Sneezles

Christopher Robin
Had wheezles
And sneezles,
They bundled him
Into
His bed.
They gave him what goes
With a cold in the nose,
And some more for a cold
In the head.
They wondered
If wheezles
Could turn
Into measles,
If sneezles
Would turn
Into mumps;
They examined his chest
For a rash,
And the rest
Of his body for swellings and lumps.
They sent for some doctors
In sneezles
And wheezles
To tell them what ought
To be done.
All sorts and conditions
Of famous physicians
Came hurrying round
At a run.
They all made a note
Of the state of his throat,
They asked if he suffered from thirst;
They asked if the sneezles
Came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezle
Came first.
They said, “If you teazle
A sneezle
Or wheezle,
A measle
May easily grow.
But humour or pleazle
The wheezle
Or sneezle,
The measle
Will certainly go.”
They expounded the reazles
For sneezles
And wheezles,
The manner of measles
When new.
They said “If he freezles
In draughts and in breezles,
Then PHTHEEZLES
May even ensue.”

************************

Christopher Robin
Got up in the morning,
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky,
“Now, how to amuse them to-day?”

– A. A. Milne

Postscript:

This one goes out to everyone who’s suffered a horde of doctors asking them “But which came first, your cough or the fever?”, “And how many times did that happen?”, and sundry questions of that nature.
I’m very fond of Milne, who’s best known for his character Winnie-the-Pooh, rather than for the stories, plays and sketches he wrote for adult audiences. We’ve run another poem by Milne on this site, Disobedience, here.
You can read a bit more about Milne here and here, and his thoughts about how his library ought be arranged here.

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Published:
July 16, 2012 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
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2 Comments

In Time Of Daffodils

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

– E.E. Cummings

Postscript:

One of the things I enjoy about running this blog is coming across new things – new poems, new poets, new sites and people that love poetry and talk about it in interesting ways. Here’s a link to this poem being read out by a user called poetictouch, who seems to have read out loud a number of poems. I suspect I’m going to visit/link to it a good bit from now on.
Cummings is a favourite here, as you can tell by the site address, and we’ve run a number of poems by him at various points. If you like this poem, you may also enjoy Tagged: , , , ,

Published:
July 15, 2012 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
Categories:
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None

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
– The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

– Philip Larkin

Postscript:

What’s to say? There’s something very visceral and raging and raw about Larkin’s verse in general, and this poem in particular. I came across it by chance when reading across aubades (defined as a song or poem welcoming or lamenting the arrival of dawn).
You can read about Philip Larkin here and here.
His best known poem is This Be The Verse, that begins famously with ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad/They may not mean to, but they do.’
You can read a rather interesting article drawing comparisons between Larkin and Orwell here.

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Published:
July 14, 2012 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
Categories:
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None