Poetry of Issue #8        Page 8

Bartleby from A to Z

Bartleby,
no children, he,
when in his youth and fancy free
was laying ’neath a chestnut tree,
his back upon a burl,

when that knot
rubbed such a spot
between his ribs, pained like a shot,
and so he said he’d rather not
though she’d prepared to whirl.

But this poor lass
would take no sass
(for she had stones of solid brass),
and kicked him in his sassafras
so hard, it made him hurl,

and so said he,
“That’s not for me—
a bachelor for eternity!
A scrivener’s what I’m meant to be.”
A churl without a girl.

But then this fellow,
turning mellow,
all bravado paling yellow,
facing fate with spine of jello
saw he’d lost his pearl.

He was hired,
but soon fired;
in his grief employers mired.
All alone, no children sired,
he heard pipers’ skirl.

In his hell,
a private cell
where no one came—none knew him well—
a tragic death to him befell,
his lonely mind aswirl.

Note: Based, in part, on Herman Melvilles 1853 short story
“Bartleby, the Scrivener”

Ken Gosse