The Bagatelle

“Who is that bear whose porridge is always just right? I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Truth is provisional, time flows,

Where it comes from,

Where it goes,

No one knows,

Past and future live in our minds,

Depending on what the present finds,

The sun has spots, a leopard, too.

Commas are many. Full stops, few.

All or none of this may be true—

I can’t  tell.

Vive la bagatelle!

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Pickle Juice

Winslow Homer, Beach Scene (ca. 1869)

A few pickles short of a jar, as a child,

like so many of my compatriots,

I picked this recipe: born to be free, peas

in a pod, all hat, no cattle, play it as it lays.

A plurality of congers calls for bouillabaisse!

Our own native table, tempting from afar,

is unimpeachable—circling no distant star

but in a parallel universe nearby,

too bad, these days, it's hardly reachable.

I've met with unexpurgated views,

but authority bans mention of intention.

We defendants live in barrels, drink

pickle juice (it's good for cramps),

wear wreaths of plaited dill.

When you crack it, the jar will spill

a quantity to which likenesses defer.

We'd like to ask why, but never will,

swearing, on our sacred honor, to endure.

This poem was written after watching Ken Burns' series "The American Revolution" and musing on its present-day outcomes.

Monday, November 24, 2025

Acédie

Hieronymus Bosch, Acedia, from The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

“Of making many books there is no end.”

—Ecclesiastes 12:12 (ca. 970 BCE)

Our forebears did many ingenious things,

Built absurd tombs for absurder

Kings, invented myths that still take

Wing, justified genocide and murder,

Calculated the Earth’s circumference

With only sticks and stones for evidence.

A Gallic chef invented mayonnaise,

Enhancing lunch on tuna-salad days

Miracle Whip in the Great Depression!

But we have lost all sense of proper ways.

Across the board now, art declines confession,

Slinging rancid hash, daring to preen,

Dull, duller, dullest fabulists have been,

And as to painting . . . well, I won't be mean!

For all our cleverness, it would now seem,

Nothing's been so little to human credit

As writing books to inform us of it.

King Solomon, three thousand years ago,

Indited modern literature’s obit,

But held up by its boots, it sinks too slow!