Shacklee at Autumn Sky Today
 

No letters missing in this poem. Nice work, Ed.

Cheers,
Greg

Delightful, Ed!

A great poem.

Very clever, Ed.

Susan

Ed, you have that rare thing: originality.

Kudos for sure!

Don

Yeah. Another good one.

What Don said.

Nemo

What Nemo said.

These last few posts are cracking me up -- a bit of light in a partly cloudy day. Thank you, Greg, and the rest of you.

Best,

Ed

Read it and loved it. Made my day! (No I in day!)

What exactly, or inexactly, does the last line mean or suggest?

Loved it, Ed.

Well done, Ed, and I know this sort of poem needs more than mere wordplay, which you have provided. Though I too wonder about the last line. Meaning perhaps "g.d."...

Cheers and congrats!

Well, if the word God is missing the letter O, then we're left without a God, merely a G and a d, which could be taken as a metaphysical or theological observation: There is no god, just death; no happy hereafter, merely finality in the grave, so one may as well toast death instead of an imagined paradise to come. I suppose that's one way to read that last line.

Also, the O reverberates as an exclamation for me, as in O! or Oh! And that could suggest a variety of expressions: surprise, resignation, delight, or disbelief.

Richard

Doesn't it simply mean that the word "God" is, perhaps, already missing an O? Try putting it back in and see what happens.

Good question. Richard and Julie make valid points. "Gd" could also mean "God damn" - as in, "drink up for we are damned."

Added in: It would, on the other hand, be a mistake to assume that the poem means an English analog to the Tetragrammaton. Ed is going in the opposite direction of no God or God that damns.

I read it the way Julie did.

Nemo

Gd pt, Richard. Maybe the O is not the letter, but the embodiment of the circle, i.e., everlasting life. Without the possibility of everlasting life, there's only death, as you said.

Greg

Excellent Ed.

Yes, of course. If g-o-d is missing an o, then god is not good. This is delightful wordplay.

Was it Schopenhauer who said if you replace Plato's the Good with God the result is Christianity?

Richard

Good one, Ed

Go, Ed! Love this one.

Thank you all again. I'm scuffing my shoes here. There are some shrewd guesses here about what the last line is about -- I think I'll pretend I knew about the Schopenhauer quote during any future discussions, thanks, Richard -- but I like free range chickens, myself, so as the old proverb goes, "Let the hand of discretion pass over the mouth of the wise." Or as I told Jeff Holt recently in a different context, "There are some things man was not meant to know."

Best,

Ed

Do I gave to do everything for you , Ed?

You have double reason to be "quoting" Browning here:

ROBERT BROWNING: Well, Miss Barrett, when that passage was written only God and Robert Browning understood it. Now, only God understands it.

Fair enough, John, haha! You have it about right.

Best,

Ed

Mr. Shacklee is filling the Autumn Sky once again. Way to keep 'em comin', Ed.

Cheers,
Greg

No more "Agent Ed". You are now known as Shackquille!

RM

Just saw it, Ed. Great!

Thanks. Since revised and lengthened, of course. :)

Best,

Ed