first fat plum in a dry season; 3 little ladies and one dog

Hmm. On Delta flight over Greenland from Amsterdam to Atlanta (or perhaps long-legged Atalanta), the hodge-podge TV programming (lemming eyes fixed on single flicker screen) included an episode of "Cheers". I never watched the show much, but this episode guest-starred Harry Anderson as a con-man in a con within a con (Mamet's bread and yakety yak butter) who first fries, chews on, and preserves Sam and Norm's shared backside bacon. I sat through the show pretty happy, happy as a pretty baby because I remember Harry from beloved "Night Court", that Eighties bronto responsible for my first professional pipe dream as a judge freshly risen honeybun-like from the flat-heeled thanklessness of a noble defense attourney. Then came the eye-peeling stints at Amnesty and brushing of badly crumpled-suit elbows of pro bono sapiens, popular images of law school survivors--and I decided to be a scribbler instead. It's much more practicum and less migraine peregrination...

* * *

G asked us to bring our favorite short poem (limit, ten lines) to class on Monday to illustrate how much can be done within a confined space. So far, the finalists (which aren't particularly sensual or lyrical, but are built on ideas):

* * *

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.


- Mark Strand

This wasn't strictly under ten lines, but each line is so short...

* * *

A Coat

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

- William Butler Yeats

Catherine read this from a slim volume I'd brought from home at an evening program in Catalona. She has good taste.

* * *

The Bathtub

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

- Ezra Pound

(Who didn't even know any Chinese when he "translated" the Tang and Song poems! What an alligator in a crocodile's skin!)
There is also a good one by Bukowski, but it's too long by line and not by syllable:


wearing the collar

I live with a lady and four cats
and some days we all get
along.

some days I have trouble with
one of the
cats.

other days I have trouble with
two of the
cats.

other days,
three.

some days I have trouble with
all four of the
cats

and the
lady:

ten eyes looking at me
as if I was a dog.