The Boatman poem
crowleycrow, that is, my favorite fiction author, John Crowley, quoted this poem on writing:
THE BOATMAN
Jay MacPherson
You might suppose it easy
For a maker not too lazy
To convert the gentle reader to an Ark:
But it takes a willing pupil
To admit both gnat and camel
- Quite an eyeful, all the crew that must embark.
After me when comes the deluge
And you’re looking round for refuge
From God’s anger pouring down in gush and spout,
Then you take the tender creature -
You remember, that’s the reader -
And you pull him through his navel, inside out.
That’s to get hs beasts outside him
For they’ve got to come aboard him,
As the best directions have it, two by two.
When you’ve taken all their tickets
And you’ve marched them through his sockets,
Let the tempest bust Creation: heed not you.
For you’re riding high and mighty
In a gale that’s pushing ninety
With a solid bottom under you - that’s his.
Fellow flesh affords a rampart,
And you’ve got along for comfort
All the world there ever shall be, was, and is.
THE BOATMAN
Jay MacPherson
You might suppose it easy
For a maker not too lazy
To convert the gentle reader to an Ark:
But it takes a willing pupil
To admit both gnat and camel
- Quite an eyeful, all the crew that must embark.
After me when comes the deluge
And you’re looking round for refuge
From God’s anger pouring down in gush and spout,
Then you take the tender creature -
You remember, that’s the reader -
And you pull him through his navel, inside out.
That’s to get hs beasts outside him
For they’ve got to come aboard him,
As the best directions have it, two by two.
When you’ve taken all their tickets
And you’ve marched them through his sockets,
Let the tempest bust Creation: heed not you.
For you’re riding high and mighty
In a gale that’s pushing ninety
With a solid bottom under you - that’s his.
Fellow flesh affords a rampart,
And you’ve got along for comfort
All the world there ever shall be, was, and is.