[Julie Steiner]

Join John Keats and Leigh Hunt, and compose a poem (in any form, or none) somehow referencing both a grasshopper and a cricket.

Keats' and Hunt's entries follow. (And yours?)

Julie Stoner

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket
John Keats

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket
Leigh Hunt

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;--
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;--

Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song--
In doors and out,--summer and winter--Mirth.

[Mark Allinson]

Li Po once kept a cricket for a pet.
He kept if for he claimed it made him jolly
chirping in his palm, but he sometimes let
his little buddy frolic in the holly.
And once he kept a grasshopper, too;
but not for long, he let it go because
the bugger was so restless and he was
tired of sweeping up grasshopper poo.

[Roger Slater]

HUNTING GRASSHOPPERS

Would you like your very own pet grasshopper or cricket?
Find a net, go out into the scrub grass or the thicket,
then proceed quite carefully ... don’t squash it, hurt it, kick it ...
then place it in the jar you brought along in which to stick it.

[Mark R]

The Music of the Grasshopper and the Cricket

What luck: it's Sunday morning, five o' clock,
the animals are huddled in the thicket,
and I'd be sleeping to a faint tick-tock
but all I hear's the blasting of some cricket.
No doubt it wants to be the next punk rocker,
ripping out raucous music day and night,
with back-up vocals by its friend grasshopper
that make me want to fetch my pesticide.
What's worse is that these devils think they're famous,
being dignified in high Romantic verse,
when any artless tone-deaf ignoramus
could grab a violin and do no worse.
Spare me: I'll go and buy some hearing-stopper
to muffle out the cricket and grasshopper.

[This message has been edited by Mark Rizik (edited October 03, 2006).]

[Mary Meriam]

.


[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited November 23, 2006).]

[Roger Slater]

Those last two are splendid. The Keats is still best, but you've edged out Leigh Hunt.

[Janet Kenny]

Australian Summer


Madness invades as saturated sound
zithers and blasts in summer morning heat.
Stridulant crickets everywhere surround
treetrunks and buildings with their indiscreet
intimate roar admitting no retreat.
Angular dancers baking on the brick
leap with a sudden unexpected reach;
elegant hinges shocking with a slick
athletic memory nothing known can teach.
Grasshopper, cricket, I give thanks for each.


or:


Madness invades
as saturated sound
zithers and blasts
in summer morning heat.

Stridulant crickets
everywhere surround
treetrunks and buildings
with their indiscreet
intimate roar
admitting no retreat.

Angular dancers
baking on the brick
leap with a sudden
unexpected reach;
elegant hinges
shocking with a slick
athletic memory
nothing known can teach.

Grasshopper, cricket,
I give thanks for each.

PS:
I'll have to try harder
not cricket--cicada.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 05, 2006).]

[Mary Meriam]

Thanks Roger.
Janet, I can hear the surround sound better in the first version. Lots of "k" sounds - you got it!
Mary

[Janet Kenny]

Kudos to the cricket team.
Mark A's Li poo, Roger's monorhyme, Mark R's insensitive but funny poem, and Mary's superb triolet.

Slices of orange for all of you.
Janet

[Roger Slater]

THE CRICKET AND THE GRASSHOPPER

The cricket and the grasshopper
are like the crocodile
and alligator; so similar,
you have to stare a while

to understand the difference
is more than just in name;
but moments later, you forget,
and they both look the same.



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited October 05, 2006).]