For those keeping score:

Satirical Limericks 4, Great Poems 1, Parables 0

Famous Poems Re-written as Limericks

To wit:

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still.

I’m now eleven pages into my essay, which has been quite pleasant to write thus far. I’m hoping to knock out a minimum of one page on Donald Justice’s “Psalm and Lament” tonight to stay on target.

That’s the only one of the poems I’m working on that I haven’t posted yet, so here it is.

Psalm and Lament

In memory of my mother (1897-1974)
Hialeah, Florida

The clocks are sorry, the clocks are very sad.
One stops, one goes on striking the wrong hours.

And the grass burns terribly in the sun,
The grass turns yellow secretly at the roots.

Now suddenly the yard chairs look empty, the sky looks empty,
The sky looks vast and empty.

Out on Red Road the traffic continues; everything continues.
Nor does memory sleep; it goes on.

Out spring the butterflies of recollection,
And I think that for the first time I understand

The beautiful ordinary light of this patio
And even perhaps the dark rich earth of a heart.

(The bedclothes, they say, had been pulled down.
I will not describe it. I do not want to describe it.

No, but the sheets were drenched and twisted.
They were the very handkerchiefs of grief.)

Let summer come now with its schoolboy trumpets and fountains.
But the years are gone, the years are finally over.

And there is only
This long desolation of flower-bordered sidewalks

That runs to the corner, turns, and goes on,
That disappears and goes on

Into the black oblivion of a neighborhood and a world
Without billboards or yesterdays.

Sometimes a sad moon comes and waters the roof tiles.
But the years are gone. There are no more years.

–Donald Justice

Those are all couplets– pardon the line wraps.

Jeremy just told me the story that Callie happened to mention my name in conversation and a co-worker said, “Ross White the poet?” I think this is the first time that’s happened to me. I’m thrilled, too… the noun at the end of that question is usually far more harsh.