Bloggerel

This afternoon, while ransacking my office for some old statistical mechanics notes, I came across some doggerel that I wrote a couple of decades ago, when I was in graduate school. This is, of course, the whole reason for being a packrat. It isn't that you'll actually need something a couple of decades hence -- but what fun when you come upon it by accident.

As I remember it, I recited this poem twice to very appreciative audiences, once at a social gathering of mathematicians and once at a retreat for Episcopal college students. (I was neither a mathematician nor an Episcopalian, but they had good parties.) Therefore, since (1) it seems to have wide appeal, and (2) a chief reason to have a blog is to have a "final resting place" for odd bits of writing, and also (3) I have now given you fair warning, I propose to put my poem here.

I like to think that I've grown as a poet since this was written, so I've taken the liberty of slightly improving a turn of phrase here or there. It is a bit of a performance piece: if you find yourself reciting it in public, don't hold back. (The exact level of blood alcohol required for its proper enjoyment is, of course, up to you.)

In Praise of Sneezing

In spring, when the pollen is thick in the air
From flowers and bushes and buds on the trees,
I like to go out when the weather is fair,
But a thing that I like even more is to sneeze.

You might call it strange, or completely absurd --
You may call it a Communist plot, if you please --
But the most welcome sound that ever I've heard
Is the sound of a wonderful, long-delayed sneeze.

For you wait
and you wait
and your nose starts to itch,
And you laugh
or you cry
or you can't decide which,
And you'd do
anything
for that tension to ease --
But the itch disappears and the sneeze never comes.

The student, professor, policeman and thief,
The people with money who do as they please --
There is nothing that brings them the same sweet relief
That they get when they get to the end of a sneeze.

For you wait
and you wait
and your nose starts to itch,
And you laugh
or you cry
or you can't decide which,
And you'd do
anything
for that tension to ease,
Then finally,
finally --
the urge goes away.

There are some thing on earth that a person can buy.
Some things can be sold for appropriate fees.
Some things can be planned. Now, don't ask me why,
But in none of those classes of things is a sneeze.

For you wait
and you wait
and your nose starts to itch,
And you laugh
or you cry
or you can't decide which,
And you'd do
anything
for that tension to ease,
Then finally,
finally,
at long last -- it's gone.

When you want to, and don't, then it's torture, at least.
When you need to, and can't, then it's death by degrees.
But at last when it comes, when it's finally released,
When it's over and done with, the panic has ceased,
When you feel like a human and not like a beast,
There is nothing in life that compares to a sneeze.

For you wait
and you wait
and your nose starts to itch,
And you laugh
or you cry
or you can't decide which,
And you'd do
anything
for that tension to ease,
Then finally,
finally,
at long last you -- !