Art and Nature
The well is deep
Where poets keep
Their unused words,
And sylvan groves
Are treasure troves
Of singing birds
That imitate
The lyric prate
Of mantic bards,
Which might be why
The morning sky
Above our yards
Inspires the mind
To seek and find
A soaring thought
That, all day long,
In webs of song
Is briefly caught.
first published in The Lyric (2025)
Business as Usual
The wages of sin is death. — Romans 6:23
And on that cheerful note, we may consider
How deep our errant ways have driven us;
Or we may merely dwell upon how bitter
We are for having lost the impetus
That would have consummated our desires.
Far be it from us to have tested waters
Before we waded in, or kicked the tires
That rolled us to the mindless autumn slaughters
Where eyes are dry but rivers run with blood.
It’s a bad day when wolves can’t compensate
For their commitment to the charnel flood
By praising morsels they regurgitate.
To charges that we’re guided by our lust,
With perfect honesty we must plead guilty,
But after all, we’re only made of dust,
And dust a river bears will make it silty.
Excuses cannot cleanse our dirty hands,
Nor wash away our record of abuses,
But we have never wished for promised lands
That undermine desire and sap our juices.
first published in Expansive Poetry Online (2025)
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.
I just love the word “mantic”, C.B., and was hoping to use it in an upcoming poem – you have beat me to it… beautifully. My wild imagination took a rather strange turn as I read Art and Nature – it travelled the way of the eight-eyed editor luring lyrical lovelies into his web of songs. This poem beguiles me… for all the wrong reasons.
Business as Usual is the sort of poem that begs to be read again… and again. Oh the pain of longing to be perfect… and the setback (or not) of being human with all the wicked wonders the condition has to offer. The closing couplet is a poetic paradox that speaks to my nice and naughty side making me want to be nicer and naughtier, all at the same time! How did you do that? C.B., thank you for your wit, wisdom, truth, and beauty.
The best thing about words, Susan, is that they can be used over and over again — they never wear out. I keep “mantic” in a drawer right next to “vatic.” I notice in your concluding thank-you that you omit goodness, and I’m not unhappy about that.
Yes, Susan, I love the word ‘mantic’ too; indeed, over a decade ago when I first encountered the SCP I wondered whether Evan Mantyk was a clever pseudonym/homophone depicting a master of that art. I did ask Evan about it, but in his strange, yet familiar, inscrutable but Buddhist way, I received no verbal answer – but sensed the presence of a Cheshire Cat. That said, these poems are impressive and pretty wonderful, especially the meditation on sin, which I suspect really does loom large in CBA’s internal circuitry. Good to get it out CB – confession, marvellous!
I don’t know whether you recall this, Joseph, but before “Business as Usual” ever appeared at EPO is was accepted by Trinacria. I very much enjoyed your psychological profile of its narrator and your reference to Khayyam.
Once I had the first three lines of “Art and Nature” the rest of the poem seemed to write itself — inevitable, as you say.
Sadly perhaps, James, I don’t spend much time thinking about sin, but I have noticed that I know immediately and intimately just as soon as I commit one.
James, you never fail to make me smile. I just love this Cheshire Cat observation…. Evan’s persona has just taken on a new and beguiling dimension.
“Art and Nature” is amazingly mesmerizing! I love the dimeter; the pairing of bards and birds; the searching for reasons why poets want to write and birds want to sing.
“Business as Usual”, beginning with the irony of “On that cheerful note…,” contrasted with the scripture reference, made me laugh. The poem is quite insightful about human nature. “But after all, we’re only made of dust, / And dust a river bears will make it silty.” is a great image, very thought-provoking, and hard to argue with! (not that I want to)
I love both of these poems, C.B.!
You have heard (read), I am sure, Cynthia, the saying, “Art imitates nature” and the rejoinder, “Nature imitates art.” Which one is true? Can both be true? I have the question, but not the answer, and that is how it goes with lyric poetry. In some ways, the second poem is a restatement of the old complaint, “I wish I knew what I know now when I was younger.” And that strikes a note that is not so cheerful.
C.B., these are two very diverse poems in almost every way, and I loved them both. the “soaring thought'” associated with birds and bards is beautiful imagery. In the second poem I almost suspect that “silly,” instead of “silty,” could be a double meaning you intended. I was also taken with “excuses cannot cleanse our dirty hands.” Thank you for both poems with such great meaning.
I shall have to ponder, Roy, what a “silly” river might look like. Two examples of soaring thoughts are “The child is father to the man” and “Stone walls do not a prison make.” No one should have to make excuses.
I will have to ponder, Roy, what a silly river would look like. Two examples of soaring thoughts are “Stone walls do not a prison make” and “The child is father to the man.” If you can come up with ideas like these, you will have written an immortal poem.
These are two exquisite confections. The crisp dimeters of “Art and Nature” are as clear as unflawed crystal, and the parallel of the lyrics of poets and the songs of birds is perfectly handled, in the manner of what used to be called “poetic inevitability” — that is, when what is said seems as natural as sunrise.
I saw “Business as Usual” when it appeared on EPOnline, but there is no space for reader commentary there. I’ll say here what my first reading of this piece prompted me to think. This is an example of a poem that upends and dismisses its epigraph. Normally the epigraph is merely an introductory key to a poem, or a statement that the poem expands and defends. Taking the epigraph and gutting it like a mackerel is unusual and striking.
This poem (in the voice of an elderly and rather exhausted speaker) expresses regret at having not sinned fully, and more robustly, and to the full power of one’s “desires” and “juices.” Quatrain 4 is a straightforward confession and acceptance of human frailty, and the uselessness of trying to fight it, and the wish that one had gone a little further in satisfying its wants.
This poem is magnificent, and very much in the vein of Quatrain 51 of FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat:
The moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on, nor all thy Piety and Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
What Kip Anderson adds is this: There’s no sense worrying about the damned thing at all, other than perhaps wishing one had been a bit more daring.
K.A.N.D!
Mysteriously, Joseph, my response to your comment appears above under James Sales’ comment, where the italics have gone crazy.
That’s the thing about Cheshire cats, CB, they can appear anywhere!
Both are superb, Kip. The first is a home run of nuance and depth in as tightly compressed a form as a poet can imagine. The second is a stunningly deep meditation on human imperfections and the compromises our souls must make with our animal natures. I’ll long remember “Where eyes are dry but rivers run with blood.”
Iambic dimeter is an exacting meter because the rhymes come fast, Brian, and fortunately the well is deep. Animal desires are not to be despised — that’s how God made us. The alluring smell of a nice porterhouse steak sizzling on a grill and the compelling presence of one’s preferred sexual object both indicate an inborn proclivity for different kinds of carnal lust. Fight such native impulses at your own risk.
What a startling pair, CB; and I think you meant it to be. Lyricism at its tersest (a fit challenge for the song composer) followed by a discursive meditation on the human condition. (For another poem, maybe, an exploration of the sort of promised lands we do long for.) The one from The Lyric, with its 3-syllable title, the other from the expansively titled Expansive Poetry Online. You seem to be suggesting the boundaries within which the practitioner of metrical, rhymed poetry operates. You’ve done so brilliantly here.
My wife, Julian, has often asks me why I write poetry when I could be writing songs and making some money from it. My only answer is that I only do what I do. The only boundaries in this game are those one sets for oneself. I am not unhappy that I have startled you — not at all.
Business as Usual: This poem hits hard in the best way, saying what most people only think. It’s bold, honest, and confident, and you can feel the conviction behind every line.
I enjoyed them both!
To be perfectly honest, Michael, I never know how what I write will strike a reader. Sometimes things just work out.
‘Art and Nature’ begins with flowery lyricism (I liked the way the title matched the meter), and leads us into that eternal problem every writer has of finding the exact word of expression – but oh, what a feeling when it drops off the tip of the tongue.
‘Business as Usual’ made me shiver. It’s a poem of our time and I worry for our children and grandchildren (who we purport to love so much) as we wreak havoc on the world. The line ‘…we’re only made of dust, And dust a river bears will make it silty…’ really hit home.
A darkly inspiring poem, CB. Thanks for the read.
Sometimes, Paul, I feel as though I write with my tongue in my ear. That’s hard to do. It’s a good thing for both of us that, though words are free, their value is intrinsic, invaluable and even priceless. In the end, a man is only as good as his word.
You write about our progeny, our legacies and our tendencies to brush things aside, but I think it not impossible that the plausible and the rational shall once again prevail.. There is a world where dust and moss are the same thing, but it might be just a fantasy.
“Art and Nature” has a tightness and a lilting flow in its dimeter. I also love how you address the subject, with your final metaphor of webs of song catching a soaring thought as one of the most accurate descriptions of poetry I have read.
“Business as Usual” impresses with its rhyming dexterity (e.g., guilty/silty, waters/slaughters), but it is also a deceitfully easy read. I had to go through it twice, slowly to appreciate its depth fully.
You are a close reader , Adam, and you know a soaring thought when you see one. “Business as Usual” was just business as usual. It’s the only thing that keeps me going.