POETRY MAN

Back in the long-ago of 1967, I was a 6th-Grader at Lassalette Elementary in La Puente, California.  A few times during the year, our class had opportunities to order youth-oriented paperback books from a service called the Scholastic Book Club. 

There were lots of titles to choose from, but I bought only one book that year. It was a book of poetry, first published in 1966, titled 'Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle... and Other Modern Verse' (Dunning/Lueders/Smith). I think I paid thirty-five cents for it. 

I didn't know this book was an award-winning anthology, or that it presented modern poetry in a way that would appeal to the young, or that it would become a classic and widely used in high-school curriculums. It just looked interesting.

I literally inhaled the book. It changed the way I looked at the world, and fundamentally changed me. I even memorized a couple of the poems, and can still recite them at the drop of a hat.

This part Christmas, The Artist gifted me with a beautiful hard-bound edition of 'Reflections', and I've now read it several times. I'm finding great pleasure in leafing though the pages and reading a poem out loud.

Here are several favorites from this singular book. They still move me in ways that I could not have expected, just like they did when I was in 6th Grade.

How to Eat a Poem  (Eve Merriam)

Don’t be polite.

Bite In.

Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that

may run down your chin.

It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.

You do not need a knife or fork or spoon

or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

For there is no core

or stem

or rind

or pit

or seed

or skin

to throw away.

Why Nobody Pets the Lion at the Zoo  (John Ciardi)

The morning that the world began

The Lion growled a growl at Man.

And I suspect the Lion might

(if he’d been closer) have tried a bite.

I think that’s as it ought to be

And not as it was taught to me.

I think the Lion has a right

To growl a growl and bite a bite.

And if the Lion bothered Adam,

He should have growled back at ‘im.

The way to treat a Lion right

Is growl for growl and bite for bite.

True, the Lion is better fit

For biting than for being bit.

But if you look him in the eye

You’ll find the Lion’s rather shy.

He really wants someone to pet him.

The trouble is: his teeth won’t let him.

He has a heart of gold beneath

But the Lion just can’t trust his teeth.

August from My Desk  (Roland Flint)

It is hot today, dry enough for cutting grain,

and I am drifting back to North Dakota

where butterflies are all gone brown with wheat dust.

And where some boy,

red-faced, sweating, chafed,

too young to be dying this way

steers a laborious, self-propelled combine,

and dreams of cities, and blizzards –

and airplanes.

With the white silk scarf of his sleeve

he shines and shines his goggles,

he checks his meters, checks his flaps,

screams contact at his dreamless father,

and, engines roaring,

he pulls back the stick

and hurtles into the sun.

Resume’  (Dorothy Parker)

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Ancient History  (Arthur Guiterman)

I hope the old Romans

Had painful abdomens.

I hope that the Greeks

Had toothache for weeks.

I hope the Egyptians

Had chronic conniptions

I hope that the Arabs

Were bitten by scarabs.

I hope that the Vandals

Had thorns in their sandals.

I hope that the Persians

Had gout in all versions.

I hope that the Medes

Were kicked by their steeds.

They started the fuss

And left it to us!

War  (Dan Roth)

Dawn came slowly,

almost not at all.

The sun crept over the hill

cautiously

fearful of being hit

by mortar fire.

Too Blue  (Langston Hughes)

I got those sad old weary blues.

I don’t know where to turn.

I don’t know where to go.

Nobody cares about you

When you sink so low.

What shall I do?

What shall I say?

Shall I take a gun and

Put myself away?

I wonder if

One bullet would do?

Hard as my head is,

It would probably take two.

But I ain’t got

Neither bullet nor gun –

And I’m too blue

To look for one.

The Garden Hose  (Beatrice Janosco)

In the gray evening

I see a long serpent

With its tail in the dahlias.

It lies in loops across the grass

And drinks softly at the faucet.

I can hear it swallow.

For a Dead Kitten  (Sara Henderson Hay)

Put the rubber mouse away,

Pick the spools up from the floor,

What was velvet-shod, and gay,

Will not want them any more.

What was warm, is strangely cold.

Whence dissolved the little breath?

How could this small body hold

So immense a thing as death?

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from 

a Friend Called Felicity  (John Tobias)

During that summer

When unicorns were still possible;

When the purpose of knees

Was to be skinned;

When shiny horse chestnuts

    (Hollowed out

     Fitted with straws

     Crammed with tobacco

     Stolen from butts

     In family ashtrays)

Were puffed in green lizard silence

While straddling thick branches

Far above and away

From the softening effects

Of civilization

During that summer –

Which may never have been at all;

But which has become more real

Than the one that was –

Watermelons ruled.

Thick pink imperial slices

Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues

Dribbling from chins;

Leaving the best part,

The black bullet seeds,

To be spit out in rapid fire

Against the wall

Against the wind

Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,

There was always another bite;

It was a summer of limitless bites,

Of hungers quickly felt

And quickly forgotten

With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.

Each one is savored lingeringly,

Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,

That summer that maybe never was

Has been captured and preserved.

And when we unscrew the lid

And slice off a piece

And let it linger on our tongue:

Unicorns become possible again.

Lead image courtesy of the Writer; 'Reflections cover, gracias de Google Images; Phoebe Snow 'Poetry Man' video, muchisimas gracias de YouTube; THANK YOU, KIM!!!!