Monthly Archives: April 2019

 

Portrait of a Black Hole

So researchers finally got a black hole

To sit for its picture.

The victim of too much science-fiction,

I imagined something like a dragon devouring universes

Or a whale scooping up solar systems

Or a quantum  vortex enabling time travel

But when I saw the picture

It looked like a very large

Ring of fire.

Johnny Cash, you were right.

 

Dan Verner

April 11, 2019

 

 

Chocolate

This year for Lent

I gave up chocolate.

That doesn’t seem like much

But understand that

For all practical purposes

I am addicted to chocolate.

But it hasn’t been that bad

And I have watched my cravings

Fade into insignificance

As the weeks have gone on

And I think no wonder

When I compare giving up chocolate

To giving up one’s

Life.

 

Dan Verner

April 10, 2019

Lies, All Lies

Here are a few:

One size fits all.

I’m here from the home office

And I’m here to help.

And only time can heal

A broken heart.

 

Dan Verner

April 9, 2019

 

 

Poetica Pragmatica*

Sometimes

I go to write a poem

And think that I

Have something ordinary lined up

To go with

Something extraordinary

And the ordinary is there

But the extraordinary

Is nowhere to be found.

I think

And look

And puzzle

But still it doesn’t come

And I don’t know what to do

So I stop trying to think of

The extraordinary

And find that after a while,

If I think of it long enough

The ordinary is extraordinary

After all.

 

*Roughly translated from an unknown tongue, “Sometimes poetry is nothing but practical.”

 

DanVerner

April 8, 2019

Potato

When potatoes first came to Europe

From the New World,

They were prized for their

Blossoms

Much like tulips.

I wonder who first looked at the sprouts

Poking from the earth and

Disregarding the blooms

Dug up the tuber

And took a bite.

It was a clear case of

Survival over aesthetics

Although I think

We need both.

 

Dan Verner

April 7, 2019

Auto-Complete

When I write one of these poems

And add my name at the bottom

I start to add the date and as soon as

I write the month

Word auto-completes to the right

Date and year.

It’s like a miracle

Saving me time, money and

Creative energy

(not much, but I’ll take

All I can get).

Auto-complete can turn rogue

As we all know

Completing “Ain’t Jenny” for

“Aunt Jenny,”

“Squirrelmeat” for

“Secrets (I don’t know how),

And “unicorn” for

“Uniform.”

In spite of all these,

I’d still rather have

Auto-complete.

 

Dan Verner

April 6, 2019

(For some reason, the date didn’t auto-complete this time. Writing about it jinxed it.)

Guide to Writing a Poem

First, consider something

Ordinary

Like a flight of stairs.

And now on those stairs

Place something

Extraordinary

Like the Queen of Sheeba

Descending the stairs

Et voila!

There is

Your poem.

 

Dan Verner

April 5, 2019

 

Going Away and Coming Back

Sometimes

I have an idea and

If I don’t write it down

It goes away

And

If I try to think of it

I can’t.

Or if I can’t think of a name

I can’t

Or if I look for something

I can’t find

I don’t see it

If I try to think of it

But if I don’t think about

The idea or the name

Where something is

(And that’s hard)

It comes back

And I remember it

Or find it.

What goes away

Comes back

If I wait

Long enough.

 

Dan Verner

April 4, 2019

Cat Organ

I read about an ostensibly brilliant  seventeenth-century man

Named Athanasius Kircher who lived at the Vatican

And studied a whole range of phenomena from

Volcanoes to hieroglyphics to music theory.

But although he was brilliant in these

He was a dim bulb when it came to cats.

He invented a “cat organ”

In which he arranged the poor cats in order

Of the pitches of their vocalizations

And pinched their tails to make them “sing.”

Mercifully, he never built this “instrument”

But only thought about it and saved himself

Having his brilliant face clawed off.

So beware of being too brilliant

It may keep anyone from being a humane human being.

(For more information about this musical and feline oddity, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_organ)

Dan Verner

April 3, 2019

Opening a New Book for the First Time

When I was in elementary school,

On our first visit as a class to the library

Each year,

The librarian showed us how to

Open a new book for the first time.

There was a method to it,

But I don’t know why we had to see it

Every year.

I at least remembered all the details

But

Strangely enough

No one objected to it.

It was the Age of Conformity

After all. Something different came later.

“Look,” the librarian said (every year).

“Carefully take the new book and stand it on end.

Now select about one-tenth of the pages,

Put the book back on its spine and

Carefully run your hand down the page

Close to the spine. Repeat this until you have

Done all the pages in this manner. Now you may

Open the book and begin reading.”

What a relief, I thought. Now we can go to recess,

But the librarian asked,

“Are there any questions?”

Naturally, Abigail Shaw raised her hand.

I hated Abigail Shaw, as did most of the boys

In the class. She always wore a fancy dress to school

And sat up front and always got good grades.

She regarded the boys in the class as savages

And she wasn’t too far wrong.

Anyhow, she said, “Would you show us that

Again, Miss Parsons? I want to make sure

I understand it.”

I could see doing this the first couple of years,

But she asked this every single year!

I felt like biting my desk, but that was exactly

The sort of savage behavior Abigail frowned upon.

So we sat there, hearing about something

We knew already, watching the precious minutes

Of recess tick away while Abigail Shaw made sure

Everyone knew what a good and careful person she was.

Somewhere along the line, books reformed themselves

And no longer had to open in a special way.

And I add that to my collection of useless skills

Like threading a classroom projector or running a

Mimeograph machine or using a slide rule.

I don’t know what happened to Abigail

(I know she did survive elementary school)

But I suppose enduring all this opening new book business

Was worth it after all:

It allowed me to read

And that has turned out to be better than

Recess.

 

Dan Verner

April 2, 2019