The bad jet-lag poem, which I have managed to reconstruct:
No one writes poems about jet lag.
It’s probably obvious why –
that fog in your head,
those brain cells, now dead
mean wordsmithing skills go bye-bye.
No one writes poems about jet lag.
You’re not really s’posed to complain
Because you got to travel
although you’re unraveled,
it’s privilege causing your pain.
No one writes poems about jet lag.
It’s not fascinating or deep.
I’m finding this boring;
The husband is snoring –
I wish I could get back to sleep!
And one written recently that I’m posting here because I know of no market for historical poems, and anyway I’m finding more and more that if your primary interest in sending a poem into the world is to have people read it, a blog may be better than most more formal venues.
Antarctica, 1912
Even the youngest was never so cheerful again
After the ice-fields had frozen their hold on his soul
As sure as their grip on the bodies of frostbitten men.
They chased penguin eggs like other men chase after gold;
Science and glory, the twin stars that lit austral skies
And beckoned explorers to brave inconceivable cold.
Heroes that can’t be diminished by cynical eyes
Foolish decisions that courage has rendered sublime,
Famous last words, brave mortality immortalized.
Mundane, transcendent in that endless rime –
I am just going outside (Oates said) and may be some time.
Dedicated to the memories of Robert Falcon Scott, a great leader and classic example of the difference between leadership and good management; to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, youngest member of the Scott Antarctic Expedition and author of “The Worst Journey in the World”, and to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Oxford don, who on hearing news of the Scott expedition and of Lawrence Oates’ gallant death, adjured his students of poetry, “Gentlemen, let us keep our language noble: for we still have heroes to commemorate!”