Three Poems
Janice D. Soderling

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The Poor Poet, Carl Spitzweg

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If only I can hatch a heartfelt rhyme,
(with thought and frowns, it can’t be very hard),
I’ll take my rightful place with the sublime.

O, gradus ad parnassum. One quick climb.
I’ll be crème de la crème and avant-garde,
if only I can hatch a heartfelt rhyme.

Top hat, cravat and walking stick meantime
are ready—attributes to reap regard.
I’ll take my rightful place with the sublime.

No more damp attic life; no fleas or grime.
My poem will be perfection—a petard!
If only I can hatch a heartfelt rhyme.

My peers will shout, “Alors, a paradigm!
Such lofty wit, a wise camelopard.“
I’ll take my rightful place with the sublime.

I bite my quill: crime, slime, Mülheim, enzyme.
The world will bow, salute and call me bard.
If only I can hatch a heartfelt rhyme,
I’ll take my rightful place with the sublime.

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For a Narrow Fellow in the Class

(After he read ‘Victory Comes Late‘, #690, by Emily Dickinson.)

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“Emily D.,” he said to me,
“was all her life unknown.
When she dropped dead, nobody said,
A poetess has gone.”

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“So it will be,” he said, “for me.
My time will come, if slow.
My well-wrought rhymes wait better times
though no one wants them now.”

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Well, false or true, the fellow drew
hot comfort from the thought.
But dare I say, deep in cold clay,
dear Emily does not.

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‘The Poor Poet, Carl Spitzweg‘ was first published in American Arts Quarterly; ‘For a Narrow Fellow in the Class‘ was first published in Asses of Parnassus.

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Janice’s notes: ​​“Both these poems are ekphrastic, because both are generated from preceding works of art.

 

“About the mysterious motor that generates, I can say little. But no composer, artist, poet, sculptor works ex nihilo.

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“Earliest man, woman, looked at their handprint, their footprint, and a thought rose, an urge to express what they felt – a primitive fear of death perhaps – and off they went to the caves to imprint their hand, or to carve a footprint on the rockface by the sea. A shout-out that Kilroy was here.

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“We hear music in the babbling brook, in the sighing wind, in the raindrop falling from leaf to leaf and plopping into the puddle below. There is poetry in the emotive sounds we make and hear: tinkling laughter, cooing seduction, growling rage, keening sorrow, barking grief. Of such, language is made; of language Shakespeare made Sonnet 73.

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“All art is imitation, from birdsong to a symphony orchestra, from the walking stride to the metrical verse. All art is a denial of death. Even the comic art.“

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Make Love, Not War

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Humans are animals covered in clothes

From dainty toe to bulbous nose.

Even on the balmiest day

When they could nakedly romp and play,

Freed from every worldly care,

A quick poke here, a sly slide there,

They’d rather not show we’re all one race.

Peas in one pod with similar face.

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Decked out in somber funeralwear,

They’d rather drop bombs on anywhere.

Body parts flapping in summer air.

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Janice D. Soderling is an American–Swedish writer who lives in a small Swedish village. Over the years, she has published hundreds of poems, flash and fiction, most recently at
Mezzo Cammin, Eclectica, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Tipton Poetry Journal. Collections issued in 2025 are The Women Come and Go, Talking (poems) and Our Lives Were Supposed to Be Different (short stories).

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Pic credit:

Carl Spitzweg, The Poor Poet (via Wikipedia)​

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