901

WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL
By
Ronan Keating

It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I can never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Try as they may, they can never define
What's been said between your heart and mine

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all.

Oh, the smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all

You say it best, when you say nothing at all
You say it best, when you say nothing at all
(The smile on your face)
You say it best, when you say nothing at all
(The truth in your eyes)
(The touch of your hand)
You say it best, when you say nothing at all
(Let me know that you need me)
You say it best, when you say nothing at all.

YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL (A TUNE)
A timely conversation between a Father and Son.

"Listen my boy, you are nineteen, you'll marry one day
Hence, as your pa there are things that I need to say,
Concerning women and how they behave,
They're a conundrum you'll take to your grave.

"So let me tell you how to live with a new wife
With some healthy advice you can carry through your life.
When you come home late and she's waiting for you in the hall,
Here's what you say: You say sweet nothin' at all.

"Every day she will tell you you're lazy, you're crude,
But listen to me, when she taunts you, you need to be shrewd,
Try as you may, hey, you never can win,
So say that you're sorry, then take out the bin.

"The only way, truly, is not to enrage her.
Try everything that you can to assuage her,
And even though you will feel you're a ninny, a fool,
You'll see it's best, when you say nothing at all."

"Yeah, but pa, my mum left you for another guy,
He is hugely wealthy and funny, my my,
So how can you actually face me and have the gall.
To tell me 'it's best, if you say nothing at all.'"

"Yet look at me now son, I've a cute young Thai bride,
My Yuna is loyal, she stays by my side,
(How loyal, how young)
And what is nice - Yuna says nothin' at all.
(Yuna keeps it shut)
(Yuna keeps her mouth shut)
And, you know the best thing? She excels in the sack!"

("Yeah, that much is true!)
Shit...! Forget that remark, pa, I said nothing at all!"

902

The brilliant poppy flaunts her head
Amidst the ripening grain,
And adds her voice to sell the song
That August's here again.
- Helen Winslow

The gold sun glitter'd then; on high
Appeared a giant, shining ball.
Until 'neath it yes, we see
Christmas ads pervade in Fall.
- Shop owner author

903

[Composed for the 15th anniversary of the death of the author's mother]

Fifteen - William Stafford

South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.

I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road, and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.

We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.

Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale -
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.

I stood there, fifteen.

Fifteen - A child reflecting

In an old familiar room in September
I spoke for a final time to my mother
a few years ago. I recall she was sleepy
as she lay on her side, her sickness
taking over. I wasn't yet thirty.

We talked of the past, the fun
and laughter, of music, family highlights
and of nothing. Wishing her well - that I could not do.
An intelligent, silent companion is a
friend indeed. She was fifty-nine.

The end of the road, it is nigh, and mother died
at dawn - her soul in the sky on the tenth.
It did stop... and then the future,
continued to unfold with a forward feeling
and a tremble. The day we die is finite.

Thinking back, father was loving and totally engaged
through the overwhelming havoc. Had he flipped,
wobbled we would have joined, to aid, hug, bring him
back to earth, where he is comfortable.
And grounded. A good man on a hillside.

We stood there, fifteen.

904

The Crocodile Song

She sailed away
On a sunny summer day,
On the back of a crocodile.

“You see,” said she,
“He's as tame as he can be,
I'll ride him down the Nile.”

Well, the croc winked his eye
As she waved them all goodbye,
Wearing a happy smile.

At the end of the ride,
The lady was inside,
And the smile
Was on the crocodile!

Downgraded Hurricane Florence

A macho man who is fearless
Decided the eye seemed harmless,
"Honey, we'll stay inside - it's cool."

Yet, the weather seemed abysmal,
Its condition eerie and dismal;
His alley is now a deep pool.

The highway began to buckle,
And his son said with a chuckle,
"Yeah! We don't have a school!"

905

[Three SEPTEMBER poems are anagrammed into one SEPTEMBER poem with a hidden constraint]

SEPTEMBER
by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days
Gleaned by the year in autumn's harvest ways,
With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember,
Some crimson poppy of a late delight
Atoning in its splendor for the flight
Of summer blooms and joys­
This is September.

SEPTEMBER
by Eugene Levich

Old friends
Autumn leaves
Falling
One by One

SEPTEMBER
by Linda Ori

Brilliant blue splattered
With crayola colored leaves -
Wind blown and tattered.

Frost on the pumpkins
Corn stalks shocked in silent rows
Like country bumpkins.

SEPTEMBER

Separated badly from the warm worthwhile sun,
Tempted often by the stolen summer fun.
Berries and bananas in bountiful decay,
Sepals and petals awfully dying on a lei.

Temperatures innocently dropping fast;
Beryl-colored evolving moons do not last.
Sepia-stained blanket on my thin sickened limbs,
Temporarily hanging on to my immovable whims.

Beribboned bicycles undertook the heavy loads,
Sepulchres line the neglected dusty roads,
Temples rise against the horrible sulking sky.
Bereft of hope, I dream of tomorrow's July.

[Here with the constraint demonstrated]

SEPTEMBER

SEParated badly from the warm worthwhile sun,
TEMpted often by the stolen summer fun.
BERries and bananas in bountiful decay,
SEPals and petals awfully dying on a lei.

TEMperatures innocently dropping fast;
BERyl-colored evolving moons do not last.
SEPia-stained blanket on my thin sickened limbs,
TEMporarily hanging on to my immovable whims.

BERibboned bicycles undertook the heavy loads,
SEPulchres line the neglected dusty roads,
TEMples rise against the horrible sulking sky.
BEReft of hope, I dream of tomorrow's July.

906

MONKS

A man is driving down the road and his car breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?"

The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. A sound unlike anything he's ever heard before. The Sirens that nearly seduced Odysseus into crashing his ship comes to his mind. He does not sleep that night. He tosses and turns trying to figure out what could possibly be making such a seductive sound.

The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We cannot tell you. You're not a monk." Distraught, the unhappy man is forced to leave. Years later, intrigued and after never being able to quite forget that seductive sound, the man goes back to the monastery and pleads for the answer again.

The monks reply, "We cannot tell you. You're not a monk."
The man says, "If the sole, the only way I can find out what is making that beautiful, lovely sound is to become a monk, then please, do make me a monk."

The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of grains of sand. And when you find these answers, you will have become a monk."

The man sets about his task. After decades of searching he returns, a gray-haired old man, and knocks on the thick wooden door of the monastery. Whereupon, a grizzled old monk answers and he is then taken before all the assembled monks.

"In my backbreaking quest to find what makes that breathtaking, enchantress's sound, I traveled the earth, found what you asked and returned. By design, the world's momentous, being in an extraordinary state of perpetual change. Only God knows what you ask.
I guess all any sage, an humanitarian man can know is himself, but only then if he's an honest nature: reflective and willing to strip away smugness, unnecessary crassness or self deception."

The monks reply, "Congratulations. You have become a monk. We shall now show you the way to the mystery of the sacred sound."

The monks lead the man to a dark, dank wooden door, where the head monk murmurs encouragingly: "The sound's beyond that door."

They give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind that door is another, made of remarkably thick stone. The man's given the key to the stone one and he opens it, thunderstruck to find a sunken door made of ruby. And so it seems to his amazement that he needs keys to big extravagant doors made of rare gems: stunning emerald, pearl and diamond. Heavens, such excess!

Finally, as they come to a chunky gold door, the sound has become very clear. The monks say, "This is the last key to the last door."

The man's askance, apprehensive. Behind that door frame's the answer ... his life's wish.
Fearful and trembling, he unlocks it, slowly pushing it open. And falling to his knees, he's amazed to discover the source of that haunting sound...

...

...

...

...

Alas, I can't tell you what it is, of course, because, remember, you are not a monk.

907

[To mark this year's Harvest Moon (which appeared on September 24), Carl Sandburg's 'Under the Harvest Moon' is anagrammed into a poem about a vegetable garden - which also contains 7 hidden vegetables:]

Under the Harvest Moon
(A Carl Sandburg poem)

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Those Fresh Tributes from the Garden

How vast is Summer's vivid wealth!
The labor also kept us strong
When weakened and in dismal health -
Indeed, true labor can't go wrong.
A sunray makes them succulent,
Some drop may sate their humbler needs;
No arduous requirements:
They form, survive - and we can feed...
Life heaps a lot of stress on us,
Which makes us cherish even more
The multihued, harmonious
And stunning world right by the door.

[For the constraint, there are 7 vegetables planted within the anagram, with one of them backwards: 3 with orange hues (Pumpkin, Yam and Squash), 3 with green hues (Okra, Leek and Kale) and 1 drawn by the rest (Carrot)]


Those Fresh Tributes from the Garden

How vast is Summer's vivid wealth!
The labor also kept us strong
When weakened and in dismal health -
Indeed, true labor can't go wrong.
A sunray makes them succulent,
Some drop may sate their humbler needs;
No arduous requirements:
They form, survive - and we can feed.
Life heaps a lot of stress on us,
Which makes us cherish even more
The multihued, harmonious
And stunning world right by the door.

[Here they are circled:]