Slowly the mumbling soldiers file
in and sit at the U.S.O.,
hoping to find a forgotten smile
in the dance and music of the show.
All attending, REMFs and Brass,
applauding, cheering, laughing hard;
and while they sit there on the grass,
the Grunt is on perimeter guard.
Hearing the music and the laughter,
while listening for the thump and whine
of an incoming mortar round, and after,
the roar as it crashes down the line;
But this day, Charlie doesn’t show.
and that’s as close as a Grunt can get
to the entertainment of the U.S.O.,
and he sighs as he mops his sweat. Copyright (C) 2000, John Bliven Morin
Between the scarlet poppies
and the lowly ivy flowers
an angry crested tit, incensed,
was arguing for hours
with a strong-willed poppy fairy
about a caterpillar
he wanted for his dinner;
one could hear the irate triller,
“Give me that tender morsel,
he’s ugly as they come;
why do you defend him,
are you stupid, are you dumb?”
“You can’t have him, hungry bird,
go find yourself some seeds;
they should suit you just as well
and meet your belly’s needs.
This creature may be ugly now,
but soon will touch the sky
in colors bright as flowers,
as a lovely butterfly!”
The sea-spray nearly hides
Her small figure, a silhouette
Upon the moonlit sand;
The cresting, crashing tides
Muffle her cries of loss and despair
Along the lonely strand.
Skilled in music and the arts,
So many raised to womanhood
And then forever lost;
Mistress of their mistress’s heart,
Bartered for long-forgotten kingdoms
Again she bears the cost.
With dignity and courage, she,
The marriage-feast attends;
Whose heart would hide,
Takes the lyre upon her knee,
With clear, calm voice can
Sing the praises of the bride.
Can even the tender heart
And warm tears for you
Shed by your dearest Cleis,
Ease the pain of parting,
The emptiness of loss?
Great Sappho, be at peace.
Three thousand years or ten
Cannot mute the Aeolian Muse;
Your voice still rings today,
Outlasting the palaces of men;
The brides live still in your songs
Whose kings are dust and clay. Copyright (C) 2001, John Bliven Morin
Bill Bowditch saw a unicorn
on the day his child was born;
‘Twas on his way from work that day,
his wife was in the family way.
Along the country road, some white
thing nearby caught his sight;
It was a horse, at first he thought,
until his eye, the great horn caught!
He stopped in wonderment to see
this fabled beast among the trees,
then, in a flash, the thing was gone,
but he knew he’d seen a unicorn.
When he got home he found his wife
had given birth to a sweet, new life,
a little girl, fair as a queen;
he quite forgot the sight he’d seen.
A year with his daughter, fair and mild;
again his wife was great with child.
He homeward went one early morn,
again he saw the unicorn,
and Billy’s heart was filled with joy;
he knew his wife had borne a boy.
Before each birth, year after year,
The unicorn would, each time, appear.
When he was old and children grown,
his goodwife gone and all alone,
by the window he sat forlorn,
and lo! He saw the unicorn!
Next day the cottage, empty, lay;
friends wondered how he’d gone away.
His neighbor said he’d seen, in truth,
Bill Bowditch, looking like a youth,
in bright colors was young Bill adorned,
astride a great white unicorn!
Ne’er seen again by mortal eyes
Bill Bowditch passed to Paradise.
Pan was bored. Bored with all the thousand nymphs of Arkady, bored with Arkady itself. For three millennia he had lived apart from mortal kind, but was at last ready to join them once again.
He knew he must change his appearance, which could frighten people. Using his divine powers, he transformed his lower body from it’s goat-like form into that of a mortal man. A well-endowed man, of course, but mortal. His short horns were hidden in his long, dark brown hair. He looked at himself in the sacred pool, smiled and vanished.
* * *
Aeneas Panetti was a straight-A student, a gifted musician and very popular with the young ladies at Pemberton College. As much as he was admired by the females at Pemberton, he was hated by the males. Even Tom Weathers, the star quarterback of of the Pemberton Panthers, had vowed to “get the little bastard” after Aeneas had stolen away Bev Hawley, his girl and head cheerleader. In fact, Weathers had begun organizing a group of athletes who had reason to want Aeneas out of the picture.
One late afternoon Weathers and two friends waited for Aeneas in the wooded campus commons he used to get to his dorm from music practice. They were confidently hidden in the tall rose-bushes on the side of the path as Aeneas entered the commons. When he was near his adversaries, they jumped out and surrounded him.
“Okay, lover boy,” he sneered, “We’re gonna teach you a lesson!”
“Very well,” Aeneas replied calmly, “But you should know you may have bitten off more than you can chew!”
Every time they tried to grab him, he moved away so quickly they couldn’t touch him.
“Stand still, dammit!” a frustrated Weathers exclaimed. When he tried to punch Aeneas again, the smaller man’s agility kept him from harm. The trio was astonished, and that’s when Aeneas attacked with precision kicks worthy of a Shaolin.
“What the hell?” Weathers yelped as he was sent reeling from the nimble feer of Aeneas.
“Ow, dammit!” yelled another of Weather’s men. First one, then the other ran off, leaving Weathers alone.
“Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?” yelped Weathers as he lay on the ground. It’s like getting kicked by a horse!”
“Or perhaps like a goat,” laughed Aeneas, “Get going or you’ll get more!”
Weathers got to his feet and left in rather a hurry, without another word. Aeneas continued his journey with a smile, whistling a very ancient tune.
It was whispered among the young ladies of the school that Aeneas was the campus Lothario and that even the faculty wives were not immune to his charms. In fact, the first year he was a student at Pemberton, it was rumored that Dean Evers’ divorce was the result of his wife’s affair with the untiring Aeneas, and possibly two others as well. One young thing left a suicide note after a brief affair with him.
Each semester, Aeneas was there for the arrival of new students, particularly the prettiest young women. He carefully watched the girls disembarking from taxis and family vehicles, and as usual, he chose the most beautiful to assist with her luggage.
“That’s a bit heavy for such a pretty thing as yourself,” Aeneas smiled at the most beautiful of the latest arrivals at Pemberton, “Let me carry your luggage.”
“No, thank you,” the young woman replied as she brushed past him. He quickly followed.
“But Miss, they seem awfully heavy for…”
“I said ‘no, thank you,” she said with a grimace, and continued toward her assigned dorm.
Aeneas was amazed at her rebuff and began to feel something very mortal. He ignored the other girls and walked slowly back to his own dorm. Once in his room, he looked at himself in the mirror.
“I’m still young and certainly handsome,” he boasted, “What just happened? This never occurred before!” Aeneas moved to his desk and sat down glumly.
As the weeks past, Aeneas tried to engage the new beauty in conversation. He found her in the campus cafeteria one morning before class.
“At least tell me your name,” he begged.
“You can call me Cypriana,” she finally replied.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” the persistent suitor exclaimed, “My name is Aeneas. Would you like to go to a movie with me this evening, Cypriana?”
“No, thank you,” she coldly replied, “I’ve heard of your reputation with other women here at Pemberton, Master Panetti.
“But don’t you believe that people can change?
“Not you,” countered Cypriana, “I think it would take a most unusual event to soften your heart.”
Aeneas left the cafeteria, dejected. “I’ve never felt this way before,” he murmured, “What’s happening to me?” He began to wonder, could it be love this time and not lust? Impossible, he concluded.
As time passed, Aeneas saw how practically all the other males on campus became infatuated with Cypriana. Not just students, but faculty members as well. Aeneas began to have feelings he’d never experienced before.
“What’s wrong with me?” he moaned, “I think I’ve fallen in love with her!” And he felt another new emotion – jealousy. Every time he saw another male talking to her, he began to seethe with anger. He stopped seeing other women entirely.
At last, after several weeks of sulking in his room, he decided to confront her one more time. The semester would soon end and he feared she might leave forever. He found her sitting on a bench in the campus commons and approached her.
“Cypriana, I must talk to you.” She started to get up. “Stay, please,” he begged, and she sat back down. Aeneas sat down beside her. Her nearness excited him and he could barely speak. “Dear lady, I’ve never felt about any woman before as I feel about you. I – I think I love you,” he declared.
“Do you truly love me, Master Panetti?” she asked.
“Yes, oh yes, beautiful one!”
“And would your heart break if I told you I don’t love you in the least?”
“W – what?”
“Would your heart break just like all the many, many female hearts you’ve broken here at Pemberton?
“Yes, but why…”
“You can never have me, you prideful puppy! Don’t you know who I am? My name isn’t Cypriana although I am sometimes called The Cyprian. No, you can never have me, but you shall always remember me with longing and a broken heart!”
“But – but…”
“Look at me, Master Panetti,” she demanded, standing up before him.
As Aeneas gazed upon her, she seemed to change before his eyes. Her beauty became almost blinding and at last he recognized her – she was no more a mortal than he – this was fabled Aphrodite herself, one of the powerful Olympians. Before her, he was nothing – almost as insignificant as a mortal man.
“I have come to teach you a lesson, Master Panetti, for you have had your way through your limited powers, with far too many women here. You have precipitated broken hearts, divorces and even a suicide – and that I could not abide. You shall be punished, Master Panetti. You will return to Arkady and your nymphs but you shall love me forever – a love that will never be returned, a longing that can never be satisfied. Do you understand?”
* * *
The valley and forests of Arkady rang with the songs of exotic birds, the humming of insects and the laughter of nymphs at play. The pipes of Pan were silenced. He sat upon a log, longing for the immortal Aphrodite, who he could never have. It was many centuries before he began to take an interest in the nymphs again and to play sensuous music on his pipes. But even then, her beauty haunted him.
The forest doves are quiet now;
Far down the hill, a dog barks in the darkness,
And the long dark forms of mountain-pigs
Pass through the tall Ti plants in the stillness.
She sings to me a siren’s song
Far older than these wooded hills.
I step outside the isolation of my tent;
Enveloped in her translucent arms,
My senses are unbound.
The sun is harsh and hot, O Hina,
But you are peace.
Copyright (C) 1979 as “Seductionâ€,
2010 as “Hinaâ€
by John Bliven Morin
Fairiesworld loved Johns Camels poem and told him so, all animals are a part and share our earthly world close to the fairies. We are delighted to print his reply and add to his collection on our site
I’m glad you liked the Camels verse, but I’m surprised you’ve included it on the site – not exactly a faery poem!
Just for your amusement, here are a few more animal poems
……
A Rarity
Behold the three-toed sloth above,
Slow on his leafy road,
But I think I’ll never see, my love,
The elusive three-slothed toad!
Blithian
An Ape
An ape has got no worries
An ape has got no taxes
He thrives on fruits and berries
And in a tree relaxes.
An ape has got no mortgage
That on its house forcloses
An ape has got no corkage
To pay for reddened noses.
An ape has got no money
To gamble off on horses;
An ape has got no honey
To precipitate divorces.
An ape climbs down the wood, all
Excited to the brim,
And gets to have Jane Goodall
Play banana games with him.
If I could leave humanity
And all my human worries
I think an ape is what I’d be
And live on fruits and berries!
Copyright (C) 2005, John Bliven Morin
Cactus-Eaters
Oh cactus-eating
little finches,
never meeting
thorns by inches;
Takes a lot of skill
and practice
to eat your fill
of prickly cactus!
Copyright (C) 2006, John Bliven Morin
Cow Haiku
Cow on ground
.
Cow ground on
.
Hamburger!
Blithian
The Gnu
Behold the gnu (or wildebeest)
Its land is partched, it has no feast;
Its numbers shrink. Some newsman might
Announce one day “No gnus tonight!â€
Blithian
The Grasshopper & the Doodle-Bug
A grasshopper and a doodle-bug
Once argued on a Persian rug
“Who’s more important, you or I?â€
When suddenly, from the sunlit sky
Flew Red Robin who, unmalicious,
Said both were equally delicious.
Copyright (C) 2004, John Bliven Morin
Hot Love
A butterfly did flutter by
A moth at the break of day,
Who sat upon an old gray stone
And wept his heart away.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Your woeful song
Is an irritating wail.â€
“My love is dead; I saw her die.â€
And the moth began his tale.
“To break her troth for another moth
Then him to beat, I might,
But yestereve she fell in love
With a 60 watt porch light.â€
Copyright (C) 2004, John Bliven Morin
The Frog
Froggy, with those goggly eyes,
Can’t make no funny jokes;
Just lives each day a-catchin’ flies,
Until one day it croaks.
Copyright (C) 2004 by Blithian
Parody of “The Lamb†by William Blake
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
She slyly grinned and pressed my side,
This not-so-innocent lamb replied,
“Originally…or ladely?â€
Blithian
The Peccary
In Brazil’s forests, shrinking fast,
Persists the peccary to the last.
But unlike man, it’s not gregarious;
It’s life grows ever more peccarious!
Copyright (C) 2000, 2005, John Bliven Morin
The Pigeon
Some ancient pigeon back in Rome,
Found a statue and made it home;
A popular fowl, it often dated,
Thrived and boldly proliferated;
That’s why our statues of today
Look and smell that frightful way!
Copyright (C) 2004, John Bliven Morin
The Self-Important Flea
There once was a very bold flea
Who said “no one is bigger than me.”
The ego he carries
Would dwarf great Antares,
But his body would fit in a pea!
Blithian
“Wantsâ€
Moggie wants a mousie
And mousie wants the cheddar
The cheddar wants a cracker
For a crackered cheddar’s beddar.
Blithian
Word of Warning
Connecting dots
On ocelots
Is harder than expected;
As while you write,
They claw and bite,
Before they’re all connected!
Stumble it!
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