DOC MARTIN

    Doc Martin is averse not only to
    The sight of blood, but making his face smile.
    Not that his busy days are filled with rue,
    It’s simply that good humor’s not his style.

    He’s all about just doing what must be done:
    So many patients with their maladies
    Must be addressed, all business and no fun:
    Complaints, disease and sundry injuries—

    But much amusement, too, at least for us,
    Who wryly watch how things can go awry,
    Yet recognize they’re not so ominous
    As seems to Doc and know the reason why:

         We know the gods who rule his world are after
         Not misery and grief, but healing laughter.

*

THE FORMALISTS

 When stating out to write a verse like this,
 The formal kind, with meter and with rhyme,
 You’ll find the process rather hit or miss,
 The upshot comical and not sublime.

 It’s true, the masters of the form succeed,
 Like Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Pope and Frost,
 But lesser talents now wish to be freed,
 Hence classic practices are nearly lost.

 A few of us, however, labor on,
 Striving to keep the antique arts alive,
 Reviving what with age was growing wan,
 Still finding honey in this ancient hive.

      Remember that a sonnet is a song,
      And at the best, it makes you sing along.

*

PEACE AT LAST

     If you believe in Jesus, Prince of Peace,
     Then surely you’ll have naught to do with war
     And do all that you can to bring surcease
     To what the Son of God would most deplore.

     Those onward-marching soldiers in the song
     Are but a metaphor ineptly framed,
     Who should have been a gaily-dancing throng
     Who celebrate the lions Jesus tamed.

     The lion and the lamb lie down as friends
     No longer seen as predator and prey
     And in this new-found concord make amends,
     Pledging from such repose they’ll never stray.

          When Earth is cleansed of violence and war,
          Then we’ll reclaim the Edenic world of yore.

*

CATCH OF THE DAY II

        As this day hovers between dark and light,
        I’m sitting here, just waiting for a bite,
        A nibble on my morning’s line of thought,
        Sensing there’s a poem to be caught:

        That could be it right there, and I might stop,
        And happily watch my small fry flip and flop,
        But something urges me to cast again:
        This verse has not yet reached its last amen;
        It wants to sing its full soliloquy
        And realize the grand capacity
        That lies within a sonnet’s longer reach,
        And so again I ardently beseech
        My ever-generous and compliant Muse
        To spark my flame, and she will not refuse.

*

NEMEROV 2014 #6


THE AGNOSTIC’S CREED

         I do not know and therefore can’t believe
         What others in their ignorance conceive
         As true by virtue of Authority,
         Or simply wishing what they hope must be.

         Such superstition cannot stand the test
         Of Truth, however loudly it’s professed,
         No matter the alleged Authorities
         In whom no True Believer disbelieves.

         And yet what is the harm if I suppose
         As true what I know no one truly knows
         And simply call it my hypothesis,
         Open to testing and analysis?

              Why not give something promising a try
              And see what truth emerges, by and by?

*

THE PHC JOKE SHOW

          When Garrison Keillor tells jokes
          To amuse the intelligent folks
                            Who listen to him
                            On NPR in FM
          There’s no end to the laughs he provokes.

*

PEACEMAKERS

for James O’Dea

       Resolving conflicts and restoring peace
       By letting animosity release
       Its stranglehold on adversaries’ throats
       Prove harmony and concord float all boats.
       Dissolving animosities to find accord
       Is what true peacemakers are moving toward.

*