Tuesday 18 November 2014

Popocatepetl eruption in 1947, mentioned by Ogden Nash in 1949 Poem

There was a major eruption of Popocatepetl in 1947. Ogden Nash wrote a poem that mentioned it in 1949:  A WORD ABOUT WINTER

Now the frost is on the pane
Rugs upon the floor again
Now the screens are in the cellar
Now the student cons the speller
Lengthy summer noon is gone
Twilight treads the heels of dawn
Round eyed sun is now a squinter
Tiptoe breeze a panting sprinter
Every cloud a blizzard hinter
Squirrel on the snow a printer
Rain spout sprouteth icy splinter
Willy-nilly, this is winter

Summer-swollen door jambs settle
Ponds and puddles turn to metal
Skater whoops in frisky fettle
Gold club stingeth like a nettle
radiator sings like kettle
HEARTH IS POPOCATAPETL

Runneth nose and chappeth lip
draft evadeth weather strip
doctor wrestleth with grippe
in never-ending rivalship
Rosebush droops in garden shoddy
blood is cold and thin in body
Weary postman dreams of toddy
Head before the hearth grows noddy

On the hearth the embers gleam
glowing like a maiden's dream
now the apple and the oak
paint the sky with chimney smoke
husband now without disgrace 
dumps ashtrays in the fireplace

-----------------------------------------------
Married CCCP a brutal state
turned out to be a geat mistake
claustrophobic like the iron maiden
in heaven the marriage was not made in
thought I was signing up to matrimony
but she seemed to think it was acrimony
Cats claws tearing down the glass
Sometimes lying quietly fuming
Rumblings of discontent
before the great eruption
drove me to a tent
Wife is popocatepetl
Full of fury
She the judge and she the jury
Marrying her was catastrophic
but divorcing was cataclysmic 
separated from child by iron curtain
acting more melodramatic than Richard Burton
Weary postman dreams of Lawon's stake and gravy pie
and resting the warm fire by
 maybe partaking of a toddy
before  head becomes too noddy

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