Poems of D. B. Tompsett
 
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The Poets of Muse Holler

Chapter 1

Wordsworth was a rabbit who lived in soft and green Muse Holler along with various other countryside creatures and the few humans who owned some of them such as the cows, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, most of the dogs and some of the cats.

Wild animals such as deer,  birds, rodents, raccoons,  frogs, and rabbits lived on their own.

Humans and animals have dreams, now and then, and one day as Wordsworth napped within a tangle of blackberrie vines he dreamt the beginning of a poem, and when he awoke it was still alive in his imagination, and because he enjoyed the thought of composing a poem he decided to complete it while he was awake.

He toyed with various words and lines for an hour or so until he felt that his poem was finished. He then recited it silently to himself and it went like this:

The fields are planted.
The flowers are slanted
away from the breeze.

The birds have nested.
Clouds are rested
a tad above the trees.

Oh, summer is fine!
My life has a shine!
I'll hoppily do as I please!

Now that Wordsworth had completed his poem he yearned to recite it to others, so he left the blackberries and hopped along one of the trails that led to where he knew there would be a good chance of encountering listeners.

Wordsworth came upon a cow, got her attention and recited his poem. When he was through, the cow politely smiled and mooed, "That was very nice."

Wordsworth then met a rooster beside a road and recited his poem to him, even though the rooster showed no interest, and continued to peck away at the ground.

The next potential listener Wordsworth found was a horse grazing on tall grass. As Wordsworth cleared his throat and began to recite, the horse looked up and said, "Oh, please. I do not want to hear your silly poem." Then the horse trotted away to a nearby pasture.

Wordsworth was not discouraged, and decided to hop over to a nearby pond where he discovered an old turtle basking in the sun. When the turtle first saw Wordsworth he thought he might be bothersome and so began to draw his head inside his shell, but as Wordsworth began to recite, the turtle gradually stuck his head back out and listened with interest. When Wordsworth had finished the poem the turtle asked, "What is your name?"

Wordsworth replied, "Wordsworth."

"Well, said the turtle, my name is William, and I think that is a wonderful poem. Thank you for sharing it with me."

"You're welcome, and thank you for listening!" Said Wordsworth, delighted that his poem had finally been enjoyed by someone.

"Have you more poems to share, Wordsworth?" William asked.

"No. That is the only poem I ever made."

"I think you really must make more poems, Wordsworth. You have a gift, in my opinion, and it would be grand if you shared your gift with others. Would you like to recite your poem to some friends of mine? I know they would enjoy it."

"Of course." Replied Wordsworth. "I would love to!"

"Fine." Said William. "Shall we meet here tomorrow at noon?"

"Yes." Replied Wordsworth.

"OK. See you then, Wordsworth."


Chapter 2

After Wordsworth left to hop homeward, William made his slow way to where he would likely find his friend Marge, a black and white cat, who liked to layze and preen by an old wooden fence gate that opened to an old house nearby that was no longer lived in by humans, but was now home to several mice.
William found Marge just where he thought he would, and was glad he hadn't made his slow way there for nothing.

"Hello, Marge." William said in greeting.

"Hi, there, William. How are you this fine day?" Marge asked, in reply.

"I'm doing quite well, thank you." Said William. "I met a new poet today. He is a rabbit named Wordsworth."

"Oh, wonderful! Where is he?"

"He went home, but has agreed to meet with us tomorrow. I wonder if you would like to find our other poetry friends and ask them to join us by the pond at noon tomorrow? You know how slowly I get about. You can locate our friends much more quickly than I can."

"I would be more than happy to, dear William. I will go look for them right away."

"Great. I will see you tomorrow, then." And with that Marge took off to find the other poetry lovers, and William made his slow way back to his place by the pond.

Chapter 3

As Wordsworth hopped along towards home he felt very encouraged about composing more poems, and was excited about his new interest and the prospect of making friends who might enjoy listening to him recite them.

"Afterall," he thought; "what's the use of making poems if there's no one to share them with?"

Wordsworth looked at and listened to everything along the way for inspiration, and as he settled down to sleep in his burrow that evening ideas and visions flowed through his mind as poetic streams of creativity. Wordsworth slept very well that night.



Chapter 4

When Wordsworth awoke the next morning the poetry gathering was foremost on his mind and he was excited about it. As he nibbled new grass shoots, moist with morning dew, he silently recited his poem to himself just to be sure he still remembered it:

The fields are planted.
The flowers are slanted
away from the breeze.

The birds have nested.
Clouds are rested
a tad above the trees.

Oh, summer is fine!
My life has a shine!
I'll hoppily do as I please!

"Yes, I do think it is a fine poem." He thought to himself, then, he realized that the poem didn't have a title.

"I know,"  Wordsworth thought.; "I'll title it "Summer." " And that's what he did, then having nibbled his fill of breakfast, he hopped towards the pond to meet William, the turtle, and his soon to be, at least he hoped, new friends.




I will never see the sea.
It's much too far a walk for me.

By the time I put my feet in sand
I would be one-hundred-ten.

I will never find the mighty redwood stands.
They're far away in distant lands.

If I started now to go to them
I might get there when I'm one-hundred-ten.

I'll never stroll a great city street.
Getting to it would wear out my feet.

If I started now I would get there when
I turn one-hundred-ten.

But I'm perfectly happy beside this pond.
To get here I simply wake-up, stretch, and yawn.

 

~Lies, Eyes, and One Sore Finger~
 
I moved to the northern California coast about thirty-five years ago with my wife at the time and we made friends with some neighbors. The man was a commercial fisherman, and we were invited to an end-of-the-salmon-season BBQ at a beach near the harbor.

Although I had never been to sea, I was able to drink like the saltiest of the salty, and proceeded to do so at this BBQ.

At one point the partiers set a derelict boat wrecked on the beach afire, and as the flames grew, a deckhand and I sat on the deck passing a bottle of brandy back and forth until the flames forced us off.

Just as it was getting dark I heard a woman scream, and turned around in time to see her get slapped in the face by a man. This kind of behavior always sends me into a rage, so I invited the fellow to "Come hit a man, fucker!" and stood ready to fight.

Some fishermen grabbed him as he was about to charge me, and it was at this moment I realized how much bigger than I he was, and decided that fighting this dude might not be a very good idea, but as soon as he was let go by his fellow fishermen he lunged towards me, and I was committed to fighting.

We crashed into each other, and as luck would have it, I managed to pin him on his back in the sand. I was in control, but there was little more I could do besides hold him down.

All of a sudden the index finger on my right hand was in great pain. My foe had managed to get it between his teeth and was biting down hard. It hurt like hell.

I put all the fingers of my left hand in his eyes and said:

"Let go my finger or I'll pull your eyes out!"

To my great disapointment his reply was:

"Go 'head!" through clenched teeth.

I did what I had to do, and dug my fingers into his eyes as hard as I could. Fortunately, he decided trading his eyes for one of my fingers was a bad deal, so he opened wide, I pulled my finger out of his mouth, got up and got the hell out of there.

The very next day I was standing in line at the local liquor store. There was only one customer in front of me. It was the guy I had fought with. I noticed a great deal of redness under both his eyes. He didn't say anything to me. I didn't say anything to him. We paid for our booze and went our ways.

My finger still hurt quite a bit. There is a small scar on it to this day. About six months after that fight I got my first job on a boat. I fished and worked the docks for about fifteen years. I sport scars from that, too, and also stories, such as this one.

 
 
 
 
 
 
An Encounter With Rails

Several years ago I worked in a factory making plastic parts used in furniture. I had the day-shift, which was 9am-9pm. The work was very boring, and the twelve large machines positioned throughout the building made a lot of racket as they spewed out their widgets.

A paved hiking trail went through the thick marshy area behind the factory. Small trees, bushes, and blackberry vines made excellent shelter for rabbits, birds, garter snakes, and other small creatures. It also provided a nice quiet place for me to take most of my lunch breaks. I had a few favorite spots in the bramble to sit and watch and listen for birds, hoping to add another species to my lifelist.

My interest in birds began when I was a small boy armed with a ten-cent slingshot. These slingshots were poorly made, and had very little range or killing power, so in order for me to have a chance at bagging my prey I was required to get within a few feet from the birds. I'm glad now my kills were few, but the stalking experience came in handy when I matured from slingshot to binoculars and fieldguides to the birds.

The lifelist I mentioned earlier is simply a list of birds identified by individual birders. My list is one-hundred-seventy-five names long, but one siting in particular had a dramatic affect on me, and much more substantial than the check mark I put by its name in my fieldguide.

Virginia rails are fairly common, but due to their shyness they are usually heard rather than seen. They are weak fliers, so they prefer to walk or run through their habitat of low-lying plants. Virginia rails actually have a flexible vertebrae which helps them wend their way through brush and marsh.

I had just spent about a half hour break a little ways into the trail's greenery, and had begun walking back to the factory. As I stepped out onto the trail a family of Virginia rails; cock, hen, and at least ten of their chicks who resembled black cottonballs with tiny legs were crossing the trail towards me. They were as surprised to see me suddenly appear as I was to encounter them in this way.

The hen immediately "klick klick klicked" her danger call and hurried her brood into the brush. As mother and children made their hasty, yet orderly get-away dad stood his ground in the middle of the trail. He opened his longish, thin, red beak and began screaming at me. His eyes were alive with an unyielding fierceness. He gave no signs of running or flying away. It was as though he had made up his mind that if a member of his family was to die at the hands of this giant it would be him.I immediately stepped back in order to give  assurance that I meant no harm, and that it was safe for him to rejoin his family, which he did.

As I entered the factory door I was still feeling a strong sense of awe at what I had witnessed: a ten-inch bird screaming at a creature a hundred-fifty times its weight: "Come on! Come after me! Just leave my family alone!"

I looked around at my co-workers, and wondered how many of them would react as the rail had if their families were similarly threatened. I wondered how I would react, too.

I can say for certain, though, that in my mind at that moment the stature of myself and the rest of humanity had just shrunk somewhat, while the Virginia rail's had grown, considerably.
 © Dan Tompsett

 

The History of Potato Salad

Many of us don't know the history of potato salad. It was first concocted by Ezra Bovine in 1899. Ezra, an Idaho potato farmer and alcoholic irrigator for hire, first served potato salad at the grand opening of the Twin Falls Bar and Grill. My mother's mother was there, and recorded the event in her diary:

June 3rd:

"That drunk brother of mine showed up at the gala grand opening of the TFBG with a large bowl of mush. He called it "potato salad." Of course, everyone there knew he just boiled some spuds, tossed in mayo and onions he stole from his neighbor's garden and brang it so's he could take advantage of the free beer pot-luck. It wasn't bad, but could have used a dollop of mustard and relish."

Ezra Bovine's daughter was only ten years-old at the time, but she made reference to his creation in a letter to the editor of the Twin Falls Gazette several years later:

"As unpopular as my stance may be at this time, I cannot vote for the current Republican candidate for mayor of this fine city with a clear conscience. He reminds me of my father's potato salad which was served at the gala grand opening of the Twin Falls Bar and Grill back in '99. The candidate is soft, mixed-up, and smells of pilfered onions. A dollop of mustard might have helped his image, but seeing it on his tie as he staggered out of a Kimberly flophouse last Saturday morning leads me to believe he has little knowledge of condiments, gourmet fare, or how to steal away in the night, which in my opinion disqualifies him from aquiring my vote, and I sincerely believe my fellow citizens, all upstanding christian spud farmers, (but for the one Jew, Mr. Lettuce Iceberg), will be of the same mind."

Yours, respectfully,
Ima Bovine
Twin Falls

© Dan Tompsett

 

~TROUT FACE SOUP~

 Bob Withabee fished Rock Creek in Twin Falls, Idaho for trout. The creek, it is said, is somewhat polluted, but Bob didn't care. He liked the look on the trout's faces. They always seemed to be smiling and happy, even as they expired in his kreel.

Bob thought he had a way of leaching out the pollutants. He did this by making soup out of the fish. He left the heads on, and whenever he checked the pot, trout faces smiled up at him from simmering broth and quartered onions.

Bob snagged a crawdad in Rock Creek once, and chose to add it to his trout face soup.

The crawdad never smiled when alive, nor did it crack even the slightest grin as it cooked. Bob came to the conclusion that crawdads, at least the one he caught, have no sense of humor.

He didn't want his trout face soup tainted with the spice of sadness or curmudgeonery, so he pulled the now red crustacean from the pot and placed it in a small sauce pan and covered it with a lid so he wouldn't have to look at it. The trout face soup was all smiles again.

After dinner, Bob removed the crawdad from the sauce pan and took it outside, set it on a fence post in his back yard, then went indoors and sat in his rocking chair where he could watch through a window. Bob was confident a cranky crow would come along sooner or later to investigate, and sure enough, just a few moments later, one did.

The crow, feathered black as its disposition, cocked its head to the right, studied the creature a bit, then grabbed it in its beak and flew off with it.

"My home is happy again," Bob stated to himself, then took his shovel and an empty can to the compost area of his yard to dig for worms, and if he should happen to unearth a grub he would toss it away.

"Grubs are grumpy," believed Bob Withabee.

 

 
 
~The Lunatic~
 
 
 
 
When I arrived at my sister's groundfloor apartment she was standing with her door open. She was vexed about a young woman who was sitting on her small concrete porch. The woman was a stranger, but had chose to make herself at home on the porch and play a game which resembled Monopoly. There was a board opened in front of her with small objects here and there. Miniature white boxes set up like a tray had tiny items in them. There were also a few baggies with things in them placed beside the board. I could see that my sister was upset about the young stranger who refused to go away when told to. I felt a sense of outrage at the woman's indifference to my sister's stress, so as I stood over her demanding that she "get the hell out of here, now!" I kicked the small, non-descript objects towards her. Her face had an expression of absolute blankness. It was as though I were cursing the moon. As the woman gathered her game and left she seemed to make way across the parking lot as though she was moving slowly on an orbital path.

As I entered my sister's apartment I felt a very strong pang of guilt. I wondered how I could be so cruel to an obviously ill, weak, and most likely harmless human being. I realized that not only was I the lunatic who had stepped onto the porch, but a cruel and not-so-harmless lunatic, at that.


 --------------------------------------------------
 
~I Pet a Horse, Today~
 
 
When the three horses my mom and stepdad board in their pasture arrived I was on the porch having a smoke. I opened the back door and hollered "the horses are here!" 

Mom came outside in her blue nightgown and carrying a glass of wine. My stepdad went into the garage to plug in the electric fence. I went back into the house.

After a few days I decided to see if the horses would let me pet them. One of them, the brown one, was near the fence, so I reached my hand towards her and said "hey, horse. Come here" in a mellow voice. This horse is actually the color of a chestnut, so I thought to myself "this must be what is referred to as a "chestnut mare."" I don't know squat about horses. Was never interested in horses other than the ones at the racetracks I went to whenever I lived near one. I didn't know anything about those horses, either. Going to the track was all about gambling.

The mare came up to me at the fence and allowed me to pet her. I petted her the same way I pet the dogs, but without burying my fingertips into fur. Horses don't have soft, thick fur. I find that petting a horse's face is sort of like petting a fuzzy board.

As I petted the horse there were gnats flying around her head. I noticed there were several gnats inside both her ears, so I proceeded to use my fingertips to scratch them out. As I cleared one ear of gnats it seemed as though the horse was happy about it, so I cleared her other ear the same way. All of a sudden the gnats acted as though they were angry, and began attacking my face, hair, neck, and tried to invade my ears. I swatted them away with my hands, but they were quite persistent in their attack, so I went into the house, washed my hands in the kitchen sink, went downstairs to my basement room where I inspected my ears for imagined gnats with a finger now and then as I wrote this little anecdote.