From the Cookie Jar

AUDREY I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONE No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most feigning . . .

—Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 3, sc. 3

In the rebellion of the prince-bishop of Liège

In 1466 against the rule of Burgundy,

The inhabitants of Dinant, a Walloon city

Besieged by Charles the Bold,

With nothing to eat but flour and honey,

Made biscuits out of them, called couques,

From which our word "cookies" derives,

Describing crumbly treats, baked gold,

And spies concealed in digital trees

That spill the beans on what they're told.

Referring to craquants they munched,

French peasant rebels were called croquants,

From which our use of "crackers" comes:

Not just insipid things with tea,

But sturdy backbone of the GOP.

There is so much that language learns

From its recourse to borrowed terms,

Our fabled etymology!

With science prey to hackers' spite,

Art must, as always, feign delight.

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

A Small Eternity

 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?—Jeremiah 17:9, KJV

The verb suicide is both transitive

And intransitive; the act’s been called

Murder with mistaken identity.

By that logic, murder’s suicide, too—

Merely the victim’s identity got wrong.

Atavus means "ancestor," and long

Atavistic myself, a small eternity,

Recalling atrocities no human can forgive,

Eyeless in Gaza, perceive suicide—

Who'd have thought that '25 would whisper '43!

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Epitaph on a Parcel of Prevaricators

These, at a time when the world looked doomed,

An era when soul self doubted,

Paused for a moment, then resumed

Selling life short, and went to bed.

Their dreams trumped the trough upended;

Sound the sleep of the loaded liar;

What fate conceded, these defended,

Renouncing proofs of Earth on fire.

Tip o' the kepi to A. E. Housman's “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries”

Monday, August 18, 2025