Tell the truth but tell it scant
Saving some for later – give the savor
Of what’s undenied – but still may be
Refined. Truth unadorned
Bores – so leave undefined
Beginning, end, or middle – since the mind
Forgets conclusions – but adores a riddle.
Bashō walked fifty miles–
Came back with one haiku.
How do you think
That story makes me feel?
Hercules strode off whistling gaily
Conscious of having done a poor soul good;
Left behind Sisyphus weeping bitterly
At having been deprived of his livelihood.
In the mountains, surrounded by mountains,
Buddha.
In the city, surrounded by folk,
Buddha.
Truly, then, nothing to transcend!
Ogden Nash
As a poet was brash
His lines rushed out in a lengthy and seemingly unstoppable torrent
And his rhymes were abhorrent.
Ezra Pound
Wrote verse difficult and profound
The fact that even he couldn’t figure it out
Should suffice to remove any doubt.
Edward Lear
Was rather queer.
But of course, the word had a different meaning back then
So instead, one should simply say that he preferred men.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Died discontently
Aware that decent rhymes for Clerihew
Are, alas, very few.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Was heard on occasion to say
That only the author of Euclid’s Elements
Had ever seen Beauty without habiliments.
Later some said
You’d all along been practicing for dead
But I believe it wasn’t in you
To practice something you already knew;
You, far more wise,
Were already plotting your rise.
Kung had a saying
about true wisdom —
how did it go exactly?
Something about the wise man
needing only a few words…
But I forgot to turn down the page,
and — his Collected Works,
such a big book!
(Dylan Marlais Thomas, born 27 October 1914)
We summoned Dylan Thomas’s spirit;
He was more than a little bit drunk, we all could hear it.
But we were charmed he had chosen to honor us
And even inebriated, his voice was still quite sonorous.
Bag of Anything 