poetry

The First Days of Spring

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The first days of spring always remind me of a favorite poem. With “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now,” A. E. Housman picks up his pen and smacks it out of the park.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

I don’t read poetry anymore, but the poems I enjoyed most when I was younger remain with me. Among other things, I admire the simplicity of this one and the “riddle” feel I get when reading it. I marvel at the wisdom the poet has acquired in only 20 years of living, and I’m reminded again how wonderful it is to see another spring.

Poem: Reflecting Back

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Reflecting Back

When I was a boy I was emblazed
In imagery galore.
I’d lay down a mirror and for hours gaze
At my little square hole in the floor.

I peered into the room I’d made,
Examined its every side.
Always to left or right I stayed
So wouldn’t see me inside.

How I played that wondering game
With its magicurious feeling,
Trying in vain to be in the same
Room with the floor for a ceiling.

Such is dismay in a dreaming child’s head
He sees it but never can show it.
Like a million sayings that can’t be said,
Such is the pain of the poet.

From Pixels of Young Mueller

City Lights Bookstore

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At City Lights Bookstore

It looks like another business trip to San Francisco later this year, and you know what that means—a visit to City Lights Bookstore. City Lights, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, was co-founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose A Coney Island of the Mind greatly influenced me in my early twenties. With any luck, I’ll run into Mr. Ferlinghetti himself.

My Love in Her Attire

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Pop Go The Jerrys (small)

“My Love in Her Attire,” from The Jerrys’ debut album, Pop Go The Jerrys, is based on a poem I came across while reading The Top 500 Poems. “My Love in Her Attire” was penned by an anonymous poet sometime between 1400 and 1600, and while it is an awesome poem as is, it needed a little work before it could be a Jerrys tune. Below is the original poem as it appears in the anthology, followed by the words to the song by The Jerrys.

My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer,
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty’s self she is,
When all her robes are gone.

My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire does show her wit;
It does so become her, this is true.
For every season she has dressings fit.
For winter, spring, and summer too.

No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty’s self she is
When all her clothes are gone.

My love in her black dress is such a hit;
It does so become her, what a view!
In every color she has dressings fit.
In red and green and purple too.

No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty’s self she is
When all her clothes are gone.

My Top 10 Favorite Poems

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I don’t get the chance to read much poetry these days, but I used to read poetry a lot, and over the years, certain poems have resonated with me time and time again (I even created a song from one of them). Here are my top 10 favorite poems:

  • The Darkling Thrush (Thomas Hardy)
  • Fire and Ice (Robert Frost)
  • Howl (Allen Ginsberg)
  • Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now (A. E. Housman)
  • My Love in Her Attire (Anonymous)
  • The Owls (Charles Baudelaire; translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay)
  • Sometime during eternity (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
  • Terrible (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
  • This Is Just to Say (William Carlos Williams)
  • The world is a beautiful place (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)