Odin’s Ode
Being a poem about a dog
writing a poem about a stick
writing a poem about a stick
(For Tanja)
It will be about a stick,
Written by a dog’s the trick;
Homage paid by quite a fan,
All in verses if I can,
To a worthy piece of wood
Hunted in my neighborhood.
“On a Stick” the title’ll be,
Authored though not by me:
‘Jack O’Russell’, canine bard—
Pseudonym in the yard—
Will the face of Odin keep
Tucked away somewhere deep.
One-eyed God who knows it All,
I invoke you by this call:
On Your name (the same as mine)
I do swear in line-by-line
Truth to tell of things unknown—
With my paw upon a bone!
Call me ‘Jack’, the raconteur.
Now those times in me bestir:
Going back, I can recall,
Oh, the greatest stick of all!
I was in a forest glade,
Young and restless, so I bayed.
Howling thus I wondered loud
Up above beyond a cloud:
“Stick of sticks, which art thou?
Show me not this puppy chow,
Show me not those whittled bits,
Show what’s fitting for the Ritz!”
Grass stood still and monkeys glared
Near to where the blossoms flared;
Sweating air and silence reigned,
As a doe then froze and craned:
Who has challenged Mother Nature
In domestic nomenclature?
Breezes soon began to blow,
Blowing high and blowing low;
Dust swirled round and clouds were parted,
Thunder struck and words imparted:
“Hath The Stick met its match?
Here it is, try and catch!”
So, this Voice had dared the hound?
I prepared to stand my ground!
First I brushed my muttonchops,
Flipped one ear (the other flops),
Twirled a whisker once or twice
Readying to gain Paradise.
Catapulted far away
Something fast was on the way.
It was big I had no doubt,
I could sense it in my snout.
Here it comes! The chase begun,
I will fight until I’ve won…
Pouncing as it’s racing down
I can see it’s mottled brown;
Some leviathan no less,
Beastly in its massiveness—
Knobbled, gnarled and knotted, this
Foe’s born in a dark abyss.
Jaws and claws the combat churns,
How that timber twists and turns!
Who’s the victor in the fray,
Me, the Hero, or my prey?
Well, my paw’s upon this stick:
Spoils for me to chew and lick.
Branches bowed and birds took flight,
For they’d seen a splendid sight.
(Just the monkeys, cheeky apes,
Wallowed in their sour grapes.)
Hence, since then, around the glade
Storied is my ‘Stick Crusade’.
The Perishing
I.
In that grim and gloomy jungle,
By a green and ghostly river,
By the drifting dreary waters
Of that dim and dingy river,
By the grinding and the groaning
And the heaving, and the winding
Through that dank and darkened jungle,
In the stillness of the bankside
Lay the fallen pallid figure,
Lay the soulless ashen shadow,
Stonily staring blank and blindly,
There beneath a pall of grasses,
Lost there in a shroud of grasses,
All forgotten in those grasses.
II.
None but one soul, that soul of this
Broken vessel on the mosses,
Ponders with a melancholy
On its faithful lifelong body;
Something now disintegrating
Into bits evaporating,
But was once its carnal substance,
By which senses sowed affections
Firing passions, cravings, longings,
Which are searing now this parting
Of the quarters rent asunder,
Of the creature from its heartbeat
And the cradle of its breathing —
Each departing from the other.
III.
Each appearing like the other,
Disappearing from the other:
One dissolving into granules,
And the vapours of the other
That are bound to cross the river,
There that vast and boundless river,
To the mists along the far side,
From its flesh so well-acquainted —
To this flesh it reaches out to,
One last time it reaches, touches,
Dwelling on the brow backhanded,
For there’s something surely fading
And becoming ever stranger —
And it’s burdened now by sorrow.
IV.
Mournful calls across the river
Call to leave behind that sorrow:
— Once your body is no longer
It continues in its pieces,
Unfamiliar in its pieces,
Still continues in its pieces:
Take your hand and cross the river,
Bid farewell and cross the river,
From those grasses cross the river;
— But my hand is very heavy
And I cannot see a crossing;
— Lift your hand to see the crossing;
— With my hand I see no crossing,
With my hand…I see a crossing…
V.
By that green and ghastly river,
In the stillness of the bankside,
Deep among the growing grasses,
Lost there in the lofty grasses,
Lie some bones so pale and scattered,
Lie the fragments of the remnants,
And that crown and vacant hollows
Wholly crumbling into powder
On the earthy mossy bankside
By the timeless flowing waters,
Twisting, turning through the jungle,
Through that grey and grimy jungle,
Where the crossing crosses over
From the bankside to the far side.
More from The Byword
Comments
*Comments will be moderated