TURKEY

Many readers will recognize this poem as one I have—almost traditionally now—published in November around the time of the American holiday of Thanksgiving. This year it will also appear in the fall issue of THE LYRIC, the oldest magazine in North America in continuous publication of traditional poetry since 1921.
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The turkey is a curious bird
And there’s a tale quite often heard
Of how this hapless, weak birdbrain
Looks up, agape, and drowns in rain.
But that is really just a myth
To entertain the gullible with.

In fact his monofocal eye
Must look sideways at the sky
Not up…and he might as easily drown
In puddles, failing to look down.
Poor thing can’t fly, can barely walk,
And gobble-gobble is his talk.

The ostentation of his tail
And puffed-out chest will surely fail
To keep him swaggeringly proud
If there’s a noise, and it is loud.
Then he is spooked, suddenly tense
And runs to cower by the fence.

American fowl of colonial fame
That Benjamin Franklin wanted to name
Federal symbol, national bird—
Turkey? Ridiculous! Turkey? Absurd!
Yet, in a way, it has almost come true–
Not on The Seal, but on the menu.

When Thanksgiving comes, it’s almost a law
Though steak lovers groan and vegans say “pshaw!”
That turkey be served as pre-eminent meat
Above the plenty of plenty to eat.
Crackling, drumstick, breast and wing
This one day a year, turkey is king.
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copyright Cynthia Jobin 2014
TURKEY

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NOTE TO REGULAR READERS: For health reasons I may not be able to keep to my customary schedule of posting….playing it by ear, henceforth, rather than by the book.

A FIB

Of late the inventors of poetry forms have caught on to a gimmick, now floating among the arts, of using the Fibonacci Sequence as a model for composition. It’s a mathematical sequence of numbers in which each member is derived by adding the previous two numbers. By definition, the series begins with 0, 1.
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144,…..
The poets who like to count syllables have adapted it so that each line of a poem is to follow the sequence by its number of syllables. They call it a “Fib”. This is the first one I have ever written, and likely the last.

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A FIB

Oh
yeah?
Really?
You think so?
This is a poem?
Then I am Marie Antoinette
driving a purple corvette as I text this vignette!

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A FIB

WOMAN IN SPRING WITH CANE

Here on the border, New Hampshire and Maine,
I watch the brown world through my windowpane
begin to go green, to spring once again.
The mossy, rockbound, hilly terrain
of my yard, I can now ascertain,
is a moldy, crotchety, ugly domain:
dead leaves, fallen branches, have lain
under snow the whole winter. Now a toy train,
a split frisbee, odd stones, compose the moraine.
I sigh.  I wish by some legerdemain
I could clean it all up, simply ordain
a neatness.  Sure, and order the sun, the rain.

The dried bamboo sticks, it’s plain,
are mocking me now.  I will not profane
the air with my curses, but those are the bane
of my landscape:  cane after cane, after cane,
their invincibility drives me insane.
What’s more, they remind me how arthritic pain
has me hobbled, three-legged, constrained
to walk with a stick.  Perhaps I’ll never regain
my gardening self.  Someone else will maintain
my grounds.  That’s that.  No use to complain.

What else can I do?  Order out for chow mein,
wash it down with champagne,
try to treasure whatever obtains,
accept the inevitable, ultimate reign
of the gods, however arcane.
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I

IN EX PENSIVE

It’s most distressing for a writer when
he cannot think of what to write about
he stares at the blank page and bites his pen
nothing coming in or going out

he cannot think of what to write about
sitting stationary constipationary
nothing coming in or going out
and praying for an intermediary fairy

sitting stationary constipationary
fidgeting then looking at the clock
and praying for an intermediary fairy
to appear and break the writer’s block

he stares at the blank page and bites his pen
the poor pen’s riddled now with bites
it’s most distressing for a writer when
he has to bite his pen— but only right.
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IN EX PENSIVE

TURKEY

The turkey is a curious bird
And there’s a tale quite often heard
Of how this hapless, weak birdbrain
Looks up, agape, and drowns in rain.
But that is really just a myth
To entertain the gullible with.

In fact his monofocal eye
Must look sideways at the sky
Not up…and he might as easily drown
In puddles, failing to look down.
Poor thing can’t fly, can barely walk,
And gobble-gobble is his talk.

The ostentation of his tail
And puffed-out chest will surely fail
To keep him swaggeringly proud
If there’s a noise, and it is loud.
Then he is spooked, suddenly tense
And runs to cower by the fence.

American fowl of colonial fame
That Benjamin Franklin wanted to name
Federal symbol, national bird—
Turkey? Ridiculous! Turkey? Absurd!
Yet, in a way, it has almost come true–
Not on The Seal, but on the menu.

When Thanksgiving comes, it’s almost a law
Though steak lovers groan and vegans say “pshaw!”
That turkey be served as pre-eminent meat
Above the plenty of plenty to eat.
Crackling, drumstick, breast and wing
This one day a year, turkey is king.
.
.
copyright Cynthia Jobin 2014
TURKEY

INTERNATIONAL RADIOTELEPHONY SPELLING ALPHABET SOUP

It seems that ALFA, betting
she would always be the first in line
said BRAVO to herself and

CHARLIE her sweet valentine
took her to the DELTA where
a conchy band called ECHO

played a sexy FOXTROT
and the vino was con secco.

Meanwhile at the GOLF course
near a big luxurious HOTEL
in INDIA JULIET had found a KILO of

old LIMA beans that had begun to smell
and she asked MIKE for counsel
but he really didn’t care

he was too worried that NOVEMBER
was approaching with its frigid air

and what would OSCAR his poor
PAPA do stuck up there in QUEBEC
the poor old ROMEO

without a credit card or cheque
pining for the warm SIERRA
where once he danced the TANGO

with some woman that he met who
wore a UNIFORM the color of a mango.

So no one was the VICTOR in the end
they all drank too much WHISKEY
and took off for Honolulu…

besides who really needs
an X-RAY just to tell
a YANKEE from a ZULU?
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NATO ALPHABET SOUP
copyright Cynthia Jobin 2015
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NOTE: The background sounds you may hear midway in the audio are those made by my old cat, Beau, who decided to come sit by me and have a sneezing fit as I was recording this.

TURKEY

The turkey is a curious bird
And there’s a tale quite often heard
Of how this hapless, weak birdbrain
Looks up, agape, and drowns in rain.
But that is really just a myth
To entertain the gullible with.

In fact his monofocal eye
Must look sideways at the sky
Not up…and he might just as easily drown
In puddles, failing to look down.
Poor thing can’t fly, can barely walk,
And gobble-gobble is his talk.

The ostentation of his tail
And puffed-out chest will surely fail
To keep him swaggeringly proud
If there’s a noise, and it is loud.
Then he is spooked, suddenly tense
And runs to cower by the fence.

American fowl of colonial fame
That Benjamin Franklin wanted to name
Federal symbol, national bird—
Turkey? Ridiculous! Turkey? Absurd!
Yet, in a way, it has almost come true–
Not on The Seal, but on the menu.

When Thanksgiving comes, it’s almost a law
Though steak lovers groan and vegans say “pshaw!”
That turkey be served as pre-eminent meat
Above the plenty of plenty to eat.
Crackling, drumstick, breast and wing
This one day a year, turkey is king.
.
.
TURKEY

SOME SIMILES FOR SMILES

My entire post for yesterday is floating around somewhere in cyberspace, with my audio reading and the twenty  lovely comments that came in during the day.  I am nearly inconsolable.  I am posting it again, as a new post because it represents all of the past week’s work and I wanted it in sequence here on the blog.

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SOME SIMILES FOR SMILES

1.
The smiley-face ubiquitous
like a little dot of sun
may seem to some annoying,
a sappy simpleton.
It’s only friendly gladness,
no shadow lurks beneath.
It can be trusted not to bite–
it never shows its teeth.

2.
“Eccedentesiast” is a word
coined lately to define
the kind of smirk that fakes a sun
when feeling saturnine.
Or like a monkey’s grin–all
teeth from ear to ear–
whenever custom calls for it
or cameras are near.

3.
I asked a guru which comes first
the happy or the smile?
He peered with his half-lidded eyes
much like a crocodile
and sized me up and finally said:
when things are at their worst,
you’ll make them simply tastier
by simply smiling first.

4.
Despite the great advances of
cosmetic dentistry
big smiles like horses’ mouths
seem almost treachery.
So many kinds of smiles there are
that damn or euphemize,
yet best are those not in the teeth
but in love-sparkled eyes.

WOMAN IN SPRING WITH CANE

I

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Here on the border, New Hampshire and Maine,
I watch the brown world through my windowpane
begin to go green, to spring once again.
The mossy, rockbound, hilly terrain
of my yard, I can now ascertain,
is a moldy, crotchety, ugly domain:
dead leaves, fallen branches, have lain
under snow the whole winter. Now a toy train,
a split frisbee, odd stones, compose the moraine.
I sigh.  I wish by some legerdemain
I could clean it all up, simply ordain
a neatness.  Sure, and order the sun, the rain.

The dried bamboo sticks, it’s plain,
are mocking me now.  I will not profane
the air with my curses, but those are the bane
of my landscape:  cane after cane, after cane,
their invincibility drives me insane.
What’s more, they remind me how arthritic pain
has me hobbled, three-legged, constrained
to walk with a stick.  Perhaps I’ll never regain
my gardening self.  Someone else will maintain
my grounds.  That’s that.  No use to complain.

What else can I do?  Order out for chow mein,
wash it down with champagne,
try to treasure whatever obtains,
accept the inevitable, ultimate reign
of the gods, however arcane.

POETRY THESE DAYS*

If a poem is about a cat
many come to read and love
one of the truest loves they know.

If a poem is about a river
or the ocean or a sunset
interest is sure to grow.

If a poem artfully confesses
a deep yearning or a wound,
many gather to console–

if it surfs toward sex
the text is dropped
for a lace camisole.

But if it’s just about a stark
unsentimental basic loneliness
grasping a truth by metaphor

chances are its limits
may be transcendental
but mean nothing at the bar.

*with apologies to my friend, Marta Nussbaum Steele, who once presented a poem by this title on the dissecting table of a poetry  workshop in Harvard Square.  I had been reading T.S. Eliot’ s “The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticism” and was enjoying a classic double martini when these lines occurred in the space of ten minutes.