.
Blocked
Though honeyed breezes warm the marble halls
on Mount Parnassus, vainly do I search
for writing on my January walls—
molasses clogs my veins. A different church,
perhaps a fresh sodality of Muses
would put things right. It’s not that mine are quiet—
they all speak up at once, and that confuses
my mind. I’m overwhelmed, I’ll not deny it,
but staked a steady plinth to set my feet
upon, I’m half-convinced that I could write
an epic for the ages: Raised on Crete,
the lad grew up to be a king despite
the cretins who had fostered him—or such.
I’ll settle for a sonnet or a brief
heroic couplet, anything to touch
another heart or mind and find relief
from what is certainly the longest dry
spell I have weathered. Just a minim swallow
of clarity is all I’ll ask, and try
to get it served in English. Dear Apollo, ….
.
.
Man Proposes
Every time I think it’s going to rain
__the sun comes out and spoils my plans.
When I take something for a nagging pain,
__it goes away just as I swallow.
Preparations are nothing but a way
__of letting Nature know her man’s
Still in the game, because she seems to say
__that where I lead she will not follow.
.
.
Meant to Be Broken
The rule is: men trade love for simple sex
While women offer sex to garner love.
There is, however, one sore point that wrecks
This theory. What about the lovelorn men
Who wear their heart out on a doeskin glove,
Or women disinclined to dawdle when
Their mind is set on lust? I know whereof
I speak, for having reckoned wrong again.
.
.
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.
All of them fine reads, but I enjoyed Man Proposes the best as I identified with it immediately.
Best,
Paddy
Yeah, Paddy, life in this world can be like that sometimes. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men.
To Apollo and the Muses: Please help us with our English! Nature can indeed be a pain that seems at odds with our own predilections. Man’s reckoning often leads to a dead end. All three poems spoke to me of things I also have endured.
You and I, Roy, seem to be charter members of the same club. And guess what: the executive board has just raised our dues.
I love “Blocked.” The enjambment is sustained for the first three quatrains and part of the fourth — a very hard thing to do in a rhymed poem. And it continues in the rest of the piece, making for a tension that reflects the speaker’s emotion and frustration. Those italicized lines about the boy raised on Crete — what a perfect insertion of random thought, and one that all by its isolated self provokes interest! And then there’s “minim swallow” — a striking use of a printing term, followed by the elliptical conclusion “dear Apollo,…” This is all UNEXPECTED, which is always wonderful in a formal poem.
“Meant to Be Broken” is comic, of course, but it is also deeply politically incorrect, which makes the whole thing even more delightful. No mainstream poet would have had the cojones to publish this plain speaking about male and female erotic motives, and about the exceptions to the rule (dreamy love-lorn guys and sexually promiscuous ladies).
Small note: Kip uses the “swallow/Apollo” rhyme in one poem, and “swallow/follow” in another. As I recall, there aren’t many other rhymes left in that category: hollow, wallow, Rollo. And please — nobody bring up near-rhymes like tallow, callow, fallow, hallow, and the like. I’m talking about perfect rhymes.
K.A.N.D!
What such enjambment does for me, Joseph, is to allow me to find rhymes that would be unavailable if every line were end-stopped. I started using this back-door trick long before I even knew what “enjambment” meant.
Regarding “Meant to Be Broken”, I thought everyone already knew that men are from Mars and women from Venus. My descendants (the happy ones, at least) are very thankful that I have (and had) the cojones.
You missed a couple of rhymes or off-rhymes, e.g. “Gallo,” “Brillo,” “mallow,” “sallow” & “Pillow.” The list could go on, to no one’s benefit.
As good as ever, C.B. On “Broken,” there’s also the familiar headache that Aspirin ignores or won’t stand up to.
On “Blocked,” Maugham was supposed to have said that for him inspiration struck consistently at 9 a.m. But that doesn’t ring quite true to me. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have guessed that you can get stuck. I assumed that you could come up with
fine lines in English any day,
and maybe even en francais.
Lines, yes, Julian, but entire poems? Not likely.
Three poetic treats which made me think as well as smile. The common theme in all three which you strikingly capture seems to be expectations thwarted, whether it’s nature, an understanding of relationships, or the ability to write. Of the three it’s your “Blocked” poem which I find most intriguing. Yes, your enjambment is striking along with your always masterful use of rhyme. But what I like the best in this poem is your layering it with two changes of focus: first, the epic story fragment that you reference, and then the apostraphe to Apollo at the very end. This makes the poem so much more interesting than if the speaker never changed focus and simply went on about his writer’s block. In other words, your poem is demonstrative as well as declarative and this makes a huge difference. Love it.
Can you, Brian, think of a rhyme for Metamucil, and do they have a formula that works for writer’s block?
Haha! The best I can come up with, C.B., is “get a goose ill” or “get a loose sill.” But I don’t think these have much general application.
How about “Bruce’ll” for “Bruce will”?
If eats rice pudding, Bruce’ll
Have to take some Metamucil.
C.B., I love ‘Blocked’… for all the reasons a poet who aspires to literary greatness does.
I believe, Susan, that if it is there, then it will come … in its own good time. Have you ever composed lines in your head that you later forgot? I have noticed that, even if I am unable to reconstruct them, they go back into the melting pot to be reused or recycled at some strange force’s whim.
Yes, I have… and I can relate wholeheartedly to your experience. People have remarked on how quickly I am able to write poems, but I truly believe certain lines have been brewing in my melting pot for years, and they appear whenever a poem calls for them. The older I get, the more melting-pot lines there are to retrieve… when the time arises.
Going off in my scholar direction, I like the concluding logic of “Meant to be Broken”: the poet citing his authority as “having reckoned wrong again.”
I think what you mean, Margaret, is that you accept the possibility that a person can learn from his mistakes. I sometimes wish I had done that on a more regular basis.
Hi C.B.
As I’m relatively new to this website I have to admit I’m loving reading over all the fabulous poems by various authors but after reading yours I felt I had to leave my thoughts.
I’ll focus on your first poem ‘Blocked’ as not to go on for too long. The second stanza is the best… apart from this it is lacking and I feel like there are a few touch ups to be made for it to have any sort of profound impact on the reader.
I appreciate the attempted use of pathos to express emotions in the second stanza as this allows for an empathetic moment for the reader to connect to the poem but it would have to be further developed to really acquire any
significance.
The first stanza lacks the required vocabulary to truly catch the readers imagination and instead is more similar to that of my children’s iGCSE poetry they are writing for their exams. It is their final year so it is at a high quality but I believe poets on here should be a step above, I’m sure you would agree.
As for the third stanza it unfortunately lacks any flow that the previous stanzas may have had and is instead quite difficult to read, especially ‘I’m half-convinced I could write an epic for the ages’. It feels like it belongs in a novel, not a poem.
As for the rest of the poem I could see it had potential but I just felt you were grasping at straws.
I hope you take this as constructive criticism as I see you do have potential and that should be built on.
All the best,
Alex J.
P.S. Thank you for this opportunity, it’s taking me back to my university days when I was doing research for my PhD. If you have any more questions please don’t be afraid to ask 🙂
Thank you, Alexis, for your incisive generalities. You can be sure that if I ever feel a need for expert instruction on literary composition I’ll know whom to ask. Do you mind if I call you A-list?