[The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants–]

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants—
At Evening, it is not
At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stop opon a Spot

As if it tarried always
And yet it’s whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay—
And fleeter than a Tare—

’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler—
The Germ of Alibi—
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble, hie—

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit—
This surreptitious Scion
Of Summer’s circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one contemn—
Had Nature an Apostate—
That Mushroom—it is Him!

— Emily Dickinson

At the lines “Doth like a Bubble antedate/And Like a Bubble, hie—” Dickinson throws a leather glove at Shakespeare’s feet and wins the ensuing duel.

The New Ondioline

I have been moving my posts over to a new Ondioline on Tumblr. Here. The fate of this Ondioline is uncertain.

Arthur Mitchell

Slim dragon fly
    too rapid for the eye
        to cage,

contagious gem of virtuosity
make visible, mentality.
Your jewels of mobility

reveal
    and veil
        a peacock-tail.

– Marianne Moore

Lesson of the day: how indentations can mimic a subject; in this case, Mitchell in the act of dance.

the Return of the Repressed

– bpNichol

To coo over the queue of Q’s coup into Kõo.

the Mad Gardener’s Song

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
‘At length I realise,’ he said,
‘The bitterness of Life!’

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said,
‘I’ll send for the Police!’

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
‘The only thing I regret,’ he said,
‘Is that it cannot speak!’

He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
‘If this should stay to dine,’ he said,
‘There won’t be much for us!’

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
‘Were I to swallow this,’ he said,
‘I should be very ill!’

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
‘Poor thing,’ he said, ‘poor silly thing!
It’s waiting to be fed!’

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
‘You’d best be getting home,’ he said:
‘The nights are very damp!’

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
‘And all its mystery,’ he said,
‘Is clear as day to me!’

He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said,
‘Extinguishes all hope!’

Lewis Carroll

From Sylvie and Bruno, the last of Carroll’s major works. The poem, whose stanzas appear throughout the novel, suffice as structure to that dreamwork.

“Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh”

Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh.
Erthe other erthe to the erthe droh.
Erthe leyde erthe in erthene throh.
Tho heuede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh.

– Anonymous

Various translations of this Middle English poem can be found online. My favorite:

Earth took of earth earth with ill;
Earth other earth gave earth with a will.
Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:
Then earth in earth had of earth its fill.

There are also several versions of the original which, judging from its widespread inclusion in incunabula across the centuries, seems to have been a popular poem. “Erthe upon Erthe” collects these variations and gives historical background.

It is a remarkable little thing. The repetition of “earth” makes it easy to remember; and as that word repeats, the meaning changes slightly: planet, ground, soil, tomb. The earth becomes not just the land on which we live, but also the opening in that land where we go to die. Ominous!

Hunter Trials

It’s awf’lly bad luck on Diana,
  Her ponies have swallowed their bits;
She fished down their throats with a spanner
  And frightened them all into fits.

So now she’s attempting to borrow.
  Do lend her some bits Mummy, do;
I’ll lend her my own for to-morrow,
  But to-day I‘ll be wanting them too.

Just look at Prunella on Guzzle,
  The wizardest pony on earth;
Why doesn’t she slacken his muzzle
  And tighten the breach in his girth?

I say, Mummy, there’s Mrs. Geyser
  And doesn’t she look pretty sick?
I bet it’s because Mona Lisa
  Was hit on the hock with a brick.

Miss Blewitt says Monica threw it,
  But Monica says it was Joan,
And Joan’s very thick with Miss Blewitt,
  So Monica’s sulking alone.

And Margaret failed in her paces,
  Her withers got tied in a noose,
So her coronets caught in the traces
  And now all her fetlocks are loose.

Oh, it’s me now. I’m terribly nervous.
  I wonder if Smudges will shy.
She’s practically certain to swerve as
  Her Pelham is over one eye.

                    * * * * *

Oh wasn’t it naughty of Smudges?
  Oh, Mummy, I’m sick with disgust.
She threw me in front of the Judges,
  And my silly old collarbone’s bust.

– John Betjeman

Betjeman was a poet of proper nouns. Prunella, Smudges, Guzzle, Diana, Miss Blewitt — all names for posh girls and ponies. The diction is both ridiculously British (“the wizardest pony on earth”!) or equestrian jargon (loose fetlocks and whatnot). Pelham bits being taboo for inexperienced riders, the girls probably come from old families with old money and horses in their heritage.

Conjugal Love

amo
amas
amat
amamus
amatis
a mantis

– Alan Riddell

This is a found poem from a Latin textbook. I saw. I came. I consumed.

Summer Poem

In midsummer
the way between our homes
is blocked

the streets snowed up
and neither of us
wants to be the first
to clear away the snow

I remember that you were
not too keen on toil

and I have always
been fond of
snow

– Gerður Kristný

Kristný is Icelandic, which explains the snow in summertime. I like this poem for what it doesn’t say; the relationship between the narrator and the other is as presumed as the path beneath the snow.

[Poem first published in KIN]

Richard the Third in a Fourth of a Second

The Essential Shakespeare, Volume I
Rapid-retrieval editions in rhymed hemimeter

ACT I

Clop.

Clop-
clop.

But
look
what
Hop-
toad
did.

Wid-
ow’d,

ACT II

woo’d,

took

this
lewd
and
stin-
king
thing
this
En-
gland.

ACT III

Clop-
pit-
y
clop
he
swap
it
fer
some
horse.

ACT IV

Flum-
mer-
y
of
course.

Cov-
er
stor-
y
for
the
hoi-
po-
lloi.

ACT V

Good;

we
would-
n’t
want
the
slu-
bbered
herd

ACT VI

thin-
king
which
nerd
murd-
ered
Rich-
ard
Third.

– George Starbuck

A bare bones exhumation of Shakespeare’s deform’d, unfinish’d king?

A syllable is nothing more than the smallest phonetical unit of a word, a vocalic boulder with consonantal tufts of grass sprouting before and after. As Starbuck shows, syllables do funny things when cleft from their crags: thinking breaks to thin king, stinking becomes stin king oozing from the odiferous En gland. Eek. But then everything ends in a landslide of -urds, -erds, and words, reburying the body.