Damn it all, Robert Browning,
there can be but one Poetic---
well skilled in words, and noetic,
not the urinated scribbles
that flow through catheters like dribbles.
Scribblers like that---clumsy clotters---
can offend, still, Schoeney's daughters
(Schoeney, king, not the bartender
at that Pub on Spence at Spender),
who will send the raving Bores
(Caledonian) to the slaughter;
then will feast on roasted pork,
kraut, and swiss cheese on a fork.
Starward
Author's Notes/Comments:
This poem is a respectful parody of the second of Ezra Pound's long epic poem, The Cantos. Many scholars have called his epic a failure, and, toward the end of his life when he fell silent and left them incomplete, maybe he did too. But within all those lines are some very splendid phrases---especially in the second canto and the so-called "Pisan Cantos."
During my undergrad years, I used to love to recite the first two lines of the second canto.
One of Schoeney's daughters in Greek Mythology was Atalanta, who participated in the hunt for the Caledonian Boar. I ask the reader's iindulgence for the shameless pun in the tenth line of my poem.
