Sitting in a comfortable enough chair and
Looking out the window at the
Sun-drenched world that
Basks in glowing warmth while I
Feel my skin prickle ever so slightly at the
Thermostat’s setting not quite getting it right because
My desk is just too far away from it

The sudden chime rings out and
I lean forward from where I had been leaning back
Looking outside in an idle moment now gone by and
Reminded that there are tasks before me that
Only I can do
Because there is nobody else here
And I set myself to them once again

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You want me just to dance and sing,
To gather up the words and string
Them into some melodious thing,
An ornament to ears

You want me to apply my art,
Such as it is, to take your part,
Such as it is, and help you start
To wipe away your tears

You want for me to write your verse
And lay down lines you will rehearse
To break through talk that’s all too terse,
The words becoming spears

You want me to do many things
With words: to plead, to shout, to sing,
To tilt and take the hanging ring;
I’ve wanted it for years

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When wordsmiths no more will wonders attest;
Pen-pushers finding their pages no longer,
Leaving off leaf-work, the labor of scribes
Put forth as prayers in previous days;
When singers are silent, their stages left empty;
And all that emerges in every art
Is a mishmash made up of masters since lost,
Nothing new coming, noting made fresh;
Will people weep and wail in their mourning,
Start forming seas from their souls’ windows,
Or will they instead, inured to the injury
Done them for dollars in deepening hoards,
Grin and go on and gladly set by
What once they valued, held worthy as treasures?
Might well those many, motion eschewing,
Sigh once and settle, sullen in mind,
Fearing to fight, fates accepting
That others will offer, put off their own?

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So many of the threads show blue where
Some might have expected to see red
Looking again on something seen in August days
And first in February
But time and distance have shown that
The blue is a better color
The threads more tightly woven and
The fabric better fitted
Than any other hue
To cover the yellow underlying it all

It hangs on display yet
Showing to all the world
For whatever reason
Even though few eyes will look
And those that do are often bored
Searching soon enough for
More dynamism
Which is hardly hard to find

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Somehow, the wrinkled citrus thrown away
By many hands still stands in light of day
And rocks as many look on in dismay
At thoughts that its foul roots still spread and sprout,
That they yet linger, that none can rip out
Each shoot that springs up from the soil. No doubt
Remains that that invasive plant endures,
That, festering, it for itself secures
A foothold, fed by dozens of manures
That many yet will all too gladly spread.
They shovel out what falls from every head
Among them, feast, and think themselves well fed.
No wonder, then, such stink is in the air
As leaves behind all hog-farms in compare.

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On 29 January 2024, a guest-post to the Tales after Tolkien Society blog featured Lancelot Schaubert’s “Dear Tolkien Estate.” The poem is included in Dennis Wilson Wise’s series on new alliterative poets, and Wise comments at some length on the structure of the poem, itself. In truth, I don’t know that I have anything to add to his discussion of it, unless maybe to find something of Milton in it–the final line, “Pendragon’s poem I dare to complete” is, to my ear, a lesser echo of the claim that Paradise Lost will “soar / Above th’ Aonian mount…/[…]/And justify the ways of God to men” (1.13-26). I am certain, however, that others will be able to say more than is given to me quite at the moment.

I agree with Wise that the poem is good, both in itself and as an example of the kind of thing done by the poets of the alliterative revival / survival (there is some suggestion that the alliterative form preferred by early English poetry persisted in one way or another throughout the period in which it has traditionally been held to have lapsed; the dearth of records does not exclude the possibility, and it is not likely that a long-standing mode of transmission was given up altogether), I note that it does clearly mark out its expected primary and secondary audiences. The title and the final stanza attend to the former, particularly; the subject matter, invoking Arthuriana and Tolkien’s Legendarium, suggest that the kind of nerd I am is the anticipated secondary readership.

Being the kind of nerd I am, I read the poem and am motivated to my own response; Schaubert ain’t the only one who gets to do this kind of thing:

Through ages has Arthur attracted attention,
Gathered since Gildas glory, acclaim
Known well to Nennius and noted, too, in
Galfridian Gloucester-praise that might be a game.
The man bound, Malory, mated together
The tales that were told across times and lands,
Put together in prison the parchments’ burdens,
Set them where Spenser could sing to his queen,
Hortatory halted but heard down the years.
The Professor, peerless in popular eyes,
Put his pen to the praise of the one who pulled
The sword from the stone in the yard of St. Paul’s,
One of nine worthies. That work went unfinished,
As was seen to sorrow; it stands not alone
As titles can tell us. The truth is
No story or song is ever full-settled;
How many have told of the husband of Guinevere,
How many speak yet of the son of Uther,
Not all in accord about Agravain’s uncle?
The works of giants yet left in the world
Show there was more than is now to be seen;
Who would be like them must well show the work
The passage of years performs. Praise is not withheld
From the soup of which the stock’s source is unseen.
But if it will be that the book is completed,
The talent assembled and talk well taken,
Let one who loves it do the labor.

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Not fronting a hideaway
I still find myself presented with
Confronted by
Not a cowboy puppet
But other things
Snippets of songs and shows I remember
Seeing or hearing about
Because I did not listen or watch them
When I was young
So much as I was young
Being taken up by other things
Older yet than I am
And by some years

How can it be
That I long for things I never knew
Seeking in them for something new
Despite their age?

But there is this
At least
My longings are for things that were
Not for things that have never been
And I think little harm would follow
Did I get my wish

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The steam drills have long since won and
Been succeeded by diesel explosions and
Other fires, burning away at the fabric of the world,
Leaving less work to do for fewer and fewer hammers,
Driving the hands that would hold them and swing them
To other tasks and seemingly gentler where
The tick of a pen or pencil makes a single point and
The lives of others are saved or ruined while
Nobody notices and damned few care

The diesel is not the only successor to the steam,
The hammer not the only tool being wielded less and less,
But there are more hands, and they demand more tasks
Because Adam’s curse is still held as blessing and
Calvin still commands much in the world despite
Matthew’s words to which he and many claim fealty,
Or James’s, or tales of apostolic acts
Passed down from hand to hand as
The next best thing to Gospel truth

The new successors have their heralds
Trumpeting them to the four winds and
Seeking to soar above the lot of them,
And no few glory in the ringing of those horns for now,
The booming of the covered copper bowls that
Covers the coming steps of new giants who
Need grist for the mills to make their flour;
They do not mark the tune as the dirge that it is,
Playing out for them soon enough as it
Already sings out for others

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