Ogden Nash poems

The Dog – Ogden Nash

The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I've also found, by actual test, 
A wet dog is the lovingest. 

Grandpa is Ashamed – Ogden Nash

A child need not be very clever 
To learn that "Later, dear" means "Never."

Crossing the Border – Ogden Nash

Senescence begins
And middle age ends 
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.

Reflexions on Ice-Breaking – Ogden Nash

Candy
is dandy
But liquor
is quicker 

Introspective Reflection – Ogden Nash

I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance. 


Source: www.ogdennash.org/ogden_nash_poems.htm, retrieved 11/11/2014

Instructions for Survival – Heather Cam

[1955–current, born Canada, migrated to Australia in 1977]

A week after the break-up note:

The pools are dry again,
their salt crusted rims 
smell faintly of tears;
the sponges, once so responsive,
are high and dry,
stiff and stinking on the beach;
the sky is washed out, reeling;
the sea birds register nothing
behind unblinking pebble eyes,
but scream as they plunge,
chiselled and deadly,
to splinter the sea;
the surf pounds and points,
impersonal, enduring.

And realise
there’s nothing here for you;
and the wind’s assault – 
rippling the sands, erasing your footprints –
induces amnesia
amidst the flotsam and jetsam.

Source: Cam, H 1990, ‘The Moon’s Hook’, Poetry Australia 125, South Head Press, Sydney.

Kissing Coco – Liz Queeney

It was March. I’d just turned twelve
two weeks before, so I was finally 
old enough to think about having 
sex with somebody outside
my family. Somebody not male,
and not too much older. Somebody
like Coco from Nasella Park. 
She was everything I wanted
to be (smart & strong & very tough).
She smoked Lucky Strike nonfilters
and could spit as far as any guy.
Already thirteen, so I told her I was 
too, pressing my biceps tight 
against my sides, trying to make
my breasts appear bigger. Hers were
stretching out her too-tight sweater 
(the sweater soft and blue
like her eyes). Catching me staring, 
she boldly stared back. She grinned,
and then she winked at me.
I was afraid maybe she was 
teasing me, afraid maybe she wasn’t.
My heart swelled up till it almost 
hurt. In the past, wanting touch
had only brought pain, but I knew that
I could trust someone who purred
with stray cats. Late at night,
on the swing set in Nasella Park, 
she opened up to Michelobs, 
and asked, “Have you ever
gotten drunk?” “Of course! A lot 
of times,” I lied. I wanted her
to think I was cool. She was
so hot. My mouth was dry.
I sucked down the beer, then
following her lead, I threw the empty
into the bushes. My mouth still dry,
I pulled a Certs from the pocket 
of my Levi’s, then popped
it into my mouth with relief.
Coco asked, “Ya got any more?” then 
seemed all disappointed to hear it was
my last. Without thinking, I offered
her the one in my mouth. “Sure,”
she said as she jumped off the swing. 
Instantly her hands were on mine, 
the chains of the swing digging into
my palms. I was sweating,
though the night air was crisp.
My heat beat so wild
I could hardly hear.
Coco commanded, “Give it up,”
opening her mouth before mine.
The swing no longer moving, still
everything was swirling
as our lips caressed and out tongues shared
the Certs and our first kiss.

Source: Queeney, L 1996, ‘Kissing Coco’, in L Elder (ed.), Early Embraces, Alyson publications, pp. 185–186.

Managing the Common Herd – Julie O’Callaghan

[1954–current, born America, migrated to Ireland in 1974]

      two approaches for senior management

THEORY x: People are naturally lazy. 

They come late, leave early, feign illness. 

When they sit at their desks 

it’s ten to one they’re yakking to colleagues 

on the subject of who qualifies as a gorgeous hunk. 

They’re coating their lips and nails with slop, 

a magazine open to ‘What your nails say about you’ 

or ‘Ten exercises to keep your bottom in top form’ 

under this year’s annual report. 

These people need punishment; 

they require stern warnings 

and threats – don’t be a coward, 

don’t be intimidated by a batting eyelash.

Stand firm: a few tears, a Mars Bar, 

several glasses of cider with her pals tonight 

and you’ll be just the same old 

rat-bag, mealy-mouthed, small-minded tyrant 

you were before you docked her 

fifteen minutes pay for insubordination.

      Never let these con-artists get the better of you. 

THEORY z: Staff need encouragement. 

Give them a little responsibility 

and watch their eager faces lighting up. 

Let them know their input is important. 

Be democratic – allow all of them 

their two cents worth of gripes. 

(Don’t forget this is the Dr Spock generation.) 

If eight out of twelve of them 

prefer green garbage cans to black ones 

under their desks, be generous – 

the dividends in productivity 

will be reaped with compound interest. 

Offer incentives, show them 

it’s to their own advantage to meet targets. 

Don’t talk down to your employees. 

Make staff believe that they 

have valid and innovative ideas 

and that not only are you interested. 

but that you will act upon them.

      Remember, they’re human too.

Source:   O’Callaghan, J 1991, What’s What, Bloodaxe Books. 

Hijab Scene #7 -- Mohja Kahf

[1969-present, born Syria, migrated to USA as a child]

No, I’m not bald under the scarf
No, I’m not from that country
where women can’t drive cars
No, I would not like to defect
I’m already American
But thank you for offering
What else do you need to know
relevant to my buying insurance,
opening a bank account,
reserving a seat on a flight?
Yes, I speak English
Yes, I carry explosives
They’re called words
And if you don’t get up
Off your assumptions
They’re going to blow you away

 Source: Kahf, M 2003, E-mails from Scheherazad, University of Florida Press.

Love -- Kate Clanchy

[b. 1965, Scotland]

I hadn’t met his kind before.
His misericord face – really,
like a joke on his father – blurred
as if from years of polish;
his hands like curled dry leaves;

the profligate heat he gave
out, gave out, his shallow,
careful breaths: I thought
his filaments would blow,
I thought he was an emperor,

dying on silk cushions.
I didn’t know how to keep
him wrapped, I didn’t know
how to give him suck, I had
no idea about him. At night

I tried to remember the feel
of his head on my neck, the skull
small as a cat’s, the soft spot
hot as a smelted coin,
and the hair, the down, fine

as the innermost, vellum layer
of some rare snowcreature’s
aureole of fur, if you could meet
such a beast, if you could
get so near. I started there.

Source: Clanchy, K 2003 (autumn), Poetry Review, 93, 3, from Newborn (London: Picador, 2004) 

Atlas -- UA Fanthorpe

[1929-2009, English]

There is a kind of love called maintenance

Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

 Source: Fanthorpe, UA, 1995, Safe as Houses, Peterloo Poets.

Wild Geese – Mary Oliver

(1935–Current, American)

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Oliver, M 1986. ‘Wild Geese’, Dream Work, Atlantic Monthly Press (Boston, MA)

Against Coupling – Fleur Adcock

[1934–current, born New Zealand, but spent most of life in England]

I write in praise of the solitary act: 
of not feeling a trespassing tongue 
forced into one’s mouth, one’s breath 
smothered, nipples crushed against the 
ribcage, and that metallic tingling 
in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve:

unpleasure. Just to avoid those eyes would help – 
such eyes as a young girl draws life from, 
listening to the vegetal 
rustle within her, as his gaze 
stirs polypal fronds in the obscure 
sea-bed of her body, and her own eyes blur.

There is much to be said for abandoning 
this no longer novel exercise –
for not ‘participating in 
a total experience’ – when 
one feels like the lady in Leeds who 
had seen The Sound of Music eighty-six times;

or more, perhaps, like the school drama mistress 
producing A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
for the seventh year running, with 
yet another cast from 5B. 
Pyramus and Thisbe are dead, 
but the hole in the wall can still be troublesome.

I advise you, then, to embrace it without 
encumbrance. No need to set the scene, 
dress up (or undress), make speeches. 
Five minutes of solitude are 
enough – in the bath, or to fill 
that gap between the Sunday papers and lunch.

Source:   Goodwin, D 2002, 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life: An Anthology of Emotional First Aid, Harper.