POEMS LIGHT VERSE
LAUGHS ETC.

If you write in perfect rhyme, you'll likely have a worthless time...





"The Western Beer"
Oh western beer
Where hast thou gone?
Your passing brings a tear
Christ that I'd bought another can
From the Circle K cashier


BIRD POEMS AND SOME OTHER SILLY POEMS

"Your poem strikes me as minor the way most humorous poems are." Judson McGehee referring to a poem I wrote.
https://flagartscouncil.org/2016/01/judson-mcgehee-clear-creek/

I fondly remember all of the classes I took with you. I'm sure you don't remember me, but I remember you. I still have the many poems and stories I wrote for your classes and look back upon those days with happiness. I remember once John Dalmas, who wrote the Yngling and now a zillion other novels, came into your office. I am friends with him on Facebook. He left his newest book for you to look at. He was somewhat reluctant because in those days xerox machines were new and copies expensive. I assume he had nothing but the original typewriter version. Many thanks to you for all the college memories.

Tom Cole


Judson McGeehee.jpg

poetry:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
The Pig
A public domain poem that Hitchens liked to recite
It was the first of May
A lovely warm spring day
I was strolling down the street in drunken pride,
But my knees were all a-flutter,
And I landed in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Yes, I lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts I could not utter
When a lady passing by did softly say
"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.


TOM COLE DECEMBER 5, 20219: When I was a child my sisters were singing a song. I tried to get them to sing it to me and they said I wouldn't understand it. They sang. I couldn't understand it. Now, I do. And it's great!

Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Itsy bitsy dirty birdie feet
Pale pink piles of putrefied opossum pus
And I forgot my spoon.
<center>






John Dalmas.png
Author of The Yngling


If at first you don't succeed shortened.png
Thomas H. Palmer

March 30, 2021

Broken Glass Poem.jpg
IT HAPPENED AGAIN. GOT SIX OF THESE WITH WENDY ON MY 50TH BIRTHDAY AND I ONLY HAVE THREE LEFT! 20 YEARS!

glass broken beer glass April 14, 2021.jpg
Today the sky shines none too bright
Nor is the sun so blue
Last night I broke my wuddle gwass
Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be
Will what became of gwassy gwass
Be what becomes of me?

Hoy el cielo no brilla más
Ni el sol amaneció
Quebré mi querido vaso
Y lloro lloro yo
Fue un vistazo horrible
Pero era lo que vi
¿Lo que le pasó a mi vaso
Me pasará a mí?


Today the sky shines none too bright
Nor is the sun so blue
Last night I broke my wuddle gwass
Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be
Will what became of gwassy gwass
Be what becomes of me?

Hoy el cielo no brilla más
Ni el sol amaneció
Quebré mi querido vaso
Y lloro lloro yo
Fue un vistazo horrible
Pero era lo que vi
¿Lo que le pasó a mi vaso
Me pasará a mí?


Mistaking a bench for a coyote.jpg

l
Hat Rack Poem.jpg
Click the Picture to Read the Poem
HOME

TEST:  HERE'S é ü ¡ ¿
INDIANA SENATOR
Here''s to the American eagle
That noble old bird of prey
He nests in Indiana
And shits in IOWAY!

IOWAN SENATOR
Here's to the state of Iowa
Whose soil is so fertile and rich
We don't need the turd of your noble bird
You dirty son of a bitch!

I'M WORKING ON THIS ONE:
The season of treason may breeze in
seizin', not pleasin'
One sees in
How I squeeze in,
knees in 

I'm Freezin'
for a reason

and this one
THE ONION SKIN
by Tom Cole

I sit and stare at the onion skin
Then it begins
To wear me thin
OR BETTER:
I'll sit and stare at an onion skin
Until it's begun to wear me thin

October 20, 2021

In folklore it's said that a guy owned a collie
That he sent to the store
To buy a tamale.

THE EARLY BEER
I think I'll drink
an early beer
that surely, dear,
will bring me cheer


THE LITTLE KITTY
by Steve Cole
I love the Little Kitty

I love the little kitty
I love the little cat
I love his little raincoat
I love his little hat

I hope that little kitty
Watches out for cars and trucks
The last time he was injured
It cost me fifty bucks

Oh, puddy at the fishbowl
Puddy on my knee
Puddy at the garbage can
Puddy up a tree

I love the little kitty
He is so very nice
When I brought him to the city
He had ticks and fleas and lice

Oh, puddy at the opera
Puddy at the scene
Puddy at the wheel
Of the Mississippi Queen

Kitty used to be so bold
We used to call him studs
But then we took him to the vet
To have them nip his buds

Oh, puddy on an island
Puddy on a reef
Puddy at a hospital
Extracting people's teeth

Last night there was a meeting
Of the bird society
The tiny little kitty
Sat upon my knee
Alas, err long
I wished him gone
I told him then to scat
He came back in a jiffy
With a yellow-breasted chat

Oh, puddy with a bible
Puddy on crusade
Puddy with a shotgun
Puddy with a blade

See the little kitty
lying on the couch
he is so bright and witty
he's never been a slouch.

Oh puddy with a saxophone
playing in a band
puddy in the cat box
scratchin' in the sand.


After my Booster Shot

welt.jpg
I.
To my surprise
My hives
Have lost their lives!
The demise of my hives
Was like the dying of flies!
II.
Helter skelter my welts sought shelter
Leaving not even their pelts to swelter!
III.
To the nether regions
Went legions of lesions!
THE END


ROBERT FROST
Good-by and Keep Cold.jpg


NOVEMBER 1962
You ought to see me chop a tree
Because it always falls on me
Christmas season every year
I bump my head and scratch my ear
The living room's the place it's put
It falls again and hits my foot.
The rhythm drops out when I try to add something from the Beverly Hillbillies (the tadpole part) and then when I steal from a classmate who wrote--If you were in East Berlin, you'd jump into a storage bin. I would have been better doing all original work.


Christmas Essay Mrs. Wells.jpg



MONKEY ISLAND
by Steve Cole

I took the little pigeons
far from where they cooed
Now they live on Monkey Island
eatin' monkey food.

At first the pigeons were upset
they thought they had been screwed
But it wasn't long before they learned
to eat dat monkey food.

The monkeys there are so polite
they're never vile or crude
they treat the pigeons just like guests
what eat that monkey food.

The rhino bayed
The gibbon shreiked
The giraffes all stood and mooed
The pidgies heard this clearly
While they munched that monkey food

ARIZONA SUMMER POEM
"These are the days that try men's souls and dry mink stoles."


Tom's Silly Bird Poems and More
Arizona Summer Poem
"These are the days that try men's souls and dry mink stoles."

The Killdeer
A plover came over the field of clover
That stretched to the edge of the white cliffs of Dover
He wasn't a dog but his friends called him Rover
And he very much resented this!
--April 2015
Unfortunately there aren't any killdeers in England.


If I Had to Choose the Seagull that I Would Come to Be
by Tom Cole
July 10, 2019


If I had to choose the seagull
That I would come to be
The one whose shoes and hat I'd wear
Is obvious to me

An aristocratic air
The seagull that I'd be
Would bear in regal glory
And he would say to thee,
"Systematic is my stance
"And fairness my decree
"I swear that I shall never brook
"A bit of quackery
"No works of Linus Pauling
"Nor schemes to grow new hair
"Replacing hair that's falling
"Nor chiropractic care!"

As his name so clearly shows
He knows what's good to eat
And that certain kinds of fish
Are known to be a treat

He never errs as fast he takes
His transatlantic bearing
His eyes alive, his ears alert
His nostrils bravely flaring!

I'm not adverse
To be so terse
And boldly take my daring
Far enough to say aloud,
"The answer is so glaring!"

The gull I'd be is plain to see
So I'm declaring null
All others save the one I'd be
The regal herring gull!

The gull I'd be is plain to see
As any staring skull
The one that I would choose to be
Would be the herring gull!
Far enough to say aloud,
"The answer is so glaring!"

The Solitary Sandpiper
Call it wary
The solitary sandpiper
As we are using sanitary handwipers
And six-foot partitioning
Not natural to the task as is a bird
at social distancing

APRIL 30, 2020

Solitary Sandpiper Sept 1 2017 Mysterious Puddle copy.jpg

Call me a fuddy duddy
 But buddy, you can study the cluck
of the bloody ruddy duck

Frankly my dear
I don't give a damn
muddy

If I Could Be a Bird

If I could choose to be a bird
I think I'd be a finch
I wouldn't be too muscular
Could never crank a winch
But other tasks both big and small
To me would be a cinch.
And finches are so colorful!

--October 14, 2015


If I could choose to be a bird I think I'd be a finch.jpg

The Abert's Towhee
April 11, 2019

The Abert's Towhee has a dark black mask
And its belly I'm told is doughy
These birds hark back to the ancient past
When the world was cold and snowy


Abert's Towhee Poem.jpg

Eftsoons this bird of lordly plumes
Is best portrayed as knightly

The Bobolink

The bobolink has a cheerful song
And he always sings it sprightly,
Though he has his days of dark malaise
When the sun shines none too brightly.

No melancholy coddly Molly
May one describe him rightly
This strapping fellow is black and yellow
And best portrayed as knightly

A code of honor holds he firm
Twich is to say most tightly
And in his talons crookt and cragged
He clutches, too, forthrightly
Thirteen arrows and a sword
And cries out most contritely

"What is Truth but a shining orb
"That burns both red and whitely?
"And a heart but a beating drum within
"That pounds in no way slightly?

"So, lest thy shoes so neatly spruced
"Be soiled and made unsightly
"O'er the patch of ground 'neath which I roost
Tread not ye even lightly!"

--Started October 14, 2015, Redone July 22, 2016


bobolink.jpg
The Inca Dove
Authored by Tom Cole
See the little Inca dove go 'cross the roller rink
Inky dinky,
Inky dinky,
Inky dinky,
Dink!




The Tortoise

The tortoise lives 'twixt mortised decks
A shielding that its life protects...
I think it clever of the tortoise
To avoid a case of rigor mortis


Tortoise and Dog with Poem.jpg
The Devil's Banjo (The Sandshark or Guitar Fish)

Has perfect pitch on the sea
But is temperamental and known to fret.
Picks its way through the seaweed.
Strums up and down the coast!


The Cactus Wren

The cactus wren is intrepid
You can get so close you could step on it!

I found this weird version in my bird database/bird processor

The cactus wren is intrepid
You can get so close you could step on it.
It's never uncouth.
Or long in the tooth.
It'll tell you the truth--you can bet on it.

The Puffin
A curious bird is the puffin
He ain't afraid of nothing
Not even of death
And with regard to his breath
You can often hear him huffin'

The Sparrow

The most ubiquitous bird is the sparrow
Its environs simply aren't narrow
This kingly old rover
Wears a crown in Hannover
And in Guaymas a great big sombrero!

(In addition, in Egypt the locals often refer to him as  “the pharaoh”)

--October 14, 2015

The Omnipresent Starling

Ubiquitous are starlings
They're spotted near and far
You'll find you've got these darlings
No matter where you are


The Omnipresent Starling Poem.jpg


7873 Madrid, Spain June 17, 2019.JPG

Here you'll find no Texaco
Or man who wears the star
But you'll find folks from Mexico
No matter where you are


The Verdin
November 25, 2018

The range map of the verdin
Shows where the bird's conspicuous
It lives down south and way out west
But it can't be called ubiquitous
You'll never see the bird up north
That would be ridiculous
(For, of course, it doesn't have such wide dominion.)
And a verdin heard in the middle of the night
Is likely not a verdin
Or even a bird in my opinion!


Range Map of the Verdin.jpg

The Wigeon

There's a duck that is known as the wigeon
That likes to argue religion
While he'll squabble with flocks
Of sparrows and hawks
He'll seldom have words with a pigeon

The wigeon and the pigeon,
This avian pair,
Have decidedly little of
Thoughts that compare,
And less than a lot
Are the things that they share
In the way of what's doctrine--or doctrinaire.

But with regard to faith in religion
Like the wigeon
The pigeon
Hasn't a smidgen

Wigeon Poem.jpg

How the Grackle Got His Name

He's not so named for his drywall skills nor his love of using spackle
(Whilst, of course, there is no job that he is loathe to tackle!)
Nor was he christened so because his flaming soul doth crackle
Or for the fact that lock or chain could never serve to shackle
One as he who has the stealth and slyness of a jackal
Yeah, hale and hearty this one treads 'midst gabbling clucks and quackle
Of dabbling ducks and quail upon whose heads is seen a hackle
Attending neither church nor mosque nor any tabernacle
He never flirts with Tarot cards or items zodiacal
No vicious blow, no savage punch, no overwhelming whack'll
Cause his sturdy wings to ache (Though at times, of course, his back'll!)
Not heretofore what you have heard wherefore was named the grackle
His handle was awarded for his tendency to cackle.

THE END

Green Flies

There's a certain kind of green fly
You know the ones I mean
The ones when doggie defecates
Come flyin' on the scene
They appear as if by magic
They appear as in a dream
With their emerald opalescence
And their iridescent sheen
When doggie doesn't defecate
These flies are never seen!
So where do green flies come from?
From some green fly machine?
From the carcass of a rotting steer
In some dried up ravine?
Where do green flies come from?
Do they hatch from a green fly bean?
Or when doggie poops does someone somewhere
Open up a screen?
And let the green flies fly about
To on her stool convene?
I'll never know the answer
But I judge from their cuisine
That the place the green flies call their home
Is a place that's none too clean!

The Dowitcher

My favorite bird is the dowitcher
It has a beak as big as a howitzer
And when it moves it it seems
Like a sewing machine
But it's just getting pieces of chow which're
Quite tasty thank you very much indeed!

Here's a video link to this lymerick:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3501862045851&l=6670711087352250464


THE GECKO
BY TOM COLE
The stylized form of the gecko
Was popular in 20s art deco
But as far as I know
it has never appeared
in the works of the famous El Greco
I can't help but recall of the gecko
A fact that others may echo
That a gecko that lives in Tikal
Is a gecko Guatemalteco


Gekko.jpg

Would you pay my Bill? Eat a Daffodil?

For my nickel
I'd skip the daffodil
And have a half a dill pickle


Oliver Twist Daffodill Half a Dill Pickle.jpg


Assonance

If you write in perfect rhyme
You'll likely have a worthless time
Whatever you might want to say
You're not allowed--no how no way

To get a rhyme for honkytonk
All I could find was donkey honk
And that's not what you want
To lead your hit parade

Instead just use some assonance
Don't try to get an ass to dance
Do you think Johnny Cash perchance
Could play guitar
Or sing in a choir
Or compose to save his life
(Though everyone knows
He wrote “Ring of Fire”
When it was really his wife)

Let's agree then you and I
On assonance
Don't look at me with eye and lash askance
For what is perfect rhyme?
Extravagance
Balderdash
Now, I know ya'll will ask
That I be brash
And call the Man in Black
A hack and overrated
Well, I have studied
Facts that have been stated
Resolutely, astutely, anecdotally
And he was--acutely, absolutely, totally!
                    —DECEMBER 23, 2015
 
Sleeping

I sleep here every night like a rat
A rat, a rat, a rat, a rat
A rat, a rat, a rat, a rat
A rat, a rat, a rat!

I Don't Like My Truck
Written August 26, 2006

I don't like my truck.
It ain't for me
Trucks are for country music fans
Cowboys
And other dumb clucks
Climbing up a tree!

POEM
CORN SHARK, BRONZED BONITO, SLOW WATER SALMON

People like trout
But frankly I'd sooner
Have myself a stringer
Full of stock tank tuna


Loogy Lake

STARTED THIS IN 1987 AND NEVER FINISHED:
TOM COLE

Fed fat by the Elkhorn Trickle
And nurkled by Icky Creek
Nary a sound dares to percol
Or vie with its gurgling gleek

We all of us formed a circle
'Round Filkins, whose first name was Joe
And feigned our enrapturous interest
In what we cared diddle to know

His eyes they were piercing
They gripped like a vice
His chin had a curious cleft
He gave us a glare that was colder than ice
As fully a third of us left

"I got myself in a pickle," quothe he
A pickle that lasted a week
My vocals from cursing were tickled
I barely sufficed to speak!

"There's nothing wrong with your vocal chords now
Or even your pickle," we spake.
"So tell us the story or you're gonna be sorry:
Mick'll smack your fat head with this rake!


"Forsaken forlorn was I on that morn
A life there ain't worth a nickel
Never again would I dare to contend
With her rambling bramble and snickle"

"Whether you ramble or bramble or die
Not one of us cares but a whickle
We'll gamble to say you're a heck of a guy
But now you are being so fickle!

"Filkins am I, not fickle," he cried
"No gambling, ante, or bid!"
"Then out with the tale!" The ten of us wail.
"Well maybe I will!"
And he did.

In view of a roof
Not far from Duluth
Is a lake that is bordered by prickle
With a wicked tailrace
A communist place
In the shape of a hammer and sickle

I packed up my gear
Hitched up my boat
And carefully stowed my tackle
Paying no heed to the avarice, greed
Or the lugubrious eye of the grackle.

A Drummer in the Band
WORKING ON THIS ONE STILL...BORRADOR/DRAFT

Lemme tell a tale of hell's travail
That happened just this summer
I was in a four-piece combo
Three musicians and drummer
No source of joy was bongo boy
A bummer we couldn't stand
Friend, you don't need a case of hives
Or a drummer in the band

One day I started strumming
And heard to my surprise
The sound of someone drummin'
I had to close my eyes!
I didn't want to see 'im
I didn't want to hear 'im
And when we kicked him off the stage
The people started cheerin'

Your gig might be on land or sea
Or near the Rio Grande
But you don't need a fungus
Or a drummer in the band

If you're into chunkin'
Or if you're into pickin'
The only drumstick that you need
Is on a roasted chicken
'Cause if you have a lick of sense
You're surely gonna know
That when your band is cursed
You tell Pete Worst to go

I'll let you play that violin
or viola in your hand
But I'd rather have ebola
Than a drummer in the band

And when you've kicked that drummer out
The feeling is sublime
To once again be playing
In a band that's keeping time!


Limerick to a Knitwit, Philip J. Fracica
(Pulmonologist and absolute numbskull who wrote me
a perfectly nauseating brush-off letter in response to my
complaint of wholesale proselytizing at Mercy Gilbert Hospital,
"Where Jesus Freaks Hover over the Operating Tables like Bats!")

A loathsome man named Fracica
Was known from Maine to Topeka
As an oblivious pulmonologist 
A litigious ideologist
And a prodigious religious apologist!

Now I Want My Money! (song lyrics possibly)

Here in Arizona we got blazin' heat
All the days are hot and sunny
I cut your grass and burned my ass
And now I want my money!

Working in the freezer all day long
My nose got cold and runny
Like Niagra Falls as I froze my balls
And now I want my money!

I worked with the public all day long
Polite as a little bunny
I've had enough of all their guff
And now I want my money!

I worked all day and got no pay
Maybe you think that's funny
Go ahead and laugh
And kiss my ass
And give me my goddamned money!

Vinegar is nasty stuff they say
You'll catch more flies with honey
Don't want no flies
And nunna yor lies
I want my goddamned money!

Santa's Done Grown Mean

Those reindeer get complainin' Santa stops them in their tracks
As he lays that holly-studded WHIP across their backs

Walking down Apache Boulevard

I woke up last Sunday 
And the sky was gone
No explanation
But maybe
It was because of 
What had gone on 
Beneath it 
and gone wrong

Whatever the reason
It sure was eerie
Walking down Apache Boulevard
With the sky gone

I woke up last Monday
And my heart was gone
No explanation
Nothing to explain why my heart was gone
But knowing I had once been heartless
Perhaps an ironic fate was saying,
"Oh, yeah? Try this on.”

Whatever the reason
It sure was eerie
Walking down Apache Boulevard
With my heart gone

I woke up last Tuesday 
And my legs were gone
No explanation
But perhaps they were taken
On account of all 
The people and principles
I've inadvertently trod upon

Whatever the reason
It sure was eerie
Walking down Apache Boulevard
With my legs gone

Now, you may say
It's impossible all I've said
As one can't really walk
Without a heart (You'd be dead!)
And even if you weren't
The question begs
You'd be hard pressed
Without any legs!
But get this:

I woke up last Wednesday
And the world was gone
Again, no explanation 
Just Long Gone John!

Sure was eerie 
Walking down Apache Boulevard
With the world gone

Later that afternoon, it rained
And when it stopped, there were puddles
All up and down the long boulevard
They sparkled in the glorious summer sunshine
And glistened as do waves of heat on a desert highway
And since the world was gone
It seemed as if you could see forever


Apostrophe "Poem" (See Apostrophe Alley.)

If you misuse an apostrophe
It's as if you were listed as lost at sea
Or scheduled to have a colostomy
And committed to godless  apostasy
 
NO HAY MAL QUE POR BIEN
NO VENGA,

WELL, HERE'S ONE IN PROGRESS. WE'LL SEE:

Hippopotamuses in Africa 1972.jpg

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

In Africa I chanced upon
A watery little holler
Unaware a hippopotamus
Had wandered there to waller

No one had to warn me
For it doesn't take a scholar
To know a hippopotamus
Is naturally a mauler

Now, I've seen bigger hippos
Notwithstanding, I was smaller
So (to be sure!) I took my leave
And left the holler's squalor

I had no fear at all
As I was walking thus
But then I felt a sudden knot
In my esophagus

I had to yank most firmly
Upon my sweaty collar
To make some room around the knot
Ere it I'd ever swaller

And when I had, I felt so glad
For naught was there amiss
Until I stared distraught upon
A hippopotamus!

I couldn't move
I couldn't breathe
My heart it ceased to beat
I hadn't even heard the sound
Of tiny hippo feet!

Perhaps the knot within my throat
Had been a premonition
For there he was observing me
And looking for contrition!

Well, that I vowed he'd never have
'Less 'twas o'er my dead body!
"Acquiesce?" I yelled out loud
"You'll treat me not so shoddy!"

I grabbed him by his little ears
And banged his chin upon
My knee so hot and knobby
(It only made him yawn.)

'Tis said the tree of liberty
One's blood alone refreshes
And the people of Los Angeles
As well as Bangladesh's
Know what if you don't know now
I'll give you just three guesses
To speak concisely, I was in
The diciest of messes!

For nincompoop and nitwit
Are words I quip synonymous            
When someone's dumb enough to try
And whip a hippopotamus

O Christ! the very deep did rot
And I was up a tree
I'd hit a hippopotamus
With nothing but my knee!

I feared that he would start to stomp
And squash me like a roach
Instead he fawned and softly spoke
And viewed me with reproach

"Here there is no Texaco
"Or man who wears the star
"But you'll find folks from Mexico
"No matter where you are."

Then he introduced a friend
Whose name began with J
"No hay mal que por bien
No venga," said José

I agreed with him that every cloud
Contained a silver lining
And then I felt it time to leave
Before they started whining

For two is company they say
And three's a crowd confining
And thus I chose to walk away
Whilst still the sun was shining

In Africa, to sum it up,
I chanced upon a hollow
Then found a hippopotamus
Had chosen me to follow

I kneed that squat abdominous
He didn't seem to mind
Indeed, his heart was bottomless
He was so very kind

He introduced me to a guy
From Mexico, José
Who spoke some words in Spanish
Before I went away

And then I told them, "toodle-oo!
"I've got to say good-bye!
"But I've been taught a different view
Of hippopotami!"
THE END

POESÍA DE REFRANES

Sé muchos refranes en esta lengua
Como nunca hay mal
Que por bien no venga

Aunque la mona se vista de seda
Mona se queda se dice
Si te metes en lo que
No te importa
Te van a llamar "metiche."

Debes echar un vistazo
Antes de que te cases
Pero si miras ciertos dientes de potro
¡No sabes lo que haces!

Si eres un perro
Que ladra
No muerdes
¡A buenas horas, mangas verdes!

A lo hecho pecho
Trato hecho
Lo pasado pasado está
Más vale tarde que nunca
Lo que debe ser será



Here nothing stirs
And the cottonwood grove
Never makes a sound
Till the west wind blows.

Aquí nada se agita
Y el bosque de álamos
Nunca hace un sonido
Hasta que el viento del oeste sopla

Emily Arnold

There is no frigate like a boat


Nor any cursors on the page


Of a prancing pony


They hear, they jeer


But never fear, Dear


As near beer* will steer me clear


Retreating, to the breath


Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear


And naked shingles of the world.

Apologies to Ms. Dickinson but not to


Mr. Arnold as I have stolen his work word for word.

Sally Cole What a plagiarist!

*

claushaler non-alcoholic beer .jpg

Sally Cole What a plagiarist! Tom Hascall Cole That is not plagiarism. It is a common poetic tradition to write three lines of your own stuff and then pay tribute to a different author. It is nothing more than literary allusion--Allusion NOT ILLusion! For example, my poem "I Fret" begins with three lines from my own hand and an ensuing tribute to Matthew Arnold in the form of a similar, echoing counterpoint which appears as a three-line literary allusion from one of his poems. It remains an entirely ORIGINAL work!

"I Fret"
by Tom Cole

I'm not gone yet
And yet
I fret
And I am here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Sometimes my new genre allows for the citation of two rather than three lines from a fellow author as seen in my totally original poem. "The Long Gone Beer"

"The Long Gone Beer"
by Tom Cole

I drank a beer
I sang a song
And now the doggone beer is gone!
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong;
To love that well which thou must leave ere long


Must be that time of year.
 Oh, for THAT ONE we have to go back to the three-line echoing counterpoint as done before.

"I Want My Money!"
by Tom Cole

Working in the freezer all day long
My nose got cold and runny
I took your sass
And froze my ass
And now I want my money!
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

THE END




White-Winged Dove VS Eurasian Collared Dove.jpg

The Surly Eurasian Collared Dove
(With a tribute to Emily Dickinson)
by Tom Cole

If only it were or was
That the surly Eurasian collared dove
Hollered with love
Demurely
As the smaller white-winged cousin of his does

The white-wing seems to proffer too
I mean to say that
He looks so true
And when he sweetly calls
"Who cooks for you?"
He seems indeed to offer to

The Eurasian collared dove
Quite the contrary
Makes you cautious and somewhat wary
Because his simple call is scary

He clearly says
"Who cooks you?"
As if prepared to book you
A tray to lie in
Inside some roaster
Or make you into a stew
Or someday get to fryin' you in a toaster

Many of Nature's birds I know
And of those I do
Most all I find appealing

And I hold too
That they know me
And mutual is my feeling
For those of them who nest
On land
In trees
And here out west
Up in tall cactuses

Yet the only one
Of the above
Pleased to be possessed

Of
such small practices
(And all with but the slightest of persuasion!)
Ever is
And surely ever was
The surly Eurasian collared dove
!


DICKINSON'S ENDING:
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.




I found an excerpt from my parody of Dune that upon re-reading was still a worthy effort though perhaps a little to over-the-top to be included in the book.

         In it, all language is just like Herbert's. I shall post the original below my spoof for comparative study.


Who has not heard and been moved ( and deeply so) by "The Tin Ear Hymn?"


The Tin Ear Hymn
by Tom Cole


I drove my geese through a desert
Whose goslings whinnied like drunken horses
Voracious for voracity and greedy for greed.
I traipsed the inanity of Fosterian verse
And saw erosion level both hillocks, dells, and my intellect
In its quest, its ravenousness to brunch on my entrails
And I saw the canaries furiously flapping hither
Big, bold canaries like charging hippopotamuses
That spread unctuousness 
Upon the briar patch of my budding literacy
I felt the hippos lightly roosting
On my young green shoots
And their tiny, scratchy feet tickling my thighs!

IF ONE THINKS I'M UNFAIR, HERE'S THE ORIGINAL FROM THE BOOK:

Who has not heard and been deeply moved* by “The Old Man's Hymn”?

*MOVED TO WHAT? HURL? —TC


The Old Man's Hymn

by Frank Herbert

I drove my feet through a desert
Whose mirage fluttered like a host.
Voracious for glory, greedy for danger,
I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab, Watching time level mountains
In its search and its hunger for me.
And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach,
Bolder than the onrushing wolf.
They spread in the tree of my youth.
I heard the flock in my branches.
And was caught on their beaks and claws!
—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan



The following Snipe "poem" is illustrated HERE.
I was composing an email in Microsoft Outlook and it wasn't working so I got miffed and started
making paragraph returns to get it to work. Then I sent the email.
My friend Nancy read it and e-mailed me back. Could she send her friend my
wonderful "poem?"  I responded, "Sure."

Here's the so-called poem:

Nancy,

You will be happy to know that driving home yesterday
I espied a Long-billed Dowitcher on the side of the road
Close to rush hour traffic.
I applied the brakes,
Immediately reassessing and realizing
That it was a snipe!
I swung around
And picked up Mr. Inland Sandpiper.
He was very pretty --
Very very pretty was he indeed!
With a chocolate back,
A rosewood beak, (a teak beak)
And a tail like a Texas Prairie Chicken.
Oh, he was a fine, fine -- and beauteous creature,
Quiet and reserved,
And headed for the last round-up too I should think.
I left him in some weeds
And drove away.
 

I never told her it wasn't really a poem.
The Snipe "poem" is illustrated HERE.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be! How piteous

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

H. amphibius

-ship, bip, blip, chip, clip, crip, cslip, dip, drip, flip, gipp, grip, gripp, grippe, gyp, hip, hipp, hippe, ip, kip, kipp, klipp, knipp, lip, lipp, lippe, nip, nipp, pip, pipp, q-ship, quip, quipp, q ship, q tip, rip, ripp, rippe, schip, scrip, scripp, ship, shipp, sip, sipp, skip, skipp, slip, slipp, snip, stipp, strip, thrip, tip, tipp, trip, tripp, trippe, whipp, yip, zip, zipp

I'll give you just three guesses
"Tippy Canoe and Tyler too"
I've yet begun to fight

I have not yet begun to fight

Tippy Canoe and Tyler too
I've yet begun to fight

BODY SHOP

At Starbuck's coffee shop
He bought a lollipop
And then he groaned
When he received a fast karate chop

At Starbuck's coffee shop
He bought a lollipop
And then he groaned
When I gave him a karate chop

Where's my wallet
Did he swallow it?

Petals on a wet black dog.jpg

The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough
—Ezra Pound

Me in Ireland
May 2012

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

CLICK HERE FOR TOM'S POEMS:
Tom's Silly Bird Poems and More

Funeral of Shelley Roasting.jpg   
 
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.


ñ  ó  í  m-dash: — ¿ ¡



This One
By Jean Cole

The beach was wet. Fog sank to ground level
heavy, like fine rain;
you could feel it on your hand.
Squeezed down in the bed roll
dampness seeped in
from the drenched canvas top.
Charcoal still glowed faintly in the sand,
quiet hung balanced against tide echoes.
On the dunes the truck faded slowly in mist
like edges of burned cholla skeletons.

They appeared abruptly—the coyotes,
warm against the damp.
Moving silently, shadowy forms slid in swift
restless sweeps, searching beach, land.

One paused at the dune edge;
fine droplets clung to thick fur.
Ears back, head lifted toward the sea
this one
sounded blood-colored notes
animal-hot against the night.

                                                                        --published in West Coast Poetry Review 1972




Steve
STEVE:
The sea is a light turquoise blue near the shore with patches of yellow sand in the shallows where small waves are breaking. Farther out, the water is darker where porpoises dip in and out of the sea like rocking horses. A pair of oyster catchers with beaks as red as Crayolas stroll along where the foam makes a curving line which changes shape, expands and recedes over the rubble of shell and seaweed. A light breeze caresses my face. Everything is perfect. Except for these Goddamn flies. They're awful!



The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the Mexican coast
But now I only hear
The night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked tortillas of the world.

The Dover Bitch: A Criticism Of Life
By Anthony Hecht

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
the notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As sort of a mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
and finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come,
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d'Amour.


Many Many years ago in about 1961? my grandmother gave my mom a book by this person from Vermont. I remembered some of the poems and now I'll try to write them down from memory.




My Housekeeping Sins
Jean C. Killary

I
The washer is broke
The dishes are cloaked
With dirt up to their chins
The pudding is nubby
The floors are all cruddy
These are my housekeeping sins
Poems I can write
In dead of night
I'm filled with imagination
My friends call me poet
They say that they know it
But my house is in a state of stagnation
From cellar to attic
It all looks quite frantic
But I've published a book of verse slim
The house is a mess
I'm a poet I guess
So forgive me my housekeeping sins!

II
Yesterday I watched the kids
In my front yard at play
You'd think they'd stay at home
But that's not the children's way
The grass is often greener
Across a neighbor's fence
And though they're only children
They make a grown-up sense
Sometimes I find my own self
Wishing to change my lot
And the grass is often greener
In my next door neighbor's plot!

III
I swear to all the stars above
I always will believe in love
If I can cling to nothing else
I'll always cling to love that melts
The barriers that stubborn stand
Between ourselves and foreign lands
If we could learn to love one another
And call every man our brother
All racial clash and wars would cease
And we would find eternal peace

IV
He was a simple builder
Of cottages and barns
He nailed and hammered boards
On the outbuildings of farms
He thought his work was menial
That the returns were small
But into whatever thing he did
He gave his all and all
To me his trade's not humble
It was our Master's craft
And though people looked down upon him
And people even laughed
Yet he was the xxxx one (Chosen one, Sacred one? Perfect one?)
To whom nothing was too small
So our common work suffices
If we give our all and all.

THIS ONE JUST CAME TO ME BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER IT ALL. OKAY, IT WAS 1961 AND I WAS NINE OR TEN.

V
I love the little things
A small ceramic mouse
A pair of baby shoes
A little girl's doll house...

(Here there might be a China plate)
.......

So give me all the little things
The small and not the great

VI
There also was one about Echo I--I think. She put in parentheses (the satellite)

Richard Corey
by Edwin Arlington Robinson 1897

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.


I just ran across this poem. It tells the true nature of granite countertops. I believe it needs WORK. 
I, Tom Cole, am the author of this work of poetic majesty.
Read it. It goes humpty dumpty dump!

MY CRUSTY GRANITE COUNTERTOPS
By Tom Cole

Hear the story of my countertops
My countertops of granite,
A rock not quarried on the moon
Or on some other planet.
I used to have a better kind
Now I've got these goddamn it!
They came along with my new house
I didn't have to plan it.
And surely were I near a door
I know that I would slam it.
The countertops I used to have
Were not made out of granite
Nor crusty like ones I've got
I just can't unnerstan it!
Now all I've got's a little poem
That rhymes with pomegranate
A sticky, crusty kind of fruit
Perhaps that's what began it!
I hate my bloody countertops
My countertops of granite
And if they only had a hide,
I know that I would tan it!
A countertop that isn't stone,
That isn't made of granite
Surpasses any granite top
For it is better than it
So if I found a factory
Of countertops of granite
I'd quickly burn it to the ground
And hang the man who ran it

THE END


I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –
The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –
With Blue – uncertain – stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –
EMILY DICKINSON


THE END


Someone I columbia asked me to read this poem. I read it aloud as fast as I could because it is possibly the worst "Poem" yet written, my friends. Your inner hurl detector will go off. Plus it's ungrammatical. Literary license my eye! At least very other hubiera should be an habría! So there!

Si hubiera sabido que esa era la última vez que iba a verte, te hubiera dado un beso, un abrazo y te hubiera llamado para darte muchos mas,

Si hubiera sabido que esa era la ultima vez que iba a oir tu voz, hubiese grabado cada una de tus palabras para poder oirlas una y otra vez indefinidamente,

Si hubiera sabido que esa era la ultima vez que te veria....Te hubiera dicho que te amo mas que a mi propia vida, y no hubiera asumido tontamente que ya lo sabias,

Si hubiera sabido que esa era la ultima vez que te miraria a los ojos, hubiera acariciado tu mirada con mi alma,

Si hubiera sabido que todo se terminaria ese dia, hubiera hecho todo por detenerte, porque escucharas y te hubiera dicho, no me dejes....Que los amores como el nuestro ya no existen, que las voces ajenas son solo ecos de envidia mal direccionada, que nosotros dos eramos todo, no necesitabamos mas, lo nuestro fue y sera siempre lo mejor que nos pudo pasar...

Si hubiera sabido que ya nunca volveria a verte, te hubiera atado a mi corazon,

Si hubiera sabido que ese era el final, hubiera roto la pagina y hubiera escrito un nuevo comienzo para los dos….

















jean c.





Poems