Poetics and Ruminations

Valenteen 2016

 

Phoebe and the Tooth Fairy

          This is my 10-year-old granddaughter Phoebe reading a poem I wrote for her. The other day she decided she was going to disprove the existence of the Tooth Fairy. She took her loose tooth out on the sly (apparently) and put it under her pillow without telling anyone about it. The next morning she announced, "The Tooth Fairy doesn't exist!" Phoebe was minus a dollar, but her family was nonplussed, which was what she wanted.

          A while earlier, she had written a story which I read. It sounded an awful lot like the fantasies I started writing at about her age, but I never wrote an ending as good as hers, which I think is great:

          As a scientist, Phoebe has devised a successful experiment to disprove the existence of the Tooth Fairy; as a writer, she has devised a story ending that is symbolically wholly adult, and she is an artist as well -- the top image is hers:

          Needless to say, I am amazed by Phoebe's talents, and I'm as proud of her as I can be.

The Legend of Captain Hood

 

Listen to Lewis Turco read his legend of Robin Hood, "Captain Hood."

 

 

                                    Driven from Sherwood

by the Sheriff of Nottingham, bedogged

                  across the moors by gentry

                           and nobility, smoked

         out of Bristol by the Black Prince,

 

                                    Robin wound up on

that atoll where Blackbeard found him drying

                  like a cod on a bed of

                           barnacles. For a piece

         of eight and a noggin of tar rum

 

                                    he signed aboard as

a common deckhand.  But, being that sort

                  of man, he soon found his new

                           Tuck — Bo'sun Reef, his new

         Little John — Long John now.  Not to speak

 

                                    of a dandy brig

he highjacked on the Main and named, for old

                  times' sake, the Maid Marian.

                           Well, tales are told of good

         Captain Hood wherever the Jolly

 

                                    Roger and tankards

are hoisted.  Of how he was hounded from

                  the first to the seventh sea,

                           taking from the rich to

         dispense to the poor till, at last, his

 

                                    proud Maid Marian

was found beached and bleaching at the mouth of

                  the Father of Waters.  Not

                  much is left to tell.  The

         crew had gone, melting into the big

 

                                    bayous.  But Cajun

songs tell of a gambler in green who rode

                  the sidewheelers with a big

                           man who carried a pole,

         and a renegade priest.  They took from

 

                                    the Creole dandies

and the planting men, but little gold stuck

                  in their gloves — till at last they

                           were drowned, some say, though

         others spin odd yarns of the plains, three

 

hooded riders, and a Cheyenne princess.

 

"Captain Hood" was originally published in The Carleton Miscellany, x:2, Spring 1969; © Lewis Turco, all rights reserved 2012.

 

 

Uncle Wesli's New Mother Goose #26

 

SEASONG

 

The Marinated Mackerel splashed

To aid the mermaid in distress.

 

He bubbled nothings in her gill

Till blushingly she burbled, "Yes!"

 

The Mackerel's now father of

A motley, marinated crew —

 

His mermaid murmurs on a reef,

Abiding cordially for you!

 

All of which would indicate,

True love should never marinate.

 

Originally published in A Huoyhnhnm's Scrapbook and collected in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, 1953-2004, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004. ISBN 1932842004, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN 1932842012, quality paperback, $26.95, 460 pages, © 2004, all rights reserved. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM. 

 

New Mother Goose #24

LILY THE LOVELY

 

There once was a lovely Lily

Who acted rather odd.

One day while feeling silly

That lovely water Lily

Grew herself a dilly

Of an old bean pod.

She once was a lovely Lily.

Now she looks rather odd.

 

Originally published in Phantasm, iii:6, issue 18, 1978, and collected in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, 1953-2004, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004. ISBN 1932842004, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN 1932842012, quality paperback, $26.95, 460 pages, © 2004, all rights reserved. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM.