My Doggie Ate My Homework – Dave Crawley

“My doggy ate my homework.
He chewed it up,” I said.
But when I offered my excuse
My teacher shook her head.

I saw this wasn’t going well.
I didn’t want to fail.
Before she had a chance to talk,
I added to the tale:

“Before he ate, he took my work
And tossed it in a pot.
He simmered it with succotash
Till it was piping hot.

“He scrambled up my science notes
With eggs and bacon strips,
Along with sautéed spelling words
And baked potato chips.

“He then took my arithmetic
And had it gently fried.
He broiled both my book reports
With pickles on the side.

“He wore a doggy apron
As he cooked a notebook stew.
He barked when I objected.
There was nothing I could do.”

“Did he wear a doggy chef hat?”
She asked me with a scowl.
“He did,” I said. “And taking it
Would only make him growl.”

My teacher frowned, but then I said
As quickly as I could,
“He covered it with ketchup,
And he said it tasted good.”

“A talking dog who likes to cook?”
My teacher had a fit.
She sent me to the office,
And that is where I sit.

I guess I made a big mistake
In telling her all that.
’Cause I don’t have a doggy.
It was eaten by my cat.

Retrospect – Arthur Conan Doyle

There is a better thing, dear heart,
Than youthful flush or girlish grace.
There is the faith that never fails,
The courage in the danger place,
The duty seen, and duty done,
The heart that yearns for all in need,
The lady soul which could not stoop
To selfish thought or lowly deed.
All that we ever dreamed, dear wife,
Seems drab and common by the truth,
The sweet sad mellow things of life
Are more than golden dreams of youth.

Foolish Questions – William Cole

Where can a man buy a cap for his knee?
Or a key for the lock of his hair?
And can his eyes be called a school?
I would think—there are pupils there!
What jewels are found in the crown of his head,
And who walks on the bridge of his nose?
Can he use, in building the roof of his mouth,
the nails on the ends of his toes?
Can the crook of his elbow be sent to jail—
If it can, well, then, what did it do?
And how does he sharpen his shoulder blades?
I’ll be hanged if I know—do you?
Can he sit in the shade of the palm of his hand,
and beat time with the drum in his ear?
Can the calf of his leg eat the corn on his toe?—

There’s somethin’ pretty strange around here

Always – Rane Arroyo

We met in proud Utah and wore opaque
vodka on those vague Sundays for the
unfaithful on your dangling back porch
while dreaming of the very New York

where we entangled for the last time.
Te quiero, you said there, my ears as
paths. You then vanished with a macho
because I had a lover, because we’d

never ride across Russia together in
that frozen train, because listening
to A Chorus Line all those weekends
didn’t teach us the foreign language

of our bodies, because of your career
as a model after years as a military
mannequin, because we never expected
adios to be our actual parting last word.

Because, because, and because. You
turned around to stare at me and I waved
back: I love you too. What an education:
poetry always demands all my ghosts.

Faith – Louis Untermeyer

What are we bound for? What’s the yield
Of all this energy and waste?
Why do we spend ourselves and build
With such an empty haste?

Wherefore the bravery we boast?
How can we spend one laughing breath
When at the end all things are lost
In ignorance and death? . . .

The stars have found a blazing course
In a vast curve that cuts through space;
Enough for us to feel that force
Swinging us through the days.

Enough that we have strength to sing
And fight and somehow scorn the grave;
That Life’s too bold and bright a thing
To question or to save.

The Ache Of Marriage – Denise Levertov

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

The Net – Babette Deutsch

Into this net of leaves, green as old glass
That the sun fondles, trembling like images

In water, this live net, swung overhead
From branch to branch, what swam? The spider’s thread

Is less passive, where it appears to float
Like a bright hair clinging to the wind’s coat.

Hot at work, history neither schemes nor grieves
Here where the soaking dead are last year’s leaves,

And over them slung, meshed with sun, a net
No creature wove, none frantically tried to fret.

The huge weight of time without its sting
Hangs in that greenly cradling woof. A wing

Has caught there, held. Held. But not to stay,
We know, who, how slowly, walk away.

Cape Cod – George Santayana

The low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine,
The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,—
O, I am sick for home!

The salt, salt smell of the thick sea air,
And the smooth round stones that the ebbtides wear,—
When will the good ship come?

The wretched stumps all charred and burned,
And the deep soft rut where the cartwheel turned,—
Why is the world so old?

The lapping wave, and the broad gray sky
Where the cawing crows and the slow gulls fly,
Where are the dead untold?

The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog,
The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,
Sorrow with life began!

And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore,
O the wind, and the wind, for evermore!
What will become of man?

Between – Marie Ponsot

(for my daughter)

Composed in a shine of laughing, Monique brings in sacks
of groceries, unloads them, straightens, and stretches her back.

The child was a girl, the girl is a woman; the shift
is subtle and absolute, worn like a gift.

The woman, once girl once child, now is deft in her ease,
is door to the forum, is cutter of keys.

In space that her torque and lift have prefigured and set free
between her mother and her child the woman stands
having emptied her hands.

Restless Night – Tu Fu

As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.

Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.