Popcorn Poetry

Hmmm, it would seem I've gotten a bit lax in the finer arts rumored to be featured on this blog.

Well, here's the remedy for that: a bit of poetry, presented popcorn-style. (As in, a variety "popping up all over.") Feel free to feast on a bit of a fanciful buffet, thanks primarily to the random musings from my Random House Treasury of Light Verse. :)

"Hours of Sleep" -- Anonymous
Nature requires five; custom gives seven;
Laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.

"A 'Good Girl's' Prayer for Sleep" -- Rachel E. Dewey
If wicked I be for oversleeping, please let me become horrendously so.
For if short sleep doth leave me peeving, I've turned bad anyhow.

"News Item" -- Dorothy Parker
Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
(Gee whiz, guess it's a good thing I ditched mine, then.)
"Dorothy Parker Update" -- Dorothy Dreher
Men often lose their senses over girls with contact lenses.
(Hang on, I'm starting to wonder if these dames didn't work for Bausch & Lomb or something.)
"Further Updates on an Unending Bulletin" -- Anonymous
I heard a woman mutter, "Glasses or no glasses, it neither hinders nor it hurts,
For men will make passes at anything in skirts."
(I am now convinced that even poetry has been corrupted by the advertising industry.)

Wait a minute, Sara Teasdale to the rescue!
"Wisdom" -- Sara Teasdale
When I have ceased to break my wings against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait behind each hardly-opened gate,
When I can look Life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth, and taken in exchange -- my youth.
(There's a bit of reality to counter all that advertising!)

And now last, but not least-- a deep thought for the day:
Robert Frost's "Revelation"
We make ourselves a place apart, behind light words that tease and flout.
But oh, the agitated heart, should someone really find us out.
'Tis pity, if the case require (or so we say) that in the end,
We speak the literal to inspire the understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play at hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away must speak and tell us where they are.


If you want to take Frost's advice, you can now "speak" by posting open comments on this blog.
That's right, the "poetry of passionate discussion" I touted on these very pages in one of my earliest postings months ago can now become reality. Be forewarned, however: the right to revoke commenting privileges has been reserved, so please be on best behavior. Beyond that, let's hear what you have to say!