No, this is not a clickbait article… but these images made me smile.
Beware, and stop your children from getting involved in these dangerous, seditious pursuits before it’s too late!
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Tag Archives: Poetry
Love Came
Love came,
and became like blood in my body.
It rushed through my veins and
encircled my heart.
Everywhere I looked,
I saw one thing.
Love’s name written
on my limbs,
on my left palm,
on my forehead,
on the back of my neck,
on my right big toe…
Oh, my friend,
all that you see of me
is just a shell,
and the rest belongs to love.
-Shahram Shiva
Published in Hush Don’t Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi, Jain Publishing
The Crooked House of Windsor
Lovely historical building, built in 1592, looking like it might have been built by Numerobis:
If you’re an Astérix fan, you’ll know what I mean.
According to Wikipedia, the thing went skeewompus because it was rebuilt with green wood in 1718. Of course, buildings tend to do this over time,
but contractors are always cutting corners:
I am put in mind of a couple of things:
Terre vasée, Krous, qu’est dément
En y vaquer Krous qu’est d’émail.
Il fondu Krous qu’est de si que se pince,
Agacer Krous qu’est déesse taille
Il botté Krous qu’est de quatre.
Vich côté Krous qu’est de mousse
Année olive tous guetteurs
Déracinés Krous qu’est délit Toulouse.
-Mots d’Heures, Gousses, Rames (van Rooten)
Image from Granfa Grigg Had a Pig, by Wallace Tripp. Some of the loveliest nursery rhyme illustrations I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
The Seegers on the Road
Today is John Steinbeck’s 112th birthday – or would have been, if he weren’t dead. But some pictures that ran across my Facebook feed this morning seemed somehow relevant.
May 1921. Washington, D.C. “Professor Charles Seeger, a composer, is a brother of Alan Seeger, the war poet. His wife is a distinguished violinist.” Little Pete Seeger, 2 years old, and family along with their camping rig. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.
The Seeger family More on this intriguing bit of ephemera was written about in the Washington Post (text and image found at Shorpy):
Washington Post, May 22, 1921.
TRAVEL AND LIVE IN AN AUTOMOBILE
Charles Seeger, Wife and Three Sons See World While Living Outdoors
LIKE WANDERING MINSTRELS
Mrs. Seeger Famed as Violinist. Husband Professor of Music In California.
Bound for wherever they happen to stop, paying no attention to daylight saving or other forms of time, and spreading music wherever they go, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Seeger, once of the University of California and now “wandering minstrels” of the world at large, are encamped at Rock Creek park, their home an itinerant Ford and a home-made trailer. They are accompanied by their three little boys.
Mr. and Mrs. Seeger, the latter known in musical circles as Constance Edson Seeger, are taking the boys to museums and places of interest wherever they stop, and the two [older] boys are learning to play the violin.
Their Profession in Music.
“We are trying to solve the problem of educating three boys, and at the same time lead a worth-while outdoor life,” said Mr. Seeger yesterday. Mr. Seeger says that they got the idea while they were at the University of California, where he was head of the music department for seven years after graduating from Harvard and studying music in Europe and where Mrs. Seeger gave violin recitals following her graduation from the New York Institute of Musical Art and a course at the Conservatory of Paris.
The Seegers came here from Richmond and to that city from Pinehurst, N.C., where they spent some time. In addition to the three boys, Charles, 8; John, 6, and Peter, not yet 2 [actually, he had just turned 2], they have taken with them Miss Marion Brown, whom they picked up at Pinehurst and who tutors the children and cares for them while their parents are giving concerts.
The Seeger “home” is a house of five and a half feet in width by fourteen feet in length, and contains all the comforts of home, including a sewing machine, a portable organ and games for the boys. It even has a front porch, which slides under the trailer while traveling.
Going to New England.
The Seegers spent the winter at Pinehurst and are now en route to the New England States for the summer, expecting to go back South when the winter approaches again. Increasing rents make no difference in their lives, as a camping place is always available.
Mr. Seeger is the brother of the famous war poet Alan Seeger, whose “I Have a Rendezvous With Death,” written shortly before he died, has become immortal.
Mr. and Mrs. Seeger gave a concert lecture at the Corcoran Art Gallery last night.
May 23, 1921. Washington, D.C. “Professor Charles Louis Seeger and family.” Charles Seeger, wife Constance Edson Seeger and their 2-year-old son Pete, of future folkie fame. National Photo Co. Collection glass negative.
Another image of the itinerant Seegers. These images have nothing directly to do with Steinbeck, but there’s a distinctly “Grapes of Wrath” feel about their living style in these pictures. They weren’t destitute like the Joads, but my mind couldn’t help but make the connection. There is part of me that would love to be able to live on the road… as long as I had a comfortable motor home with some bookshelf space and the funds to support such a lifestyle.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Children’s Poetry I have Loved, Part 5
I love this one, and used to read it to my own children often. The illustration by Hildegard Woodward is delightful, and perfectly captures the sense of warmth and security imparted by the words. The illustration appears in Childcraft, Volume 1: Poems of Early Childhood, published by Field Enterprises Educational Corporation.
Animal Crackers
by Christopher Morley
Animal crackers and cocoa to drink —
That is the finest of suppers I think;
When I’m grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do YOU choose when you’re offered a treat?
When Mother says, “What would you like best to eat?”
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It’s cocoa and animals that I love most!
The kitchen’s the cosiest place that I know;
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.
Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don’t have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!
Children’s Poetry I Have Loved, Part 3
Antonio
by Laura E. Richards
(This one had me rolling on the floor every time I read it)
Antonio, Antonio
Was tired of living alonio.
He thought he would woo
Miss Lissamy Lu,
Miss Lissamy Lucy Molonio.
Antonio, Antonio,
Rode off on his polo-ponio.
He found the fair maid
In a bowery shade,
A-sitting and knitting alonio.
Antonio, Antonio,
Said, “If you will be my ownio,
I’ll love you true,
And I’ll buy for you
An icery creamery conio!”
Oh, Nonio, Antonio!
You’re far too bleak and bonio!
And all that I wish,
You singular fish,
Is that you will quickly begonio.”
Antonio, Antonio,
He uttered a dismal moanio;
Then he ran off and hid
(Or I’m told that he did)
In the Antecatarctical Zonio.
Children’s Poetry I have Loved, Part 2
The Tale of Custard the Dragon
by Ogden Nash
Silhouettes by Janet Laura Scott and Paula Rees Good
Published in 200 Best Poems for Boys and Girls, Whitman Publishing Company, 1938
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.
Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.
Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.
But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.
The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.
Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.
Children’s Poetry I have Loved, Part 1
Posting Stevenson’s The Lamplighter reminded me that there are numerous other poems which stick in my memory from early childhood. When my mother passed away at the age of 94 in 2011, I found on her shelves a crumbling copy of Two Hundred Best Poems for Boys and Girls, compiled by Marjorie Barrows and published in 1930 and 1938. Printed on very non-durable paper, most of the book fell to dust when I tried to read it – but I immediately recognized it as a book that I loved from my earliest days. I was fortunately able to find an intact copy on Abebooks – it’s also yellowed and fragile, but complete. Just for fun, I thought I’d share some of my favorite youth poetry here, as the muse moves me, because it’s one thing that gave me a love of words and language from an early age.
Jonathan Bing’s Manners
Beatrice Curtis Brown
Jonathan Bing takes off his hat
Whenever he meets a Tabby-cat;
Jonathan Bing bows down to his toes
Whenver he passes a sheep he knows.
Oh, search from Paris to old Japan,
There’s none so courtly as Jonathan!
I’ve seen him murmer a “how-d’you-do”
To a tired forsaken dancing-shoe;
I’ve seen him lend his handkerchief
To a watering can that had come to grief;
I’ve seen him pat, without disdain,
An orphan goldfish who had a pain,
And he even lights a fire, I’m told,
To warm the air when the weather’s cold.
So what does it matter if people say
That he eats his peas in a vulgar way,
Or opens his mouth, to yawn, so wide
That twenty chickens could roost inside?
Oh, search from Paris to old Japan,
There’s none so courtly as Jonathan!
The Old Wolf has quoted.
The Lamplighter
Photo copyright ©2012 Jan-Edward Vogels
Lamplighter, Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh, 1928. Photographer Unknown
The Lamplighter
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
O Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!
-Robert Louis Stevenson
This poem, one of my favorites in A Child’s Garden of Verses, refers to the days when lamplighters would come around the streets of Edinburgh, lighting the gas lamps. As a child, Stevenson was an invalid (hence the reference to “when I am stronger”), and looking out of the window to see the lamplighter would be a bright spot in the lonely child’s day; to be noticed and nodded to would be exceptional.)
A Child’s Garden of Verses, Platt and Munk, 1929, illustrations by Eulalie
In a book that I wish everyone in the world could read, because it is filled with goodness and sadness and love and despair, and the kind of language that Eudora Welty and O. Henry and Walter Van Tilburg Clark knew how to use, language which not only conveys a message but which also fills the mouth – language which, like a finely aged beef or a vintage wine, deserves to be rolled around on the tongue and savored – William Saroyan wrote:
THE LITTLE BOY named Ulysses Macauley one day stood over the new gopher hole in the backyard of his house on Santa Clara Avenue in Ithaca, California. The gopher of this hole pushed up fresh moist dirt and peeked out at the boy, who was certainly a stranger but perhaps not an enemy. Before this miracle had been fully enjoyed by the boy, one of the birds of Ithaca flew into the old walnut tree in the backyard and after settling itself on a branch broke into rapture, moving the boy’s fascination from the earth to the tree. Next, best of all, a freight train puffed and roared far away. The boy listened, and felt the earth beneath him tremble with the moving of the train. Then he broke into running, moving (it seemed to him) swifter than any life in the world.
When he reached the crossing he was just in time to see the passing of the whole train, from locomotive to caboose. He waved to the engineer, but the engineer did not wave back to him. He waved to five others who were with the train, but not one of them waved back. They might have done so, but they didn’t. At last a Negro appeared leaning over the side of a gondola. Above the clatter of the train, Ulysses heard the man singing:“Weep no more my lady, 0 weep no more today
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home
For the old Kentucky home far away”Ulysses waved to the Negro too, and then a wondrous and unexpected thing happened. This man, black and different from all the others, waved back to Ulysses, shouting: “Going home, boy-going back where I belong!” The small boy and the Negro waved to one another until the train was almost out of sight
Then Ulysses looked around. There it was, all around him, funny and lonely-the world of his life. The strange, weed-infested, junky, wonderful, senseless yet beautiful world. Walking down the track came an old man with a rolled bundle on his back. Ulysses waved to this man too, but the man was too old and too tired to be pleased with a small boy’s friendliness. The old man glanced at Ulysses as if both he and the boy were already dead.
The little boy turned slowly and started for home. As he moved, he still listened to the passing of the train, the singing of the Negro, and the joyous words: “Going home, boy-going back where I belong!” He stopped to think of all this, loitering beside a china-ball tree and kicking at the yellow, smelly, fallen fruit of it. After a moment he smiled the smile of the Macauley people-the gentle, wise, secret smile which said Hello to all things.-William Saroyan, The Human Comedy
Apparently the profession lasted a lot longer than I had realized; the picture in London below is purported to have been taken in 1962, found at /r/historyporn.
Today as in the past, little children with their hearts full of innocence and wonder wave to the big people passing by; the delight that illuminates their faces on the rare occasion when someone takes the time to notice them, and wave back, or nod, or smile, or say hello, is large return on a small investment. Here’s a perfect modern example:
Notice the children.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Symbol Poetry
(Cross-posted from my Livejournal)_
Many years ago I ran across “Waka waka bang splat”, a poem written by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which appeared in the May/June 1990 issue of Infocus magazine and has since been floating around the Internet.
< > ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED
The poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:
Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.
I was so delighted by this that I shared it with a columnist at one of Salt Lake’s papers, and it later appeared in one of his columns.
To my delight, I discovered that there is a sequel,which thing I had never before imagined.
Sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”:
^ < @ < . @ * } " _ # | - @ $ & / _ % ! ( ^ I @ | = > ; ` + $ ? ^ ? , # " ~ | ) ^ G
hat less at less point at star
backbrace double base pound space bar
dash at cash and slash base rate
wow open tab at bar is great
semi backquote plus cash huh DEL
comma pound double tilde bar close BEL
From all appearances, it seems to be a drinking (or a finance) song… and I have no idea who the creator of this little gem is.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 