Poetry
Eating
Pablo Neruda
The Penman's Home
A book claims
a place at my table.
Ravenous, I rip out a piece and spread it
with sweet butter, and stuff it into my hole.
Flashing
incisors cleanly cleave another word or two,
while at a break in the feast I drink a goblet of
wine with drunken men and mermaids.
A well done
flank of verbiage cut to small,
mouth-sized bites is tasty and it reminds me of 1935
with a just hint of Chile, and everywhere else as well.
The meal
is done and I whisk letters from the table,
and dab the debris from the edges of my mouth so that none
should know that I was eating Pablo Neruda.
The following was written as an exercise, an effort to write in a Celtic style and was only attempted after the Pogues' Drunken Boat song. Great poets these musicians are. So many hours of writing and rewriting this piece and it still falls far short of my unsuspecting mentors.
The Penman's Home
Through a timbered sea I made my way toward the Penman's home, Knowing full well I'd passed through hell cast blistered - vagabond.
I approached, I made my notice, I knocked upon the door. And knocked the door twice or more, then waited - waited awhile.
I settled back, I dogged my time till late within the hour, Then knocked no more, surrendered the door and readied to ease away.
When on my heel, cuff to the dark came a voice disquieted king, Sung loud enough, long and low enough to question, questioning.
What turn did you take to enter this home? What learned thing do you bring? What temple built or shadow sown, what blood and bludgeoning?
>From what far shore do you elude? Which ballads do you sing? Do your morals stand here or there when pirates go pirating?
Give cause to enter, cause to stay, release to gauntlet run, And we and I will sit you down within this Penman's home.
I've keyed my fingers bloody stiff and damned the wasted hours. Learned a nameless thing or two bout familiar folk and cowards.
My shadow's turned and heavy bent, haunted from heart to stem. I've been ashore where commonplace was blood and bludgeoning.
Now, to this gauntlet that I'm to run if more than this remains. For I am intent on a chair by the fire, and entrance I will gain.
The voice spoke cool and level, as a breeze across a pond, And with these words I was settled and fell to lay upon.
Prepare yourself to weave a spell, initiate a pause. To right a wrong and measured pace, an ill forgotten cause. To call upon remembering's breath, to pen an exhalation. To write a love incestuous, describe a penetration.
Gird yourself to tell the tale that none has ever heard. Clutch your keys and papers and give to them your word.
The gauntlet, it's your own devise, the bar is placed by you. The clubs, the whips but tools to drub courage to the bow.
So settle by the fire awhile. Warm yourself within. But settle not for rank and file the day is late my friend.
Now I chase the shortened days, spinning my tales to the end. I write the words that visit and blend them here within.
I've settled a seat near the heat of the fire inside the Penman's home, Inditing to hearts desire, while my soul the world does roam.