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A Taste of Northern New England
I’ll never feel at home in Robert Frost’s
Vermont—too many deconstructed walls,
And far too many melancholy falls
That adumbrate a host of tragic costs
Come winter. Nonetheless, I’d rather be
Up there than ever have to live in some
New Hampshire version of a rural slum,
Believe me. Maine is hammered by the sea,
The cows there don’t produce the richest butter,
But clams and lobsters amply compensate
For any shortfall that the Pine Tree State
Might harbor. Bar the door and slam the shutter
Against the thought of feasting farther west,
For folks who live downeast, I say, eat best.
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On Suicidal Empathy
—with a nod to Gad Saad
Compassion is a rather lovely thing,
When it’s applied in proper clime and season,
But lest your good intentions sorrows bring,
Don’t ever let it overshadow reason.
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Playing the Odds
In the time it took for a cat to wink
An eye, a million or more decent persons
Surrendered their ability to think
At all and settled on common perversions
As a basis for how one should construct
A viable society, and now
We see how their ideas really sucked,
And how their sticky muck gummed up the plow.
It’s hard to eat today without a nod
To farmers who will plant no matter what.
We owe it all to those who bust the sod
And try to fill a nation’s hungry gut.
But what about those snakes who would obstruct
The comity among adjacent regions?
If they prevail, then everybody’s fucked,
And we’ll be left alone with Satan’s legions.
The world continues as it’s always been,
With outcomes less assured than they might be,
Where some must lose while other players win,
In Mother Nature’s Cosmic Lottery.
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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.
C.B., your poems have so many great lines in them, but perhaps the best in my mind is the one from the last stanza of your third poem, “Mother Nature’s Cosmic Lottery.” You have skillfully presented us with so many inspired rhymes, such as: “some-slum,” “compensate-state,” “persons-perversions,” and “what-gut.” Having toured New England on occasion, I thought the food was fantastic topped of course by the lobster. I had to laugh at your presentation of the scenes in various New England states and detect there is some competition between those states.
There is a lot of wisdom in your second poem capped off with “Don’t ever let it overshadow reason.”
The title of the third one is perfectly matched by the ending. I too worry about the proliferation of snakes that have been illegally brought into our country or even worse, released.
All three are clear and easy to read and assimilate.
If snakes tasted as good as lobster, I would welcome more into our country. But ….
On “Suicidal Empathy,” I’m reminded of something that an essayist wrote some years ago (I forget his name). It dealt with precisely this subject. He said “The problem today is that countless people in the West now suffer from elephantiasis of the moral sentiment.”
“Playing the Odds” brings up a closely related point. Because of mass media and miseducation, millions of persons are now mentally lobotomized, and have been conditioned to act against their own interests. Count in that group anyone who votes Democrat.
I love your poem about New England cuisine. I have several relatives in New England and I have visited the area frequently. If you go to the really small local places, you can get wonderful Boston baked beans, brown bread, Indian pudding, clam chowder, lobster roll, or scrod.
Concerning the last item, perhaps you’ll recall an old joke:
An out-of-towner comes to Boston, and wants to sample all of these culinary delights. One evening he asks a cabdriver this: “Do you know where I can get scrod?” The tough old cabby responds: “Sure buddy, I know a place. But you’re the first guy ever to ask for it in the pluperfect tense.”
K.A.N.D!
My understanding of elephantiasis is that its victims sometimes need to carry their infected scrotum around in a wheelbarrow in front of them, and so also it is with pathological moral sentiment.
Every Democrat is a demon rat.
I’m still trying to figure out where to get the best fried clams, but I know it’s somewhere in New England. Mostly, though, I would prefer steamers.
About the old joke: I first read it in Playboy Magazine many decades ago, and I think the tense in that version might have been a bit more elaborate, say, pluperfect future.
Pluperfect future? I suppose we have it in English, but it’s pretty clunky and awkward. Here’s a sample:
“Once we arrive there, we SHALL HAVE HAD EATEN enough.”
You’re not gonna hear that construction very often.
HIghly enjoyable, thought-provoking poetry, C.B., with a special shout-out to the masterful enjambment in “New England.”
I am intrigued by the interesting mention of Gad Saad (I’d never heard of him and his interest in “evolutionary psychology”) in a poem which states concisely what I’ve long-believed — getting drunk on compassion rarely helps the person who needs it but is a great way to virtue-signal.
Very much enjoyed “Playing the Odds” which I think is the most Andersonian of the three poems as the speaker reflects with a notable lack of sentimentality on those perversions that society is now built upon and more generally on Mother Nature’s Cosmic Lottery.
Saad is a right smart guy, though I think the whole psychobiology thing is a bit overblown. When it comes to a synthesis of the spiritual and the mundane, I think Jordan Peterson is the better listen.
I don’t lack sentiment, but mostly I save it for my grandchildren.
Having spent some time New Hampshire, Maine, and especially Vermont, I know exactly what you are writing about, and can’t disagree too much with your assessment. I very much love that part of the country, but could never live there.
“On Suicidal Empathy” should be inscribed on the entrance to every legislative chamber.
The last poem is fun, if deadly serious in its subject. Pairing “obstruct” with its opposite “fucked” elicited a chuckle.
There was a time, Adam, when I thought I’d like to live in Maine, but I’ve gotten over that, despite the fact that I am stuck in cobalt blue Massachusetts.
“On Suicidal Empathy” could be inscribed there, and, since it doesn’t come from the Bible, it could even appear in courthouses.
The last poem seems to involve fructification, but let’s see who gets the last laugh.
All of Maine is east of Durgin Park, and thus must offer better than did Boston’s former iconic eatery. Unlamented by me, but what do you think, C. B.? As I’m sure you remember, the style of service won more fame than the food.
Although I live about forty minutes from Boston, I have almost always avoided it like the plague. Thus I’m unfamiliar with that “iconic eatery.” Nowadays there is Legal Seafood and a host of local holes-in-the-wall. What everyone misses most is the day of the one-dollar oyster