If You Can'T Comment On My Poetries, Can'T You At Least Deign To Comet On Them
Scribal notions these, and oh so sorrowful,
But, despite their seeming poignance they are not additionally puissant, no.
I have seem them, wrapped in warmed and moist leaves:
No, not the leaves as pages of books, as duodecimos and folios and so forth, no:
I speak of leaves arboreal and nemoral, sylvan leaves: The leaves of trees.
It is as if they are in a room or space similar to that foggy one in which Turks,
Who supposedly originated it, and whose name the thing bears, are stereotypically said to
At whiles sit;
Yes, the bath of the Turks, the sweat and steam room as you and I call it,
This is the room I envisage for the leaves of trees that wrap themselves
And entwine themselves lovingly and crushingly-
Like a slithering, forked-tongued footless animal serpentine-
Constricting the parchment pages of the poetries I have written.
Some are elegiac, yes....but, are all?
Is this some new veil of bereavement I festoon the genizah of my poetry with?
It seems not so, but as the rigors of the Philistine warriors adust:
Plastered with the adhesive greyish-white, tawny-hued dust of those Neareastern sands over which they tramped and trod, with that heavy, booted tread of footed dread;
Or if not from beneath their heavy, iron-shod feet, then perhaps
Emanating from the formerly occluded oriels of Judean homes lately
Opened, from which to fling great handfuls of dust from woven baskets by stalwart and unafraid Jewesses, the equally soldierly and fearless wives of the men who made up the armies of the hated invader, new to the Judean lands,
As their foot-sore trials and travails; though given their slaughterous and ignorant, wicked character, a travail thrice-warranted, four times deserved;
So then am I and my poetry.
What else can be said about this little neglected group, now of six?
What of this sextet can be said, can be testified, can be commented?
Rememberable as the least of these poetries, is a jocular, paragrammatic little epigram I once conceived of
('Twas anent a plumber's apprentice and a class he attended to learn the disciplines of the trade):
Which went as follows: "I always COMET in class."
To the which all sorts of risibility should have thus attended, but,
Being, as all my works yet, neglected, I shouldn't think that laughter of
Any kind will ever accompany it.
Yet, that is the exceedingly concise, jocular tale;
And so, I add to it by saying:
"If you can not comment on these my group of poetries, then can't you at least COMET on them?"
Copyright ©
Douglas Cate
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