.

Conjugation: Tense with Mood

—a verbal disagreement between the indicative
and the subjunctive

If I were all that I could be,
Perhaps I’d spend eternity
Cavorting in a field of lilies
With thoroughbred seductive fillies.

But I am just a common man,
Essentially no better than
A frog that’s never been a prince.
I shower and I always rinse

The residue of soap away
As if it were the perfect day
To take my place among the gentry
That heretofore have barred my entry

Into that posh patrician club
Above the fray—but here’s the rub:
In style and speech I tend to falter,
A plight good grammar cannot alter.

The worst of after-dinner speakers,
Decked out in T-shirt, shabby sneakers
And what might once have been blue denim,
I struggle to hold back my venom.

.

.

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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11 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    If this were you, at least you write wonderful poems.

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Kip, this is a pure delight. Perfect quatrains composed of perfect couplets!

    And you have used the subjunctive four times in this poem:

    1. If I were
    2. Perhaps I’d [I would] spend
    3. As if it were
    4. might once have been

    That’s twice in an if-clause, once in a future conditional, and once in a past contrafactual. You certainly know your subjunctives!

    Great rhymes: denim/venom, lillies/fillies, gentry-entry, and best of all that falter-alter. Perhaps you remember that old song with these lyrics:

    Don’t you falter at the altar —
    Your father didn’t falter, son — that’s why you’re here!

    Of course the song lyric uses the homophone /altar/ instead of /alter/, but in any case it’s tough to get a rhyme for “falter.” (At best we have halter, palter, and Walter.)

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Actually, Joseph, this was a poem I had been saving for a future edition of TRINACRIA, so I’m mighty glad you approve. Some authorities have wrongly said that the subjunctive mood is dead in English, but the more I speak, read and think, the more I keep finding examples of it, and if that be the case, then the subjunctive is still alive and kicking. Rhymes, as I must have stated before, are free for the taking.

      Reply
  3. Margaret Coats

    Well done! And practically unique, as we have precious few poems on grammar. But as one reader with a strong interest, I’m greatly appreciative. May I call the oh, so suitable title a capstone to the conjugation? Now back to my psalter.

    Reply
  4. Christian Muller

    Excellent wit. As other comments have mentioned, the ability to mix grammar play into your poem is wonderful.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Honestly, Christian, I can’t help it. When most of my high school senior class was in Washington D.C. on the class trip, I stayed behind and read books about grammar in my high school library. I should have studied physics.

      Reply
  5. Brian Yapko

    C.B., the grammar aspects of this poem are indeed full of wit and this is indeed an unusual and accomplished poem. But I’m intrigued by the narrative — the speaker’s fantasy of the posh patrician club where good grammar simply cannot rescue a bad speech. In fact, I detect more than a hint of impatience with snobbishness. I sincerely doubt your speaker would be the worst of after-dinner speakers — unless he’s judged by pointless priorities which have little to do with wit and honesty. Along these lines, I love the rhyme of denim and venom which lends vivid imagery to the mocking of pretensions.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I don’t mind snobs, Brian, because they remind us, by contrast, of how grounded we are. I personally prefer threadbare clothes because they are much more comfortable than new store-bought garments, but that doesn’t make me a good after-dinner speaker.

      Reply

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