The Sailor's Hornbook

POEMS AND VERSES
(A small selection)

by David O'Neal

Available: An Alphabeastiary, containing 52 poems about animals, birds, reptiles, fish - $5.00.
Light and Dark: Poems and Supplement, together 2 vols. - $15.00. Georgia on My Vine and Other
Masterpieces of Modern Literature, short stories and sketches, 210 pages, soft cover. $15.00.
Streak, the Parrot Who Loves Me, 82 pages, 5 illustrations, soft cover. $12.75 --
postpaid in the U. S. To order, please go to the Contact Me page on this website.

I Tried to Write a Villanelle

I tried to write a villanelle
to show I could make formal verse
and found it was a form from Hell.

I hoped to write one that would sell
but struggling only made it worse,
trying to write a villanelle.

Dylan penned one extremely well,
but other poets strain and curse
and find it is a form from Hell.

The words simply refuse to jell,
and syntax often I reverse
trying to rhyme a villanelle.

At this rate I can really tell
the form’s so hard and so perverse
that surly it’s a form from Hell.

So now I’m villanelle averse:
the form for me is much too terse.
I tried to write a villanelle,
and found it was a form from Hell.

Your Beauty Is Not Jade

Your beauty is not jade, dear: beauty fades,
But unhasting, as stars wink on at night.
Your loveliness has deep and different shades,
Your beauty’s my eyes’ pleasure and delight.
Love is not blind, but nature’s pace is kind:
As slowly was formed the planet Venus,
Or as sea slowly smooths the stones we find
So that no sudden change comes between us.
And when I see your beauty day by day,
It seems to me that time’s left you behind
To dazzle me and keep me in your sway.
Your loveliness has been so well designed.
And unlike jade, or other gems we find,
Your beauty ripens slowly in my mind.

Gun

I shot a rabbit
In a hedgerow
when I was twelve
with a single-shot
22 rifle my father gave me.
I loved that gun:
the menacing perfection
of the long, blue-black barrel,
the smoothness of the dark walnut stock
that fit so beautifully into my shoulder,
the round hard knob at the end of the bolt arm,
the click of a chambered cartridge,
the oily smell of the breach,
the acidic pungent powder smell.
The bullet hit the rabbit in the eye.
The eye, still attached
by shattered tissue and bloody muscle,
lay two inches from the rabbit's body.
I never shot another animal.
But I shot a man.

Love and Money

We made love
and became as tight
as a zipper.
We made love again
and knew nothing could
ever keep us apart.
Then we talked about money.

At the San Francisco VA

“…federal property….weapons and drugs prohibited…video surveillance…”

At 7:30 am, and all day,
at the VA,
they straggle from the # 45 bus
and wobble like walking wounded
some with walkers or canes.
Wheelchairs can be had.

Others come in red, white, and blue service vans
stenciled
“All gave some, some gave all.”

Don’t make eye contact
with the crazy lady
Babbling nonsense
to herself;
she doesn’t need you for talking.

Keep away from the snarly man
with a hair-trigger temper and gunmetal eyes
who’s let out daily from lock up.

But the short round with spiky beard
and tattoos on his bald head
is no one to dread.

When a vet with a catheter
shuffles by,
urine sloshing in his leg bag,
pretend not to hear it.

An old Sergeant in pajamas,
with throat cancer,
smokes a cigarette,
or two or three,
and stops from time to time
to breathe from his oxygen bottle,
then wheezes and coughs.

The big dude with dreadlocks,
brown gapped teeth and five gold-plated chains,
fishes a cigarillo from his pocket.
His t-shirt says
“Vietnam Vet.”
Or “Screw you.”

The smoking cessation group lets out
and the brothers
(some in camouflage uniforms and combat boots)
say the program is “no sweat”
then light up and
bum cigarettes from each other,
or pass them from mouth to mouth.
A honky spits a goober on the concrete:
splat.

The substance abusers have a bummy smell:
tobacco, alcohol, armpits, musty clothes
“Wazzup up bro? You jus chillin?’
Greetings, not questions.

The homeless,
backpacks holding all they own,
change clothes or clean up
in the restrooms,
and idle or sleep,
without appointments,
in the waiting rooms of the clinics,
or congregate outside
talking of shelters and jail.

Some come every day:
(the weary, the wary, the hurt,
those who live in pain and dirt).
The VA is their digs
their refuge,
their off-street community.

Half a man goes through the sliding doors
holding his shinny
metal arms and hands
high in a V
(for violence?)
and limps on his prosthetic leg.

Code blue, harsh as air raid siren,
sounds a flat-liner,
revealing the omnipresence
of death .

These people have fought for their country,
or would have.
God bless America.
God bless America.

Gollywobbler, Futtock, Fother and Fandangle

Gollywobbler, Futtock, Fother and Fandangle
Were taken aboard, all in a tangle.

The Gollywobbler was the first to awake
And did a falling down double-two-take.
The Futtock lay on the deck, quite still,
Feeling sore all over and dreadfully ill.
The Fother simply did not give a hoot,
Although he’d been kicked by a seaman’s boot.
Last of all was the funny Fandangle
Trying to walk in a hopeless tangle.

Round and green was the fat Gollywobbler,
With a head as red as a cherry cobbler.
The Futtock was square as a building block,
But his mind was as sharp as that of John Locke.
The Fother was considerably bent:
He’d been born in a hydrothermal vent.
The Fandangle, shaped like a right triangle,
Had the curly hair of a cockerspangle.

In the forecastle were the captain and crew,
All of whom wore just one left shoe.
The captain was a big ugly hunk,
Who could hardly get in and out of his bunk.
His rough and tough mate was a bitter pill -
That’s why they called him Barnacle Bill.
The cook was a dwarf from the Philippines,
Who couldn’t even boil a tin of beans.

The seamen were a laid back scruffy bunch,
And now that I think of it, I’ve got a hunch:
They were sick of the cook’s awful three meals,
Of burnt glockenspiel and underdone eels.
The sailors were bored with being at sea,
And were glad to have such odd company.
So they said to the peculiar foursome,
“Let’s get it on with ten bottles of rum.”

The captain opined, “It’s a mighty long trip -
Don’t any of you try to give us the slip.”
The mate relaxed and said with a smile,
“We’ll all get along if you’ll stay awhile.”
The Filipino said “I know I can’t cook;
I promise I’ll go by the recipe book.”
Then they all held hands with their nearest neighbor,
And vowed to do no physical labor.

The Gollywobbler asked the mate to dance,
Round they went in an two-ape-like prance.
The Futtock gave the cook a fugitive look
Saying “Let’s go to bed, in a cozy nook.”
The Fother had many feelings of dread
And sat in a corner holding his head.
The Fandangle played on the boson’s pipe
Then searched the ship for a wisp of snipe tripe.

They sailed for days on a wobbly sea
Making a very strange company.
They got along well, all of them together,
In different winds and fair and foul weather.
In current and tide they did the waves ride,
Spreading their messages far and wide:
“All persons, things, and even a Fother
Can become good friends if only they’ll bother.”

San Francisco

The wary tourist meets
San Francisco's streets.
Streets which are perpendicular
are traveled by funicular.
Streets with lesser angle
are still a perfect wrangle.
And streets appearing level
maintain a little bevel.
So before you dare to drive a car,
First spend some time in a bar.
Then at least you will be high
When you drive up to the sky.

Boston

In Boston, the Cabots and Lodges
do not speak to the Smiths or the Hodges.
The Brahmans simply come and go
dreaming of Henry Longfellow.
Winters are cold, summers hot,
narrow streets make traffic a knot.
Yet tourists still give Boston the nod
because Boston’s the home of the
Red Sox, the Bean, and the Cod.

Lexington

In Lexington the colonists
raised their fists with flag unfurled.
They fought the British monarchists
by firing shots heard “round the world”.
The redcoats broke, went back to Boston
hounded all along by marksmen.
That was the start, here’s how it ended:
Liberty gained, and defended.

If We Scent A Woman

We must not shoot birds on the wing,
Nor trap a forest fox,
Nor fish out a fish.
And if we scent a strolling woman
With face and fragrance of an angel,
We must let her beauty pass;
To hinder her would be betrayal
Of her freedom.
The bird, the fox, the fish, the woman…
We must let them all pass by.

Light and Dark

My home is near an urban park
within which are both light and dark.

In light skylarking children play
And sunbathers on the warm grass lay.
Dogs loll and loiter, then they run
in circles having canine fun.
Birds flutter in an out of trees
that sway and rustle in the breeze.
While lovers hold each other tight,
the old take comfort in bright light.
And to the fenced-in tennis court
come happy friends to laugh and sport.

But when the sun completes its arc
a pall of night comes to the park.
The homeless lie in two and threes
passed out beneath uncaring trees.
Vicious vandals hidden by dark
break into cars that gird the park.
Then, too, sometimes there’s a desperate shout
when brutish muggers are about.
And once, one dreadful noxious night,
a man was killed in a fearful fight.

In truth, when adding light and dark,
The whole world lives within my park.

The Center Will Not Hold

Your beauty’s held in my astonished eyes,
Your voice is singsong melody so sweet,
Your fragrant scent induces in me sighs,
Your gestures surge my blood into a heat.
I’ve held you in the toughness of my heart
And tried to keep your love within my veins.
Yet now I sense we’re moving slow apart
And with you I can make no further gains.
My love for you is pure and still immense
And burns within my heart and in my head.
But now I fear I’ve given you offense
And dread that it is something that I said.
I sense your love for me is growing cold
And sadly feel the center will not hold.

Old Friend

Oh, my old friend with the red raw nose,
whisky breath, irregular clothes,
clouded eye,

replaced knee,
scarred cheek from a fall.
And that’s not all …

You wear the marks of a life
of cares and errors
and occasional night terrors.

Once you were fresh and cool
studying philosophy. As a rule
you understood Hobbes, Heidegger, Hume,

but not Wittgenstein.
It was no shame:
obscurity was Wittgenstein’s game.

We played soccer together
And were buddies, brand new.
And, ah, the things we did!

We dove from an airplane
and landed in high corn
instead of on the target lawn;

besotted from booze, we groped
the leathery balls
of a circus elephant;

and swam naked
in the Seagram building
reflecting pool on Park Avenue.

We were funny and foolish
and now and then got laid.
These memories never fade.

You had the energy of a waterfall,
strength of tree trunk,
solidness of a stonewall.

There were, too, other friends
who came to bitter ends:
one fired a shotgun into his mouth;

another died in a car crash;
another, the best death,
Slept his last breath.

We are survivors, you and I,
and tough: we don’t cry.
So just remember when…

The Five Senses

Come walk with me, come talk with me, I don’t require much,
But I will surly want to feel the warmness of your touch.

Come play with me, come stay with me, I’ll keep you just awhile,
But I will surly want to see the sweetness of your smile.

If you will waif into my home with perfume on your breast,
Then I will sense the lead from you and hug you to my chest.

If you will rest awhile with me, I’ll want to taste a kiss,
A kiss that might remind us both of past and future bliss.

Then if you’ll simply speak to me and tell me everything
I’ll surly hear the words that sound your innermost heartstring.

Mind Monsters

When night is deep, monsters creep,
Children, men and women weep.
No one dares to fall asleep;
Monsters creep, when night is deep.

When mind fiends fright, peace takes flight.
Nightmares hold us deadly tight,
And assault us in the night.
Peace takes flight, when mind fiends fright.

When minds can’t rest, we protest -
It is a harsh mental test;
Devil’s thoughts do us molest.
We protest, when minds can’t rest.

We think we’ll die, then we cry
When ghosts look us in the eye.
We seek relief from on high,
Then we cry, we think we’ll die.

Nights that stun are never done,
No place to hide, nor to run.
Please God! We yearn for the sun.
Never done are nights that stun.

The Civil War

I

My great grandfather trudged with the South
In the Civil War.
William Dent was his name - he was never the same.
Will was a drummer with the Fife and Drum Corps;
He was fifteen; for his friend Jed, it was the endgame.

Jed, playing the no-keyed fife, gave up his life:
Instantly dead, from a musket ball to his head.
Will stooped down and held him, amidst the strife,
Jed’s brains gushed out and he bled and bled and bled.

The next day, from a cannon ball, Will lost both legs.
The pain was horrible and Will passed out.
Until he died, not young, he walked on pegs.
That war was hell Will had no doubt!

II

My great uncle Lewis fought for the North
In the Civil War.
They made him an artillery spotter
In the Massachusetts Two-Eighty Four.
He was twenty, then was cannon fodder.

At Gettysburg he was blown to smithereens;
The soldier next to him lost his two eyes.
Fragments were left of Lew, or so it seems;
The soldier screamed the most terrible cries.

Possibly in the earlier battle
Great uncle Lew directed the same shell
Which rolled through the Fife and Drum like cattle
And hit great-grandfather Will - who can tell?

III

Grandchildren of Will, and Lewis’s brother,
Were born, grew up on different sides of the line;
Came to Washington and married each other.
They were my parents: Will and Adeline.

Alcohol’s World

Alcohol is a rotten thing:
I like it.
But out of life it takes the sting:
I like it.
It makes you thick, it makes you sick,
It makes you stupid as a tick,
You stir it with a swizzle stick:
I like it.

Brief Biographies

Max Planck*
Obtained his rank
By a quantum leap
In his sleep.

*first to frame the theory of quantum physics; won Nobel Prize in 1918

Guglielmo Marconi
Was no phony,
Invented the wireless
By working tireless.

Francis Crick
Found the trick
How DNA
Does life convey.

Edwin Hubble*
Made rubble
Of the Late
Steady State

*Astronomer who discovered the universe was expanding rather than shrinking or remaining the same
size (e.g. the “steady state” theory).

Ernst Mach
Using a clock
Found, indeed,
A ratio of speed.

Robert E. Lee
Casus belli
Confederate Commander
None grander.

***

Animals

Parrot

I have a bird that speaks like me,
Yet mixes words atrociously;
Sometimes it will in English speak:
Moving it’s tongue within its beak;
But my bird talks with strange syntax
And often the wrong word unpacks.
That’s why (it should be clear to see)
I’ve named my parrot, Parody.

Ferret

The slim ferret, moving fast,
Thinks any hole is a blast.
It slips through most everything
Just like greased lightening.
I’ve seen ferrets on a leash:
Playthings of the nouveau-riche.

Elephant

See the mighty elephant,
Watch her trunk become unbent.
She is classed a pachyderm
(For “thick-skinned” a fancy term).
A young male holds to her tail,
As they tread the jungle trail.

Crocodile & Alligator

A crocodile floats awhile,
Then lunges with his deadly smile.
The alligator just hangs out,
Then grasps the prey in his snout.
Alligator and crock
Live on the very same block,
For they are closely related:
Both have short feet
And when they eat
Neither is ever sated.

Lion

The lion is a powerful beast
It has few enemies.
But at least
The mighty elephant,
If it liked meat,
Could upon the lion feast.

Copyright 2009 by David O'Neal