The Spider, The Cockroach, The Man

English 430
Stephen F. Austin State University
Dr. Barbara Carr
27 June 2001

Upon reading Leigh Hunt's "To the Grasshopper and the Cricket" and John Keats' "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" in Dr. Carr's Class, 27 June 2001, on a theme suggested by a classmate. Note: No Shakespearean sonnets were harmed in the making of this poem.

The Spider and the Cockroach

The Spider speeds along her spin-spanned sphere;
She senses that her lunch has lurched into
Her airy, aeolian kitchen where
It will be rendered into housefly stew.

Nocturnally the Roach broods silently,
Meditating among the doggy bowls
Upon the kitchen floor, a poisoned sea
Where Raid! doth steal exoskeleton'd souls

And blundering through my own small world come I
Most hungrily, with cup and plate in hand;
Like the Spider and Roach, my lunch I spy
There -- where the refrigerator doth stand.

Thus Spider and Roach and an aging Dude
Share their universe while searching for food.

Pontius Pilate's Pleynt

Mack Hall

My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To distant duties, and never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew.

Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards.

I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip.

But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it. And why was that my fault?

Irrelevant -- a Poem

Mack Hall

Irrelevant

For Tod

How wonderful to be irrelevant:
An old car rusting in sere autumn weeds,
An unheard voice no longer pertinent,
A silent solitary bidding his beads.

In youth one roams the glades with Robin Hood,
Sails dream-ships far beyond the classroom wall,
Dances with fairies in a moonlit wood,
Gives homage to our King in Arthur’s hall.

A man, alas, drags Dante’s darksome dreams
Through corridors haunted with smoke and mist,
Where truth is bought and sold by mad regimes,
And lies are given a sly, sensitive twist.

But, oh! Peace! To be nothing at the end,
Nunc dimittis, thou happiest of men!