Skip to main content

A Poem For Jane Eyre: Creative Platypus

Jane Eyre

Before Mother was Mother
she hid with Bewick's Birds
behind the curtain
and was glad there
could be
no possability
of a walk to Friendly's

I learned to hide like her,
though for different reasons,
and Jane sat with me
behind the curtain that
shut the World out.

Mother, I met Helen Burns
at camp.
Her hair had fallen out, but
her face was glad, and she
turned to books for consolation.

Resurgam

I plowed the field of thorns
and if I was no good as
ploughman
at least I had a tongue inside
my head to furiously
insist that I am me.

"Oh why am I always to be
sent away!
At least here I have not
been trampled,
and if I was as beautiful
as a Northern European
I would make it as hard
for you to leave me as
it is for me to leave!"
I tried to tell them that
at the party
where we buried our
hopes and dreams in the
ashes of a haunted mansion.

Resurgam

I am as much a Man
as you
and will defend my right
to be the self
that God made me.
For all of Nature spins around
us in its sympathies
when one sinner accepts
The Offer to be Free.

Mother, I have so much
to learn, and the road is
very long
that leads from Gateshead
to the Garden
and Beyond.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....

Under the Moon: The Platypus Reads Part LXVI

My wife and I were discussing our favorite books from the Chronicles of Narnia on our way back from lunch.  My wife, true to her sunny personality, is a staunch fan of "The Voyage of the Dawntreader."  I can't argue with that choice but, when push comes to shove, "The Silver Chair" has always been my favorite. I have a bit of a theory.  I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend.  If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line. That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much.  When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me.  I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tin...