Tag Archives: Lewis Carroll

RHL, ‘Fifty Year Argument: Old Fool, Young Twit’

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1. To Myself in Fifty Years Time

Old fool!  You really think yourself the same
As I who write to you, aged 22?
Ha!  All we’ve got in common is my name:
I’ll wear it out, throw it away,
You’ll pick it up some other day….
        But who are you?

My life’s before me; can you say the same?
I choose its how and why and when and who.
I’ll choose the rules by which we play the game;
I may choose wrong, it’s not denied,
But by my choice you must abide….
        What choice have you?

If, bored, I think one day to see the world
I pack that day and fly out on the next.
My choice to wander, or to sit home-curled;
Each place has friends, good fun, good food,
But you sit toothless, silent, rude….
        And undersexed!

Cares and regrets of loss can go to hell:
You sort them out with Reason’s time-worn tool.
Today’s superb; tomorrow looks as well:
The word “tomorrow” is a thrill,
I’ll make of mine just what I will….
        What’s yours, old fool?

2. Reply to Myself – Fifty Years Later

Young twit! You really think we’re not the same?
That means you’re too young to extrapolate.
You’re the mere seed of what I since became:
    a husband, father, game creator,
    global skills facilitator…
        well paid; thought great!

You claimed to thrive, renting some garbage heap;
you travelled: hitchhiked, froze, thought life’s a bitch,
and ate whatever you could find that’s cheap;
    I travel too, and I eat well,
    and choose to sleep in a hotel…
        not in a ditch!

Your search for happiness was excellent;
you lived with several countries, faiths and girls,
though little lasted from those years you spent;
    for when you can’t tell love from lust
    and never work out who to trust…
        of course life whirls!

Your limited perspective proved a sham.
Your rude invective, though a load of shit,
helped fertilise my growth to what I am.
        My resumé –kids raised, loves gained,
        a business built –shows much attained…
            what’s yours, young twit?

*****

I was proud of the form I created when I wrote the first bratty poem, with both the rhyme scheme (abaccb) and the lines getting shorter (3 pentameter, 2 tetrameter, and a dimeter) contributing to the effect of each stanza ending with a punchline. But after I wrote that first poem to my future self at age 22, I was nagged by the need to respond as I got older; and I was never able to produce anything I liked. Finally, a full 50 years later, I produced the 72-year-old’s point by point rebuttal in the same form as the original. The original took a couple of hours over two days to write; the response was done in a couple of hours in one day.

The argument was first published in Snakeskin.

The illustration is one of Tenniel’s for Lewis Carroll’s “You are old, Father William“. And, yes, I still do headstands.

Potcake Poet’s Choice: Cody Walker, ‘Mad System Down’

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He thought he saw a Herd of Cattle
Grazing on his lawn:
He looked again, and found it was
A Phaser set to “On.”
“We’re seeing more and more of this,
With Sarah Brady gone.”

He thought he saw a One-Eyed Jack
Go grizzling through the night:
He looked again, and found it was
His Dream of Being Right.
“It turns out not to mean a thing,”
He texted Barry White.

He thought he saw a High-school Hoodlum
Trash his Neighbor’s Yard:
He looked again, and found it was—
Just say it, man. “It’s hard.
I saw my life, reviewed by God.
He had it single-starred.”

He thought he saw Roberta Vinci
Execute a volley:
He looked again, and found it was
A randy Shepherd (prolly).
“I’d live with him, and be his love—
But no, I’ve read my Raleigh.”

He thought he saw his Country’s Fortunes
Crumble—wait a minute:
He looked again, and found there was
Another way to spin it.
“In eighty years we’ll be cadavers.
Kinda funny, innit?”

He thought he saw a Panicked Face
Upon a Panicked Neck:
He looked again, and found it was
Umm . . . nothing. Wait a sec.
He thought he saw a Panicked Face
Upon a Panicked Neck.

Cody Walker writes: “I’ve been writing in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Mad Gardener’s Song’ stanza form for a couple of decades. The form ferries me to some of my favorite destinations: the Land of Rhyme, the Land of Associative Logic. Though I don’t think I’ll ever outdo Carroll in terms of quality (the start of his final stanza—’He thought he saw an Argument / That proved he was the Pope: / He looked again, and found it was / A Bar of Mottled Soap’—strikes me as unimprovable), I have outdone him in terms of quantity (he wrote nine stanzas; I’ve written about 375). I’ve also, more and more, tried to shake the form free from its light-verse origins. Can a form as seemingly weightless as the ‘Mad Gardener’s Song’ stanza take on cancer, Alzheimer’s, school shootings, and (see above) debilitating anxiety? I think it can. But I may need another couple of decades to fully test the hypothesis.

“I’ve read ‘Mad System Down’ for the University of Michigan’s Poetry Blast series, and I’ve written about the form for Poetry Northwest and the Kenyon Review’s blog. Four of the six stanzas in ‘Mad System Down’ originally appeared on the KR blog. The poem’s penultimate stanza first appeared in Light.”

Cody Walker is the author of three poetry collections, including ‘The Self-Styled No-Child’ (Waywiser, 2016). His work appears in The New York Times Magazine, Light, Parnassus, The Best American Poetry and the latest Potcake Chapbook, ‘Lost Love’. He directs the Bear River Writers’ Conference in Northern Michigan. Website: codywalker.net

Illustration: A Harry Furniss illustration for ‘The Mad Gardener’s Song’ from the Lewis Carroll novel Sylvie and Bruno.