‘Aphorisms for a Foggy Morning’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson

.

Aphorisms for a Foggy Morning

No literary monuments exist without the word.
A lord who lacks entitlements is patently absurd.
A song that has no sound to give has never yet been heard.
Two wings for every bird that sings, no cheese without the curd.

*
The prospects for a stomach would be dismal
Without the anodyne of Pepto Bismol.

*
Although the words he spoke were always vatic,
It would have helped if he’d been more emphatic.

*
A bird in hand, we’ve all heard said,
Is worth the two still in the bush.
May God in heaven strike me dead
If shove should ever come to push.

*
To see where cotton and a callus meet,
Look to the soles that underlie your feet.

*
The most we ever see of California shores
Today are tracts of over-managed public park
Rededicated to the Gretas and Al Gores,
Which we may never enter safely after dark.

*
When passed a drink, he’d almost always sip it.
He’d taught himself, when asked to speak, to zip it.

*
A pessimist, though seldom disappointed,
Must bear the oil with which he’s been anointed.

*
What goes for saints must also go for sinners:
By what they do shall they be known.
It’s not the perfect set-up for beginners
Or those who sterile seeds have sown.

*
The crucial thing is not how thick the skull,
But that the brain inside it isn’t dull.

.

.

Wrestling with Nature

Bright and early in the morning
Dewy prisms are aborning
On every supple blade of grass;
Throaty croaks from courting frogs
Stir the marshes and the bogs—
The lake looks like a sheet of glass.

Time it is to do some fishing
Or to sit there, simply wishing
The day would stay just as it is.
Copying the wary trout,
Shifting shadows made him doubt
That he would get what should be his.

Many times before, this fellow,
Thoughtful, still, and almost mellow,
Had taken in the rising sun.
Thus he fully understood:
Fresh complaints will do no good,
And self-restraint would not be fun.

Episodes of doleful yearning,
Breakfast for a soul that’s burning,
Will not attend to vital needs.
Flower-stalks must lignify
Lest their blossoms droop and die.
Dame Earth can only plant the seeds.

.

.

C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden.  Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India.  His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.