The Crocodile Bird

By James E. Tague

These pieces are offered as works composed over many years, by a writer who shares the view of the late, brilliant Hilary Corke, that ones style has shown progression if not a progress. At least they are published, collected from forgotten files, and as Corke so aptly phrased it, candidates for survival rather than lurking in sad typescript awaiting public birth.

Certainly they are creations set in time and it is over time that they will be remembered or forgotten, since time is the only judge to render a final verdict. Since a poem is rarely finished to the full satisfaction of its author, it reaches a stage where it is merely abandoned. Hopefully it has found completion to the extent, so properly defined by Robert Frost, where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words. JET

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503543980

James E. Tague

Jim retired from Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) and resided in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, for nearly fifty years but now lives in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. He and his late wife, Lois, had four children. While James, Patricia, and Steven still live in the Drexel Hill area, their daughter Kathleen died in 1994 at the age of twenty-nine. A Korean War air force veteran, Jim served in Wiesbaden, Germany, from 1951 to 1954. He has a BS degree in economics from Villanova University and an MA degree in liberal arts from Temple University. Jim has published several children’s stories, a book of essays, a book of limericks, and The Last Field Marshal, a book on World War II. All can be found on his website www.jamesetague.com. E-mail him at [e-mail].

Book preview

THE CROCODILE BIRD

AND OTHER POEMS

REVISED 2015

THE TROCHILUS BIRD @ 2005

James E Tague

image001.jpg

"When crocodiles gape the trochilus fly in and clean their teeth,

And while they themselves are getting their food the crocodile perceives

That he is being benefited and does not harm them, but when he wants them

To go he moves his neck so as not to crush them in his teeth."

Aristotle, Historia Animalium

Copyright © 2015 by James E Tague.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015902371

ISBN:     Hardcover   978-1-5035-4396-6

               Softcover      978-1-5035-4397-3

               eBook           978-1-5035-4398-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/18/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

641572

CONTENTS

1.   Homecoming

2.   Beach Music

3.   Danny Boy

4.   The Seagull

5.   Wounded

6.   Afterthoughts

7.   Hospital

8.   A Perspective

9.   A Single Thread

10.   Nets

11.   Wetlands in Winter

12.   Directions

13.   Pollution

14.   The Old Man of Cam Lo (North Vietnam 1968)

15.   Stonemason

16.   Harley-Davidson

17.   Tiny Sounds

18.   Retired

19.   If

20.   A Matter of Adjustment

21.   Skid Row

22.   So They Say!

23.   When Spring Comes

24.   Theme For a Tight End

25.   Whose Who, Are You?

26.   A Universal Current

27.   Ecstasy

28.   Memento Mori

29.   The Crocodile Bird

30.   Forecast

31.   Memories

32.   Programmer/Analysts

33.   Detached Observor

34.   Red-Breasted

35.   Hit and Run

36.   Barnegat Light

37.   Past Recall

38.   A Man of Destiny

39.   Rain

40.   Cycle

41.   Modern Times

42.   Night Wait

43.   No Time

44.   What Gifts My Son

45.   A Fateful Choice

46.   Show It To My Soul

47.   Ship of Chance

48.   William Blake

49.   Embreeville

50.   Mountain Home

51.   Baudelaire

52.   Highway Death

53.   In Memory of Wilfred Owen

54.   Three Years Old

55.   Suicide

56.   The Party

57.   Wooden Bridge

58.   Sonnet to L.A.M.

59.   Winter Survival

60.   Lost in Himself

61.   Daylight

62.   The Old Laborer

63.   Kayak

64.   A Cemetery in Fall

65.   A Writer of