Orange Crates and Other Treasurers

Orange Crates and Other Treasures
Christopher Bogart

A true treasure trove consisted of a broad spectrum of collections,
including things abandoned, things discovered,
and things rescued.

The discriminating collector, the true artiste, as it were,
found intrinsic worth in form as well as function.
Was it shiny, for example? Was it sturdy?
What was its potential as a conserver of treasure?

Shoe boxes were great for stamp collections,
coin collections, vacation photos, postal cards or
a backyard burial for a budgie or a hamster.

Soda bottle caps, filled with melted wax, made for
fast-moving games of street skully.

Tobacco cans, the maroon Prince Albert, were the best,
and kept dyed rabbit’s foots, bottle caps, baby teeth
the fairy forgot to take, and cat’s eyes and aggies safe.

Empty coffee tins with holes punched in their lids
kept grasshoppers, crickets and toads,
while marmalade jars kept butterflies, and ladybugs
and fireflies.

Our project apartments came with appliances,
but when we moved into new development houses,
empty appliance cartons were great for tumbling down hills,
four or five to the carton, for as long as the carton would last.

But the piece de resistance of all empties was the orange crate.
Its thick wooden sides and its long thin wooden slats
provided butt and barrel for a perfect Tommy gun.
And, just for fun, the crate as a whole could be
molded into a go-cart, with a little art, and just the right
pair of metal roller skates, mounted on a four-by-four.

In the years of my youth, I discovered treasures by the score,
but the more I collected, the more I stored; until
in the ripeness of age and acquisition, I found that
there was just no room left to stash them all, besides
they had been joined by more mature collections:
the errant letter from a friend, the college photo,
gold cuff links to a shirt I no longer wore, or had.

It seemed sad. But then again, maybe not so. For I have stashed,
stored them in a place that takes little space,
this treasure trove of memories.

L'Apres Midi d'un Faun

I have very eclectic tastes in poetry. I love Shakespeare's sonnets, Milton's Paradise Lost, the poetry of Matthew Arnold and Dylan Thomas, to name a few. One poet, however, I discovered more for his interesting life, and only came to appreciate his poetry later. That was the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud. He had his first poem published when he was sixteen. He was a wild child, a sexual and alcoholic libertine, and a devout Catholic, who loved many and various woman, yet was the teenage lover of the French poet, Paul Verlaine. But he was a magnificent poet, as well, writing verse that was raw and, at the same time, beautiful. His poetry, however, is more beautiful in its original French. Before he reached 21, he had given up writing altogether, and traveled all over Europe, Asia and Africa before returning to France with cancer which killed him at the age of 37.

He wrote a poem, called "The Faun's Head," in which the reader discovers a young faun munching on flowers. In tribute to his genius, and as a thank you for the enriching hours spent reading his poetry, I am posting that poem tonight. I am also posting a poem I wrote. It has a similar topic and form, but is very different in approach and intent.

The Faun’s Head
Arthur Rimbaud

Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold,
In the uncertain foliage that blossoms
With gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,
Vivid and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,

A startled faun shows his two eyes
And bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.
Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine
His mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.

And when he has fled - like a squirrel -
His laughter still vibrates on every leaf
And you can see, startled by a bullfinch
The Golden Kiss of the Wood, gathering itself together again.


L’Apres Midi d’un Faun
Christopher Bogart

Brittle branches crackle crisply.
Thump upon darkened thump
echoes softly through the thicket,
as cloven hooves hit forest floor.

Its tangled fur of brown
with threads of red, its slender form,
dappled in shadows, rustling limbs,
reclines upon the bed of dead leaves.

And from its reedy pipes,
nasal notes float high
above the leafy canopy, to
permeate the wood with haunting song.

Brotherhood

Brotherhood
Christopher Bogart

Brotherhood
Is at the central core
of Christianity.
The very word
defines relationship,
the language of a single word
of camaraderie.

Brothers in arms,
Brothers in crime,
Brothers- in-law,
Step-brothers,
Foster brothers,
The Brotherhood of Man,
An ancient brotherhood
“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers …”
A brother’s love.

But what’s so great about brothers anyway,
Particularly if you have one?

If they’re older,
they’re bullies.
If younger,
they’re the brother
you’re bound by blood
to protect.

And what about sibling rivalry?

Sometimes it seems
“He ain’t heavy …” really.
He’s just a pain in the ass.

Across the Fields of Yesterday

Across the Fields of Yesterday
Christopher Bogart

Across the fields of yesterday
Lie dreams that hang like summer smoke,
that, once afloat,
hover over slender blades of grass.

Each gentle puff of wind escapes
and separates diaphanous dreams
to single, slender strands of hope.

Some dissipate into the air.
Some curl and form
like clouds, and
shapes like figures,
Waiting to be read
by desperate eyes.

Some spread
and fly around like
pollen in an August wind,
to populate to newer hopes,
newer visions,
newer dreams,
form faces chasing
traces into alien worlds.

They twirl as airy ballerinas,
pirouette above the fields,
only to yield
to breezes cooler,
crisper, sharper,
curling into faerie forms,
and catching them
before they are borne.

New York Rhapsody

This post was a poetic exercise in sound that I wrote many years ago. I was always fascinated by the sound of words and how that sound affects the meaning of the words together. Like the ancient Greek King Cadmus, who sowed dragon’s teeth into the ground to grow soldiers, fully armed and ready for battle, I too wished to sow words that would do the same thing.

When I was in college, a friend introduced me to the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. It seemed that Thomas too was as fascinated with words as I was; but it wasn’t until later in my life, that I really grew to appreciate his poetry. In his “Notes on the Art of Poetry,” he said the following about his childhood fascination with nursery rhymes:

…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.

I wrote this poem, more like an exercise in sound, on my fascination with New York City many years ago. I don’t know what I want to do with it. Maybe expand on it someday, or maybe just leave it alone, and let it speak for itself.

New York Rhapsody
Christopher Bogart

Along the empty sidewalks and the streets,
Glimmering in the neon-tinted glow,
A city has its never ending birth,
Baptized by the moisture-laden steam
That rises in white wisps from tiny holes
Of large metal sewer caps in the street.

But then, amid the silence, comes the life …

Feet, feet that beat familiar rhythms
Rhythms of the city’s melody.
Wheels, wheels cause the metal caps to clatter
As if to keep in time with soft, clear strains
Of music seeping from beneath marquees.

A symphony, a symphony of sounds,
A symphony of city-scented sounds
The clamor, and the clatter, and the bang
Of city movement, city harmony.


One way or the other, I think that the fascination with sound and meaning that I have had all of my life, and, more recently, with the poetry of Dylan Thomas, has deeply affected my poetry and has set a direction for it in the future.

Brain Drain

Brain Drain
Christopher Bogart

It pains me to think
of a thought worth developing
when trying to write a poem.

Demons leap out, and
scout 'round the mind,
in an effort to find
words borrowed,
words new,
or bought at a price of
who knows what,
and the price that
I’ll have to pay.

Words whirl around ether
bang against cranial walls,
dull words,
weird words,
wonderful words
or so it seems at the time -
then rhymes
in the millions,
a bombastic blight,
a whirlwind of trite
and, finally, some just right
to express just one thought
that was bought
at the cost of this
brain drain.

A Trace of Track

A Trace of Track
Christopher Bogart

There always seems to be
a trace of track that runs
deep in the back of my mind.

On past strolls,
I have trod dry grass,
nudged the soil,
to uncover their linear toil.

Their dull steel rails,
their worn wooden crossbars
leave tracks through my thoughts
traces through my dreams.

It seems I always find
myself in the return
to mine the dry ground,
to found in shadow,
the possibility of pattern,
of thought,
of purpose,
in those same linear dreams,
or so it seems.