SOME POEMS [Sun, 4-12-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Mundane Mutterings of An Old Man With a Muted Muse—SOME POEMS [Sun, 4-12-26]

 

I got sidetracked by Lent and started trying to write something useful for others. I forgot that I am now writing only for myself. So, it’s time to become irrelevant again…

Louis Simpson was a serious poet, because he suffered PTSD from WWII, particularly the Battle of the Bulge. He wanted to be a story teller, but he couldn’t hold an idea in his brain long enough for a story, even a short one. He could manage one page at a time, though. [1

I have never been a serious poet, because I am too wordy for one page at a time. I am a story-teller. But there are times the traditional form of story just isn’t quite right. So, I have six or seven notebooks, scattered throughout the house, and the pockets of my cargo pants, plus a folder on my computer, all full of poems that are written just for me. Some, though…well, perhaps you’ll feel something in them, too. Here are a few selections.

RYMAN ECHOES

I’ve never been

to the Ryman

but I hear

the country voices

in the darkness

of the humid Indiana air

my father’s head

bent low

to the radio

in the only

kind of prayer

he knew

 

POET’S REMORSE

Not the failed onomatopoeia

nor the forced and fractured rhyme

 

But a line so bland

it can be compared

to nothing at all

 

Not a windy road

or a whale in deep

nor a tree in spring

or a sled with rusted runners

 

Just a shopping list

from the bargain basement

of the mercantile

that sells used words

After Christmas sale!

Half off!

 

PLANNED PREVARICATIONS

In the early morning hours

when my brain is at its best

I plan the lies

that I must tell this day

of fear that I must bear

of hope that is elsewhere

of there that is not there

But always life jumps

from a darkened alley

of the past

with some unanticipated

truth and I must improvise

and obfuscate

with monosyllabic rationalizations

and palliations

so that truth capitulates

and I have vanquished

with thesaurus all

that terrorizes

with veracious perspicuity

 

WHY DID I EVER START THIS POETRY STUFF

three little green lights

on the coffee machine this morning

implored me to put them into a poem

almost arrogant in their pleading

like a bench player to the coach

Put Me In! Put Me In!

that started the whole thing

then the first taste of coffee

wanted a line all to itself

and the apricot jam

thought its taste deserved a whole stanza

and the song about a railroad drifter

you would have surmised

he was king of the road or some such

each one thinking it should have

the place of honor in a line

but disagreeing rather disagreeably

about whether the honor

comes first in line or at the break

I just quit

That’ll show ‘em

who’s in charge here

 

FINDING ANSWERS

Yes, it is true, the answer

is blowin’ in the wind

It is also falling in the rain

and growing in the hollyhocks

and muddling ‘round in the humidity

and floating in the clouds

The answer is not

that hard to find

 

John Robert McFarland

1] From the 3-27-26 edition of Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanack]