Ring Around the Rosie

Frank Gay PhD

Description

The information about the book is not available as of this time.

Sujets

• Poetry
• Frank William Gay

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 29 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669844709
• Langue: English

Extrait

Ring around the Rosie








Frank Gay PhD



Copyright © 2022 by Frank Gay PhD.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022916086
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-4472-3
Softcover
978-1-6698-4471-6
eBook
978-1-6698-4470-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.




Rev. date: 08/25/2022




Xlibris
844-714-8691
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Contents
All life is a rut. We only demand that the rut conform comfortably to our life style
Western Wind
Politicians
Passion
Margery
I Miss
Variations on Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Variation on a Theme: Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, #1
Next
Missing
Per Annum
Villain Elle
Eight Man Tents
Margery
Surprise!
Limerick
Sweet Revenge
Haiku
To Joanne
Images
Inner Space
Creation
Snow Bound
Valentine’s Day
A Tack
Old Barn
Tanaga
Sagas of Anthropology
Childhood Dreams
War on Weeds
Beauty
Window
Bloomers
Wild Geese
Traveling
“Pan is dead!”
Ancient Wisdom
August
Old Pithecanthropus (Now Homo)
Master Spivey
Rooster Tails
The Olliud and the Idoyssey
Family Pride
Ho Hum
The Old Must Go
Modern Contentment
Ah! Contentment!
The Art
Couplets
Senses of place
Bottoms
For Barbara
“Queen Of Spades”
Pure Science
Snow Flurries
Zodiac
Stars
Minds
It Could Have Been
Spring
Gout Weed
“It isn’t fittin’, boy”
Next Time
Elixir
Well, Well
Dear Sir or Madam as the case may be
Letter Writing
Poem sketching
Explain the West
Walkin’ Rails
Consequences
Waiting
Sing
Haiku
Acts and Zeal
Buffalo
Railroad Lines



A recent issue of Poetry was filled with wild railings against the process of aging. Since the alternative is dying, I find the complaints curious. A simple follow up of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats covers my sense on the subject.

Forever young and captured in an urn,
Examined by each expert in his turn,
Replacing others with their prying eye,
But you, unchanged, unmoved will never vie
Upon a bridal bed or couch of sin,
You, unfeeling and untouched by mortal men.

Moral:
If you want immortality, you must urn it.

FPGay
February 1, 2009



All life is a rut. We only demand that the rut conform comfortably to our life style
Oh! The terrible injustices of life!
I am born so far beneath my station
And now survive in barbarian nation
Where scoffers and sniffers are rife.
In addition as years pass me by
The indignity of age comes to call.
I have trouble with balance – I fall
And impertinent clerks say I’ll die.
In a universe properly wrought
All poets would live like the elves –
Staying young as unchangeable selves
And make odes as the elders have taught.
But, all life is a rut, don’t you see.
I just wish that my rut fitted me.

FPGay
February 1, 2009



Western Wind
The western wind that shrieks across the plain
And howls in rigging out upon the seas,
Becomes a bass when blowing through the trees
As forests change the voice to deep felt pain
And freezing storms replace the gentle days of fall.
The gales ride down retreating backs of highs,
That spin across the northern parallels,
As icy breaths from unknown frozen hells,
Cold fugitives from sunless arctic skies.

FPGay
February 1, 2009



Politicians
When Sargon ruled in Babylon –
And almost everywhere –
Do you suppose that promises
Then filled the autumn air?

Who told them all the wondrous things
That would of course ensue
If all the people stood in line
And did what they should do?

The king, I’m sure, was quick to tell
His greatest thoughts and deeds,
His storied plans for future works
To fill the temples needs.

The goddess’ golden majesty
Would take the hours of all
The artisans for miles around
To guild her sacred hall.

“A golden era will arrive –
I’m sure as sure can be –
You can say I told you so –
The herald will be me.”

FPGay
February 1, 2009



Passion
The burst of passion that the sight or sound
Of you would bring when first our paths enmeshed
Comes back to me, these later days, refreshed
In newer, calmer ways of love we’ve found.
The rush that broke the balance of my mind,
Upset the very tenor of my life,
Prepared my body not for peace but strife
And left cerebral hobbies far behind.
The fire is low but embers still remain
To warm my heart when thoughts of you arise.
Your sight, your touch still makes me realize
My joy in holding, loving you again.
The loss of passion leaves behind instead
A deeper, richer love on which I’ve fed.

FPGay
February 9, 2009



Margery
So many years have slipped away
It’s hard to keep the message new.
Why try to prettify – I say –
When all the words mean I love you.

Feb. 14 2009



I Miss
I miss the way I used to calculate
Transition lifetimes in my head –
Equations that would gently percolate
Through interruptions running A to Zed
As if the outer world did not exist.
Even though I know, when all is said and done,
The absence of such skills will not be missed
And I’ve no use for them – it sure was fun.

I miss the legs that always served me well
When times were bad and transportation rare –
The limbs that took me in and out of hell –
They put us in, forgot that we were there.
There’s no such need for walking on and on
In present life – I always seem to drive –
The days when hiking was the way are gone
But walk-abouts could make me feel alive.

I miss the pictures of my youthful eyes.
Glasses? Sure. And yet the BB’s flight -
Or baseball’s arc when out there shagging balls –
Made the things we did a pure delight.
Now, ogling girls? A memory of the past
And nothing quite requires a vision keen
Enough to pick up moving targets, fast,
But I long to be the seer – not the seen.

I miss the flavors on the summer air,
The mornings’ working flowers subtle scent,
The evenings’ broiling cookouts everywhere,
The nights’ delightful musk of loves intent –
All memories of distant times gone by.
Only unwatched suppers now repel
Those centers that were once so keen and sly.
These mental wisps are not the same as smell.

I miss the constant mix of burbling sound
From summer evenings’ far off babbling stream
To nighttimes’ rustles in the trees around
To silence of an interrupted dream.
Soft music that I still have in my mind
Is nothing like the symphony I hear –
Pianissimo is lost, I find.
Tinnitus writes the fortes that I hear.
My sight, my sound, my smell are lost, you see.
My legs? Eternal? Never meant to be.
But all of this is simply idle chat.
The thing I really, truly miss is me.

FPGay
February 28, 2009



Variations on Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
“Wake! For the sun who scatter’d into flight
The stars before him from the field of night
Drives night along with them from Heav’n and strikes
The Sultan’s turret with a shaft of light.”
---

False dawn has wrongly scrubbed the morning sky
Of stars that charm nocturnal lovers’ eye
Before the cock has summoned up the sun
To light the mountain peak where eagles fly.

The sweeping knife of dawn has cut the cord
That held the darkened shades of stars vast horde
And made the tips of Spring-filled maples bright
With ruddy flares – the flames of winter’s hoard.

The winter sun has lain in bed too long
But now it starts to match its rise with song
That fills the longer days of budding Spring
From robins in their dogwood throng.


FPGay



Variation on a Theme: Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, #1