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Best Poems Written by Jerome Malenfant

Below are the all-time best Jerome Malenfant poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Memorial Day


The fields are now quiet,
The thunder long gone;
The graves with their shadows
Stretch on and on.

The battle once here
Lives but in the past,
Of a war meant to be
Of all wars the last.

The flags and the trumpets,
The glory and fear,
Led men to battle;
Led but to here.

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Achilles and the Tortoise

In ancient times as told in rhymes 
    there was a hero Greek
Whose mother said, “Before you’re dead 
    you should go out and seek
The glorious fame that goes with your name, 
    my dearest son Achilles.”
So Achilles set out upon that route 
    and gave up his life of ease.
And he came to a place that held a race 
    to determine the fleetest and bravest.
And he beat them all, the short and the tall, 
    and was proclaimed of Greeks the greatest.

But when he was done there came a one 
    who asked him a simple question:
“You’ve beat all the Greeks, I did hear them speak,
    but, do I dare to mention,
Your fame and your name are likely to wane 
    until you outrace a tortoise.”
Though this contestant-to-be (for a tortoise was he) 
    appeared in complete rigor mortis,
Our hero Achilles, with grace and with ease, 
    took up this one last challenge.
For he thought to outpace this reptile base 
    was a thing he could quite easily manage. 

“But before we go, since I am slow, 
    I really should have a headstart.”  
And Achilles agreed, for despite his great speed, 
    he really was not very street smart. 
And the upshot was he lost it because 
    of an ancient Greek named Zeno.
That philosopher wrote (and here I quote): 
    “No matter how fast and no matter how slow,
It follows from logic,” (‘though this sounds idiotic, 
    if I'm allowed to be blunt!),
“That the race will always be won by that mother’s son 
    who started out in front.”
 
“Though this may make one giddy, it’s quite simple really 
    and clear to any observer:
If one runs without pause to where the other just was,
    that one has now moved on further.
Since this scenario’s repeated till the race is completed, 
    the conclusion is thus inescapable: 
Whoever's behind will never catch up, at least not enough,
    and their victory was never attainable.”

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The Lakes

The Iroquois, the Ottawa, the Potawatomi, the Crow,
The Lakota, the Chippewa; all dwelt by their shores
And in their deep forests, but are there no more. 

Yet the Lakes remain; their waters abide.
Clear and quiet they lie on calm summer days,
But send ships to their bottoms when gales roar in their skies.

The abyss of Superior, so cold and so dark,
Holds tight to its secrets the Ojibway said,
And the waters of Superior never gives up its dead.

The waters of Michigan, not so cold nor so deep,
Yet, like Superior, its secrets they keep.

The waters of Huron I see in a dream
Flowing over the ghosts of primordial streams,
Past islands and trees, always south towards the sea.

Receiving their waters, Erie, with skies luminescent, 
Sends them on crashing over the Escarpment. 

Then on through Ontario and the Saint Lawrence,
Passing Quebec, passing great forests,
They reach their goal, the wide gray Atlantic.

Like great Superior, 
My secrets lie deep, my secrets lie cold.
They lie in an abyss and will never be told.

But there come to me times when I want just to go
To that vast Ocean wide;
To flow into the deep and there forever abide.

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A Bright Young Fellow Named Ernest

A bright young fellow named Ernest
Went to med school to be an internist.
  But the sight of insides
  Gave him really bad vibes,
So he took up accounting in earnest.

A shifty young lawyer named Stan
Came up with a devious plan
   To avoid paying taxes
   Through complex finances,
But was told that his plan wouldn't stand.

A beginner in fencing named Perry
Was finding that swordplay was scary.
   "Not to belabor
    But it's defective, my saber!
It thrusts but refuses to parry!"

An anemic young lady named Madeline 
Became increasingly maudlin
   When she came to discover
   That her boyfriend and lover  
Would sleep through the day in his coffin.

A lady tourist named Lisa
Fell from the Tower of Pisa.
   On the way down
   She thought thoughts profound
And remembered to renew her visa.

A deadbeat gambler named Owen
Ran into the guys he was owing
   Who, with style and with ease,
   Broke both his knees,
After asking him, "Hey, how's it going?"

A big rock-and-roll star was Ben,
But now just a 90's has-been.
   The girls and their aunties 
   Would throw him their panties,
But now no more groupies has Ben.


("What's in a name" contest entry)

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Twas the Day After Christmas

’Twas the day after Christmas and all through our split-level
Were the signs and the debris of our Christmasy revel;
The tree and the lights that we’d erected with care
Lay now in heaps and in tangles, in complete disrepair.

Not an adult was stirring; we were all comatose
From our Christmas-day turkey and stuffing overdose.
Still asleep in our beds while the kids ran amok
With their new games and their dollies and their little toy trucks.

But throughout the house a dreadful sound was soon heard, 
A sound that sickened the heart like the vilest curse word.
It arose from the basement and swelled, as upward it soared:
’Twas the cry of the offspring announcing, “We’re bored!”

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Deep In the Basement

Deep in the basement of the east wing
Lady Penelope keeps a Thing
    With big teeth and claws
    And horrible jaws
And feeds it her husband’s old flings.

While sister Edith keeps under covers
A creature that crawls and gibbers and mutters,
    That’s disgusting and spiny,
    Appalling and slimy,
And feeds it her old boyfriends and lovers.

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Leonhard Euler Once Said To His Son

Leonhard Euler once said to his son,
“Hey kid, c’mere, look what I’ve done!
     The exponential of pi,
     First multiplied by i,
Exactly equates to minus one. ”

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The Wendigo

The wendigo moves through the forests of night,
Through haunts of shadows and dreams;
Through dark valleys and past frozen rivers and streams
Where it can be seen in the faint moonlight
By the unlucky and the doomed and the damned.
For it feeds on the souls, so old legends have said,
Of the tormented, the lost and misled
In the cold mists of this far northern land.

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A Sweet Young Thing Named Maddie

A sweet young thing named Maddie
Found her a rich sugar daddy.
   "He's lousy in bed,
    But after he's dead
I get his solid gold Caddie."

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The Sirens

It is said that there is an island in the midst of a fog-shrouded sea
Where there are mystical creatures, which no mortal man has seen;
Creatures that sing so enchantingly that they entrance all those who hear;
Creatures that sing with such longing that they banish all memories and fear;
Songs that lure ships to their dark death against the rocks and the crags;
Songs that lure crews to their last breaths, to be food for fish and for crabs.

It is said that a ship of Achaeans sailed past this forsaken shore;
Sailed past this fog-shrouded island as its crew returned home from the war.
Odysseus sailed past this island in the midst of a vast lonely sea;
Sailed past the legended island where the Sirens were once said to be.
And Odysseus said he would hear it, he’d hear the Sirens’ dread song,
And ordered his crew to bind him, fast to the mast tight and strong. 
  
        Then the ears of the crew were deafened with wax
        And they rowed with their arms and they rowed with their backs;                           
        Rowed hard and rowed fast till the danger was past;
        They rowed till their hearts nearly collapsed.

        And when they were safe and they asked what he’d heard,
        Odysseus wept but spoke not a word.                
        He could only look back towards the island 
        Where the song of the Sirens he’d heard.

Odysseus alone returned to his home over the white sea foam.
Gave up his wild sea-faring life, lived quiet with son and with wife.
But every night for the rest of his life, as Odysseus lay in his bed,
He heard the song of the Sirens, he still heard their song in his head.
He heard the song still and he ached to be on that distant, fog-shrouded island
In the midst of the vast lonely sea.