The Farmer and the Shepherd

I have always imagined the farmer as antagonist

Imposing a Euclidian geometry of lines and squares

Over the curvature of the earth

My sympathies have instead been with the shepherds

And perhaps there is a generational animosity

Between farmers and shepherds

That goes back some time

The farmer is an owner who has big plans

The shepherd has nothing but his songs

The farmer is a servant on his own land

His stewardship is morally commendable

The shepherd has a kind heart and a sweet song

In his throat. He is in unity with his dog.

He is a lover who enjoys the wine

Of the farmer’s bounty.

This is what makes the farmer mean.

He resents the shepherd’s freedom

For wealth can never be stowed upon him.

                                                                                                            

The Demon of Literature

This is what the poet searches for

The moment in every day that Satan

Cannot find

Some of my ancestry were Amish

Until one day in the 19^th century

When my progenitor added a wooden back

To their buggy. His wife had a bad back.

She couldn’t ride to church without it.

The church elders ruled that such an addition

To the standard buggy was not plain

They instructed him to remove it.

I imagine the words that passed between them

Were not kind. Harsh guttural exchanges

Perhaps reverting to the vulgar German.

When my own father absconded

With my young mother after their marriage

And headed for North Webster, IN

For the Glory Barn and entered the church

Of Hobart Freeman and his Faith Assembly

An analogous confrontation was fated to take place.

During a visit to our home the church leaders

Discovered that my mother had the works

Of Shakespeare and Arthur Conan-Doyle

And Bram Stoker on her bookshelf.

They pronounced that she carried

A literary demon inside herself

Warning her of the danger of idolatry

Which accusation has turned out to be true.

Such a demon I find has transversed itself upon me

And long after my father broke with Hobart Freeman

Using perhaps the plainest Pennsylvania Dutch

This demon continues to express his serpent seed.

The Albatross

Funny creatures these literary one percenters

All we really desire is occasional human intercourse

Which to others seams to come so naturally

So practiced its like a gift to them

Pristine in their illiteracy

And perfect in their social posture.

For us with minds too dissolved in the literature

Of previous centuries; the languages, the habits

And manners of the past crowd in upon us.

We have not the alphabet of social propriety

Or the basic rudiments of common human sentiment.

Even the crude sign language of the body and face

Cannot penetrate our boney heads.

Whatever words we choose must give offense

Especially if the listener be another of our kind.

We become pathetic in the attempt at polite conversation

We bristle, we snarl, we protect our little territories

Of intellect, barking at one another like seals

On a rocky beach.

These awkward wings have no utility

When brought down to the deck

On the ship of human interaction

For the people we know best are the imaginary

Friends of writers long dead.

Look how ridiculous we are in public!

With shirts tucked into our boxers

Food in our beards

Our tube socks with our wing tipped shoes

Why are we incapable of doing what to others

Comes so naturally?

But which of us would clip our wings

So that we could more easily navigate

On the deck of that ship?