Proclaimed the trunk to His roots:
A demagogue teaches
and preaches
as my head trunk talks down
to my frontline branches
Lesser beings who had best listen
and learn
my stern
and often punishing expectations
Explained the roots
to Her much-loved trunk:
A pedagogue first listens
at the refining foot
of a sacred grassroot system
To serve compassionate communication,
inclusive problem-solving,
celebrating win/win peak experiences
of resonantly embodied promise,
harmony,
musicality,
integrity,
synergy,
transparency,
vulnerability
to multiculturally omniscient expansion.
Demagogues
require retribution
to survive against win/lose
zero-sum competitions
threatening capital-headed
bloating at the crown
While pedagogues invite restoration
of fully embodied thrival
and win/win uncompromised revival,
Faith in nonzero sum
polyculturally active,
deeply saturating communication,
rooted in past peak communion
courageously curious experiences.
John B. Curtis put the chew in the gum *
Three Stooges put the 'nyuk' in the 'nyum' **
Little Jack Horner stuck his thumb into plum
~ Now who snuck the rum into thrum ***
_____________________________________
* 1848, the date
**Ha, ha! I'm not sure either
*** 'sneaked,' according to pedagogues and
grammar gods...
Your poems have
nice images.
I can't use them.
They don't drive trucks,
weld, or pour cement.
I can't wear them
like boots in the snow.
They won't keep my head
dry in the rain.
I like your images
but
don't try to pull a
fast one.
A slight of pen
quicker than the eye.
A twist of tongue
dredged from dead scrolls.
Your images are good
but I'm tired.
If they were on TV
I'd turn the channel.
I don't think of your
poems during the World Series.
You will become famous,
appointed to a marble history,
far removed from the slamming
screen doors,
the runny noses of crying
babies.
Elitist pedagogues
will force feed the young
on you.
America will hate you
to your effete marrow,
and Exxon won't sponsor
you.
Published Black Buzzard Press - 1982
Teachers foregather,
To learn forthcoming battle,
But fuming the day.
Down their heads in books,
With unreadable feelings,
Tea brings high spirits.
Checked their performance
was trainer of all of them,
Showed fury at them.
To fondle them lot,
Try to be amiable,
But of no avail.
The surface is truly strange
a facet full of facade
my heart is singing;
a strange chant...
"the words are unclear like mud water"
sinking the ship of a volatile voyage
in the abyss of loneliness
"don't rule with me" the lily cursed
cursed to live with grisly scales of thorny pinches
preach to me the noble words of soothing pity
they call it prayer
a way of saying "go away but don't be mad"
I have carried a cross without Simon of Cyrene
the appearance is pitiful
because of a misconceived analogy
even the pedagogues have failed
don't cry...
t'is a vision for one
Character
If ever I will reach my pension of all ages
And leave the town, where I a teacher was,
My heart will – if they pay my wages,
Be stamped a lot, like in a pass.
Even the youngest child that ever markings made,
Its inerasable mark on every edge;
Some marks a mortal never will translate.
Character, children, no more than a scratch.
So be it – But I really get upset,
If pedagogues do talk in ways that one too bad
Of what a teacher only children gives.
God willing – He will give to all the classes
A stamp that’s good or bad in all their passes:
For it is he who owns a thousand stamps and lives.
Translation (!) of Ida Gerhardt's Sonnetten van een leraar 32 into an English Sonnet by RienB (2014)
Not again shall I fall a victim of folly,
Or again allow my heart be melancholy.
I shall let loose my fancy roam unroped,
And my dreams wander unstopped.
Ideas shall rule my mind,
And all I have shall respite find
In the autonomous flow of ease,
Till I slumber in eternal bliss.
Never again shall I follow the dictum of demagogues,
Nor be counseled by empty anecdotes of conceited pedagogues;
I shall let all slither free,
And all ordained to be shall be.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.