poetic Whales

Jay Scott : Daily Whale : archive : poetic Whales

My best Whale poems are on my poetry pages and are listed here. Lesser verses are below, and so are a few poems that appeared in the Daily Whale in a substantially different form than in the poetry pages (or that I just forgot about).

10 April 1992	Power is wealth, wealth power; that is all We know on earth, and all we need to know.
3 April 1998	The Beardstown Ladies sing this song, Doodads, doodads, The Beardstown Ladies figured wrong, What does this doodaddy do?
15 April 1998	dandelions and passive activity loss compete for the light
19 April 1998	I’ve discovered an unsuspected artistic side to the oil industry. Look, it wrote this poem: sweet light crude
22 June 1998	Still not convinced that Shakespeare was a time traveler? Here’s a passage where he describes the red tides of 1998. A few emendations to correct printer’s errors render the meaning unambiguous. Will all great Neptune’s ocean brood these fish Clean for our nets? No, algae blooms will rather The multinational seas incarnadine Making the ink run red.
20 October 1998	We all come from the mothership, and to her we shall return. We’re the troop of lawyers representing Microsoft. Hoof and horn, human form, William Gates is not the norm. Vine and grain, market gain, He has kudzu on the brain.
6 November 1998	Tamales and tamales and tamales Keep in my kitchen fridge from day to day Forming a casserole of redolent slime, And hurl at seekers in the lighted cool A wave of musty breath.
17 November 1998	The killing frost fell, but spring always comes again for Saddam Hussein.
3 December 1998	History is a tale Told by a scholar, full of detailed footnotes, Signifying nothing you're exactly sure of.
4 January 1999	Joy to the world, All the dogs and squirrels. Joy to the salmon at the barbecue. Joy to Saddam too. (Everybody now!) Joy to the world On the tilt-a-whirl. Joy to the soldiers when we fight again And joy to CNN.
13 March 1999	Marian, the maniac of Manayunk Was carrying a fanny pack of funny junk To Clarion, a brainy punk and zany hack. Said Clarion, “Not any lack of Cadillac Stops Marian, the nanny yak of Manayunk.”
17 May 1999	Wishing the Planet a Long Life, or, Why Twentieth Century Poets Gave Up On Rhyme Long may the turtle hurtle Maternal and diurnal in her vernal kirtle. May she turn eternal! That’s not bad. I’ll write it in my journal.
19 June 1999	Be like a puppet falling from the height To a rocky site that’ll smash it into pieces, Who sings, sings, thinking there are strings, Sings, sings, thinking there are strings.
17 July 1999	More on the Iranian Unrest When does dissent descend into dissension? When the well-meant can’t mend their good intentions, Or good intent’s extent is in descension.
3 August 1999	I’m Something Else. And you? Are you Alternative too? Let’s shout it to the world! We’ll start a Trend, you know. I’m leery of the Mainstream. They’re stupid, like the frog Who turned to peer at Ellis Isle And ended up in Prague.
17 August 1999	Satire’s Hidden Agenda We shall not cease from deprecation And the end of all our deploring Will be to deride what our heart is And love ourselves for the first time.
2 October 1999	I Love You, You Love Me I saw a purple dinosaur. I hope the ratings minced it. I don’t know what Barney’s for, But I’m against it.
19 October 1999	American Journalism Tell all the slants and call it truth. Successive circus lies Will brighten up informed Duluth Like spotlights in the eyes.
20 October 1999	European Journalism The right dares not to have a dream. The left's dream kingdom Dares not disappear. Leftly, the right is Sundered in broken calumny. Rightly, the left-thinking Are vices with Their minds blinking. More thought and more salami Than the Midnight Star.
5 April 2000	Keizo Obuchi enjoys a restful coma. That fatiguing stroke!
8 April 2000	Cumin is Sumerian, Little kinkajou. Plovers feed on clover seed That springs from Waterloo, Kinkajou.
29 April 2000	In the U.S., April is National Poetry Month, as decreed by The Academy of American Poets. It’s also National Make Fun of National Poetry Month Month, as decreed by me. The Acceptance of Neoformalism Stop this behavior at once! That’s a command to you both. It’s illegal to rhyme Any serious poem In National Poetry Month.
12 August 2000	What do you say to yourself when faced with a prospective relationship? A. I’ll fall in love like falling in Jupiter. The overwhelming crush will draw me in, down through the rainless storms spiked with lightning vaster than worlds, down through the turning layers, down to the white-hot core where we will mingle joyous forever. B. You may be a winner!
25 December 2000	I am a mush-brain moron With a very tiny skull. If you’re as mean as Sauron You could even say I’m dull. When all the other mutants Built a rocket mind game toy, They never let the moron Decoy the joyful hoi polloi. Then that famous Christmas eve The mutants came to me: “Moron with your head of bone, You’ll be our re-entry cone!” They bolted me onto the rocket As I sang along with them, “Moron the red-hot nosecone, You’ll go down to Bethlehem!”
7 April 2001	Suppose you’re trying to remember a poem you read a long time ago, and all you can come up with is this. Out of the nightie that covers me, Black as the Pit like Horace Walpole, Something or other happens then To my more and more dubious soul. Most people will go ahead and misquote. That’s why the internet contributes so little to human progress. If you care about truth and social justice, you’ll spend a few minutes to look up the correct wording: I think that I shall never discover A sofa lovely as a slipcover.
14 April 2001	This Is Not A Double Dactyl Higgledy piggledy George W. Bush Couldn’t write poetry To save his life. Leftwardly brainwise, his Mediolateral Lobes have been lost to the Speechwriter’s knife.
28 April 2001	Thank you, Sappho. Thanks for the gorgeous stanza. Thanks for dropping down in a whir of wings to Bless the free-verse age with expensive doodads. How did you ever Find a way to write in Aeolic Greek that Works in English? It’s a completely different Rhythmic system! You, young woman, are plainly Some kinda genius. Say the white implacable textbook authors, “Iambs, trochees, dactyls and anapests are All there is.” But where is the wild disorder? You and me, let’s offer the prosy dogs a Kick in the booty!
3 May 2001	One week every year I forget the news and walk Cherry blossom paths.
16 June 2001	CHORUS: Buy my lunch Buy my evening dress Farewell watercress I think I’m off the diet. Buy my lunch I will acquiesce Hello sweet largesse I think I’m off the diet. I’m through with romaine I’m through with leeks I’m into truffles And fine antiques. And what’s the reason That it’s all free? My loving lunchmeat Is feeding me. CHORUS: Buy my lunch....
14 August 2001	My house sold twice and didn’t close. It yet remains to find out If Immortality unveil Another list of problems to grind out. I’m lucky like I can’t believe. Here’s how I count the score: Moving is all we know of hell, And all we need helicopters for.
15 September 2001	The Second Knowing, or, The Worst Are Not Convicted Burning and burning in the whitening pyre, The lucid never notice Lucifer. Things hang together; sinners cannot know How heaven’s arch will loose us like an arrow.
31 March 2002	Have you noticed that Easter songs are all written for small children? The Lyric Morphing Project needs your help today, to transform unwanted Christmas carols into valuable Easter tunes. Keep parents sane! O Christmas Tree: Oh Eastertide, oh Eastertide, The breeze is sweet with deicide. The Twelve Days of Christmas: On the one day of Easter The bunny gave to me A pagan ceremony.
8 April 2002	Astrophysics of Wishing When you wish upon a neutrino Doesn’t matter if you’re in Mendocino. When you wish upon a particle Your dreams are farcical.
1 May 2002	The Red Queen’s Evolutionary Dating Game Mirror, mirror, on the ball Who’s the flashiest of all? What immortal carbon date Decides who is a fashion plate?
17 May 2002	What the world says about invasive species (those sentenced to transportation for life): Sing low, sweet yellow dingo, Comin’ for to bury these bones. What we hear: Status quo, wee cherry yurt, Comma forte boomer t-bone.
15 November 2002	Your Name, dearest darling dear, I love you more than Van Gogh’s ear. I love you more than I hate beer. I’ll love you always, Your Name Here.
18 December 2002	Views of catafalques remind us We can make our deaths sublime And forever be enshrined a Frog prince in the sands of time.
12 February 2003	What satirists think about the importance of their work: Thunder rolls from pole to pole And the nations turn as one, Lit in mind and struck in soul By the seventh pun on a seventh pun. What everybody else thinks: Heh, that’s pretty funny. Where’s the remote?
20 March 2003	Ho Hum, Another War Stand in the young light of an ancient star, or fall in war, your armor clattering— the same old stuff. Fill in the formula. Oh ye peace protesters, give it up: We are under the sun, where nothing new was ever found, not even penicillin or special relativity. The rule of law can give no light within the vast space between nations.
29 April 2003	Full many a dubious mumbling marketeer Fuddles the meeting-room with vacuous drone, Anon permits the basest engineer Turn it to sense by mask’d Rosetta Stone.
9 June 2003	When Fell Fell Falls Fell Fell, fell Fell, Will we ever see thee dead? I’ll be buried in yon hillside, In yon hill.
20 June 2003	What do big property developers really do in their long closed-door meetings? A. They sing: 99 species of frog in the bog, 99 species of frog. Stomp one flat as a welcome mat, 98 species of frog in the bog. B. They celebrate their great successes: “And with only those twelve cartons of documentation, I was granted the permit!” “That’s nice, but did I ever tell you how I got financing for the Swampworks project?”
21 June 2003	As long as people have trouble finding a parking space, the bog song will continue. 1 species of frog in the bog, 1 species of frog. Blow it to bits with missile hits, No species of frog in the bog. No species of frog in the bog, No species of frog. File that forest-devouring Environmental Impact Report And get the bulldozers moving before the Sierra Club can retort, 1 parking lot in the bog. 1 parking lot in the bog....
23 August 2003	Plastic Country This land is spandex, this land is nylon From the superheroes to the power pylons From the Broadway starlets to the Vegas harlots This land is made of PVC.
31 December 2003	’Twas the day before 2004, and all through the universe Not a speechmaker was stirring, for fear it was bad-to-worse. The earthquake victims were nestled all snug in their former homes, And the cows and Israelis were mad from lack of shalom. Then just at the midnight there arose such a clamor, I reached from my bed and nailed down my pillow with a hammer. But at morning to the wondering world there appeared A pretty sunrise and a whole brand new year.
27 January 2004	My candle burns in the middle. This ain’t no taradiddle. But ah my bow and oh my fiddle, It makes a funny riddle.
8 February 2004	Full fathom five thy father lies. In watermelon sugar the deeds were done. And grisly frosts, first autumn morns, Blame you with many bitter words.
22 February 2004	Understanding Is The Same Thing As Prediction All that we seem or scheme is but a gleam within a beam.
26 February 2004	Only if science is heard, only if cheese is white, only if wrong is right: glowing TV on a moonlit night.
26 April 2004	Quitting time, traffic stalls. Smell the filthy sky’s brown overalls. Demeter sadly walks the road, Reading through the building code.
29 April 2004	War Game Haiku Am I a gamer dreaming I am a marine, or vice versa, dude?
11 May 2004	The Second Gloaming Churning and churning through the data store, Technicians say what bureaucrats will hear. Patches knit up; the edges cannot shred; Organization overruns the world; The red-tape tie is bound, and everywhere The wells of spontaneity run dry; The best hew to procedure, while the worst Largely follow procedure.
10 November 2004	Unnecessary Instructions Come on people now Put on your leather Everybody shorten tether Push and shove one another right now.
13 April 2005	Old-Fashioned View Glory is a circle in the water To mark where something trivial went down, Never again to skim above the wavelets. Modern View Glory is a line in the sand.
12 September 2005	Wages Are Too High in Xanadu Why get off your lazy butts? You might as well just stay in bed, For he on vindaloo hath fed And drunk the milk of coconuts.
4 October 2005	is the song that never starts. It doesn’t make it on the charts. Some people left off singing when they ran into the close, And now they can’t start up again because it never goes.
10 October 2005	It’s Already Mostly Empty Anyway We shall not cease from extirpation, And the end of all our extirping Will be to empty the universe And see our home for the first time.
16 October 2005	Brain Gain Brain, brain, come to stay. Welcome to the U.S.A. The other nations may decay Without you, but it’s all OK.
20 December 2005	It’s never too late To sit down and wait.
28 December 2005	The Anarchist Polonius Advises Bush Neither a follower nor a leader be, For leaders lead themselves and friends astray, And following dulls the edge of secrecy.
30 April 2006	Mother Goose Modernized With Golden Eggs Little Jack Horner Sat in a corner Eating his curds and whey. Along came miss Muffet Who gave him a Buffett And frightened the SPDR away.
9 June 2006	Up a Fence Without an Anemometer Humpty Dumpty sat on a fence. Humpty Dumpty is weak and dense. And all of the winds, and all of the foes, Refused to predict the direction of blows.
7 January 2007	The Progress of Enthusiasm A, A, A, B. You can’t catch me, I’m C. 1. A = run, B = as fast as you can, C = a flash in the pan. 2. walk, wherever you like, an exercise bike. 3. crawl, as slow as you care, the gingerbread hare.
14 March 2007	MP3s Can Save Your Marriage If music be the food of love, play on. Give me, like, way too much, so, growing fat I can no longer try to crawl away. That stress again! Stealing and keeping always Will make it sweet now as it was before, Thanks to the abatement and low price.
20 March 2007	Needs Wringing Out I fell into a burning ring of ringtones. The spam went on, on, on, And it felt like ringworm. They’ll never learn, learn, learn, The ring of ringleaders, The ring of wring-necks.
13 July 2007	New Formalist Manifesto, First Draft We are neoformalists, Totally monotonous. We read a book on how to scan In the prehistoric time, Programmed our computers and Checked the answers line by line. We are so creative, man. You know because we used a rhyme. Totally monotonous, We are neoformalists.
14 July 2007	New Formalist Manifesto, Second Draft A delicate rhythm befits the informal age. We thin our iambs with numerous anapests. No strong stresses must taint the ironic tone. Oh, and I almost forgot—we write no end- stopped lines, not without special dis- pensation. Also—what the hell, forget it! Everyone thinks it’s free verse anyhow.
15 July 2007	New Formalist Manifesto, Revised Version The spotted sun wakes up to survey the earth, glaring down the patternless stars. I stretch and find myself observed by a broken statue, the goddess Euterpe, once the centerpiece of this formal garden, now the muse of rioting vines and flowers. The garden still is beautiful in its way, but where is the music? The sun’s blank gaze insists that there is no way back: Change was growth. I answer that I’ll infuse the day with song until, in a flood of feeling, it breaks from its bounds, while the raveled smoke of human endeavor waits to turn the sunset glorious. In the dark, I will watch as, rising, the constellations pattern the fields.
11 August 2007	Look at me! I will be A PhD! I’ll study day and night Month after month, and write The greatest dissertation yet, From petroglyph to internet. Just a few more books.... Wow, this is hard. I think my brain may be getting a little bit charred. I can’t take it, all I can do is watch Soupy Norman on YouTube.
15 December 2007	The Modern Career Poet Annihilating all you've made With a green thought in a green eye-shade.
30 July 2008	detail from nature, seemingly minor; cutting word; the autumn wind — haiku summarized
11 September 2008	Her caloric makes her hot, but cholera makes her skinny. I don’t think I would call her a lot, but I might call her a ninny. In fact, I’d collar a collie’s flea to serve as our color bearer before—mistaken identity? Sorry. Cholerical error.
1 October 2008	The Gambling Known as Business Lord I was born a gamblin’ man, Tryin’ ta make a killing then fleein’ as best I can. When it’s time to get away I hope you’ll drive the van ‘Cause I was born a businessman.
5 April 2009	Advice from Wilhelm Busch She has nothing, nor do you, But even so, you swear that only The holy bond of matrimony Shall make one what once were two. You checked your senses at the door, And now you suffer twin derangements! Without logistical arrangements You should never start a war.
23 April 2010	Yes, It Really Is All Meant to Confuse You Reader, pay intent attention to the attendant missing clue. If you don’t get my intention then I begin to think you do.
25 May 2010	Received Wisdom Slow and steady loses face; Raising dust clouds wins the race.
28 September 2011	The violet’s atoms are exactly atom-like. What am I to do?
29 September 2011	into the streets to topple the throne and take the year’s first albatross.
19 October 2011	Moonless night again. What gave me the idea to blow up the Earth?
8 November 2011	What I Tell You Three Times Is True This is not a poem. This is not a poem. This is not a poem.