness, the looks of them, which, of course, was one of the things that he wanted you to see. I don’t like poetry in general, especially modern stuff, but I do like ee. Two things have given me a great deal of respect for him. One is the Enormous Room. I suspect it might be called a “memoir” these days, but it was somewhere between autobiography and novelization of his experiences as an ambulance driver during WW I. The poem above is much more powerful once you’ve read the book. The other is something my brother-in-law told me, which is (y’all remember I’m a science geek; this might be obvious to everyone but a 15-year-old me) that he was writing when the typewriter was new. So a lot of the construction of his poems, with all the parentheses and punctuation marks, was experimentation with the typewriter. Which evidently not many other poets, at least anyone we’ve read in the last 50 years, was doing.
Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heilster-gowdie owre the bay
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Thro the Great Glen o the warld the day
It’s a thocht that wad gar oor rottans
Aa thae rogues that gang gallus fresh an gay
Tak the road an seek ither loanins
Wi thair ill-ploys tae sport an play
Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pitheid an clachan
Mourn the ships sailin doun the Broomielaw
Broken faimlies in lands we’ve hairriet
Will curse ‘Scotlan the Brave’ nae mair, nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o thair maisters bare
Sae come aa ye at hame wi freedom
Never heed whit the houdies croak for Doom
In yer hoos aa the bairns o Adam
Will find breid, barley-bree an paintit rooms
When Maclean meets wi’s friens in Springburn
Aa thae roses an geans will turn tae blume
An the black lad frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers doun.
Like several of Henderson’s poems, this was originally written as a song. It’s sung to the tune of “The Bloody Fields of Flanders.” Clarification (I’m not certain translation is exactly the right term) of some of the language can be found at the bottom of this page:
There was an old man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
His daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And, as for the bucket, Nantucket.
Daffodils are poets
Who love only themselves
Indeed they are toxic
To anyone else.
Galanthamine and lycorine
Can knock you
Down dead
So daffodils are better
Left in the compost
Instead
A fly and a flea in a flue,
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
“Let us flee said the fly”
“Let us fly said the flea”
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
Two Cape Cod (Massachusetts) flavored items (original):
(Best read with a thick Cape Cawd accent. In said dialect, the rhyme is best)
A Lobsterman hailin’ from Bourne
While peacefully mowin’ his lawn
Ran over a rock
And ignited a spark
And now that Cape Codder is gone
A farmer who settled in Brewster
Got tangled while wrangling his rooster
Suffice it to say
That beginning that day
He can’t handle his cock like he used ta’
