.

A Taste of Northern New England

I’ll never feel at home in Robert Frost’s
Vermont—too many deconstructed walls,
And far too many melancholy falls
That adumbrate a host of tragic costs

Come winter. Nonetheless, I’d rather be
Up there than ever have to live in some
New Hampshire version of a rural slum,
Believe me. Maine is hammered by the sea,

The cows there don’t produce the richest butter,
But clams and lobsters amply compensate
For any shortfall that the Pine Tree State
Might harbor. Bar the door and slam the shutter

Against the thought of feasting farther west,
For folks who live downeast, I say, eat best.

.

.

On Suicidal Empathy

—with a nod to Gad Saad

Compassion is a rather lovely thing,
When it’s applied in proper clime and season,
But lest your good intentions sorrows bring,
Don’t ever let it overshadow reason.

.

.

Playing the Odds

In the time it took for a cat to wink
An eye, a million or more decent persons
Surrendered their ability to think
At all and settled on common perversions

As a basis for how one should construct
A viable society, and now
We see how their ideas really sucked,
And how their sticky muck gummed up the plow.

It’s hard to eat today without a nod
To farmers who will plant no matter what.
We owe it all to those who bust the sod
And try to fill a nation’s hungry gut.

But what about those snakes who would obstruct
The comity among adjacent regions?
If they prevail, then everybody’s fucked,
And we’ll be left alone with Satan’s legions.

The world continues as it’s always been,
With outcomes less assured than they might be,
Where some must lose while other players win,
In Mother Nature’s Cosmic Lottery.

.

.

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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One Response

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    C.B., your poems have so many great lines in them, but perhaps the best in my mind is the one from the last stanza of your third poem, “Mother Nature’s Cosmic Lottery.” You have skillfully presented us with so many inspired rhymes, such as: “some-slum,” “compensate-state,” “persons-perversions,” and “what-gut.” Having toured New England on occasion, I thought the food was fantastic topped of course by the lobster. I had to laugh at your presentation of the scenes in various New England states and detect there is some competition between those states.

    There is a lot of wisdom in your second poem capped off with “Don’t ever let it overshadow reason.”

    The title of the third one is perfectly matched by the ending. I too worry about the proliferation of snakes that have been illegally brought into our country or even worse, released.

    All three are clear and easy to read and assimilate.

    Reply

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