Growley

tinyurl.com/growley1

Growley is a predator, a prowler, a sneak:
He’ll nip you in the hand or neck, just to hear you shriek;
He’ll claw you as he runs away, just for better speed —
Not in fear or self-defense, he never has that need.

Growley has a wide-eyed thirst or yen for ev’rything.
D’you miss a dangle-y, a piece with cords or string?
Then listen for the crunching, or tearing, as he chews
What used to be your object, past hope of further use.

Growley is a climber and a jumper, never doubt;
So please take care what fragile table items get left out.
And mind that door! Unless you wanted games of run-and-catch;
Here’s a lad who seeks the other side of ev’ry hatch!

But...

Growley is a cuddler, a lover, and a flirt:
He’ll pace your chest at midnight, to nestle on your shirt;
He’ll roll onto his back to let you rub his belly, fain —
And then the purring two-year-old will bite your hand again!

© 2025 by C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song:]

The Ultimate Earworm

tinyurl.com/ultimate-earworm

[Inspired by Fritz Leiber's 1958 short story, "Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee".]

Northshield Bardic College Charter

tinyurl.com/nbccharter

The Northshield Bardic College was originally chartered in 1994 by the Middle Kingdom, to which Northshield then belonged. Once Northshield became a separate kingdom in 2004, for it to reissue the charter would be fitting; but this meant rewriting the verses with the date and place and issuing monarchs' names. Cerian Cantwr, the Chief Bard (Speaker) for that year, kindly invited me to revise my original:

In this the birth year of Our Realm
Of Northshield, which We proudly helm,
We King Siegfried, and Bridei Our Queen,
Greet all by whom these words are seen.

Witting full well the worth of arts
That move and mellow all mortal hearts,
And holding among these in high regard
The ancient and honored craft of the Bard,

We confirm the words set down afar
By the Midrealm’s Catherine and Jafar,
That chartered the Northshield Bardic College
To take and teach this worthy knowledge.

Not only Bards but all deserve
To practice arts, and thus preserve
And pass them to posterity.
For this We grant authority

To foster Bardic Arts events
And bear its badge without hindrance
Its own officials to select
And all its members to protect.

Thus no other may demand
Punishment for verse ill-scanned
For meter mangled, rhymes mislaid
Or satires at the mighty made.

Members shall be answerable,
For such actions liable,
To the College of Bards alone;
The College answers to the Throne.

That skill in crafting all may seek,
Without ambition for a clique,
Be students ’rolled, and teachers named,
But let no other rank be claimed.

Though “Master” and “Prentice” some may use,
Only between a pair who choose
In apprenticeship to teach and learn,
No rank’s conveyed by either term.

We charge the members let no fools
Administer the College rules,
But name a Council made of four
Whose terms shall last two years, no more.

Let them in turn appoint a Chief
Whose vote in ties provides relief;
Who shall for one year be their voice
In public, at the Council’s choice.

Let all who seek to be a Bard
Beware, the duty can be hard —
To sing the praiseworthy to fame
And give the blameworthy their blame.

A poet’s justice must you give,
And by the ancient creed must live:
“Y Gwir yn erbyn y Byd”, which says:
“The Truth Against the World” — always.

Let all give heed, and hence remember!
Done this fourth day of December
In the thirty-eighth year of the Society
At Our Court in Caer Anterth Barony.

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for the original 1994 charter.]

[The Suno AI has also composed and performed a new tune for this 2004 charter:]

Courtesy at the Feast

tinyurl.com/courtesyfeast

The harper’s lovely, that I’ll say;
I wish I could have heard her play.

Good gentles, nobles, worthies all,
We've gathered here within this hall
To feast, and talk, and — one more thing:
To hear the entertainers sing,
The harpers harp, the bards recite,
The minstrels play into the night.
But there are those who talk and chatter
As if performers didn’t matter.

Think how it feels to pour your heart
Into your craft, rehearse your art,
Perform at feast before the crowd,
Then find the talking was so loud
That no-one heard; and those who would
Enjoy the music if they could
Were cheated too, denied the chance
To hear the song or rhyme or dance.

A talk delayed can still go on,
But when the act is done — it’s gone.

Now, no-one asks (not I, at least)
That silence reign throughout the feast;
And no-one orders or implores you
To listen to an act that bores you.
We’ll bear no grudges, shed no tears,
If you put hands upon your ears
’Til act is done – and then resume
Your talk, ’til talking fills the room.

But while the act is not yet done,
I beg you, silence, every one.
This kindness show, and you will be
Renowned for knightly courtesy —
Which, after all, is why we’re here,
Reclaiming gracious yesteryear.

I’ll make my toast with one more word:
To entertainers that we heard.

— C. M. Joserlin (“Raven”), April 30, 1994
[placed into the public domain, for the sake of such events]

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song:]

Short Verses

tinyurl.com/shortverses

Song at Parting

Why does sorrow burrow at the hollow of our heart
When we know each “Merry Meet“ is followed by a “Merry Part“?
Should not joy as deeply dwell when we think ahead to when
Every “Merry Part“ is followed by a “Merry Meet Again“?

[composed upon leaving the Boar's Head Feast of Caer Anterth, December 4, 2004.
intended for singing at that night's Bardic Post-Revel, which, alas, I could not attend.]

© 2004 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven“

[The Suno AI has also composed and performed a tune for this song:]

---

Faith

Bend with life, don’t fossilize;
rigid vision blinds the eyes;
faith — unchanging — petrifies;
frozen truths turn into lies;
even God, imprisoned, dies.

© 1984 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

---

Why do hopes to help mankind
                                       end as guns at human heads?

                                 Iron Maiden

See the trap, before it shuts,
                                       of seeming starry-eyed ideals;
This coldly abstract caring cuts
                                   the flesh its kindly case conceals.
Philosophy’s a hurtful suit,
                             too hard and sharp for human needs;
Beneath the blade of Absolute,
                                 the mortal body breaks and bleeds.

                   — C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”.

---

From Crooked Timber: “Faking da funk and faking the physics”

Raven 10.15.06 at 9:00 pm                                                                             115

“... you seem to be getting dangerously close here to an argument which would imply that non-physicists don’t really understand what an apple is....”
— Daniel in #62.

The apple falls; but particle or wave?
To grasp and taste might seem the way to tell,
Yet Heisenberg gives us a warning grave:
We’d just obscure where or how fast it fell;
And, harder news, to watch also does that.
We who can’t touch, nor see, must speculate.
Thus it partakes, with Ernst’s endangered cat,
Of plural, mixed, or undetermined state.
In many worlds, perhaps all needs are met,
One apple falls to all our waiting hands;
But in this world, the much more likely bet
Is falling once. We wait for where it lands.
At last it hits upon diffraction’s cause —
But what comes through the grate is merely sauce.

(C.M. Joserlin, 10/15/2006. Thanks, Daniel!)

---

The Tower

tinyurl.com/the0tower

Upon the hill a tower stands, the stars shine bright about;
From windows, see the golden glow of friendship gleaming out.

Toward the North, into the heights this sentinel was reared:
A lonely task its folk have asked, to shield ’gainst what they feared.

For ages long this tower strong kept back invading foes;
Yet outer guard must find it hard to lighten inner woes.

If war and pain and fear come not into this blessèd land,
’Tis but because its people’s laws have hate and anger bann’d.

As hate and anger, pain and fear may bring the deepest gloom,
So only love can rise above and vanquish that old doom.

Now, in that fight some reach the light, and some to darkness fall;
Perhaps at last, when Time has pass’d, the light will shine on all.

And still the tower on the hill withstands the darkest night;
The stars about help conquer doubt that love and hope are right.

Though high the hill, and cold the wind, and dark the night may seem,
Yet Welcome All, within this hall and friendship’s golden gleam.

September, 1979

(Dedicated to the folk of Caer Anterth, “Castle of the Zenith” or “Stronghold of the Heights” in the Northshield Region, upon their attaining Baronial status. This can be sung to the tune of “Greensleeves” or “Trelawney”.)

C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has also composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Bright-Eyed Bortai

tinyurl.com/bright-bortai

The histories say
what he saw on the day
young Temujin came to the place
he would first meet the bride
who would be by his side
when he rose to the rule of his race.
Although the scribes fail
to give any detail
of her hair or her form or her grace,
word for word they retell
what he said he beheld:
“Bright eyes, and a shining face.”

Bortai was her name,
and her new husband’s fame
would be warrior and leader and lord,
remembered since then
as the master of men –
Chinggis-Khan of the great Mongol Horde;
it’s never forgot
that the sons he begot
would rule kingdoms he conquered by sword;
but the tale isn’t whole
if you leave out his rôle
as the husband of one he adored.

This woman so dear,
early in his career,
was seized by an enemy sly;
and the rescue was wild,
but she came back with child,
and in Temujin’s arms she did cry.
But the baby he bless’t
with a name that means “guest” –
this boy, of dark hair and dark eye,
he raised as his son,
because Jöchi was one
of the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

The strength of his bands
swept across all the lands
with a force like the wind and the tide.
After decades of strife,
at the end of his life
he called all his sons to his side.
On the order he spoke,
one arrow each broke;
then a bundle of arrows they tried
to break, all for naught.
This last lesson he taught:
“Stay together!” ... Then Temujin died.

The strong sons Bortai bore
him, through history roar
like the thundering storms none can flee;
yet they kept and obeyed
all the laws that he made,
as the duty they owed, loyally.
Möngke Tengri * rewarded
the virtues they guarded
with steady and swift victory,
and crownèd the good
of their firm brotherhood
with an empire that stretched sea to sea.

But the greatest of trees
must succumb to disease
or the ages, and wither and die:
the empire once won
has been many years gone,
and the centuries slowly roll by;
while those that had lost
it are tumbled and toss’d
Into ev’ry land under the sky;
they’ve been scattered and hurled
all throughout the known world –
the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

In the place that he’s in
now, does old Temujin
scowl down and then sternly ask why
his descendants have lost
what he won at such cost?
Does he mutter and grumble and sigh?
Does he sneer with harsh scorn?
Does he bitterly mourn?
He might feel some such way... yet I
think he’s glad, there above –
they still live, strive, and love –
the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

                             (* Möngke Tengri : Mighty Heaven)

_________________________
 © 1993 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song:]