Poetry by Elijah B. Pringle III

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Free advice up front today: Don't drive tonight. Stay home and watch Twilight Zone re-runs.

Last month I met a poet named Elijah Pringle who came to "Pizza and Poetry" in Camden. Elijah read a moving poem about his grandmother and how, after she died, no one wanted to remove the marks her plate made on the coffee table from the final time she made her lemon meringue pie.

I got to talking with Elijah, telling him about my dad, who now fights pirates with Peter Pan. I didn't even notice that Elijah was taking notes as I talked. But afterwards he sat down and, in a magical eyeblink, wrote a whole poem about my dad! Elijah said the energy I gave off while talking about Dad was inspiring.

Thank you, Elijah, for a wonderful gift. I hope to see you often in 2008!

Poem for Anne -- Dan Johnson
By Elijah B. Pringle III

Appalachia in 1966 had more
Televisions than science teachers
And they didn't have that many tubes
Yet there was daddy closed circuit
Chemistry teacher opening minds

Communicating the art of science
Organic chemistry & blowing up things
Igniting the imaginations of children
Colors pyrotechnically exploding
Before us on the Black & White in '66

I have the memory on VHS
Along with a mortar & pestle
Which I now use to grind
My spices flavored with the
Thoughts of the crazed chemist

And the pride that somewhere
In TV land a doctor was born
An engineer found direction
That the poverty of ignorance died
And where daddy is a Dylan song

Forever young blowing in the wind