Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Stray Verse
Mad with hunger, I asked a flower for advice.
The flower said, “You’re standing in my light.”
So now I’m just a thorn — beneath the wind,
But still above the ground, still above the ground.
(first publication)
Updates:
“Stray Verse” added to Poems, Slightly Used.
In the Forum: hostile foot-aggression.
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15 comments:
"..still above the ground."
Wow,strong,thorny image,beautiful and what a pompous flower,not nice flower, :O)
Hi William,hope your feet are feeling better as you on them.
I still have ten toes, so I’m grateful for that....
I was wondering about that flower myself. Usually they’re much kinder.
That flower was a ghost named Diogenes from Sinope, William?
Maybe so. And that’s how he repays my honesty, the bum.
Reminds me of a good friend, always saying, "Well, it's another day above ground." Sometimes it's all we got. Other days we are prolific bloomers, and then again perhaps...flowers with an attitude. Today I wish not to be vegetation. Too damn fragile. I wish to be rock.
Rudhi beat me to the punch, but I'll pass it along anyway: Daumier's version, in which you, my friend, must be the prone fellow at the feet of the flowery Alexander....
Very well, Annie, wish granite. And several years ago, I knew an elderly man, a sports writer and former NCAA basketball official, who, when asked how he was doing, always said, “Well, I’m still this side of the grass.”
Yep, Joe, that’s it exactly — on a good day....
The flower had no advice to give, so it wanted you to go away...
Below one but above the other, all things being equal dear thorn...
Well, I guess it’s not so bad. With any luck, I’ll be picked up by a bicycle tire and go for a little ride....
Only until you cause the tire to go flat :)
i thought “You’re standing in my light” was the flower's kind advice or at least advice on how to regard her from good vantage - a thorn's advantage, as it turns out:)
Hmm... Obiterspeak, it occurs to me now that I probably misinterpreted the flower’s comment. It likely meant, “What is good for me is also good for you”...
*
Oh, Janice, you just reminded me of something. When my father was a kid, he used to plug leaks in bike tires by pumping homemade yogurt into them. It really worked. Another Depression-era remedy...
Tant qu'on a la tête haute, on peut se regarder en face et avancer...
Bises
Ah. This is fun. I think I understand you, Martine. But whether I do or not, your words made me come up with this little saying:
“A proud man steps on thorns.”
I'm glad you are. I always enjoy the comments also a lot.
:-)
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