Frozen Stiff—I Kid You Not!

This has to be far and away my favorite photograph of the “kids” back when they were really kids—somewhere round the summer of ’89 or ’90—checking out the temperature of the water in the Lousios River in Arcadia just a few steps away from the ruins of Ancient Gortys and a stone’s throw away from the monastery of St. John the Forerunner (Prodromou). Judging from the looks on their faces, I think they were expecting much warmer water than the ice pack that greeted them! They should have consulted that seasoned traveler par excellence, Pausanias, who said its waters were “the coldest in the world.” 

All of which reminds me of a poem I once wrote about some other kind of kids here.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on MacLeish's Ars Poetica aka The Conundrum Continuum

Yes, yes, I know

We’ve all been told ad infinitum

That a poem should be, not show—

But the last time I sat down

To write one was a minute ago—

So tell me, know-it-all,

Where’d it go?

Seizing the Day on 7th Street

—after a photograph by Kevin McCollister

On the wall of what
Looks like a prison,

There is a timely message

Titled One at a Time—

A spiel from something called

The Christ Centered Three-step

Life Recovery Program,

Beckoning passers-by

To seize this once-

In-a-lifetime opportunity

For redemption—

All are welcome, it says invitingly

At the end, a scant three steps from

Even those condemned to stay

A lifetime away.

Weather Permitting, Visibility is Never Zero

—for Bob Arnold

It’s comforting

And nice to see

The moon that is

As big as our house—

As our friend says—

Is the same size

As the one he writes about

Five thousand miles away.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Bestiality in Poets

Beware of gimp-footed idyllic gambols

That reek of Arcadia—a shepherd’s

Reputation is only as unsullied

As his sheep.

Moderator’s comments: Well, Cinquor, I know this is going to be in bad taste, and some animal lover doggedly plowing in the blogosphere’s lower forty looking for beastly remarks about our four-footed friends might get upset and flag me for promoting cruelty to animals, but I can’t resist this delicious, Orwellian-reeking rejoinder, to wit—“Two legs baaaaad, four legs good?”