my reply was going to be identical to Andrew's.
this list is itself a poem, & a good one!
KS
On 09/03/07, TheOldMole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From the current Harper's, this list of ideas from Frost's notebooks.
>
> Story of the cigar box and the counterrevolutionary.
>
> Story of the unhappy child at the amateur
>
> theatricals.
>
>
>
> Story of not being chosen by the eagle for Jove's cup bearer.
>
>
>
> Story of Darwinian suicides and Marxian
>
> murderers.
>
>
>
> Story of the very poor man on fifteen a week
>
> for forty years.
>
>
>
> Story of the very rich man in the Pullman car.
>
>
>
> Story of the man who wouldn't let himself be
>
> lost by one fatal mistake. Blood poison,
>
> tetanus, syphilis.
>
>
>
> Story of the equalitarian who thought it would be all right to use your literary reputation to get the better of an officious official.
>
>
>
> Story of the campaign speech in favor of slavery.
>
>
>
> Story of planned economy on Easter Island where the population was limited to nine hundred by killing either the newborn at one end or an old person at the other.
>
>
>
> Story of the one-armed teacher who became first citizen of Glastonbury.
>
>
>
> Story of the encounter with the man who thought too well of humanity to despair of its becoming Utopian. Not just our faults, but our virtues stand in the way of the perfect state.
>
>
>
> Story of Tristan da Cunha and the Circumnavigators.
>
>
>
> Story of Joseph Albany's singing daughter.
>
>
>
> Story of the hard drinker's disbelief in disinterestedness.
>
>
>
> Story of the man who originated the slogan, No rivers to the sea.
>
>
>
> And, since Frost is no longer around to turn these ideas into verse, it seems to me that it falls to us to help him out. So I propose that we each take a turn in writing up one of these in the style of Robert Frost. I'll get the ball rolling.
>
>
>
> STORY OF THE CIGAR BOX AND THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY.
>
>
>
> I'd just come from the field, pulled off my boots,
>
> And settled in before the fire, when
>
> Discovering I was fresh out of cheroots,
>
> I told myself, "I must go out again."
>
>
>
> An empty box at the tobacconist's:
>
> El Rey Havanas, with a list of contacts
>
> Whom I suspected might be Communists
>
> From north of Boston to the Adirondacks.
>
>
>
> Well, truth be told, I'd contacts of my own,
>
> Dick Nixon, Parnell Thomas, Martin Dies;
>
> I rang up Central on the telephone,
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> Gave her a number: 'twas the FBI's.
>
>
>
> Here in New England, we can't be too wary:
>
> Poets are counterrevolutionary.
>
>
>
> Tad Richards
> www.opus40.org
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
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