[stylist] Poem - "Frogs" - Finalish Draft

[William L Houts]

Hi Jackie,

 From where I'm sitting as regards to your poetry, the trite ones almost 
never slip in, though I guess they get all of us eventually, from time 
to time.  But that's what editing's for: wheee!


--Bill



On 8/16/2015 11:34 AM, Jackie Williams via stylist wrote:
> Bill,
> Your comments mean a great deal to me. Not because we have both thought a
> lot about frogs, but because our thoughts ultimately endowed them with a
> certain importance to the scheme of our lives.
> I like your comment about the way my poem rolls. I had no consciousness of
> what that might have meant as far as stages of my life. I will think about
> that. But that is what your poetry and comments always do. They make one
> think anew.Also, I truly value your comments about the rhyming. I do try
> hard not to let any trite ones creep in.
>
> Jackie Lee
>
> Time is the school in which we learn.
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> Delmore Schwartz	
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts via stylist
> Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2015 8:48 AM
> To: stylist at nfbnet.org
> Cc: William L Houts
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Poem - "Frogs" - Finalish Draft
>
>
>
>
> HI Jackie,
>
> Wonderful work.  Many  of the rhymes here are very deft and subtle.  My
> favorite is probably the very first one, but I enjoyed the whole poem.
> Also, there's a kind of autumnal feeling to the poem, a sense that the
> speaker has seen many seasons and is now reporting back to us the effect
> of weather and of the seasons on her life.  It's a very mature poem,
> Jackie, when many poems aren't.  Such good work!
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
>
> On 8/15/2015 10:14 AM, Jackie Williams via stylist wrote:
>> Bill,
>> I once vowed I would answer a poem with a poem. Here is mine. The intense
>> rhyme will irritate those who do not favor rhymed poetry.
>> By the way, yours was powerful in both the emotion and regret.
>>
>> I Fight for Little Things
>>
>> A world of rainbows, mackerel skies, cloud-reaching trees-
>> they mesmerize like shorelines tracing restless seas.
>> We soar with birds, and seek rare flowers, follow bees.
>> Our world lights up with babies' smiles that give us ease.
>>
>> It is not good enough. We're busy killing frogs.
>> Imagine for a moment stillness on those logs
>> where, she, a creature living in the forest bogs
>> deposits all her eggs, cocooned by misty fogs.
>>
>> A noose, man's greed, is slipped around her pulsing gut-
>> delivers her to some fat, pompous, gourmand's glut.
>> Those frog legs, caviar, rare truffles, and-now what!
>> With her absorptive skin she takes in toxins-smut
>>    
>> to tadpoles metamorphosing in waters, cool
>> and clear. They do not know the bottom of the pool
>> is laced with chemicals that mutilate and fool
>> this species-unimportant to our human rule.
>>
>> Our global warming does not make us more aware
>> of frogs, their eggs, or if the tadpoles have a prayer
>> in sizzling temperatures gone wrong, polluted air,
>> and fading ecosystems dying everywhere.
>>
>> The pristine habitat now rare throughout their world
>> has fed an ugly fungus where the tadpoles swirled.
>> While slowly, transformation to a frog unfurled-
>> just eighteen days and then to death they whirled.
>>
>> In city smog and forest bog our fates are crossed.
>> Yet she is me and I am her. I fear we're lost.
>>
>> Our futures, stretched too thin-in carelessness-are tossed
>> to unimportant values.
>> Worlds could burn or frost.
>>
>>
>> I have just submitted this to the League of Minnesot poetry contest.
>>
>> Jackie Lee
>>
>> Time is the school in which we learn.
>> Time is the fire in which we burn.
>> Delmore Schwartz	
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
>> Houts via stylist
>> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2015 6:55 AM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Cc: William L Houts
>> Subject: [stylist] Poem - "Frogs" - Finalish Draft
>>
>>
>>
>> Good Morning, Droogies,
>>
>> I wrote this a little while ago, but hadn't posted it until now. This
>> one's still kind of painful, as it refers to an event from my teen years
>> which I have yet to llive down entirely.  I feel pretty good about this
>> one, as it's gone through many drafts and I've finally punched it into a
>> shape I can bear without wincing.  As always, your mileage may vary.
>>
>> --Bill
>>
>>
>> ---
>>
>>
>> *Frogs *
>>
>> Small as infant toes, the frogs
>>
>> enlivened smiling sandss, so close
>>
>> to oceans helix deep. They swarmed the grains,
>>
>> that hopper tribe, like Greeks
>>
>> besieging Troy, though not so fierce.
>>
>> and Then come  I:
>>
>> an anguished boy enshrilled
>>
>> by growing-juice, and infant slights
>>
>> and rage, that demon muse.
>>
>> I plowed them down,  that day of wrath,
>>
>> bestormed those tiny lives,and neither grieved,
>>
>> nor prayed, nor wept a blackened tear.
>>
>> I've staggered years this infant crime
>>
>> while Friends suggest I'm clean and not so lost:
>>
>> and yet I bear a holocaust.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 


"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"