Poetics and Ruminations

Uncle Wesli's New Mother Goose #32

SONG FOR A GRANDDAUGHTER

Listen to Wesli Court read his poem at http://www.cruziocafe.com/jessi22007-1.html 

Jessie’s my love,

Jessie’s my darling.

Jessie can fly

Just like a starling

 

Over the lawn,

Springtime and summer,

Over the snow

All through the winter,

 

And in the fall

Jessie can bustle

Over the leaves,

Making them whistle

 

Just like the wind

Chasing a starling.

Jessie’s my love,

Jessie’s my darling.

 

Originally published on-line in Trellis Magazine, Summer, 2009, and as a podcast from Blue’s Cruzio Café, 2008, all rights reserved 2010 by the author.

 

The Turkey's Thanksgiving Song

THE TURKEY’S THANKSGIVING SONG

 

Gone is the cranberry so divine.

It’s eaten and cannot be mended.

You must go your way,

And I must go mine,

But now that our barnyard’s a deadend...,

 

Wattle eye-dew

When it is turkey day

And I am stew,

Wattle eye-dew?

 

Wattle eye-dew

When I am wond'ring who

Is gobblin’ you,

Wattle eye-dew?

 

Wattle eye-dew with just a gravy boat

To tell my troubles to?

 

When I'm alone

With only orts of you

And stuffin’ too,

Wattle eye-dew?

 

Wattle eye-dew with just a gravy boat

To tell my troubles to?

 

When I'm alone

With only orts of you

And stuffin’ too,

Wattle eye-dew?

 

 

Dual Duel Duet

 

 

  

PART 1: IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE

(Some Years Ago)

 

The man on the ground is Petraeus,

A soldier who may not dismay us

         Until, with a sigh,

         He rolls out the lie

He’s bound to roll out to betray us.

 

 

PART 2: A  HARD ONE TO SWALLOW

(Today)

 

The man in the bed was Petraeus;

His tricks ‘twixt the sheets might dismay us,

         But they’re nothing at all

         To the fibs he let fall

On his spouse while he worked to betray us. 

 

Copyright by Wesli Court

The Habitation

          On June 7th of this year I posted on this blog a memoir of my pen-pal of many years Ray Bradbury. I talked about how his life and mine had crossed and coincided over the decades since I was a boy reading his early stories. Now, today, five months after his death, I must make yet another entry, but who knows if it will be the last?

          During the summer the Poet Laureate of Maine, Wesley McNair, wrote to ask me for permission to publish my poem "The Habitation" in his "Take Heart, A Conversation in Poetry" series, which I was happy to give him. That poem today was reprinted in the Maine Sunday Telegram and several other Maine newapapers. Just above it was an article about my friend Ray whose new work has just been published in a couple of venues, just as I am to leave to give joint readings at the University of Connecticut at Storrs tomorrow, and on Tuesday at Wesleyan University in Middletown with other contributors to an anthology of poems by Connecticut Poets since 1776: 

Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem, "The Habitation."