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Insouciance

When circumstances wear you down
Consider this important fact:
It’s easier to smile than frown.

When autumn leaves have all turned brown,
Your borders breached, your cities sacked,
And circumstances wear you down,

Go find yourself another town
To capture what you’ve always lacked:
A cause to smile instead of frown.

Abjure the thrall of cap and gown—
No need to think before you act
When circumstances wear you down!

Though some may think that you’re a clown
And say so, lacking any tact,
It’s easier to smile than frown.

Weak swimmers are foredoomed to drown,
A lesson best left un-unpacked;
When circumstances wear you down
It’s easier to smile than frown.

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Cognitive Dissonance

The sum of all our earthly loss
Can seem much greater than the pain
Our Savior suffered on the cross,
But that’s a matter of opinion.

One thing’s for sure: our worldly gain
Is nothing but an albatross
That wrings the neck and dulls the brain
In God’s juridical dominion.

And yet we blithely go on sinning
As we have done from the beginning.

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C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden.  Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India.  His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.

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19 Responses

  1. Joseph S. Salemi

    It’s very difficult to put a profound truth into ten short tetrameter lines. But Kip has done it in “Cognitive Dissonance.” Loss, pain, Divine suffering, the lie of worldliness, and endless sin — all packed in securely and tightly! Anderson writes poetry the way Annie Oakley could shoot.

    As for “Insouciance,” I love its hard-bitten and cold attitude of smirking indifference to all the bloody nonsense that surrounds us. This poem is a perfect illustration of what many modern Italians call “me ne fregismo.” This neologism comes from the vulgar expression “Me ne frega,” or the even more intense “Ma chi cazzo se ne frega?” — a solid equivalent for the English “Who the hell gives a f–k?”

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Originally, Joseph, in line 8 “juridical” was “retributive,” but that didn’t seem right — I should know. “Profound truth”? Maybe just street smarts. The world provides us with no end of good lessons. Tight meter is just a habit.

      The world of nonsense we live in presses and depresses us endlessly, and makes me wish I spoke Italian. I say, flip off whatever or whomever needs a good flipping off.

      Reply
  2. jd

    I love them both but especially “Cognitive Dissonance”. So much wisdom in that little poem.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Could be, JD, but how does one wring wisdom from someone who is perennially unwise? I’m glad you like little poems; I like them, too, especially when they have a liquid center.

      Reply
  3. Warren Bonham

    Both of these are excellent. I’m going to try smiling more today. Reducing the sin tally is a much tougher task.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I appreciate your approval, Warren, and I’m smiling, but that does not mean the whole world is smiling with me. And though sins may be forgiven, that does not mean that one can evade all the consequences thereof.

      Reply
  4. Cheryl Corey

    I’m always impressed, C.B., by your ability to tweak repetitive lines of a villanelle,

    Reply
  5. C.B. Anderson

    It’s always not a bad idea, Cheryl, to vary the repetends in order to create new syntactic and rhetorical connections..

    Reply
  6. Julian D. Woodruff

    It’s the poetic skill, as much as the advice and the inviting tone, that prompts a smile, CB–even though envy is still lurking somewhere near the smile.

    Reply
  7. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I practiced what you are preaching–I retired to a town where I can smile and others smile back. “Insouciance” is an inspired title for the first poem that crowns casual indifference with a smile. Likewise, “Cognitive Dissonance” is such a fitting title for what we feel inside with our actions not fitting what our mind tells us is wrong.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      As strange as it might sound, Roy, a good title is as important as knowing where to submit a poem. Living in Massachusetts, I find that I have fewer reasons to smile than I think I should have. I envy you your town.

      Reply
  8. Brian A. Yapko

    “Insouciance” is an amazing poem with a message which at first seems uncharacteristically perky but, upon closer examination, is actually built upon solid psychology and spiritual truth. Weak swimmers and all that. Despite what I believe to be the sincerity of the poem — for practical reasons rather than Pollyanna-ish ones — do I detect a slight almost-apologetic smirk behind the advice or am I projecting my own cynicism into my reading?

    “Cognitive Dissonance” is my favorite of the two. You pack so much spiritual, psychological, practical and theological content into a very short poem. It has that Andersonesque casual, off-hand tone which contrasts sharply with the profound theme: nothing less than the story of Man. Cognitive dissonance indeed!

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      The first stanza of “Insouciance”, Brian, is based on my memory of having once read a little factoid about how a frown requires more muscles, and therefore more effort, than a smile requires. I have no delusions that every circumstance deserves a smile, but I don’t think I was smirking.

      Originally, “Cognitive Dissonance” carried an epigraph with a dedication to Timothy Murphy, who, later in his career, returned to the Roman Catholic Church. For some of his best work go to Poetry.org (if that’s the website of Poetry magazine). The dude wrote some really good stuff

      Reply
  9. Daniel Kemper

    Just for playful irony, (and with little left to say that hasn’t been said), I might consider changing L9 in Cognitive Dissonance to “And so.” Lol. Not really, but my humor being that of course sinners won’t construe worldly gain as an albatross, etc. — They’re sinners!

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I guess, Daniel, that I give us sinners a bit more credit than you want to, but I understand perfectly your humorous point.

      Reply
  10. Cynthia Erlandson

    I love your rhyme scheme in “Cognitive Dissonance”. (also its content.) I agree with Cheryl about varying the repetends in a villanelle, and thought you did it well in “Insouciance.”

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      It’s always fun, Cynthia, trying to come up with new rhyme schemes; the trick is often in how to keep it going stanza by stanza. In “Cognitive Dissonance”, of course, the rhymes connect separate stanzas.

      Nothing can deaden a villanelle more effectively than letting the repetends just hang there, with no connection, syntactically or rhetorically, to adjacent lines.

      Reply
  11. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    One thing’s for sure: our worldly gain
    Is nothing but an albatross
    That wrings the neck and dulls the brain
    In God’s juridical dominion.

    This is a poetic piece of wisdom that gives those searching for meaning in incomprehensible times clarity. C.B, I thank you wholeheartedly for your talent and your sagacity.

    Reply

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