WAYS OF CULTIVATING KNOWLEDGE

Scholars esteem knowledge not for its use in attaining other values, but as a value in itself. —Max Eastman, author & poet

Know.
Weigh.
Hoe.
Say.

 

REAR ENDED

In order to have great art, you must have great audiences.
—Walt Whitman

Good luck with that
because you can lead
a bore to culture
but you can’t make
a silk purse out
of a sow’s rear.

 

ODE TO A TOAD

Me thinks me heard a splash
Hard by yon lily pad;
Me thinks me saw a toad or frog
(Or was it a crawdad?).

Who told that toad to shake a leg
Or seek a change of venue?
Never, ever, would I put toad
Or frog legs on my menu.

Verily, I am but
A harmless nature lover.
When I am nigh, or passing by, why
Must they always jump for cover?

What bound fools we mortals be
Who cling in spring to mother earth,
When we might swim or fly away
To live ‘nother day for what it’s worth.

So hear ye, fellow slow pokes
Such as tortoises and snails,
Let us sing a song to our friends
Long gone….so long, and Happy Trails.

 

 

MORE NONSENSE

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
–Old English nursery rhyme

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Doesn’t it seem odd that Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water? A water well is seldom found on top a hill, and streams flow downhill, so why climb uphill for water which could be fetched below with far less effort? It seems that the English had a penchant for verse that makes little sense, as epitomized by 19th Century nonsense-verse masters Lewis Carroll, W. S. Gilbert and the subject of my May 12 post, Edward Lear.

Well, what’s good enough for those three
is more than good enough for me,
so for the third or more post in a row,
with nonsense verse I shall go:

JOE & WILL AND JACK & JILL

Hello, Joe! Whatta you know?
Hello, Will! I don’t know Jack. Whatta you know?
I know Jack. Do you know Jill?
Jack and Jill from up the hill?
I thought you said you don’t know Jack.
I don’t know Jack; I know Jack and Jill.

Say what…you will: if you know Jill, you know Jack.
Say what? You Will. I Joe. I mean, I’m Joe. Just so you know.
I know you Joe! Now back to Jack…
I don’t know Jack. Why bring up Jill ?
So ends our tale of woe, and of Joe & Will
Who don’t know Jack and never will.

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE POETRY

Fellow writers,
I implore us —
It’s time that we be
More decorous.

I don’t mean to
Be a censor,
But we must be
Less intense, or

Readers will grow
Tired of us an’
Then we really
Will be cussin’ —

So, forego frickin’
Words that shame us,
And stop being an effin’
Ignoramus.

LOST SOCK MEMORIAL DAY

May 9 is LOST SOCK MEMORIAL DAY — the day we commemorate an inevitability we can all relate to: the sock you can’t find a mate to. You can search the floors and rummage through your drawers, but….well, let’s face it. It’s the dreaded….

CASE OF THE MISSING SOCK

Ozone hole, black hole,
Mysterious holes in space —
As a whole, no hole can match
The Great Sock Missing Case.

I faithfully put
Pairs of socks in the laundry —
How one of those pairs comes out
One-half pair is a quandary.

I look here and there….
I look everywhere —
Needless to say, there’s no trace.
One sock gone is weird —
Man, it just disappeared….
I mean, like it ain’t no place!

If it’s happened once,
It’s happened a bunch;
I wish I had the answer —
If only to post
It was spirited by the ghost
Of a dispirited one-legged dancer.

Whatever’s to blame,
Each theory seems defective;
It’s time to size up
The whole thing like a detective.

So, since we never lose
Underwear, shirt or blouse,
Logic says there must be
A socklifter in our house.

 

JUDGMENT DAY

OK, April 28 technically isn’t Judgment Day — it’s GREAT POETRY READING DAY. Whether it’s a day for reading great poetry, as opposed to a great day for reading poetry, I hesitate to say. In any case, I’m writing it, not reading it, so you be the poem’s judge (keeping in mind, I might add, that I live on a two-way street in the city of Recipro — should you ever find yourself in need of Reciprocity of the unsolicited praise kind):

IS THIS GREAT POETRY, OR WHAT?

The power of suggestion
Is that it begs the question.

 

IT’S A 3 M BIRTHDAY

I know how to spell your name, it’s true….
But I’m not sure how you pronounce you.
‘Tis a rhyming challenge with needs phonemic
To offer birthday wishes free of seeds polemic.
So I thought I would try a phonetic 3-way
And hope you’ll cede me a soupcon of leeway:

Happy birthday to my blog friend, Michaeline,
Whose age sets the stage, with old vintage wine,
For a toast to that well-traveled Ms Michelin,
Who retired ere tires were invented, way back when.
And last, but not deceased, I salud! Micheleen,
Whose birth day was a feast day on this day in 1915.

Be thee 100 years (less or more),
May there be another 100 in store.

GO FIGURE

Did you ever notice that when you put the words “THE” and “IRS” together, it spells THEIRS? -Anonymous

It’s April 15th — tax day in America. If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to reward Uncle Sam for the fruits of your labor — even if you claim you hate your job (sour grapes are nonetheless taxable).

In this country, the job of collecting donations to the federal government falls to the IRS — AKA the Infernal Revenue Service. In years past, I (like many other nightmare-lovers) have often opted to procrastinate up to the last day to prepare my tax return. Not so this year — as you will see when I relate a brief but curious conversation I had this morning with my neighbor, Max, over the backyard fence:

“Hello, Muse!”
“Good morning, Max.”
“Have you done
your income tax?”
“Taxing though
it be to say,
know I did
it yesterday.”
“Did you take
your deductions?”
“I deduced
for reductions.”
“Four reduced?
I laud your feat!”
“I took off
both hands and feet.”
“That’s the way
to keep ahead!”
“Yes, I used
my limbs in stead.”
“Instead of
head? Way to go!”
That’s the way
to save some dough!”
“Have you done
your income tax?”
“Good day, Muse.”
“Good morning, Max.”

LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT….

April 11 is Barbershop Quartet Day, a subject about which I wrote a notable and (if I do say so myself) astonishingly brilliant post a few years ago on another site. Un-four-tunately, said post is no longer to be found, so today, I was considering trying to rewrite it as best I could….but, then I thought that even thinking about trying to replicate so lovingly inspired a piece is too painful. It’s like, alas, the flame has fleed, love’s labor’s lost, and that is that. So let’s not talk about….

OK, then, what else should we not talk about, you ask? This post must not be something about nothing.  As a matter of non-fact, nothing is something — the only thing — I’m in the mood to talk about. So, with apologies to Cole Porter,

Let’s not talk about this,
And let’s not talk about that.
If talk starts to leak from our head,
Let’s keep it under our hat.

And if we run out
Of things not to say,
Let’s not talk about
Not talking today.

Above all, let’s not talk
About high-minded things
Like art and philosophy
And celebrity flings.

For silence is golden —
At least, so they say….
But when they say it,
The gold they must pay.

So let’s not talk about this,
And let’s not talk about that.
Let Lithuanians and Letts do it —
Let’s fall in love….but don’t chat.