Poetry&Prose

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Understand! I will fight every swordsman and bowman.

I'll die like a soldier. Or win, like a Roman!

But curse the gods who ordained that my best contribution to

Caesar was as hammer-man at that execution,

driving spikes through that helpless Jew's ankles and hands.

Fat Mars! I but followed Centurion commands,

Yet I felt his eyes upon me.

They say that he taught of a Great God of Love.

Ha! The Love Goddess Venus is who I'm in need of,

so I jeered at his comrades who walked at his side -

“Get love from those Hebrew girls? Trust me, I've tried.”

But a goatskin of red wine cannot wash away the knowledge

that, somehow, my life changed that day

that I felt his eyes upon me.

I'm a soldier of Rome, serving Tiberius.

Now my whole life's in chaos, the world seems delirious,

begging me turn from my duty of war

because Jove is a fraud, and Juno's a whore!

Tell me where do I go from here? What's it all mean?

Now I owe my whole soul to that dead Nazarene

since he turned his eyes upon me.

Bob Little 2003

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Happy! Happy as a puppy. Jumping excitedly to be going for a hike in the woods.

She's always loved the woods. But lately she hadn't shown the same enthusiasm she used to,

before her joints ached,

before she spent most of her time sleeping,

before she was a thirteen-year-old dog.

But this time she was jumping as excitedly as she used to,

tail wagging as exhuberently as it once did,

as if she knew there would be something very special

about this hike in the woods.

Copper and Parker and I started out after dinner. And when father and son stopped to work on our nature trail she walked on ahead,

as dogs do.

When skies began to darken we called her to go home

but she was gone.

We walked the neighborhood streets calling

but couldn't find her.

Next morning I walked out through the woods, searching,

and when I came to a long grassy strip beside a driveway I thought
"She wouldn't be down there; she's never been there in her life."
Then I saw in the distance a dark mound, and approaching I called out

"Copper?"

But touching her side I found her stiff and cold.

She was too heavy to carry far.

I brought the truck and took her to her woods and we buried her.

And I remembered she was happy, happy to be going -

where? Where do dogs go?

A dog with an immortal soul is a child's fantasy.

But still I remembered she was happy,

happy her thirteen-year hike was done.

Bob Little 2003

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Villia Strange, and beautiful, and terrifying things can happen, in the woods.

A woods is the neatest place in the world to be. It's green and cool on a hot summer day and in winter it's white and filled with fluffy snow. In spring it grows things like jack-in-the-pulpits and it's prettiest of all in the fall. I don't believe in magic but if magic ever happened, then it would happen in the woods.

Thus was my dream from grade school days and it remains my dream still.

And then, ten years ago Jordan Rose and our son Parker and I moved to our house on Redwood Road and - how could I be so lucky? - we can walk out our back door and into our woods.

A long hike takes me through various people's property but almost nobody else ever walks there, and I can walk along a wooded stream, a mile or so each way, often together with Parker or with Copper, our Shepherd-Doberman mix that we brought home from the pound when she was just a puppy.

Things for the hiker to enjoy include maples, oaks, and blackberries, darting fish, red-bellied woodpeckers or even, at dusk, the barking voice of a barred owl, steep stream banks, and occasional deer or turkeys.

And, witnessed only by Copper and myself, the Witch of the Wood.

We first saw her in the summer at dusk. We had turned for home as the light faded for the sky was overcast and the moon was last quarter which meant we wouldn't have much light to go by.

Copper had seemed uneasy and was staying close to my side, her back bristling. A steep stream bank that was normally covered with ferns had washed out in that terrific storm we had four nights before, leaving a deep crevice back into the hill, and in this shelter she was writing by the light of a pile of burning sticks.

She was repulsive to look at. I instantly grabbed Copper's collar and her low growling told me she shared my feeling. And I avoided looking at that hideous face.

The huge book in the witch's lap looked ancient; its cover was of dry cracked leather; its once gilt-edged pages were now curled and yellow, and she was reading intently, incantations perhaps, or eye-of-newt recipes, and occasionally she added notes of her own using a Scripto ball-point pen.

I didn't know whether to be afraid. I asked “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” and instantly grimaced at my own cliché and waited for her to turn me into a frog. But instead she seemed amused. Her laughter contained not a trace of a cackle, but reminded me of the tinkling of bells. “Others are a better judge of that than I,” she replied.

I looked up to see her smile a smile that would have enchanted the trees; it certainly bewitched me.

How could something so hideous have changed so quickly into something not hideous at all? I made a quick visual inventory. Face - somewhat rounder than current fashion but very appealingly so. Skin- clear and smooth with the dark walnut hue of one who spends her days with the sun. Above her long smooth throat and softly pointed chin her lips were wide and full, the type often described as sensual. The bridge of her nose was straight and her cheek bones were high and softly defined and above were her eyes!

It was impossible not to notice her eyes. They were dark, but in the same way the night is dark: I could not say they were brown, or almond, or grey. They made me feel that if I could look deeply enough into those eyes every mystery of our planet would be unlocked. Her lashes were strikingly long, and black, and curved, and her brows were narrow, and her forehead was high, and then - .

Her raven hair hung in soft waves down past her slender waist, her black silken garment rising just high enough to conceal her bosom - twin mountain peaks, it seemed, adorning so slight a bodily frame - the fabric then rising higher to envelop her shoulders and then cascade downward as loosely fitted sleeves to her wrists. She wore a purple satin sash and her skirt was full, draping firm, supple hips and thighs, and ending at her gracefully curved calves which narrowed to perfectly shaped ankles above purple suede slippers.

I asked “Who are you?” and she replied "You may call me Villia.” “Villia,” I blurted out, “I think you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” and then turned in confusion, “C'mon, Copper, let's go home.”

I think it was three weeks later about 10:00 in the evening that I felt a little too tense for sleep and decided to take a relaxing stroll through the woods. The night was clear and the moon was bright and I know the path so well I didn't need a flashlight.

But as soon as I got out the door my senses told me this was not the woods I knew so well; something had changed. Yet when I looked at the trees, the bushes, the grass and the path, the planet Venus gleaming in the western sky, everything looked perfectly normal. Then I realized it wasn't my eyes that were alarming me; it was my ears. The chirping of the crickets was coordinated with some chirping low and others high. The baritones played a note in unison and then the sopranos, in perfect rhythm, with the frogs at our pond booming out the bass. Even the barred owl I had heard only once before sometimes came in with a dramatic percussion note. And as I walked I found myself skipping in time to that hypnotic music.

Where the woods ends, not far from our house, is a grassy plain stretching down to the stream. And as I approached that grassy slope I came up behind two deer, both does, staring out into the opening. They bent their necks to look at me but instead of running they merely resumed staring at the open slope, and when I came abreast of them I saw her there in the moonlight. She had cast off her gown and, bathed in the dim blue light, she was dancing.

She was dancing quickly and tirelessly yet with supreme elegance. She held her satin sash in one hand and as she pirouetted she sliced it through the air in long intricate strokes, creating designs, I thought, or perhaps she was spelling words in some alphabet unknown to mortals. Her motions were repeated over and over again in a ritual that was to me a complete mystery.

I was careful to stay in the shadows, but I counted twelve deer, - does and bucks - standing along the tree line border. And along the stream any number of raccoons and opossums would scramble to the top of the bank, watch the ballerina's pas de une for a few seconds, and then waddle back to the stream.

It was clear that every motion of her body had a distinct meaning but I hadn't the slightest idea what it was. She would jump unbelievingly high with her long legs fluttering back and forth with the speed of a hummingbird's wings and her arms beating the air so frantically I expected her to take flight. Placing the sash between her teeth she would run very fast up the hill nearly to the tree line where I stood only to spin around and return, leaping high above the ground with every step, clapping her hands to the incessant beat.

Suddenly she pointed to me there in the shadows and with sweeping arm movements beckoned me to come into the clearing to dance with her. Much as I longed to obey, my courage flagged and I ran back up the path to the house. And the dreams I dreamed, that night, I will not describe. But every night after that I listen, hoping to hear the crickets play their dance music, but they never do.

The next time I saw her was on a Sunday morning when I rose early for a walk to the frog pond before church. As usual Copper begged to go along. We walked back past the salt block where the deer tracks in the newly fallen snow told us we had had visitors. “Good morning dear, I've missed you,” she called out musically, her black dress clearly visible between the snow-covered trees. Her skin had retained its deep summer coloring. She sat huddled on a bench I had made beside the pond, clutching a woolen shawl about her with her feet drawn up under her thighs for warmth. Her word “dear” emboldened me to dust the snow off the bench and sit beside her, feeling the delicious warmth of her shoulder.

Copper had already run to her, for she doesn't easily forget a human scent, and was nuzzling her neatly manicured hand set off by polished but uncolored nails. I said “I've missed you too. I've thought about you - a lot. I did some research at the library and found your name, Vilja, in a song written a hundred years ago about a hunter who saw you in the woods and was so spellbound by your beauty that he sang something about `Vilja, O Vilja, the Witch of the Wood, would I not die for thee dear, if I could?' So you must be at least a hundred. How old are you, really?”

“Yes, I've missed you too, Copper,” she said, both hands stroking behind the dog's ears.

“Last summer when I saw you dancing near the stream, what did it mean? Why did you -."

“Copper dear,” she said, “If your master ever again breathes a word about that evening ritual, bite him.” Copper looked at me and bared her teeth. I changed the subject.

“But I think I've got it figured out. You're not in the woods. You are the woods. Am I right?”

She gazed at the pond, with a thin crust of ice forming around the edges.

“And I've always loved the woods, all my life, so I guess I love you. That song says the hunter "looked, and he longed for, the magical maid," and I understand exactly how he felt. Where do you live? I can't believe you just lie down on the ground to sleep at night. You've got to have a place to keep your belongings. You didn't have that shawl when I talked to you last. You don't have your book with you now. Where is it? What's in it, and what were you writing in it?”

She pressed her finger against my lips, gently but firmly. Her frown was even more captivating, if possible, than her smile. “Stop. You're beginning to annoy me. But if you want me to share a secret with you I'll tell you something as a warning; I really do have the power, if I like, to transform you into something you don't want to be, and just like mortals, I don't have infinite patience.” She smiled again. "Not that I ever would, of course; I detest clichés. I also have the power to ride a broomstick, but for what purpose? And I don't own a black cat. All animals adore me."She pulled my head down toward her and kissed me, then jumped to her feet and ran faster than I've ever seen anyone run, up over the hill, but when I reached the crest she was gone and had left no footprints in the snow.

After that I spent more time than ever in the enchanted woods, longing to see her re-appear. I forgot I had a wife and son.

In the spring I hiked along the stream to the crevice where I had first seen her, but it had filled with mud and the ferns were again sending up their fiddle-neck fronds. I spent an entire Saturday digging out the mud but found no mystical book or wool shawl or even a burned stick. I spent far more time than necessary transplanting wildflowers near the pond at the bench where she had kissed me. At work my every thought was of quitting time when I could go home to the woods. In the evening I would sit for hours staring at the grassy slope, visualizing every detail of her dance, kicking myself for refusing her invitation to join in. At night I would wake up, slip on my shoes, and go for a walk in the woods. And in desperation I would call out “Villia! Villia!”

And on a Monday after work I was calling her name when I heard her voice “Stop it! Leave me alone! It's the same thing day after day, and I need my privacy as much as you mortals need food and water. I need to be left alone!”

My heart raced. So she had heard me. I could contact her any time I wanted. “Please, Villia,” I called. “I apologize for invading your privacy, but I need to talk to you. I'll do anything for you if you'll just let me see you again. There are so many things I need to know. I know men can fall in love with you. Can you fall in love with a man? Villia?”

“Up here, dear,” came a voice from above me. I was standing next to a magnificent four foot diameter beech tree that I had often enjoyed looking up at as it stood out against a blue sky . Except this time she was up there near the top, hanging on for dear life. “How the heck did you get up there?” I called.

"It's a long story, but first help me get down. The branch I was standing on broke and all I could grab hold of were these twigs. I can't quite reach the main trunk. Can you rescue me? Please hurry!”

It never occurred to me to wonder why the witch of the wood needed help climbing down from a tree. My dreams had come true! I, a mere mortal, now had the chance to heroically rescue this exquisite creature. The beech's first limbs were thirty feet up, but there was a spindly maple nearby, leaning toward the beech, and I figured that if I would climb to the top of the maple it might bend from my weight far enough that I could reach the bottom limb of the beech.

It bent, but not far enough. If only my arms were a foot longer! I looked at the ground thirty feet below and I've always been leery of heights. But then I looked up to where the west wind was working its magic by toying with the hem of her gown, and giving me a song.

“Why are you doing this, west wind? What are you doing to me? Inviting, Entreating, Revealing, Concealing, a thigh or an ankle or a knee?” Compelling me to continue my upward climb mindless of all fears and dangers. I braced my left foot firmly against the small branch it was standing on, flexed my knee, and jumped.

My right hand grabbed the limb and slipped off, but my left hand managed to hang on and somehow - I don't know how - I managed to get on top of the limb. As I climbed upward I heard a distant chain saw and looked down at a neighbor (I never knew his name) working in his yard four hundred feet away. I think he saw me.

I climbed up to her level but she asked me to climb about three feet higher and from there I tried to reach her hand with mine but couldn't. “Lean out farther,” she pleaded, but it still wasn't enough. “Still farther,” she asked desperately but I looked down at the ground, way way down, and I froze in place.

Then she smiled. That radiant, effervescent smile. Now no risk was too great. I leaned out farther, much farther, until my fingers nearly touched hers. In another second I would feel the thrill, the electric thrill, of the touch of her hand.

The smile vanished and her eyes burned with the fires of hell. “For months you've done nothing but torment me!” She grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the tree and let me plummet head first. I heard my neck snap as my head hit the ground.

I looked at myself with my head at right angles to my spine and there could be no doubt I was dead. My neighbor must have seen me fall for he left his chain saw and rushed through the woods toward me, took one look, and ran back toward his house.

He returned a while later followed by a policeman and two medics. “And the strangest part, Officer, was when I first got here there was this lady standing over him in a black dress and purple shoes. She was an old lady, really really old.

“She was the scrawniest, ugliest old crow you could possibly imagine.”

Bob Little

(picture of moonlit woods by courtesy of Sooth, manager of in Discussion section of MSN Boiling Pot Groups)

(song "Vilja O Vilja" by Franz Lehar, transl. from German by Chappell & Co., London, 1907:

"There once was a vilja, a witch of the wood,

a hunter beheld her one day as she stood,

the spell of her beauty upon him was laid,

he looked, and he longed for the magical

maid.

For at once a tremor ran

right through the poor bewildered man,

and he sighed, as a hapless lover can:

'Vilja oh Vilja, the witch of the wood

Would I not die for thee, dear, if I could,

Vilja, oh Vilja, my life and my bride,'

softly and sadly he sighed, he sighed.

The wood maiden smiled but no answer she gave,

but beckoned him into the shade of her cave.

He never had known such a rapturous bliss,

no maiden of mortals so sweetly can kiss!

Then as at her feet he lay,

she vanished in the wood away,

and he called, vainly, 'til his dying day:

'Vilja, oh Vilja, my life and my bride,'

softly and sadly he sighed,

sadly he sighed, 'Vilja!'"

(A vilja is a Celtic woodland spirit)

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Indianapolis was home to the ramshackle dome that we kids called the House of Blue Lights.

In a sea of mean briars and old rotting tires -
that`s a place to stay far from by nights!
For its circular tower, each midnight would glower through its windows, with lights, ghostly blue,
where the owner and bride were found hanged side by side,in Eighteen and Seventy-two.

Our friend Scotty declared that he wouldn`t be scared to stay in that tower the night through.
(He told his parents that he would be staying with me) and then Linda said she'd stay there too.
As the west sky glowed red those two followed, we led, to the front door that groaned as it rattled.
We said Goodnight there by the cobwebby stair, slammed the door,
and then we skedaddled.

Next morning, with dread, we returned as we said, through the drizzling rain and the mud,
but found midst the rot, neither Linda nor Scott,
just this note scrawled in red ink,
or blood:

Up the stairs to floor two, one more stairs to floor three, just one flight more to set our heads reeling

We sat down in the dust and our eyes met two rusty hooks on the wall near the ceiling.

Hour by hour we waited , our nerves lacerated, till blackness was all we could see,

Then “Scott, I've a feeling that cobwebs are stealing across my face, pleading with me.”

Not cobwebs - icy fingers bringing dead speech that lingers through the night, “Our house is so lonely,

I beg you to stay one eternal day, and forever I'll cling to you only.”

Then the dismal air lightened and images brightened, luminescence, dead blue, covered all

as from some shattered dream then I heard Linda scream

“Scotty -

LOOK AT THE WALL !! "

Then I saw that cursed omen - that man and that woman were hanged by their necks near the stair.

I clutched for her hand but her hand wasn't there.

“Scott! I can't see you!” And she vanished in air.

Our stark horror grew as we suddenly knew

who they were,

hanging there

on the wall.

Bob Little 2002

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> >

Everybody's heard of E. Rubenstein Foster, Mansfield businessman. Just because I'm an early riser I happened to see him bicycling up North MainStreet with that tall skinny guy and didn't know till later he had been bummed out the evening before in his fifth floor office in Richland Bank Building. He blamed it on today's economy but he knew the world had passed him by.

The stock that should have skyrocketed, didn't. The opportunity he passedover because he thought it wouldn't have paid off, would have. The business coup he thought would put him on the cover of Newsweek, fell flat on its face.

You've probably heard people change the phrase “Murphy’s law” to “Ruby’s law” for it seemed if there was anything in his plans that could go wrong, any possible glitch he had overlooked, it happened.

He looked down at the traffic on Park Avenue, where drivers were switching on their headlights. “Just to know what the Dow was doing tomorrow,” he grumbled, "I’d sell my soul to the devil.”

In a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke a stranger appeared before him, in a three piece business suit and horns.*Perhaps I could help you, sir,* he said.

“How?” asked Foster.

*Give me your soul and I’ll give you knowledge.*

“What kind of knowledge?”

*I see you read the News Journal,* said the stranger, glancing at the newspaper lying folded on the desk. *Give me your soul and I’ll give you a year’s subscription to the News Journal.*

Foster darkened with anger. “Bad joke!” he shouted.

The stranger flashed a sharp-toothed smile. *Don’t be too hasty; do I look like your newsboy? I’ll give you the next 365 issues delivered right here tonight.*

Foster caught his breath. He knew a deal when he saw one. All the next year’s papers printed in advance? Why, the stock market quotes alone would be worth eternal damnation. And with information like that he could predict the outcome of every election. The winner of every sporting event. Which industries will thrive and which will falter. Which nations will go to war and which will form alliances. And he knew how to make money from every prediction.

Then he hesitated. He thought of his youth, and his weekly attendance at religious services. “But,” he pleaded, “my soul is worth something to me, isn’t it?”

*I don’t know. Is it?*

“I don’t know either," whimpered Foster.

*The newspaper offer is a sure thing. Guaranteed.*

“But then there’s the matter of my conscience; I’m not an evil man. If you’re in the driver’s seat won’t you be tempting me into evil things like evicting widows and starting wars?”

*My clients are not evil. They’re just willing to seize opportunities.*

“I’m thinking too small,” muttered Foster. “It isn’t just a matter of some financial killings. I’ll have one year to rule the world. I’ll have to work fast and I’ll have to do it right but I know I can do it. Billionaires, presidents, dictators, will be calling me for advice. Heck, they’ll be begging me for permission – permission to carry out their plans. Knowledge is power, and I’ll have the power to make their plans fail or succeed.

“This is what my life was meant for. This moment is my destiny. All my life I’ve made mistakes – mistakes every day, but I’ve learned something from every mistake. There isn’t a person on earth who could use those papers as well as I can. I’ll be the most powerful person in the world, and I don’t care how hot the brimstone gets – my name will be emblazoned in history forever.”

He gripped the stranger’s hand. “My friend, you’ve got yourself a deal. But you forget this is leap year.”

*I stand corrected sir,* said his friend. *We'll throw in an extra paper absolutely free.* He vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving in his place a stack of newspapers to the ceiling.

* * * * *

Foster stood on his desk to get the top paper, dated one year hence from the present date. He skimmed through it quickly, scribbling notes as he went. The next paper was the day before that, and the next, the day before that.

Sometimes he encircled a news item for more study later. Always he added to his list of notes. And every note, he knew, would bring him wealth, and more important, power.

All night long he read and wrote, going through paper after paper, coming always closer to the present. Some news items were about what he might have expected while others brought a gasp of astonishment from his lips. Finally as dawn was beginning to lighten the sky he came to the very last paper; this morning’s paper that would be hitting the stands in another hour.

He turned it over to see his own picture. And to read “Mansfield Business Leader Dies in Sleep.”

RhymeCon

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Buchler built a business as the baker of Bugroon

and he built his building right beside the graveyard.

Buchler's business bustled and the bustle was his boon

for he boasted he was unafraid to slave hard.

The Burgomaster of Bugroon warned “Beware the moon,

Herr Buchler; when it's full thou'd best to be gone,

each burial will open quicker than a burst balloon,

each bogey man will vow thou'll never see dawn."

By the full moon of October, to the hooting of a loon,

each burial burst open right at midnight.

A million moans, a billion groans, behind a bleak bassoon,

a thousand bogeys, Buchler's boldness did blight.

“Herr Buchler, every one of us has brought our knife and spoon,

each one of us is hungering for our dinner,

so beat thy batter briskly now and bake, thou big buffoon,

and bring bread quick, e'er we becoming thinner.”

So then Buchler beat the batter in a bucket with a broomstick

and then Buchler baked the batter in a big baking bowl.

Then he brought a bit of butter and they buttered up their bread

but when they bit the buttered bread

the bread was bitter.

One battered bogey bragged “I was the baker of Bugroon,

the moon was full the night my life was leaving.

That bristling bunch demanded bread; I baked to their bleak tune

but my bread was bitter, thus my widow's grieving.

“Take my advice, thy batter must be brushed up very soon

that thou escape the wrath of those grim gourmets.

Add barley, beans, and Brussels sprouts, three hairs of a baboon,

bats, bugs, blackbirds, billiard balls, and three or four jays.

“Then thou'll beat the bitter batter in a bucket with a broomstick

and thou'll bake the bitter batter in a big baking bowl.

When thou bring a bit of butter and they butter up their bread, why then

I bet'cha that the bitter-battered baked and buttered bread

is better.

much better.”

Bob Little

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If anyone knows any reason these two should not be wed let him speak now or forever hold his peace.~ Traditional.

You can't very well find joy when you talk about the Town of Lort.

There ain't much laughter in a single rafter of that rundown County Court.

Ain't nobody whistles a happy tune on a walk down the street named Hope,

where after that grim night they dragged Mike McKnight to be hanged at the end of a rope.

There was war back in Nineteen-Eighteen on the thirteenth of July

when a pretty little girl name of Katie Burl met that doughboy furloughed from Camp Bligh.

“K-K-K-Katy, Beautiful Katie,” Mike sung her that song at the dance,

and he married Miss Kate only two days later afore shipping out to France.

Now Kate had had a boyfriend, a boy named Robert Lenzh,

and when Bob heard what his girlfriend done he vowed to get revenge.

They found her with a strangled throat right there in her bridal bed

and Mike's attorney tried hard for his client but “He's guilty” the jury said.

It happened one year later on the fifteenth of July

that old boyfriend, that Robert Lenzh, met his own dang turn to die.

They found him in a tree in Lort and the noose was yanked down tight,

and someone said that the murderer was the ghost of Mike McKnight.

The next anniversary of Mike and Kate saw the death of Bob's own brother,

and the next anniversary, it's sad to state, saw the death of their grieving mother,

and each July on the fifteenth night a cousin was strangled each time

and you can't try a ghost, seems only right, so police ignored the crime..

At this church in Lort we are gathered here and we heard what the preacher said,

that if anybody knows we should speak real clear why these two should not be wed.

The groom is Bob's cousin, five times removed; he'll be dead tonight, no lie.

He's all that's left. It's July fifteenth.

(And next year his Bride will die.)

And now I'll sit down.

By Rhymecon

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HOW TO RHYME THE UNRHYMABLE

I asked a rhyming dictionary "What rhymes with Dictionary?"

hoping the answers would abound.

It just said "Sorry. No perfect rhymes were found."

And I, being perfect, am very

wary

of anything imperfect. So I asked Larry

who instead

asked his sister Mary

"What rhymes with Dictionary?" Mary said

"Nothin'.

No such word as 'Strictionary.'

or 'Fictionary.'

Well, there's that game 'Pictionary,' But that's short-sighted,

for sadly, it's copyrighted.

By Milton-Bradley."

I was about to let it go, but what do rhyme book writers know

for real?

Now here's the deal:

The stressed syllable is the one that's billable to the rhyme

but it isn't "Dic'tion" all the time.

"a'ry" has a stressed syllable too,

which will also do,

to rhyme

with "Cherry"

or "Boysenberry."

"Meandering" has just three rhymes: pandering,

philandering,

and Gerrymandering.

But "I love to hear the birdies sing

as I go out meandering" rhymes, and these three lines swing:

"To dress like a Victorian

or chant like a Gregorian

I do not think would be much fun."

"o'rian" rhymes for the first two

lines but that won't do

for the third one

which rhymes the "an" with "fun."

So if a word is long, it might not be wrong

for another syllable to be stressed

and here is the test

I made up: "If the main stressed syllable comes before

two or three syllables more

or even four,

another can be stressed, too,

and either will do

for a rhyme.

Well, I tried to make this terse

but if I've made it worse

just use free verse.

RhymeCon

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Poetry ain't what it useter,

one, two generations ago

when poets' words had pow'r t' grip you

in th' palm of their hand

er onto th' edge of th' provurbul cliff'

in a heart stoppin' tale of adventure.

Poets ain't got sich pow'r t'day

like they useter when their words held magic

t' make tears flow down both cheeks

an' drive you outa yer armchair into th'

streets in search o' th' poor an' needy

jus' t' share yer compassion with a touch

o' yer lovin' hand,

poets' words don't work sich miracles t'day

like they useter when they could lift you into highest heavens

an' almost believe you were lookin' God full in th' face.

No.

T'day poets read what they've writ

an' say “Somethin's missin'. Needs more passion,

needs more real heartfelt punch in th' gut,

needs more o' th' infinite grandyur

o' th' music o' th' spheres.

But I can fix that. I'll jus' go back

an' add more cuss words.”

bob4

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(Published in our town's newspaper, the News Journal, July 1993.)

> >

How do you build a lifelong friendship? I don't know all the answers but here's a real-life example.

When Mark's dad carried him in his arms as a baby, or led him by his hand as a toddler, he wanted people to see them together. He felt very proud, because Mark was his first-born.

Sometimes they spent family vacations camping along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Mark and his two brothers, with their parents, climbed the spiral staircases of the Cape Hatteras and Okracoke Island lighthouses.

They explored ancient shipwrecks tossed onto the beach by an angry Atlantic Ocean. They learned that more than 600 ships, and thousands of human lives, had gone down in those treacherous waters during the past 450 years.

The three brothers grew up to the ugly sound of angry marital strife. I'll skip the details of that strife, but it hurt the kids as much as their parents, and Mark developed an anger toward his father.

Then came Philmont Scout Ranch. About the time of Mark's 15th birthday they both took a 60-mile backpacking trek through the Cimarron Mountains of New Mexico.

Mark was one of a crew of 11 Scouts, all from Mansfield's Troop 104, and his dad hiked with them as their adult adviser. It wasn't until years later that Mark revealed he had been conditioned to expect that none of the Scouts would like his dad, who would be so unhappy he'd cry himself to sleep in his tent.

As it turned out, of course, the hike was one of the high points of their lives. From that point forward they'd laugh together about the evening Mark broke the cardinal rule: He left some food in his knapsack overnight instead of placing it in the crew's bear bag to be slung high between two trees.That night a bear tore open the knapsack to claim his prize - a packet of dehydrated pancake syrup.

The next year Mark's dad beamed with pride, watching Mark organize some friends to plant hardwood seedlings at Gorman Nature Center. It was a service project, Mark's final requirement for the Eagle Scout badge.

Four years later the parents divorced, and Mark called his dad from college to ask how he was getting along. After hearing that everything was just fine he said "Oh I'm glad! I was kind of worried about you." Sometimes it's hard to tell the parent from the child.

When Mark would come home on vacation from school, or on leave from the army, he'd greet his dad with a hug. After getting used to it his dad decided that was kind of neat. To their misfortune most men feel awkward about showing affection.

Mark called his dad from the Army to describe his first parachute jump, followed by some good natured ribbing. Mark had once had to give his dad a pep talk before riding the ferris wheel at Cedar Point.

Years later (by that time they were both married) Mark called his dad from his home in St. Louis to say that he had a brain tumor. He was apologetic; he was sorry to spring a piece of news like that on anybody. He didn't have the heart, in that phone call, to add "The tumor is 100% fatal."

Mark later told his dad the thought of dying scared him not at all. (Mark always did look forward to starting anything he hadn't tried before.) "But what scares the heck out of me," he added, "is the thought of winding up in a wheel chair and being a burden to people who love me."

Sometimes the father and his wife drove out from Mansfield to St. Louis to visit "their kids." On the wall hung a framed poster of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, brought back from a long-ago vacation. It had hung on Mark's wall most of his life.

Mark told them he thought of that lighthouse as his symbol. He wanted the kind of life that would be a beacon to others. And from Mark's lips it did not sound like a cliché.

The two wives got along great, and that gave the two men plenty of time for long conversations. They talked about engineering formulae and old times. The son gave his father sage advice, like "Eat a live horned toad first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen all day."

They discussed favorite hymns, like "Crown Him with Many Crowns," and "A Mighty Fortress is our God," to be sung at Mark's Celebration - that's what he called his approaching funeral. He wanted those hymns to be sung joyfully and triumphantly. And Mark helped his dad write the column you are now reading.

And there was something else: they had both been born with a love of poetry. Mark had asked his co-workers "What's your favorite poem?" and received blank stares. But he and his dad could spend hours discussing their poetical likes and dislikes.

Mark read aloud his own favorite; it's written by Robert Frost and ends

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Mark died July 25, 1993. I count it a great privilege to know that he is my son.

Bob Little

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