Ponderables: Poems on Worms, Souls, Baseball, and Other Important Topics

By RP Ericksen

Real Poetry Thoughts pressed like a Porsche into a paperweight, distilled like vodka, spuds with the kick of a horse, desiccated, freeze-dried, words few in number: add water and stand back. RP Ericksen

RP Ericksen is an aging baby boomer who thoroughly enjoys pondering all aspects of life through an entertaining and whimsical compilation of free verse.

With wit, candor, and a hard-earned, left-of-center perspective, Ericksen shares poetry that explores politics, religion, nature, and culture while touching on a variety of emotional responses to lifes greatest challenges. From a questioning of biblical truths to the lure of food and drink, from the effects of our carbon footprint to the soft power behind blue jeans and electric guitars, Ericksen leads others on a lyrical journey, proving that a healthy pondering of lifes ironies, joys, and sorrows can be illuminating.

Ponderables is a collection of poetry that contemplates ideas, challenges, lyrical verse, and finally, the end itself.

Ericksens poems will likely be a delight to anyone with a good education and a slightly leftward tilt in their daily walk through life P. Schaeffer and D. Toren

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491766866

RP Ericksen

RP Ericksen holds a PhD in History and is the author of the political commentary, The Left Has Always Been Right, as well as a number of publications on German history. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, he savors a close network of family and friends, most of whom tolerate his pondering.

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Copyright © 2015 RP Ericksen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6685-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6686-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015907256

iUniverse rev. date: 05/13/2014

Contents

TAKING IT UNDER

MAKING IT SEEM ENOUGH

WHERE’S WITTGENSTEIN?

MALINOWSKI

NOAH’S ARK

MY MOTHER TONGUE

THE BRINY DEEP

GRIEVE NOT TOO LONG

NEVER TILT ALONE

THE BLESSINGS OF A GYROSCOPE

THE CANDY CONSENSUS

IT’S ONLY SEX

WALLACE, IDAHO

THE LION OF AMSTERDAM

FOCUS

THE HARDENED EDGE

OUR ESSENCE

MINIMALISM

THE MARINERS IN 2004

MOTHER

THE WORM AND I

WINTER’S GROWTH

THE BINGE

MY BODY

A FRIEND OF MIDDLE YEARS

TULIPS

R.G. SWINBURNE AND THE SOUL

TRANSPLANTATION, TRANSMIGRATION

MY WALLET AND THE POPE

INTERROGATING HEAVEN

BIRDSONG

FAITH

WHEN RELIGION RAN RED

CONSULTANT ON METAPHOR

WOULD-BE SOMNIAC

SIEGFRIED

IN PRAISE OF PREJUDICE?

IN SEARCH OF THE COMBUSTIBLE

CARBONATED

HARE AND HOUND ALIKE

GAINING WEIGHT IN AFRICA

THE SECOND TIME

TINTERN TO BRECON

SINGING THE BLUES IN BERLIN

QUESTIONED AT SCHIPHOL

MONEY: FOUR DEGREES OF SEPARATION

DERIVATIVES

ATLAS SHRUGGED

NAMES AND ADDRESSES

ZAUBERBERG

EISBEIN MIT KRAUT

NARCISSUS ON HOLIDAY

SO IRONIC WE MIGHT RUST

BLUE JEANS AND THE ELECTRIC GUITAR

YPRES

LICKING OUR WOUNDS WITH A SEPTIC TONGUE

THE KNUCKLEBALL

MELOS, MY LAI, ABU GHRAIB

COLOR COMMENTARY ON AMERICAN WARS

SIMPLE TRUTHS

NOTE TO SELF: HYDRATE

REMEMBERING WALT

THE DICKINSON EFFECT

THE HEMINGWAY CODA

DID THEY DO IT TOO?

A RIFF ON PAUL

REAL POETRY

SMITTEN

PROPER POESY?

LES MURRAY, MORE MATTER

LOUIS AND THE ARS POETICA

GRAVITY

GOOD FRIDAYS

SLIPSTREAMING

RETRAIN OR RETIRE?

NINTH INNING IN PANKOW

THE GRATEFUL DEAD

DANSE MACABRE

OBIT IN THE TIMES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In the belief that we face mostly ponderables, not imponderables, this book of poems ponders a few ideas, some aspects of poetry and, finally, the end itself. Any elements some readers might find obscure—Wittgenstein, for example, the omphalos, or the Apostle Paul’s poem on love—can be googled, as you readers already know. Any elements some readers might find slightly offensive will, I hope, be appreciated by others. As I suggest in my poem on Whitman, I believe a poet chooses a topic and then tries to be honest.

TAKING IT UNDER

What do you undertake,

and why? What do I?

Too much? Too little?

With too blithe a spirit?

Too somber?

And where is the under

where you take it?

A rock, a bushel?

Down Under, under cover?

Under advisement, under a veil,

or out in the open?

Examine these things,

lest the life you live

be that unexamined one,

the one said not to be worth living,

lest that which you undertake

in your indeterminate number

of coiled days falls short,

or falls long, the blitheness quotient

over or undershot

on that day when your undertakings

meet your undertaker,

he who takes you under

to a place of his choosing,

for good, or at least forever.

MAKING IT SEEM ENOUGH

The amplitude of finitude

is measured out in minutes,

one or two the limit

sans air, sans pump,

yet I, as eager as any

for a large harvest,