Overnight the figs got moldy and look like little brains --
or Ids without structure -- that say something dark
about our species not really laying down a garden
but living out the violent myths.
An insect chorus, almost diaphonous
in a neighbor's yard, says something, too:
'American began in tall ships that glowed from within,"
but, for the wretched, it still wretchedeth every day."
As the bright day goes around the sun,
why do our days grow
more aggressive and difficult?
Why do the world's shadows
come so close
as its wonders beckon?
Cole has a distinguished career as a teacher. Too bad he was never a newspaper reporter with a hard-hearted editor looming over him. Had that been the case, Cole would have sent those two awful lines about tall ships to the chopping block. They break up and distract the poem. Placed in the middle of an otherwise intriguing piece, those two wretched lines were probably meant by Cole to actually contain the real meaning of the whole poem. Or perhaps they are meant as a verbal collage; if so, they do not succeed in adding anything to this particular piece of art.
The whole subject of figs, of course, is fraught with sexuality. But Cole elects to be didactic and obscure. So if you'll excuse me I'm going for some fig newtons and a glass of milk in the kitchen.
Cole and supporters, please feel free to repeat this rejoinder about the above critique. On your social media accounts and elsewhere:
"Mr. Torkildson fails as even a poetaster in his own versifying. It's only natural he should want to cut ineffectual capers around the towering literary achievements of Mr. Cole."
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