I stopped and turned back with a smile. “Gimme a shot. What are you looking for?”
"We’re trying to find some beer” one said, giving the store the evil eye, “but we don’t know this ‘hood.” They were very appreciative when I told them about a package store a couple blocks away.
“So, are you a college professor?” the other asked. I told him no, but I’m a writer and poet and teach part time. “A poet, huh”? he said, then took a breath, straightened up and let loose with the following, without hitch or hesitation:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'
His friend and I listened in amazement, and he finished with a grin. “Didn’t expect that, didja?”
No, I didn’t. He breathed life into the cliché, “Never judge a book by its cover.” And he reminded me once again that no matter how bleak the world might look sometimes, there are wonders all around if we just stop, look, and listen…
Charles Coe is author of two books of poetry: “All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents” and “Picnic on the Moon,” both published by Leapfrog Press. He is author of "Spin Cycles," a novella published by Gemma Media and is included in "Inspired Journeys: Travel Writers Searching for the Muse," published by The University of Wisconsin Press. Charles’s poems have been set by a number of composers, including Beth Denisch, Julia Carey and Robert Moran. “Peach Pie,” A short film by Roberto Mighty based on his poem “Fortress” was featured in the 2016 Los Angeles Short Film Festival. He was selected by the Associates of the Boston Public Library as a “Boston Literary Light for 2013,” is a Fellow at Boston’s St. Botolph Club, a Boston institution that supports the arts and humanities, and is a 2016/17 Artist-in-Residence for the city of Boston.
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