William Trowbridge

March 1, 2022

“Robin Fool and His Disconsolate Men” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

ROBIN FOOL AND HIS DISCONSOLATE MEN

The snag arose right away: the rich
had troops and portcullises, making it
very risky to rob them. And the poor
were supposed to receive the swag, not

surrender it. So Fool decided they’d
rob the not-so-rich. However, rob them
enough and they become poor. Give
enough to the poor and, after a while,

they become the rich—a dispiriting treadmill.
Alan-a-Dale, the men’s minstrel, tried to
make up a song about it but couldn’t think
of a good lyric. Little John grew morose,

and Friar Tuck doubled his windy prayers.
Fool suggested they get into forest crafts:
whittled whistles and bowls, leaf pillows,
boar-tusk pipe bowls, rabbits’ feet.

“Bowls and pillows, bowls and pillows,”
sang Alan-a-Dale, then faltered. Fool
suggested they could use a catchy slogan.
“Shop here or we kill you,” offered Little John.

They considered, “Don’t settle for that
crappy town stuff when you can buy
from the Merry Men.” “Too long,” muttered
Will Scarlet. “And not all of us are men,”

chimed in Maid Marion. “How about,
‘You wanna buy this?’” Fool suggested.
Though no one saluted when they ran it
up the flagpole, the progeny of King John

and his pal the Sheriff of Nottingham
later weaponized the concept, deploying
the first ad agency, which allowed them
to rob pretty much everybody.

—from Rattle #74, Winter 2021

__________

William Trowbridge: “After publishing a book of poems about Fool, I still can’t shake this guy. Perhaps it’s because he’s an archetype to whom, I believe, we’re all related. He may seem even more relevant these days, now that foolishness has gone viral as Covid. But my fool, for all his stumblings and fumblings, has a good heart, which I think is an essential trait of the archetype.” (web)

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July 6, 2020

“Fool Invents the Piano, 1250 A.D.” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

FOOL INVENTS THE PIANO, 1250 A.D.

Like the monkey that accidentally typed Hamlet,
Fool, tinkering in his workshop, constructed
an exact likeness of a Steinway concert grand,

which he called the “Making-Sounds-with-Little-
Hammers-on-Wires Machine.” It looked impressive,
but he was puzzled about what to do with it.

It was too big and complicated to be a doorstop
and too heavy and lopsided to be a wheelbarrow,
especially with those little brass wheels, so he

tried using it to scare rats out of the hayloft.
But the rats weren’t impressed, and he sprained
his back winching it up. Fool pushed on

the levers to make high sounds and low ones,
wondering why he’d made some levers black.
Neighbors, hearing eerie noises from his house,

suspected Fool of conjuring evil spirits
to cast spells on them. Several broke out
in goat-shaped rashes, others began speaking

gibberish. Soon, Fool found himself trussed atop
his machine, which was then dumped into a lake,
as Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 1 dawned on him.

—from Rattle #67, Spring 2020

__________

William Trowbridge: “Fool, here and in my collection Ship of Fool, is based on the fool archetype, which runs from the beginnings of storytelling up to modern films (silent and sound), fiction, poetry, and stand-up comedy. He is combination schlemiel and shlimazel, alternately the spiller and the spilled-on. Often the scapegoat, he is, as St. Chrysostom put it, ‘he who gets slapped.’ My Fool, blundering into hell with Lucifer and company, is reincarnated in various historical times, with occasional unplanned visits back to the heavenly realm, operated as a mega-corporation by its Enron-style CEO. I thought I was through with my not-so-distant relative after the collection came out, but he’s back again, none the wiser.” (web)

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October 10, 2018

“Oldguy vs. The Riddler” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

OLDGUY: SUPERHERO vs. THE RIDDLER

The Riddler plans to blow up Hoover Dam,
unless Oldguy can tell him what has many keys
but can’t open a single lock. “My uncle Fred,”
says Oldguy. “He couldn’t tell his ass
from his front door.” The Riddler says that

may be technically correct, but the best answer
is “a keyboard.” “Well, that too, I guess,”
Oldguy replies. The Riddler thinks Oldguy’s
answer has taken the crispness out of the riddle.
“Let’s try another,” he says. “What’s orange

and sounds like a parrot?” “That’d be ol’ Fred
for sure,” says Oldguy. “After he drank that fifth
of Everclear, he turned more of a yellow, but
he did sound like a parrot.” The Riddler decides
to have one more try, asking how the number

four can be half of five.” “Sounds like Fred trying
to count up his canasta points,” answers Oldguy.
Reddening, the Riddler tells him that he shouldn’t
keep giving the same answer for every riddle.
“Maybe,” says Oldguy, “but you’re the fella keeps

asking ones about Uncle Fred.” When the Riddler
asks if Oldguy thinks he can do any better, Oldguy
says, “OK, what has three heads and hops like
a kangaroo?” The Riddler applies his genius mind
to no avail. After 10 minutes, he asks Oldguy

the answer. “No idea,” says Oldguy. The Riddler
says you can’t pose riddles that have no answer.
“OK,” says Oldguy. “What do you think this does?”
firing his Beta X-22 Kinetic Gizmoid, which turns
the Riddler into a two-inch replica of Uncle Fred.

—from Rattle #60, Summer 2018

__________

William Trowbridge: “The Oldguy series is my attempt to fill what was a significant hole in the superhero universe: the absence of old superheroes. ‘Oldguy: Superhero vs The Riddler’ recounts yet another of his exploits to rid the universe of evil, in this case a villain who beleaguers victims with annoying riddles as preface to his outrages. Think again, Riddler.” (web)

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July 7, 2017

“Whiteout” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

WHITEOUT

In 1845, Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin and a crew of 124 embarked on a fatal voyage to find the Northwest Passage. On word of their failure and death, England still hailed Franklin as a hero of the Empire.

For fear of succumbing to the ways
of savages, the officers eschewed

blubber for tinned meats that leaked
lead from the seams, refused parkas,

choosing flannel coats that got soaked,
then froze. They turned their backs

on dogsleds and igloos, which also stank
of “going native”—something their store

of Bibles, novels, carpet slippers,
silverware, and button polishers

assuredly did not. Finally, in place
of blubber, protection from the scurvy

that wracked their bones, the still-living—
snow-blind and starving, their ship

bound fast in Arctic ice—gallantly
ate the dead till the last survivor froze.

—from Rattle #55, Spring 2017

__________

William Trowbridge: “I was an athlete in high school, planning to go into pre-med in college. The poetry I was forced to read in English class—William Cullen Bryant’s ‘To a Waterfoul’ for example—convinced me that I never wanted to read another poem, much less write one. I was going to be Dr. Kildare, not Percy Dovetonsils. Then, in the last semester of my senior year, I was assigned to read, of all things, the first book of Paradise Lost. I don’t think I understood more than three-quarters of what I read, but the power of the language, even of the parts I didn’t understand, grabbed on and held. I never realized sound and rhythm could work such a spell. I’m glad the lesson stuck.” (website)

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July 6, 2016

“Oldguy: Superhero—A Steady Hand” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

OLDGUY: SUPERHERO—A STEADY HAND

When Oldguy spots an old lady waiting
for the light to change, he steps up
and gently takes her arm. On green, he

helps her off the curb and into the street,
remembering his Boy Scout days, when
he earned all the merit badges in a day

and invented some new ones: Missile
Interception, Boulder Shattering, Volcano
Stoppering, Elephant Bench Pressing.

All the Girl Scouts wanted to camp out
with him, stitch up a lanyard or two,
explore the more advanced knots, but

the red phone clamored all the time:
off he’d go to thwart the latest megalomaniac
or suck the air from another hurricane.

He needed a silo to hold his medals. Now,
after he gets the old lady across, she pats
his hand and asks, “Do you need more help?”

—from Rattle #51, Spring 2016

__________

William Trowbridge: “I’ve come to see a serious void in the universe of superheroes—whether they’re male or female, foreign or domestic, human or not, they’re all young. Depressingly, inexcusably young. So I’ve created Oldguy to fill this void. When he was Youngguy, he won, among a host of other awards, the Boy Scout merit badge for Elephant Bench Pressing, created in his honor. But with age, he’s lost his super powers and become just old. Nevertheless, he carries on, now fighting evil mainly by means of semi-passive-to-passive resistance, a harmless though peculiar appearance, impaired cognition, and longevity. In the last of these, he’s like my Great-Uncle Al, who said, when asked how he managed to be on earth 93 years and have no enemies, ‘I outlived the sons-a-bitches.’” (website)

 

William Trowbridge is the guest on Rattlecast #39! Click here to watch …

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July 4, 2016

“Oldguy: Superhero—Associate” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

OLDGUY: SUPERHERO—ASSOCIATE

Oldguy gets a job as a greeter at Walmart,
where he wears a blue vest with “How May
I Help You” on the back and a smiley-face
button on the front. If things go well, he can
add a gold-star pin with “Management

Appreciates ME!” across it, or a comet
pin with “Awesome Job!” on its tail. But
most customers don’t want to be greeted;
some balk at having even strangers see them
shopping there. One woman smacks him

with her purse. So he tones it down to
a nod and a wink, but a burly guy thinks
he’s touting blow jobs and shoves him
into a DVD display. Oldguy, to keep
his identity secret, opts not to strip

to his superhero garb. He finds greeting
to be harder than it was to stop Rodan
from flash-frying Dubuque. When he tries
just to look good-natured, management
decides he’s become a liability, another

worthless senior trying to take advantage
of an American job provider. To get him
out, guards take each arm and, grinning,
tell him he’s going to meet Mr. Walmart.
It’s turned cold, and the raindrops sting.

—from Rattle #51, Spring 2016

[download audio]

__________

William Trowbridge: “I’ve come to see a serious void in the universe of superheroes—whether they’re male or female, foreign or domestic, human or not, they’re all young. Depressingly, inexcusably young. So I’ve created Oldguy to fill this void. When he was Youngguy, he won, among a host of other awards, the Boy Scout merit badge for Elephant Bench Pressing, created in his honor. But with age, he’s lost his super powers and become just old. Nevertheless, he carries on, now fighting evil mainly by means of semi-passive-to-passive resistance, a harmless though peculiar appearance, impaired cognition, and longevity. In the last of these, he’s like my Great-Uncle Al, who said, when asked how he managed to be on earth 93 years and have no enemies, ‘I outlived the sons-a-bitches.’” (website)

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September 30, 2015

“Keychain Peep Show” by William TrowbridgePosted by

William Trowbridge

KEYCHAIN PEEP SHOW

I found it in my parents’ room.
center-bottom dresser drawer,
beneath the socks: a little plastic scope
with a naked woman posed inside,

breasts uplifted, red hair flowing down,
a globe balanced on one shoulder,
like Atlas in my Classics comic book
and seeming from that nether world.

I peeped and peeped again, felt brash
as Peeping Tom, who eyed Godiva’s
plenty as she rode through Coventry,
past discreetly shuttered windows;

randy as the lecher leering
at his master’s wife undressing
in the nickel peep show classic
What the Butler Saw; licentious

as those elders ogling Susanna
at her bath among the honeysuckle.
But I felt more like Howard Carter
at his first peep through the door

to Tutankhamun’s shadowed chambers
when asked if there was anything
inside to see. “Yes,” he said.
“Wonderful things.”

—from Rattle #48, Summer 2015

__________

William Trowbridge: “One day while studying for my PhD comps, I came across a group of Howard Nemerov poems in the old Brinnin and Read anthology. I was bitten, seriously bitten, couldn’t stop going back to them—their music, their intelligence, their electrical charge. And then I wrote a poem. That afternoon, I was, to use a John Crowe Ransom word, ‘transmogrified’ from a budding scholar into a seedling poet. But I had neither the time nor the money to go through an MFA program. So, after graduation and in my ‘spare time’ from teaching, I continued my poetry-writing education in the college of monkey-see-monkey-do, happily learning from the poems of great, hand-picked tutors. I still attend.” (website)

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