One with a Bug/One for the Kids…
Mr. Me’s Speeches
There was a bug upon my rug
I thought I’d have to squash it.
But as I came, it moved away,
Almost like saying, “Stop it!”
“I have a name,” it seemed to say,
“Although it’s kind of short…”
“So what is it that you call yourself -?”
“Just ‘me’” – his quick retort.
“Just ‘you’?” I asked, “No, ‘me’,” he said,
“I mean, just I, not you…
And for a bug I’m pretty smart –
I have a high IQ.”
“He must,” I thought, “He talks a lot,
At least he likes to chat.
It’s kind of cool the way he runs
Then lies low, hiding flat.”
I kind of think I’d do that too
Eluding giant creatures,
But then I noticed Mr. Me
Was sort of making speeches…
“My favorite drink is soda pop,
Kids drip it on the floor.
I have a Dad whose name is Pop
My Mom’s named Soda More.
My Daddy calls her Sweet Amore,
And both of them adore me.
They named me after Uncle Me,
Who’s entering the Navy.
At night we sort of snore a lot,
Some people think we’re crickets,
But that’s the sound we make at night
When eating sticks of licorice.
I’m taking tap and soccer
And I play the bugle too
In lots of ways I’m different,
But in some ways I’m like you.”
“Okay, okay, please go away…”
I always feel confused,
By talking bugs who say they’re “me” --
That’s when I turn them loose!
Copyright Paul Martin 2005 all rights reserved
There was a bug upon my rug
I thought I’d have to squash it.
But as I came, it moved away,
Almost like saying, “Stop it!”
“I have a name,” it seemed to say,
“Although it’s kind of short…”
“So what is it that you call yourself -?”
“Just ‘me’” – his quick retort.
“Just ‘you’?” I asked, “No, ‘me’,” he said,
“I mean, just I, not you…
And for a bug I’m pretty smart –
I have a high IQ.”
“He must,” I thought, “He talks a lot,
At least he likes to chat.
It’s kind of cool the way he runs
Then lies low, hiding flat.”
I kind of think I’d do that too
Eluding giant creatures,
But then I noticed Mr. Me
Was sort of making speeches…
“My favorite drink is soda pop,
Kids drip it on the floor.
I have a Dad whose name is Pop
My Mom’s named Soda More.
My Daddy calls her Sweet Amore,
And both of them adore me.
They named me after Uncle Me,
Who’s entering the Navy.
At night we sort of snore a lot,
Some people think we’re crickets,
But that’s the sound we make at night
When eating sticks of licorice.
I’m taking tap and soccer
And I play the bugle too
In lots of ways I’m different,
But in some ways I’m like you.”
“Okay, okay, please go away…”
I always feel confused,
By talking bugs who say they’re “me” --
That’s when I turn them loose!
Copyright Paul Martin 2005 all rights reserved
posted by Paul @ 4:25 PM
31 Comments:
wow very nice composition here :)
Excellent! :-) And yes we are all one, me... :-)
Thank you.
It's cute! :)
Sh, Eden, Kathy, thanks. Guess it relates to themes of "compassion" and "mercy" in Buddhism/Christianity/Islam/Judaism and I'm sure other religions too, as well as the sense of unity with the world beyond ourselves.
Why create unnecessary suffering? There's enough that's unavoidable.
Thanks Paul!
I loved it! I usually just
try to "relocate" spiders and
bugs who have wandered indoors.
Now I will always think of your
poem too!
I related to the part of scuttling under something even though you've got something important (to say, for example)...like loosing an important part of ourselves in order to not offend others. I sure like your little bug poem, tenderly told.
Romanian literature has a very good poet who wrote humorous poems about nature and little animals. It's just wonderful to read it. Actually when you read his poems you get this sad smile at the corner of your mouth and you just contemplate the simplicity of nature and words...
I like that! I talk to bugs too. Hey, your poem reminds me: there is this awesome children's book my son brought home from school the other day, it's called "The Lady and the Spider" by Faith McNulty and Bob Marstall. It's pretty moving and profound, for a kid's book. Check it out! :-)
H.I., Bonita, Irina, Kate: Kindred spirits... I keep waiting for someone to say, "Aw come on, gimme a break, just use the fly swatter..."
Very nice,, I and thou,,, bug...
I responded to your comment on my blog, thanks for the thinking questions,, I will really have to do a whole post I think to do your questions justice,,
I have to admit I relocate bugs too! What a wonderful metaphor Paul -- beautifully written ... all is one and one is all, now maybe I can come out of hiding.
Scott: You know, they say that the "I and Thou" author's name was actually Martin Bugger, and Buber was a misprint in the original edition which he liked and retained...
If you do decide to post on that topic and think to let me know, please do - I don't blog every day and might miss it.
Liquidplastic - Wow, I had no idea there were so many other bug relocators out there...
Lovely and uplifting!
Something very different from we have been reading on the blog.
I like!
:-)
Awesome poem. Reminds me of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, have you read it?
Barbara, thanks -
A: Glad you like it even though, as you say, it's different. I don't usually write in such strict rhyme and meter.
Marissa: No, I haven't... I wonder if it's for adults or kids... This is one of a small number of poems I wrote for kids, but they still seem to have some entertainment value for adults...
oh my paul,
that reminded me a bit of a book i used to read to the midget's class and a few others when i used to volunteer. i wish i could recall the name. it is such a charming story.
i hear some shades of shel silverstein in there. your poem stands alone on its own, though. so very witty and funny and a timeless message, too.
Ender's Game is a book for either teenagers or adults, but it's about a bunch of genius kids who save the world, basically. It's hard to describe without it sounding cheesey, but it's a really good sci-fi book. :)
I, too, do not like to kill bugs, with the exception of mosquitoes which I personally feel are some sort of the Devil Incarnate. Plus I'm allergic and they leave me with unsightly welts so I will squash those at the merest of provocations.
It started for me in 1st grade when I came to the defense of a helpless fly who's wings were about to be torn off by a pair of very cruel children... I just couldn't bear it and I've been a bug relocator ever since. I've gotten some weird looks, but I don't care. Everything on earth is precious to me and in it's right place. Who are we to decide otherwise? And as you write in your poem, how do we know what is going in their little lives?
Twh: Thanks for the "witty/funny" observation. That's mainly why I like it myself I think...
Marissa: The "Victoria Strauss" link near the end of my blogroll is a "science fiction fantasy" writer - whatever exactly that is, since I'm not familiar with the genre. All I know is her other link, "Writer Beware," also on my blogroll, gives great advice on publishing/agent matters, and her Web writing style is intelligent and clear.
Genius kids who save the world. We could use more of those.
La Coloratura: Yes, there are exceptions... Expecially when there's too great a number of a particular insect. I mean, you'd have to devote a good deal of your life to bug relocation - a genuine calling for few of us I think...
:-)
Wow...weldone,Paul!!Nicely written..
Thanks, Gangadhar and Dale -
Yes, but good to see the change anyway.
:-)
Have tried something new myself. Have a look.
{chuckles} Thanks Paul!
I've often been happy I'm not a bug and often quite depressed
I guess I choose to keep on living just like getting dressed
"What will I wear" or "I don't care", it really doesn't matter
Beyond What Is of Physics Is Not Energy nor matter
"of" meaning "because of".
I think a conscious critter's biggest problem is threefold: its ability to see too many possibilities; to see too few possibilities; to discern between the possible and impossible.
Free Will - Choice - Options: Our sentience - awareness of self in & of existence - makes these damnable problems our raison d'etre regardless of our personal spin. But it's that personal spin that kills me by obstructing my quite objective (as a sentient critter) ability to see and accept What Is.
Seriously Paul, my continued choosing to observe and interact with your bloggin' helps me a great deal, no matter how I end up...
Thanks bro.
"A Better Bug Being Built By Awareness & Application" {-;
-- (I think Gratitude to Others & Pride of Self come into it everywhere but I literally grew up so lacking in pride that I developed a disfunctional resentment towards gratitude. The "Thanks" I profer to you is always for helping me get over both of them; both deliberately and incidentally on your part.)
Mbaines: Glad to have you reading.
Someone has to break it to you: poetry may not be your calling...
You mention "objectivity." To me, that's something that helps us deal with reality as it exists, or certainly appears to exist, independently of our own existence and minds.
But finally our own minds are part of reality...
So while I fully appreciate what science does, I wonder if it can ever be the final answer in terms of knowledge.
There's even weird stuff that happens in physics that I'm not well informed of - but for example, I think it's the "indeterminacy principle" which finds that the very process of doing what it takes to observe a subatomic particle affects the state it's in...
LOL! I write songs amigo. Everything has a melody and, unless you hear the music I'm hearing, I know that alot of my stuf lyrics just "don't work."
I wish you could hear the Metallic Crunch of the guitars and bass whilst I sang that ol' bit o' doggerell.
Mmmm... Crunchy! LOL!
You are certainly right about our minds being part of reality but such truth will never make the abstracts that are Romeo and Juliet, Adam & Eve or Luke Skywalker, real people.
I think that the brain's potential to imagine the impossible should never lead us to confuse those imaginings with what might actually be.
I love spirituality Paul and hope that someday I might retire to a more contemplative existance. But I was raised believing in boogeymen and horoscopes and my life was hellish even though it appeared less so than those of my friends. I need observable reality and practical applications for my senses lest simply "give up the ghost" as they say. The "ghost" - the spirit - exists in whatever its form because of and from the body. All the empirical and objective and demonstrable/verifiable evidence supports this flow of cause & effect.
I am quite simple and silly enough to demand that it is all that is demanded of me by my society. And that means I am responsible for and to me. All else springs from this.
And I still love the bug poem! L8r bro! (no time to proof-read so I 'pologize for any typos...) {-;
Mbains: Do you really? That's always struck me as a completely different ability. Song lyrics have to be simpler than poetry or they wouldn't work...
I agree science has to be science. The objective approach is the best we can do to understand the world around us. But to understand THE WHOLE THING, that understanding would have to include our own phenomenology and whatever place it has in the mix of all-that's-going-on.
And I don't know if such an understanding could be scientific -or religious. It might have to be something beyond any currently known approaches. We might not ever be able to get it as we are. We might have to find ourselves in heaven or evolve into another species first. Or something else. Or maybe it turns out that we never get it.
As you can see, I don't know much at all about a whole lot...
... what every life-form does.
On the species level of course!
Aloha
Ooops! Read this THEN the first one. LOL!
But to understand THE WHOLE THING, that understanding would have to include our own phenomenology and whatever place it has in the mix of all-that's-going-on.
I always want to disagree with this idea because of the maxim that "what is, is."
But I've really tried to keep MY mind open to the fact that My Mind, any individual mind, is ALWAYS subject to subjectivity or our own phenomenology as you so accurately describe it.
I think you're quite rightly onto something else as well Paul. Evolving into another species is exactly what every life-form does (on the species-level of course!!!.) The only alternative is extinction.
My biggest problem with the world's religions is that, as a sentient animal, Homo has the ability to consciously steer our evolution. Religions, or any philosophies, that forego the attempt at precise measurement of objective reality, are plainly drunks at the wheel.
As usual Paul, I'm glad you're hear. {-;
MBAINES: That's true about none of us being perfectly objective as individuals. But I was thinking more about our species.
Our own hardware, great as it appears to be next to an ant's or a cow's, may be quite limited, and even exceedingly so, in it's ability to know and understand - maybe even to sense. How would we know it's not?
Also, an explanation of everything would have to account for us. How is it that scientists are interested in doing science? At the same time that we offer explanations of how the universe works, our desire to explain and the theories we generate themselves represent the universe hard at work...
As to religion, you're right -there are still many religious people who view religion as a better way to do science's job re. knowledge of the physical universe - intelligent design "theory" for example.
Historically, this has been such a losing battle for religion. I don't even understand why religious people think they need that perspective.
It's not like having a Bible handy would have led us to understand the atom, or allowed us to put a man on the moon.
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