I live like a cancer - quick, unplanned growth unheeding of greater designs.
I devour information like a starving wolf - never sated, never tasting the goodness I consume.
I throw myself into activities under exhausting self-compulsion. I should ... so I do ... so I'll die ...
I create in a fit of madness, barely finishing one draft before my mind races to the next.
I busy myself and flood my ears with music.
I let my seething mind boil over without restraint.
I do what I can to escape thinking of you - O Time.
Scythe-wielding Saturn, most ancient of fears.
First to murder his father, only to taste the same fate.
Do I fear death so much?
I don't know ...
But I quail at the shortness of life.
There's so very much I want to do ...
And surely it's better to do much, right?
Especially when we're not sure whether all we do is right.
How can we love what we fear? What we dread?
Time, O Time ... Time ... Time .... Time .....
16 October 2023
I.
Higgledy piggledy
Roger de Coverley
Fonder of hoofing it
Than of romance
Found himself typified
Characteristically
King of the Reels and the
Lord of the Dance.
II.
Willety wallety
William the Conqueror
Wanted his subjects to
Quail at his power,
Crowing to Londoners
Hyperdespotically,
“Look, everybody, I’ve
Built me a tower!”
III.
Rickety tickety
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Sought for a subject to
Fashion a tale;
Tiring of writing so
Eschatologically,
Rather, he turned to the
Quest of the Grail.
NB. The nonsense opening of a Double Dactyl was originally, and is still most frequently, "higgledy-piggledy", but it can be any alliterative pair of dactyls. Here, the opening of the second is from the adapted version of the Scots folksong "Wee Cooper o' Fife" in the schoolhouse sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds-- though some postings online mishear it as "willaby wallaby" or "willicky wallicky". The nonsense opening of the third is from Tom Lehrer's "The Irish Ballad".
My Momma called me late yesterday
Told me our Jenny had passed away
Her life was taken by a Louisiana bear
My body went weak, but I grinned from ear to ear
She could shoot a quail at 100 yards
Get her hands dirty, take care of the farm
Her Daddy called her his best ranch hand
But I was really her biggest fan
She drove a flat bed pick up truck
Changed her own oil, tuned it up
She had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen
She had a .38 tucked in her jeans
She could skin a deer by the pale moonlight
Put it in a pan and cook it up right
Hope heavens ready for Tomboy Jenny
She'll show up in boots and a crown
She could reel in catfish from dusk to dawn
Do cartwheels across that big country lawn
She had freckles that danced down her nose
We played in the bayou where the dogwood grows
I can't believe that she is really gone
She made us feel like we all belonged
I loved her then, I'll miss her now
Tomboy Jenny never left this town
She's the reason us boys hung around .........
Life is a tournament
which is played out
on a large checkerboard
The master moves his
pieces
while opponents quail at
their posts
It's a game which consumes
the heart and soul
As the clock spins
the game
becomes a vortex
With a sprinkling of respect
We utilize the forces we have
Dive into the deeper pool
Play the game as best we can
Someone will be victorious
in this battle
("the deeper pool "is a line from Lawrence Ferllinghetti's work)