Fern Hill

I named this blog for a response that Dylan Thomas gave when asked why he read and wrote poetry. I must admit that the poetry of Dylan Thomas was an acquired taste for me. A very good friend tried to interest me in his poetry when I was in college in the 1960's. I wasn't interested then, but as time past, I revisited the poetry of Dylan Thomas to try to discover what intrigued my friend about his poetry. And I became hooked. The larger explanation Thomas gave when asked that question were some of the first words of the paper I presented in Oxford almost five years ago. By then, he had become a major inspiration for me as a poet. He is my greatest inspiration in that regard; for, like him, I too had fallen in love with words.

…before I could read them for myself I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone. What the words stood for, symbolized, or meant, was of very secondary importance; what mattered was the sound of them as I heard them for the first time on the lips of the remote and incomprehensible grown-ups who seemed, for some reason, to be living in my world. And these words were, to me, as the notes of bells, the sounds of musical instruments, the noises of wind, sea and rain, the rattle of milk-carts, the clopping of hooves on cobbles, the fingering of branches on a window pane, might be to someone, deaf from birth, who has miraculously found his hearing.

In those few phrases, Dylan Thomas had explained what I had a hard time explaining, what words meant to me. In my life, I had seen words cause hurt, happiness, explain an opinion and describe beauty viewed. I am aware of the limitations of words as well. Try as I may, I never seem to describe a beautiful day, an autumn sunset, a snowstorm or the first flowers of spring the way these sights feel to me. Maybe I never will, but I will continue trying. For when I read Dylan Thomas, I see in words an awesome potential. And I am determined to unlock that potential in my own words.

So tonight, I offer one of Dylan Thomas best known poems. It is the poem that began the love affair that I am having with his poetry everyday I read it. While it represents not just unbelievable description, it also offers observations on life and death. Oh, but those words...

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was
air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the
nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Dylan Thomas

The Hedgehog and the Minister

This poem began as a joke/challenge between two friends to write a poem about two disparate characters. This is the result.

The Hedgehog and the Minister
Christopher Bogart

Said the hedgehog to the minister,
One cool October day,
“I detect a hint of sinister
In the way you pitch and sway.”

Said the vicar to the hedgehog,
With a slur upon his tongue,
“T’was just a bit of altar wine
To keep me fit and young.”

Said the hedgehog to the vicar,
With a scowl upon his brow,
“Well that explains well where you’ve been,
But where do you go now?”

Said the vicar to the hedgehog,
“To the pub for Vicars and Tarts.
Why don’t you come along with me?
We could use your quills for darts.”

Said the hedgehog to the vicar,
“Care you not about your flock?
What kind of shepherd leaves his sheep
With the pasture gate unlocked?”

Said the vicar to the hedgehog,
Sounding holier than thou,
“They are waiting for me at the pub.
I go to meet them now.”

Said the hedgehog to the minister,
“Then, before the church bell’s knell,
You’ll be following your precious flock
Right to the gates of hell.”

Said the vicar to the hedgehog,
As he passed him on his right,
“I hope to hell you’re right, my friend,
For I’ll be there by tonight.”

On the Road to Oxford Town

The invitation to go to Oxford was both frightening and exhilarating. When I received the invitation, a number of emotions competed in me for immediate attention. Oxford, the oldest English language university in the world and founded only a few years after William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, was, to me, the epitome of academic study, so my first emotion was raw, unabashed awe. It was almost immediately followed by a gut feeling that they had contacted the wrong guy. I would be a fraud, I thought, if I responded by accepting. I called them more than once to try to convince them of that fact. They gently convinced me that I was the person that they were inviting. This fact was then followed by galloping insecurity. Who the hell was I? I was a middle school/high school teacher from New Jersey. As I further investigated, I found out that I would be the only one of the 45 invitees without a doctorate. That didn't help! Now what? I began to walk my neighborhood on the fall evenings that followed, debating within my head. Could I pass this opportunity up? There would probably never be another. (Hell, I was surprised at that one!) I would regret passing up this opportunity for the rest of my life. What if I went and made a fool of myself? I would be proven to be a lightweight in the middle of heavy weights in one of the most prestigious universities in the western world. What if they really wanted my opinion on bringing young people to love the literature that I loved so much for so many years. Maybe this was the opportunity to say what I have learned about teaching in a forum that would listen.

I submitted an abstract of a paper that would crystallize my beliefs on education and literature. What the hell, the worst they could do was reject it. They didn't. They accepted it, and on the morning of August 1, 2005, I was the first paper chosen to be presented at the opening of the conference, and I had the most memorable experience of my teaching career.

The following poem was written, stanza by stanza, from the time I got this invitation to the presenting of the paper in Oxford, and it chronicles all of my doubts and fears and what I learned from the experience. I wrote it in a formal style, for that is how I viewed the import of the opportunity. I don't know whether it is good poetry, but it is a good recounting of how I brought myself to participate in what was to become, for me as a teacher, the experience of a lifetime.

The Road to Oxford Town
Christopher Bogart

Wooden wheeled and dirty dusted, drawn
By thick-backed oxen from a barren barn,
I whisked the wagon, washed and strawed it down
To pack and leave my life for Oxford town.

When first I yoked the team, they gave a start
As if they wondered whether I’d the art,
Or was it merely artifice that crowned
My invitation to old Oxford town.

I piled the wagon up with baggage, fill’d
With doubts and fears to challenge stronger wills.
The wagon groaned; the wheels, a creaking sound –
Oh would I ever get to Oxford town?

‘Twas mid-morn when the pilgrimage begun.
‘Twas noontime when my hopes and doubts had run
Into the muddy ruts the wheels had found
Straight down the road that leads to Oxford town.

I tried to gain some traction on the road
But traction works the best with heavy loads
And mine was light where confidence should abound,
The confidence I’d need for Oxford town.

Why had they picked me for this awesome chore?
Were they aware what awesome weight it bore?
A weight that felt that it would bore me down
Before I ever got to Oxford town?

What kind of common clothing could I bring?
What did I have in common with these kings?
Was I, a pauper, to dress in regal gowns
To counterfeit a king in Oxford town?

The town’s so very close. I see the spires.
Their honey stones sun-baked as if on fire.
The Radcliffe Camera’s so very round.
It seems that I’ve arrived at Oxford town.

The stakes are very high. I cannot fail.
Of all the facts I’ve learned, can I avail
Myself of greater truths by which their bound,
To set before the Dons of Oxford town?

I stand before them now at Union Hall,
Armed only with beliefs long-held in thrall,
And one relentless dream that I have found
Has placed me here at last in Oxford town.

For now I finally know what I have learned,
One passion in my life for which I’ve burned –
The love of words, their meaning and their sound.
And I have found them here in Oxford town.

The Joke or The Punch Line

As I am sure I have mentioned before, in October of 2004 I was one of 45 educators from the United States to receive an invitation from the Oxford Round Table, the international think tank, to present a paper on the teaching of reading and writing at Oxford University. And so, the following summer, on August 1, 2005 at Oxford Student Union Debate Hall, I presented a paper entitled Reading 1st: the Teaching of Reading and Writing. It seems so easy to say now, but when I got that invitation, it seemed to come out of nowhere. I was a high school British Literature teacher, but was then teaching English in Middle School. Throughout the months of October and November of 2004, I was filled with questions, but finally accepted the invitation in December. Why me? Maybe this was some kind of mistake; and, if I accept it, how embarrassing would that be if, in fact, they asked the wrong guy?

I wrote two poems over the ensuing years about this experience. The first, a serious one, I will share with you tomorrow night. The second, the one I am posting here, was written later, when I appreciated the humor of my distress.

Two nights before I took the plane over to England, I was watching TV. I had finished the paper, my presentation, had packed, bought a new suit and new luggage, and made all the preparations I needed to prepare to depart. I was looking for relaxation, a diversion, a little humor. I found it in a Laurel and Hardy movie called "A Chump at Oxford." Was it an omen?

The Joke or the Punch Line
Christopher Bogart

Why is it that sometimes, something happens in life,
an invitation to fate that is just so astounding,
that it seems a joke,
just one of those jokes that just isn’t funny?
You know, not ha ha kind of funny,
not humorous at all,
but a delirious deception that leaves you with doubts.

Is it really a joke? Or is it a punch line?

It appears so incredible, so really unreal
that it forces you to question your very existence.
“Is it me they are asking?”
You’re alone in the dark, wracking your brain
in a desperate attempt to avoid a crushing fall.
Are you sure that they got the right Christopher Bogart?
So you Google yourself.

There are so many others.
How about the CEO of AOL Time Warner, Christopher P. instead of me?
Or Christopher B. the PhD. from Stamford, Connecticut.
There’s also a Bogart who makes bamboo rods.
Or the one that gives Tantric massage and has sat on a yak.
Or the weightlifter that can lift, with his back, over six hundred pounds,
or the one who spies quarks, old Christopher W.
And then there’s always Humphrey.
Not a Chris, but a Bogart, none the less.
Am I that cool that it turns out all along
that I have been truly fortune’s fool?

Well, every joke seems to have a punch line.
Mine comes when they ask
how is that I came to apply for that chance
at my joking reality;
and I, little Christopher B.,
get to reply,
no longer in doubt,
just very excited,
“I didn’t apply.
I was invited.”

His First Book

His First Book
Christopher Bogart

He stared at me today
across a vast expanse of fear.
His eyes were soft and docile,
yet I knew he was afraid.
Not with the kind of fear
I know he must have felt before,
one born and bred of pain, of loss,
of life, of years, of tears once shed
without the slightest hope
of ultimate redemption.

His form, once scarred by steel and lead,
now squirmed around the confines of his chair.
It was a chair he’d chosen for himself,
a chair of hope he’d sat in every day
with a yearning to learn.

But it wasn’t the same fear he’d felt before today.
This had a new and unacquainted feel.
And yet, within the depth of that sweet pain
lie his only hope, for now he had learned
to hide no longer deep within his past,
but find a different path, a new future,
and he had placed a tenuous trust in me.

And so, in a soft and soothing voice, I began to read,
and he, his chin resting gently on his scarred hands,
settled in to hear, to listen,
not with ears, but with imagination,
the opening lines of his new world,
his new hope,
his first book.

Good Night and Good Luck

Good Night and Good Luck
Christopher Bogart

Remember when we were kids,
And a dollar a week made you a lucky duck?
(And being teacher’s pet made you a lucky dog?)

Winning at games then was considered beginner’s luck.
Or was it sour grapes?

Getting Kathleen O’Brien to go with you to the Prom
Could be considered the luck of the Irish if you were Irish.
I was not. But as luck would have it,
I got to go with her sister Maureen.
Was that just dumb luck?

I’m never sure.
Is dumb luck silent?
Or just stupid?

For that matter, how can luck be good and bad?
Is dying of lung cancer really a Lucky Strike?

What’s so lucky about seven,
When eight is more?

If I have to thank my lucky stars,
Which stars would they be:
The Big Dipper or The Big Bopper?

Is Elton John a lucky sod because he is rich and knighted?
Or for other reasons?

What makes any day my lucky day?
Winning a raffle?
Winning the lottery?
Winning a Pulitzer?
No such luck!

Are people who are lucky at cards really unlucky in love?
And is that why I don’t see Ben Affleck and Tom Cruise on “Celebrity Poker”?

With a little bit of effort
And a little bit of pluck,
I’m forced to agree with Yoda,
There’s no such thing as luck.

The Hole

I was a big fan of the TV program, "The West Wing," for all of the years it was on the air. I watched it religiously, and was disappointed when it ended on May 14, 2006. It portrayed an America that was, at the same time, both realistic and idealistic, both disappointing and hopeful. And sometimes its messages approached profound. In one of the episodes, the President's chief-of-staff played by the late John Spenser, tells an aide a story to help him through a difficult crisis. I got to love that story, telling it again and again when I thought one of my troubled students needed to hear it. It never failed to touch each and every one of them with the message that they were not alone.

As I said, I have used that story for almost ten years now. But each time I tell it, I never fail to feel some of the pain of the person I am trying to console. I wrote this poem to illustrate what the victim in the story must have felt before redemption. I wanted to try to use words to describe a feeling, a very deep and cold one. Like the hole they had fallen into.

The Hole
Christopher Bogart

A stale and fetid smell hangs
In a hell of dank darkness.

Enclosed within earthen walls
Worn smooth by past and frantic falls,
Fingers claw at empty air,
The desperate memories of past plunges
To the stone-strewn floor.

White glow,
The oval opening illuminates,
To far to find,
To climb past failed attempts,
To far away to penetrate,
Too slow
To show,
To echo through its cavernous emptiness,
Far too far below.

Worms bore through confidence.
Slender rills,
The roots of woe,
Wander from parent bark,
To snake the dingy dark,
Stark unaware,
Abandoned to all care, they
Leech down through the long-forgotten void.

And around the barren cone,
Swirl the bitter banshees
Of past abandonments.
Their eyes tight shut,
Their mouths agape,
They howl soundlessly
Into the stillness
Held within the hollow
Of the hole.
Hollow,
Save me.

In the Trenches

A few years ago, when "war fever" was high in the wake of 9/11 and we had just invaded Iraq, I wrote this poem to illustrate the dilemma some of us faced in the face of the "gung-ho" attitude that prevailed throughout the country. It was difficult being a liberal in a conservative world.

In the Trenches
Christopher Bogart

The diner was packed
On that hot summer day.
The six of us trapped
In a booth by a window,
That was frosted with tar stains,
And reeked with the smell of decay.

Our bodies reclined
On hot sticky vinyl,
Restrained by a pattern of swirling Formica,
In this red bumper car
With the bar, in this case, the aluminum edge,
Meant to wedge us in tight
As we rode out to spoil for a fight.

We were crass.
We were loud,
A hot hostile crowd
Of summer camp patriots,
Weekend warriors.
Each of us held opinions
Only conquerors hold.

We were bold.

No.

They were bold.

I was just trapped,
My legs firmly tacked.
I was held in the grip
Of mat silver duct strips,
The careless repairs
On the tears in the red plastic seats.

The boom of their voices
As they shot off their mouths,
Launched attack on attack meant
To sack and to plunder
My reasonable thunder,
And all hope of a peaceful resolve.

These testosterone tools
Of a wild war machine
Spewed out bellicose warnings
Gunned out faster and faster,
Leaving little to wonder
What weapons were left in their store.

It was there that I sat
In retreat,
In the front of a platter
Of cold Freedom fries,
Smeared all over with ketchup,
And a burger too rare
To eat or to share,
And too thick to admit defeat.

I ducked a barrage of sharpened utensils,
Knives of verbal percussion,
And a fork you, to me,
That was aimed at my heart,
An attack too smart to ignore.

As the pack howled around me,
I sat shocked and awed,
Left to ponder a death,
That would be slow and silent,
Like a spoon that’s been dropped
On the grime-stained linoleum,
Far too far from the door.


Published on Saggio Poetry Journal (www.barrierislandpress.com)

The Promise

The Promise
Christopher Bogart

A promise rainbows every drop of dew
That rolls in silence off each green leaf’s vein.
Potential’s borne in every woolly ewe
That foals in straw made damp by summer’s rain.

In every greening shoot that splits the soil
To raise its hooded head to face the sun,
There’s promise rilling through its tender coils
Of fragrant fates before its day is done.

And when the first cry of a newborn child
Is tossed into the air like glittering gold,
Our hearts still flutter and our minds, beguiled
By promise of a future to unfold.

Time Stands Still

Time Stands Still
Christopher Bogart

Time sometimes seems to stand
stock still

Almost as if
Nature pauses…
To catch its breath

Leaving life in suspended state

No leaf moves
On no green tree…

No flag flutters,
But stands
Suspended
In eye,
In air.

The world freeze frames,
For only an instant.

To us,
It seems
An eternity of
Soundlessness,
Stillness,
An uneasy pause of
Silence.

We pray a murmured prayer
To restart the heart.

The Ponderance

The Ponderance
Christopher Bogart

When I think how life continues
As I live it, day by day,
I’m reminded of a carousel
Where organ music plays.
I’m reminded of confusion
Of the wooden horses leaping
As they pass in equal distance
In the same encircling turning,
In the same monotonous way.

When I watch how people live life.
How they live it, day by day,
I’m reminded of a party
Where there’s little more to say.
I’m reminded of how futile,
Words with two, sometimes three meanings
Used religiously, yet vainly,
To dissect and kill a feeling:
An important game to play.

When I see how men are dying
As they do it, day by day,
I’m reminded of a library
Where people rarely stay.
I’m reminded of indifference
As each slips into the darkness,
Many books by many authors,
Each retaining just one memory
Of the price he had to pay.

The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring, and a welcome change of season around here since this winter pummeled the Eastern Seaboard with three major snow storms that began before Christmas and ended with a fourth storm, a nor'easter in the beginning of March and produced 70 mph winds and torrential rain. We are due for a change.

Today is like a balmy summer day, with the temperature over 70 and not a leaf stirring. So I offer this sonnet in celebration of the change of the season, and with hopes that we have left winter far behind us. While the picture is a little premature so far, the hope is high.

Sonnet 9
Christopher Bogart

Crisp shadows slowly creep across the lawn
To silhouette each leaf and bright green spear.
Each slender flower nods to breezes gone.
Soft scents spring from the soil as summer’s near.
On bowing branches, dogwood petals sprout.
Broad-leafed magnolia brims with pink cupped flow’rs.
From bridal veil, white snow lies all about.
Pale color creates a show that lasts for hours.
Then, suddenly the sky turns to slate gray.
A gentle patter drums upon new leaves.
The rain lasts but a fraction of the day,
Ending with the last drips from the eaves.
Each time the sun triumphantly appears.
And so it is each day, each Spring, each year.

Dark Moods

Sometimes we get dark moods. Winston Churchill called them his "black dog days." I had one such day last spring, after my mother passed away. And so I wrote.

The World Around Me Once Seemed So Familiar
Christopher Bogart

The world around me once seemed so familiar,
now, suddenly, I feel so very lost.

Each tree, each leaf, each blade of grass
that I should know, have seen
on outings past, now seems so strange.

My life, once flooded with familiar faces,
is populated now by mere traces of humanity,
shadowed dribbles of black paint,
slender pedestrians that amble aimlessly
down slick wet streets in painted Parisian scenes,
their street signs, white, indifferent to my plight.

It does not matter now which road I choose, for

it seems that I have mastered a distance
from disaster, from compassion, from hope;
and time, like a chalk-faced mime,
now owns the transparent box in
which I’m trapped,
and I can’t see the lock,
nor find the only key.

Good Night and Good Luck

Good Night and Good Luck
Christopher Bogart

Remember when we were kids,
And a dollar a week made you a lucky duck?
(And being teacher’s pet made you a lucky dog?)

Winning at games then was considered beginner’s luck.
Or was it sour grapes?

Getting Kathleen O’Brien to go with you to the Prom
Could be considered the luck of the Irish if you were Irish.
I was not. But as luck would have it,
I got to go with her sister, Maureen.
Was that just dumb luck?

I’m never sure.
Is dumb luck silent?
Or just stupid?

For that matter, how can luck be good and bad?
Is dying of lung cancer really a Lucky Strike?

What’s so lucky about seven,
When eight is more?

If I have to thank my lucky stars,
Which stars would they be:
The Big Dipper or The Big Bopper?

Is Elton John a lucky sod because he is rich and knighted?
Or for other reasons?

What makes any day my lucky day?
Winning a raffle?
Winning the lottery?
Winning a Pulitzer?
No such luck!

Are people who are lucky at cards really unlucky in love?
And is that why I don’t see Ben Affleck and Tom Cruise on “Celebrity Poker”?

With a little bit of effort
And a little bit of pluck,
I’m forced to agree with Yoda,
There’s no such thing as luck.

The Poetic Inquisition

There are some poets today that have come to believe that the only poetry is the poetry that they write. Many of the past poetic conventions are out, and those that still use them, in whatever form, are not poets.

Today, I was visited by a former student, one who is reticent to style himself a poet. Yet, after reading his poetry, poetry that uses words that perch on the edge of a knife sometimes, but are always pregnant with meaning, I assured him that he is indeed a poet, and one that is on the way to becoming a impressive poet. I wish him luck in that respect, and am anxiously looking forward to monitoring his progress, for his poetry is a true delight to read. It has some similarities to my use of words, but that similarity does not make him a good poet, just a comfortable read. He has a "feel" for words, a unique use of words that create both sound and meaning.

I don't believe that anyone should dictate what is, and what is not, poetry. As a teacher, I have been teaching my students for years a very simple truth: all poetry has to have to be poetry is rhythm. Any other factors, whether it is form, or conventions, or figurative language are merely style points that should be left to the choice of the poet. It's as simple as that.

And so, this is my response to the poet "inquisitors" whose vocal opinions sometimes have the feel of dictums. And my advice: let each poet find their own voice, whatever that voice eventually sounds like.

There Seems to Be
No Time for Rhyme Anymore
Christopher Bogart

What is it about
A rhymed poem
That makes some poets crazy?

“Greeting cards!” they exclaim
When reading metered verse.
“Might as well write for Norcross!
Or Hallmark!”

“Well that displays a narrowness
Of mind,” I respond
In perfect iambic pentameter,
And not a little bit of wit.

“I like my verse ‘Au natural’!
‘Al fresco’!”
They barely shout
Before stark images invade my mind
In places
That will be hard to clean out.

And who is this Al anyway?

Maybe if I hum or sing a song…

Don’t get me wrong.
I like to let it
All hang out
As much as the next guy,
But
I detect a hint
Of blatant Orthodoxy
In their poetic philosophy
…and maybe
The possibility
Of burning flesh.

After all,
What’s wrong with rhyme?
A little alliteration
Makes poetic juices flow.
Assonance.
Consonance.
It all makes sense
In the defense
Of a love
Of words.

Shakespeare used rhyme religiously.
So did Milton,
Tennyson,
Byron
And, after all is said and Donne,
So did Coleridge,
Keats and Shelley.
They weren’t treated
As if they were smelly.
Everyone read them,
Chapter and verse.
No one cursed their endeavors
No matter how clever
Their poetry happened to run.

Some of my poet friends would shout at me,
“Stop it!
There’s no market
For sonnets,
Or meter,
Or rhyme.”

To silence the banter,
Maybe I should just answer,
“Give it time.
Give it time.”

Test Pattern

Test Pattern
Christopher Bogart

Do the flickering images of “shock and awe”
Play as well in Pleasantville
As “Donna Reed”?

Does Rodney King bleed less
When police batons land squarely on his head
Again, and again…
And again?

Was Joseph McCarthy more photogenic
Than Charlie McCarthy?
Or Paul McCartney?

Who’s the bigger Jackass:
Johnny Knoxville for taking it in the balls,
Or me for watching it?

Who has the bigger boobs:
Janet Jackson or “Hollywood Squares”?
Or Both?

Did the bombs that fell
Over lush green jungles in Vietnam
Really “Plop… Plop”, then “Fizz… Fizz”?

Which maxi pad really protects me
From the ravages
Of AIDS?

Who should really be our king:
Rodney, Martin Luther, Billy Jean
Or Elvis?

Is it safe to surf TVs turf
On Spongebob’s Squarepants…
Or should I just deploy…
And enjoy…
The test pattern?

Sometimes

Sometimes
Christopher Bogart

Sometimes poems are not easy to write.
They sometimes seem like mental
Fight. Well, maybe not fight.
Maybe struggle, where paucity and plenty
Battle for attention. It is retention
Of sight and sound, of memories near and far,
That spar in the mind for position
Where rhythm and rhyme compete for primacy,
For importance, for position in the pecking order
To the top of the list
Of what I want to say.

My mind strays past the unimportance of facts
To the import of method, of message, of meaning.

What do I write about?

I want to say something, sometimes,
That will light the mind with images,
Sometimes, that will enlighten the soul with whole truth,
Or sometimes
I’m at a loss for what to say.
I just know I must say it.
I must feel it.
I must believe it.

Sometimes,
I just must write.

A little levity.

Cowardly Couplets
(With no excuses offered.)
Christopher Bogart

I sing of war in Troy and punishment swift,
And lessons learned when Greeks come bearing gifts.
When, in one wooden horse, armed soldiers sought to hide,
Did anybody think to look inside?

If only Marie Antoinette could fake
A smidgen of compassion, and some cake,
Then, at the guillotine, she could have said:
“Did I say cake? Well what I meant was bread.”

They claimed that the Titanic could not sink,
Yet thousands found last refuge in the drink.
When some fool thought that cocktails would be nice,
Not straight up, but with just a “little” ice.

Our history is filled with clever ruses,
And many errors, covered by excuses,
But none is lamer than the one most quoted:
“I really didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

It is most definitely Spring

It is most definitely Spring
Christopher Bogart

It is most definitely Spring,
Unless, of course, winter returns.

Cold rain whips against our window panes.
As the blustery breezes of March toss limbs of trees,
Roar like a speeding freight train down our streets as if
To beat the memories of ice and snow
Far from our reach, pushing them
Into the deep recesses of our winter memory.

They will soon be replaced, we live in hope,
With the promise of balmier breezes,
Light green shoots breaking through hard ground,
Reaching to the sky to uncover their hooded heads
And reveal yellow trumpets, deep red cups, and purple grape clusters
That toss their heads at a new sun.

The course of winter has run.
We turn the clocks forward as our hopes advance
To the anticipation of different climes,
Brighter days,
And a change to new ways to spend time.

We march, enthusiastically, to these future dreams,
In lockstep, it seems,
While dancing to the new tune the new winds play.
We mark the day.

It is most definitely Spring,

Unless, of course, winter returns.

When Heaven Weeps

When Heaven Weeps
Christopher Bogart

When heaven weeps its icy spears,
That dash the glistening street,
They spray a mist of orange sparks,
Ignite the dark,
To illuminate the fears of anonymous angels
Forced to wander in worlds below.

Do fears pulse to the beat of these desolate hearts,
Grown apart from the warmth,
From the steam
Of quickly rising dreams
That stream from city sewer caps?

Do they rap,
Snap,
Tap to the frantic beat
Of bare, swollen feet?

Or do they just retreat
In some soul silence,
So long left alone
To wander through worlds,
Left awash in frozen tears?

Do their fears fear the spears
Struck from heaven above?

Is it love that has died?

How long has it been since
God cried?

Gray Days

Gray Days
Christopher Bogart

Gray days suffer in silence,
Suffocate in the stillness of moist air.
They seem to fairly hold their breath
To test their own endurance.

Humidity hangs,
Precariously draped
Over the canopy of trees.

Leaden leaves
Barely breathe,
Suspended as in distant dreams.

Gray days have but a brief and fragile reign.
They await their tortured fate
As steam upon our windowpanes,
Only to be exiled
By the smiling rays
Of a welcoming sun.

Panis Angelicus

Panis Angelicus
Christopher Bogart

I heard Franck’s Panis Angelicus
Recently on the radio.

I found myself singing
As the scenery slowly drifted past.

My voice was so simple
As the music was simple
Like an obvious argument
Whose conclusion is obviously known,
Like the Latin that lingers
In the midst of the mind
In the mist of the memory
Of a seminary student
Who has heard its sweet melody
Time after time past.

There’s an unornamented elegance
In the simplicity of this melody,
In the simplicity of this sound,
Of the sound of my own voice,
Singing,
As if I were singing
This long-ago melody
For the very first time.

Paint Me A Sky

Paint Me A Sky
Christopher Bogart

Paint me a sunset.
Paint me a sky
Of peacock dark
And streaked pink pale
Where birds to the hills
Last fly.

Paint me a canopy
Of midnight blue,
Sprinkled with silver
And flecks of light
That ever so slyly wink
At the pewter moon.

Paint me a morning
Ever so bright.
Dab it with brush strokes
Of yellow and white.
Turn fields of flowers
Faced to the pale blue sky.


And then
As the light
Passes over the fold,
Turning bright green to dark green,
And yellow to gold,
Let me, through the fields of high grasses, run
As I reach to the heavens
To follow the sun.

My Lamb White Days

I wrote this poem as a tribute to my Welsh poetry idol, Dylan Thomas. I used one of his phrases and wrote a poem around it, in a rather bucolic memory of a childhood that really never existed. But elements of it did. At least, in my soul, it did.

In My Lamb White Days
Christopher Bogart

Light and lithe
Through great cotton mounds
Of fleecy white clouds,
I glide past the green ground
In my lamb white ways.

My energy flows
Like the raging of rivers,
Their rivulets running
Down streams that are coursing,
Clear water awashing,
On to virgin shores.

I spin on the axis
Of the great green earth’s rising
In maddening cacophony,
Clambering and climbing,
Clanging and chiming
From songbooks now yellowed
Of tunes half-remembered
To an age now- forgotten -
My lamb white days.

The Last March, Part 5

Cairn marking the site of Robert Falcon Scott's tent, 1912. Petty Officer Edgar Evans died in February 1912; Scott and the remainder of his party died during March. The bodies of Scott, Dr Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Bowers were eventually found in their tent by a search party in November 1912

Epilogue

On the pole,
A solitary flag –
Black –
Waves stiffly in the distance.

A journal –
Brilliant red –
Drawn from his fur-lined jacket,
Scott records:
“This blizzard began
As white smoke,
Billowing on the horizon.

No sun for days…

The question is:
What shall we find at the depot now?”

Outside the tent,
And beyond,
A whirling drift
Of wildly-moving snow
Blowing one way
And then against itself,
Is all that the eye can observe.

It almost seems
To be as if
All hell has turn’d
Inside out:
And once red hot
And burning flame,
Has become
Blue-white
And frozen.

And the hellish, hissing wind
Drives,
Spirals,
And subsides-
Then races again
Across the frozen plain.


The confounded travelers
Inch their way
Across the bleak and barren waste.

“Oates
Not pulling much.
Hands and feet
Are pretty well useless.”

And tracks,
In endless mile on mile,
Feet and steel rudders
Lay their faint memorial-
Only to be obviated
By the frigid foe.

“Poor Wilson-
Horribly cold.”

Hour after hour,
Day follows day.
One night becomes another.

Through the open tent flap:
The faintest of trails,
Irregular prints,
Disappearing
Over the cadaverous magnificence.

“Poor Oates
Walked to his death.
Would not give up hope
Until the very end.

…Brave soul.

This was the end.”

The frigid forces,
Their legions arrayed,
Slashed cold steel
Across the barren tundra.

“Edgar Evans –
Out of food –
He lay insensible.

Providence removed him.”

The Polar Predator,
Gathered in strength,
Hurls headlong
Into the crisp, cold air –
Pounding the ice
In rigid rage.

Then silence,
The symbol of supremacy,
Stakes its final claim.

The surface is still –
Pure white-
Basking in its innocence,
As fleecy clouds drift swiftly
Across the deepened blue.

And the wind,
Its spectral song
Skimming the air
Whirls ‘round the frosted,
Sightless dead.

Its frozen fingers
Turn the final page:

Last Entry:
For God’s sake
Look after our people.”

Over the twinkling coverlet,
It darts for the Pole.

The Last March, Part 4

The Scott Expedition at Admunsen's flag on the South Pole.

Intermezzo

Day after monstrous day passes,
As the fur-hooded explorers
Advance
Across mile after endless mile
In dauntless search.

Their sledges dryly crunch
Into the hard-packed snow
Of the crusted plain;
Leaving sets of linear prints
As lone monument to their progress.
Gloved hands rise to wind-burnt brow
As they face into the raw gusts
With eyes searching
To discern signs
Of their success.
Extreme hardship,
The hurdle of human exploration,
Is increasingly felt,
Tinged with apprehension
That there may be
No end.

Until,
It appears,
On the crest
Of the horizon:
The warm red and cool blue
Fluttering
Of Amundsen’s flag.

As they approach,
A tent,
The sign of human habitation,
Appears before them,
Its flaps gently waving
In the manipulating breeze.

The disembarked explorers stand
Before the Norwegian flag:
Its red and blue crosses
Seem to symbolize
A crusader’s march,
And a crusader’s victory.

And yet,
The crusader has departed.

Around the pole,
A white bleakness
Everywhere prevails.
And a cold, raw feeling:
That the captors
Are the captured,
Contains the scene,
Like an atmosphere
Of pure white,
Tufted silk.

The Last March, Part 3

Snow builds up outside Captain Scott's Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans in Ross Island, Antarctica, in this picture taken in August 2006. This time capsule of Antarctic exploration is being given a make-over to save it from the harsh polar weather. For nearly a century the wooden shack has withstood some of the most extreme weather in the world.


Landscape

Ahead lie
The hulking mass
Of frozen snow and petrified rock
Charted as Ross Island.
Icy water laps
At its leaden sides
Leaving a crystal coat
On its black roots.

And beyond the frozen isle –
Interminable ice,
Snow crusted to a flat plain,
Stretching out in all directions.

An eerie beauty
Surrounds this land
The way the muted glow
Of an azure halo
Signifies an almost perfect
Innocence.

One can almost hear
The slightest tinkling
Of a thousand
Silvery chimes,
Studding the frosted landscape.

The deep-throated boom of the ship’s cannon
Sounds a farewell volley,
Breaking the silence,
And dispersing the tinkling sounds
To the icy air.

Winds rise
Sweeping ‘round the travelers;
And, gliding past them,
Spray mists of finely grained snow
To the air;
Then sweep out into the distance beyond.

Soon,
In the distance,
Five darkened figures
Appear on Beardmore Glacier –
As pinpoint statues,
High atop an immense base of frozen snow:
Dwarfed to minuteness,
Yet resolutely placed –
Poised toward the Pole.


Looming in front of them –
Frozen falls:
Crystal cataracts,
Their flowing fluid
Bounding over the height,
And cascading –
Then rushing
To the deep ravine below.

Yet no movement at all –
Only the silence –
And a mass of solidly frozen ice.

The Last March, Part 2

Scherzo

The sky bristles
With the masts of tired ships
Anchored in the oily water of the harbor.

Soot, smoke,
And the constant racket –
A cacophony of metallic clanging,
As barge and battle boat
Pass one another
In separate service.

All is left
In the churning wake
As the dull gray metal vessel
Cuts the swell,
Bearing south:
The expeditionary force
Of Robert Falcon Scott.

A whale surfaces
And shoots a welcome
Volley of water
Into the chilled, raw air.

Penguins process,
Chaplinesque,
Like impatient dinner guests,
Flapping and squawking
On the colorless surface
Of their white waiting room.


Beyond the ship
Sea birds swoop,
Weaving white patterns
Over the frozen fallow
That is their quest.

The Last March

When I was younger, I became a fan of classical music. One of the pieces I listened to was Ralf Vaughan Williams' Symphonia Antarctica, a piece with five titled sections, each one a musical tone poem for part of the exploration of the South Pole by British explorer, Robert Falcon Scott. The reason it was segmented so was that Williams wrote this music as movie background, then published it as a symphony. It is bleak and cold, and beautiful. I was so fascinated by it that I went to the county library to look up Robert Falcon Scott and his ill-fated exploration of the South Pole that ended in the frozen death of he and his team eight miles from safety.

When the music was first published, it came with segments of different poetic works that the publisher hoped would be read while the section played, and match the mood of the music. Williams never authorized any specific readings to go with this music. I became fascinated by this challenge and decided to take a stab at it myself.

I have recently given my older poetry another look, revising what I wanted to keep. This is one of those works. As I revise each section, I will post it over the next four nights beginning with tonight. It is called The Last March and incorporates descriptions of what Scott saw and recorded in his journal, as well as lines from the journal itself.

I welcome any comments on this work, as I have with all of the other works I have posted.

The Last March
Christopher Bogart

The last exploration of Robert Falcon Scott
March 29, 1912



Prelude

White wasteland
Completely covers
And stretches out as far as the human eye can see,
For mile after endless mile
Until it disappears over the horizon.

There is a crystalline magnificence about the place,
And yet –
The cold.

A cold so deep
That it would seem to penetrate
The very fibers of anything
Not composed of ice as it is –
And crystallize perpetually
All that is alien to it.

Blue-white snow
Mounds into fantastic shapes,
Leviathans of land –
Yet no land at all –
Only snow.

Jagged black rock with coat of pristine iciness,
Lakes of thick, crusted ice,
And Ice,
As if it, being cold,
Were an elemental emperor
That has had its hiatus here.

Great white and slate-gray clouds
Breathe frozen wind
Across uninhabited desolation.

And the moaning…
The low, mournful,
Sonorous moaning of the wind,
Sings its spectral song, as it searches vainly
For life across the wilderness:
Like the Sirens of Homer-
Searching for prey
In this prey-less waste.

All the elements:
Cold, wind, ice and snow,
All exiles
Nature has driven to its polar extremes-
Silently await their final challenge
With the predator.

All, for eons
Of continuous non-existence
All await the presence
Of man.

Counting Airplanes

Counting Airplanes
Christopher Bogart

When I was a kid in Queens,
We used to count airplanes.

Two stupid kids from the public housing projects,

Peter and I,
Looked to the sky,
Day after summer day,
And counted the passing planes.

Eyes to the skies,
Brows knitted,
Faces squinted,
Pencils in hand,
We counted planes –
To protect our country
From aerial attack.

The Russians wouldn’t dare –

Two boys faced the air
To protecting the skies
Over Flushing, Queens.

There we sat,
Peter and I,
Day after summer day –
Me with my sharp vision,
Peter with his pad and pencil,
Protecting America
For Democracy.

Published in Voices Rising from the Grove

Stone Columns

Stone Columns
Christopher Bogart

Stone columns are all that is left of ruined mansions.
Bare arms reach to the sky, to hide chipped
and molded capitals.

Their wickedness,
once magnificence upon the landscape,
now festers in pools at their feet.

The buzzing of the cicadas, muffled by moss-draped magnolias,
interrupts the suffocating silence,
where race was once the reason for war.

Dead by the score,
bored by the maggots of lost causes,
they lay in an uneasy rest.

The balm of forgiveness,
forgetfulness seeps out of sight,
lost in fetid pools of live hatred bubbling around the bases.

Generations rise from these pools of kith and kin and klan,
their voices fill the void left by a world lost,
and by our indifference.

Stone columns,
covered in green mold and grey grime,
rocks of ages,
seem somehow taller today.

They appear to be growing,
not likely to go away.