Visit a monkey in the tree of his life
He doesn't eat the fruit before it is ripe
When the sugar turns to alcohol
He shares his crop with one and all

The alcoholic tangerines are free
The alcoholic tangerines for you
The alcoholic tangerines for me

Saturday, July 5, 2014

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 19th 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.