The Sentient Creature Feature
{A Bumbershoot Special Feature}


David Berman,

a noted attorney, has had poems published  in numerous magazines, including Counter Measures, The Formalist, Harvard Magazine, Piedmont Literary Review, and Orbis.

He has published three chapbooks: Future Imperfect (State Street Press, 1982), Slippage (Robert L. Barth, 1996), and David Berman: Greatest Hits 1965–2002 (Pudding House, 2002). His awards and honors include several from the World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets.




Gail White

lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where she is working to make rhyme the dominant style of poetry again.

She edited the anthology Kiss and Part and her book, Easy Marks, is available from Word Tech Press.






—Back to Bumbershoot Contents—

Not Glad You Asked

Hobo, do you have a soul?
Beyond the fur, beyond the purr,
The nose and whiskers we extol,
The semi-jocose moniker

We gave you when you made our home
Your home as well, do you possess
An anima (so called in Rome),
Uniquely yours in worthiness?

Had no one ever asked, I doubt
This question would have crossed my mind,
Uncertain of Enough without
More speculation wholly blind.

                              —David Berman

 

Hobo’s Reply

My human friend, consult your heart.
I think you surely cannot mean
That like that raving bore Descartes
You think I’m just a soft machine.

To love is human—don’t I purr?
To play is human—I can play.
To err is human—I can err.
(You don’t need goldfish, anyway).

If there’s a human Paradise,
Be sure I’ll follow at your heels,
Unless distracted by the mice
That romp in the Elysian Fields.

                              —Gail White
 
Next >>