"Saint Wolfgang and the Devil" by Michael Pacher‘The Devil in the Pulpit’ by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society August 18, 2021 Culture, Poetry 36 Comments . Cheap Sauvignon’s chilled and then swilled just to stave off the pain, While TVs drone on as cons ponder on who is to blame. We lumber along with each task And no one will ever dare ask— Zip lips for survival, no scathing reprisal, or shame. He’s coming for us today __And you tomorrow. Syringes are filled with the miracle cure for life’s ills, Then jabbed into arms and to hell with the freedom of wills. As level heads dwindle away, Just do as new deities say— Compliance with ‘science’ ensures that you’ll honor your bills. He’s coming for him today __And you tomorrow. Sweet, blithe, bonnie babies are lab rats in clinics downtown. God’s banished from churches and Lucifer’s wearing the crown. The new world is hitting the skids As drag queens are reading to kids. The beaten and gagged are all cowed by a brain-addled clown. He’s coming for her today __And you tomorrow. Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls turn away, Condemning poor souls in a callous and vicious display— Fiends leave them to suffer or die With slews of excuses for why. Expenses are senseless when keeping the peace doesn’t pay. He’s coming for them today __And you tomorrow. All girls can be boys and all boys can be girls in a snip. All hail hormone blockers and fake pairs of knockers and skip To tunes of the transgender beat— Let chromosomes take a back seat; The truth is a lie in the eyes of the ghouls on this trip. He’s coming for me today __And you tomorrow. Mean demons teach white is the blight that’s incited all hate— The tint of our skin is the trait that determines our fate. If shade screams—you’re bad to the bone! Get down on your knees and atone, Or stand up and fight for what’s right or you’ll find it’s too late. He’s coming for you today— __There is no tomorrow. . . Susan Jarvis Bryant is from Kent, England. She is now an American citizen living on the coastal plains of Texas. Susan has poetry published in the UK webzine, Lighten Up On Line, The Daily Mail, and Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets). NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Trending now: 36 Responses Norma Okun August 18, 2021 Sadly you speak from your heart. You tell it in your own musical way. Thanks Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Thank you, Norma. I’m glad you can hear the music in my misery. Reply Paul Erlandson August 18, 2021 Smashing!! The best poetic rendering of the daily news cycle since The Mothers of Invention sang “Trouble Comin’ Every Day” about the Watts riots. The only thing that could make this poem better is if it were talking of some other time than our own, some nearly forgotten time. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Thank you very much, Paul. Having just listened to the marvelous “Trouble Comin’ Every Day”, that’s one helluva compliment. I’m with you all the way on your wishing this was ‘some other time than our own observation’… if only! Reply Jeff Eardley August 18, 2021 Susan, I will be re-reading this all night. I love the internal rhymes. Where the heck did, “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls” come from? Our English “Staycation” Summer has reverted to endless dark, gloomy, grey-skied days and like you, our TVs are droning with the interminable blame-game. I need the website of your cheap Sauvignon supplier if it winds up with a poet coming up with such scintillating words as these. Thank you so much. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Jeff, thank you very much for your lovely comment. “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls” is scathing British sarcasm. You know the sort… when rational language can’t get the point across only mocking contempt will do. As for the cheap plonk… since Covid began, Mike and I have discovered a tequila barrel aged Californian Sauvignon Blanc… not so cheap, but it does help ease worldly woes… a small price to pay. I am surprised you didn’t spot my musical inspiration for this poem. A favourite band of mine (Del Amitri) gave me an earworm during the Covid lockdown with their song, ‘Nothing Ever Happens’. That earworm has produced a poem. I’m sorry about the weather… I’m wafting some Texas rays over the pond as I type. Here is my inspirational earworm if you’d like to hear it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yeVOzaDBEmc Reply Jeff Eardley August 18, 2021 Susan, I am a massive Del Amitri fan. Check out their recent video, “You can’t go back” if you want a good laugh. Best wishes. Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Oh dear, Jeff… Justin Currie was born in the same year as me! He’s turned into an old git! When the eye candy of one’s youth is singing from a wheelchair with his formerly lithe, stage-strutting legs wrapped in a tartan blanket, you know you’re getting old. Brian Yapko August 18, 2021 Susan, to call this astonishing poem a tour de force would be an understatement. I know of no other poet who could successfully manage this litany of scathing, painful, detailed observations without causing the work to spiral into a chaotic, undisciplined rage. Somehow you manage to pull if off with a master’s skill. It’s as if William Butler Yeats channeled the despair of Sylvia Plath and the hellish imagery of Hieronymus Bosch. I can’t recall the last time a poem left me this speechless. I am in awe of your ability to speak your truth fearlessly. Some of your phrases are so memorable for the hateful accuracy they present: “Zip lips for survival, no scathing reprisal, or shame.” The idea of “God banished from churches” makes me upset and yet I can’t deny how frequently this appears to be the case. I laughed out loud at the line “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls turn away” but only because it’s so frigging accurate. You made my jaw drop because of the way you just blurted the uncensored truth right out. The use of the word “snip” was a particularly happy (if anything about this poem can be said to be happy) word choice given the context. And damn, the whole white/blight/hate/fate stanza really says where woke culture has taken us in a painful, perceptive, horribly unjust nutshell. As for that devil in the pulpit… Baudelaire said that “The cleverest ruse of the devil is to persuade you he does not exist.” You write persuasively that he does. May all people of good faith heed your warning call. He is indeed coming, and faster than one can imagine. Susan, I apologize for the off-color language, but I feel strongly on the subject: Thank you for exposing that son-of-a-bitch. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Brian, your comment is magnificent and has me grinning. When I’m sad and angry, I channel all those emotions into words that spark from my fiercely typing fingers like flares of ire that smolder on the computer screen and burst into flame before my eyes… it saves me assaulting loved ones’ ears with my angst… and I am only too happy to know there are fellow poets out there who appreciate my heated linguistic outbursts. Your off-color language is wholly appropriate… in fact, I’m tempted to crank it up a notch… but will rein myself in… for now. Reply Paul Erlandson August 18, 2021 Brian – I’m agreed about the use of the word “snip”! Reply Joseph S. Salemi August 18, 2021 Brian and Susan — Off-color language is EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED NOW. We have to show our utter contempt for the human vermin who have brought us to this sorry pass. They want us to be silent and quiescent and obedient. Let’s give them a goddamned earful. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 I’ll never be silent, quiescent or obedient, and in my next poem I’ll say it with a capital ‘F’! Reply Brian Yapko August 18, 2021 How right you are! The time for subtlety has long passed. To hell with silence, quiescence and obedience. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Once more unto the breach, Brian, once more! Julian D. Woodruff August 19, 2021 Susan, Another amazing poem, notable for the breadth and evenness of its coverage of our ongoing nightmare. And, as you note, for its musicality. Without being aware of your source material, I was thinking of it as a song lyric well before I finished reading it through. I may not investigate the Mothers or Del Amici, being inclined to bury my head in the comforting sand of Mozart, but just this bit of self-awareness leads to a terrifying corollary to your observations (to speak only of COVID!): imagine Mozart arriving in Vienna in 1782, to find lockdown and mask mandate in place. No concerts, no piano pupils, no opera–in short, no opportunity at all, and possibly death from starvation at 26. Now extend those measures to all the major European cities at the time, and … Sorry to belabor the obvious, but this is what we’re doing to ourselves. When the Governator can say “to hell with your freedom” and the current governor of some state is admonishing citizens against friendly relations with neighbors, and neither displaying an ounce of irony, you know that the vast lot of us is on the way to the devil, almost like the rats of Hamlin. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Julian, thank you very much for your astute, saddening and maddening comment. Your Mozart observation is absolutely spot on. What on earth are we doing to ourselves? This madness will be the end of civilization… this madness is leading us all on the road to ruin… if we don’t start pushing back right now, it’s the end of our freedom and our culture. The thing that really upsets me is to see so many people more than willing to hand over every last vestige of freedom in the name of governmental “care”. Since when has any darn government given a damn?! Your words are wise, shocking, and I appreciate them very much indeed. Reply ben August 19, 2021 but where’s the devil in the pulpit? what pulpit are you referring to. I didn’t see reference to that in the poem save for the line of God being banished from churches. but how do you mean? can you be specific? ought you be? Reply Joseph S. Salemi August 19, 2021 The great majority of mainline churches today are completely in the hands of the enemy. From most pulpits you will hear the whine of surrender, silence, and acquiescence. Can you enter a church without a mask? Can you sit in the pews without “social distancing”? Do any priests or ministers speak out against the vicious thugs in BLM and Antifa? Does the fake “Pope” in Rome not urge total obedience to the regime of forced vaccination? Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Joe S., your comment is enough to send a chill down the spine of any person who sees their place of worship bowing to earthly powers instead of heavenly ones – in fact, some of them are holding terrorist organizations up as heroes of the age to be revered and followed on a mission of “social justice”. Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Ben, the ‘devil in the pulpit’ is a metaphorical term for the evildoers (dishonest and greedy people in places of power and influence) hijacking every societal platform to dictate terms and steal our freedom in the process. I hope this helps. Thank you for dropping by. Reply Sally Cook August 19, 2021 Susan, I know what this is costing you, as must all of us who know what this means. It could not have happened without the complicity of all who claim to be on the side of right. False allegiance! A fine poem. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Dear Sally, thank you for your understanding and tireless support of my poetry and of me. You are a shining gem in this current dust heap of a wicked world. Reply David Watt August 19, 2021 Susan, I applaud you for speaking the truth when so few people are willing or able to do so. Your choice of anapestic meter offsets the serious subject matter to the extent of creating a highly entertaining read. “Compliance with ‘science’ ensures that you’ll honor your bills” is my favorite line. The threats to income, and loss of freedoms introduced for non-conformance are growing in number each day. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 David, thank you for this. It’s a sad and sorry fact that many are self-censoring simply because they have to feed their families. The sad thing is, that silence may well cost them further along this road to ruin… history tells us all that, plainly and clearly. I appreciate your continued support of my honesty through poetry. Reply Joe Tessitore August 19, 2021 Right on, Susan! I agree with Paul- “smashing” indeed and “cabals with no balls” sums it up perfectly: they steal elections in the dead of night; they subscribe to groupthink because independent thought scares them to death, and Antifa, their enforcement arm, wears masks and attacks in a group, like a pack of craven wolves. No face-to-face for them, which does take balls. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Absolutely, Joe! Independent thought is rare these days… and so are balls! In this age of warped transgender ideology, I hate to admit that I think I’ve grown some… in poetry, at least! lol Reply Mike Bryant August 19, 2021 Susan, this poem/song is beautifully conceived and written. There is a new religion in ascendancy across the globe. It is Marxism and the pulpit is everywhere… it’s Facebook and twitter, most of the media and Congress and the White House, in our courts and in most churches across this once-free land. Truth has become whatever these pulpits preach. The public now swallows each new lie week to week. The slow, steady lies of the last hundred years (at least) have infected everyone to one degree or another. Those lies and that incrementalism of Marxism/Satanism are, together, the real pandemic. That pandemic will make Covid look like a case of the sniffles. Thank You for always speaking the truth. Truly amazing… Reply Julian D. Woodruff August 19, 2021 Mike, Compared to the Spanish flu, polio, AIDS etc., Covid IS like a case of the sniffles. If we ever get past it, it will be remembered chiefly for how the world reacted to it. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Mike, you are so right. This poem is inspired by our many discussions and I am grateful to have your voice of reason in my ear when the world around me is dissolving into complete insanity. You are my rock! Reply David Paul Behrens August 19, 2021 Excellent writing, as usual. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Thank you very much, David. Your words of encouragement and appreciation mean a lot in an age where many would have me silenced for speaking my mind. Reply Yael August 20, 2021 Wow, I love these rhymes, what an artistic way to channel your Angst. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. I can just picture him in the phone booth dialing 911 after reading your poem. https://youtu.be/TpjILrj21Ps Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 24, 2021 Yael, thank you! And I love the song! I would like to think I could send the devil packing… if only. Reply Julia Miller August 30, 2021 How on point and a precursor to what is coming! Your words are so insightful and truth bearing. I commend your own bold courage; it speaks for many of us, listening, watching, and waiting. I am new to this website and drawn in by the many works, but your words are what captivated me…..and I will continue to keep coming back to the great reads. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant August 30, 2021 Julia, welcome to SCP, and thank you very much for your appreciation of my poem. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Norma Okun August 18, 2021 Sadly you speak from your heart. You tell it in your own musical way. Thanks Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Thank you, Norma. I’m glad you can hear the music in my misery. Reply
Paul Erlandson August 18, 2021 Smashing!! The best poetic rendering of the daily news cycle since The Mothers of Invention sang “Trouble Comin’ Every Day” about the Watts riots. The only thing that could make this poem better is if it were talking of some other time than our own, some nearly forgotten time. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Thank you very much, Paul. Having just listened to the marvelous “Trouble Comin’ Every Day”, that’s one helluva compliment. I’m with you all the way on your wishing this was ‘some other time than our own observation’… if only! Reply
Jeff Eardley August 18, 2021 Susan, I will be re-reading this all night. I love the internal rhymes. Where the heck did, “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls” come from? Our English “Staycation” Summer has reverted to endless dark, gloomy, grey-skied days and like you, our TVs are droning with the interminable blame-game. I need the website of your cheap Sauvignon supplier if it winds up with a poet coming up with such scintillating words as these. Thank you so much. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Jeff, thank you very much for your lovely comment. “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls” is scathing British sarcasm. You know the sort… when rational language can’t get the point across only mocking contempt will do. As for the cheap plonk… since Covid began, Mike and I have discovered a tequila barrel aged Californian Sauvignon Blanc… not so cheap, but it does help ease worldly woes… a small price to pay. I am surprised you didn’t spot my musical inspiration for this poem. A favourite band of mine (Del Amitri) gave me an earworm during the Covid lockdown with their song, ‘Nothing Ever Happens’. That earworm has produced a poem. I’m sorry about the weather… I’m wafting some Texas rays over the pond as I type. Here is my inspirational earworm if you’d like to hear it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yeVOzaDBEmc Reply
Jeff Eardley August 18, 2021 Susan, I am a massive Del Amitri fan. Check out their recent video, “You can’t go back” if you want a good laugh. Best wishes.
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Oh dear, Jeff… Justin Currie was born in the same year as me! He’s turned into an old git! When the eye candy of one’s youth is singing from a wheelchair with his formerly lithe, stage-strutting legs wrapped in a tartan blanket, you know you’re getting old.
Brian Yapko August 18, 2021 Susan, to call this astonishing poem a tour de force would be an understatement. I know of no other poet who could successfully manage this litany of scathing, painful, detailed observations without causing the work to spiral into a chaotic, undisciplined rage. Somehow you manage to pull if off with a master’s skill. It’s as if William Butler Yeats channeled the despair of Sylvia Plath and the hellish imagery of Hieronymus Bosch. I can’t recall the last time a poem left me this speechless. I am in awe of your ability to speak your truth fearlessly. Some of your phrases are so memorable for the hateful accuracy they present: “Zip lips for survival, no scathing reprisal, or shame.” The idea of “God banished from churches” makes me upset and yet I can’t deny how frequently this appears to be the case. I laughed out loud at the line “Afghanistan falls as cabals with no balls turn away” but only because it’s so frigging accurate. You made my jaw drop because of the way you just blurted the uncensored truth right out. The use of the word “snip” was a particularly happy (if anything about this poem can be said to be happy) word choice given the context. And damn, the whole white/blight/hate/fate stanza really says where woke culture has taken us in a painful, perceptive, horribly unjust nutshell. As for that devil in the pulpit… Baudelaire said that “The cleverest ruse of the devil is to persuade you he does not exist.” You write persuasively that he does. May all people of good faith heed your warning call. He is indeed coming, and faster than one can imagine. Susan, I apologize for the off-color language, but I feel strongly on the subject: Thank you for exposing that son-of-a-bitch. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 Brian, your comment is magnificent and has me grinning. When I’m sad and angry, I channel all those emotions into words that spark from my fiercely typing fingers like flares of ire that smolder on the computer screen and burst into flame before my eyes… it saves me assaulting loved ones’ ears with my angst… and I am only too happy to know there are fellow poets out there who appreciate my heated linguistic outbursts. Your off-color language is wholly appropriate… in fact, I’m tempted to crank it up a notch… but will rein myself in… for now. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi August 18, 2021 Brian and Susan — Off-color language is EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED NOW. We have to show our utter contempt for the human vermin who have brought us to this sorry pass. They want us to be silent and quiescent and obedient. Let’s give them a goddamned earful. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 18, 2021 I’ll never be silent, quiescent or obedient, and in my next poem I’ll say it with a capital ‘F’! Reply
Brian Yapko August 18, 2021 How right you are! The time for subtlety has long passed. To hell with silence, quiescence and obedience. Reply
Julian D. Woodruff August 19, 2021 Susan, Another amazing poem, notable for the breadth and evenness of its coverage of our ongoing nightmare. And, as you note, for its musicality. Without being aware of your source material, I was thinking of it as a song lyric well before I finished reading it through. I may not investigate the Mothers or Del Amici, being inclined to bury my head in the comforting sand of Mozart, but just this bit of self-awareness leads to a terrifying corollary to your observations (to speak only of COVID!): imagine Mozart arriving in Vienna in 1782, to find lockdown and mask mandate in place. No concerts, no piano pupils, no opera–in short, no opportunity at all, and possibly death from starvation at 26. Now extend those measures to all the major European cities at the time, and … Sorry to belabor the obvious, but this is what we’re doing to ourselves. When the Governator can say “to hell with your freedom” and the current governor of some state is admonishing citizens against friendly relations with neighbors, and neither displaying an ounce of irony, you know that the vast lot of us is on the way to the devil, almost like the rats of Hamlin. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Julian, thank you very much for your astute, saddening and maddening comment. Your Mozart observation is absolutely spot on. What on earth are we doing to ourselves? This madness will be the end of civilization… this madness is leading us all on the road to ruin… if we don’t start pushing back right now, it’s the end of our freedom and our culture. The thing that really upsets me is to see so many people more than willing to hand over every last vestige of freedom in the name of governmental “care”. Since when has any darn government given a damn?! Your words are wise, shocking, and I appreciate them very much indeed. Reply
ben August 19, 2021 but where’s the devil in the pulpit? what pulpit are you referring to. I didn’t see reference to that in the poem save for the line of God being banished from churches. but how do you mean? can you be specific? ought you be? Reply
Joseph S. Salemi August 19, 2021 The great majority of mainline churches today are completely in the hands of the enemy. From most pulpits you will hear the whine of surrender, silence, and acquiescence. Can you enter a church without a mask? Can you sit in the pews without “social distancing”? Do any priests or ministers speak out against the vicious thugs in BLM and Antifa? Does the fake “Pope” in Rome not urge total obedience to the regime of forced vaccination? Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Joe S., your comment is enough to send a chill down the spine of any person who sees their place of worship bowing to earthly powers instead of heavenly ones – in fact, some of them are holding terrorist organizations up as heroes of the age to be revered and followed on a mission of “social justice”.
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Ben, the ‘devil in the pulpit’ is a metaphorical term for the evildoers (dishonest and greedy people in places of power and influence) hijacking every societal platform to dictate terms and steal our freedom in the process. I hope this helps. Thank you for dropping by. Reply
Sally Cook August 19, 2021 Susan, I know what this is costing you, as must all of us who know what this means. It could not have happened without the complicity of all who claim to be on the side of right. False allegiance! A fine poem. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Dear Sally, thank you for your understanding and tireless support of my poetry and of me. You are a shining gem in this current dust heap of a wicked world. Reply
David Watt August 19, 2021 Susan, I applaud you for speaking the truth when so few people are willing or able to do so. Your choice of anapestic meter offsets the serious subject matter to the extent of creating a highly entertaining read. “Compliance with ‘science’ ensures that you’ll honor your bills” is my favorite line. The threats to income, and loss of freedoms introduced for non-conformance are growing in number each day. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 David, thank you for this. It’s a sad and sorry fact that many are self-censoring simply because they have to feed their families. The sad thing is, that silence may well cost them further along this road to ruin… history tells us all that, plainly and clearly. I appreciate your continued support of my honesty through poetry. Reply
Joe Tessitore August 19, 2021 Right on, Susan! I agree with Paul- “smashing” indeed and “cabals with no balls” sums it up perfectly: they steal elections in the dead of night; they subscribe to groupthink because independent thought scares them to death, and Antifa, their enforcement arm, wears masks and attacks in a group, like a pack of craven wolves. No face-to-face for them, which does take balls. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Absolutely, Joe! Independent thought is rare these days… and so are balls! In this age of warped transgender ideology, I hate to admit that I think I’ve grown some… in poetry, at least! lol Reply
Mike Bryant August 19, 2021 Susan, this poem/song is beautifully conceived and written. There is a new religion in ascendancy across the globe. It is Marxism and the pulpit is everywhere… it’s Facebook and twitter, most of the media and Congress and the White House, in our courts and in most churches across this once-free land. Truth has become whatever these pulpits preach. The public now swallows each new lie week to week. The slow, steady lies of the last hundred years (at least) have infected everyone to one degree or another. Those lies and that incrementalism of Marxism/Satanism are, together, the real pandemic. That pandemic will make Covid look like a case of the sniffles. Thank You for always speaking the truth. Truly amazing… Reply
Julian D. Woodruff August 19, 2021 Mike, Compared to the Spanish flu, polio, AIDS etc., Covid IS like a case of the sniffles. If we ever get past it, it will be remembered chiefly for how the world reacted to it. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Mike, you are so right. This poem is inspired by our many discussions and I am grateful to have your voice of reason in my ear when the world around me is dissolving into complete insanity. You are my rock! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 19, 2021 Thank you very much, David. Your words of encouragement and appreciation mean a lot in an age where many would have me silenced for speaking my mind. Reply
Yael August 20, 2021 Wow, I love these rhymes, what an artistic way to channel your Angst. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. I can just picture him in the phone booth dialing 911 after reading your poem. https://youtu.be/TpjILrj21Ps Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 24, 2021 Yael, thank you! And I love the song! I would like to think I could send the devil packing… if only. Reply
Julia Miller August 30, 2021 How on point and a precursor to what is coming! Your words are so insightful and truth bearing. I commend your own bold courage; it speaks for many of us, listening, watching, and waiting. I am new to this website and drawn in by the many works, but your words are what captivated me…..and I will continue to keep coming back to the great reads. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant August 30, 2021 Julia, welcome to SCP, and thank you very much for your appreciation of my poem. Reply