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I came across the following in flipping through the collected poems of a Famous Poet today. It's phenomenally bad--the editor says it "walk[s] effortlessly on the tight-rope between the sublime and the bathetic", which is a kind way of putting it. Listmembers are welcome to guess the author's identity. HIGH TALK Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire. Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, make but poor shows, Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon his timber toes, Because women in the upper stories demand a face at the pane That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to chisel and plane. Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild, >From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child. All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose; I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on; Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn. all best --N Nate & Jane Dorward [log in to unmask] THE GIG magazine: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/ 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada ph: (416) 221 6865 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%