LatinosUSA

The “Odes” in this newsletter title refer to poetic odes to loved ones and places, and except for the last one, they’re in poetic RHYME. Now, does poetry mean rhyme?  I have been to enough readings in and around Columbia, Missouri, to realize that most poets do NOT speak in rhyme. So, what is going on here? Am I an old-timer at a break dance party looking for a partner to join me in a waltz or a Charleston? After all, the extent of my English literature training was two semesters of freshman English (Fall 1962 and Spring 1963). 

The May 31–June 6, 2025 issue of The Economist had a marvelous, typically wry and witty commentary on the drought of rhyme in verse:

“FEELING AVERSE, Rhyme, once in its prime, is in decline” 

Indeed, they have identified data trends dating back to 1905, showing that the frequency of rhyming verse has decreased to ~2%. If limericks are discounted, then virtually no poetry is rhymed. 

As if to convince myself that I belong in poetry readings and slams, I subscribe to “Poem A Day” (Poem-a-Day | Poets.org poem-a-day@poets.org). A recent entry was a beautiful rhyme, to me a golden nugget, Art, by Herman Melville (Caxton Press, 1891):

In placid hours well-pleased we dream (8)
Of many a brave unbodied scheme. (9)
But form to lend, pulsed life create, (8)
What unlike things must meet and mate: (8)
A flame to melt—a wind to freeze; (7)
Sad patience—joyous energies; (8)
Humility—yet pride and scorn; (7)
Instinct and study; love and hate; (8)
Audacity—reverence. These must mate, (9)
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart, (8)
To wrestle with the angel—Art. (7)

I love this poem for its brevity and for its mating seemingly opposing forces, such as love and hate, or pride and scorn. It’s like a football coach inspiring us with glorious victory by paying the price of hot and dirty tackling drills. AND, the poem rhymes, and the rhyme stays with us. I counted the syllables, three lines of 7, six of 8, two of 9, and they all maintain cadence—a beautiful combination of math, music, and meaning. (Yes, a mental minestrone.)

Now, think of The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock, which is TS Eliot’s paean to haunting old age. Just a sampler…

And indeed, there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Doesn’t the rhyme write the message on the dingy subway walls of brain and soul?

And then, of course, a piece of the haunting verse from Edgar Allen Poe, and that jet black feathered foal, that Raven, haunting his soul:

    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

So, my excuse for not breaking out of a disciplined, robotic, rhyming rant:  I have been writing science too long.

The odes in this article are to vibrant and dynamic people, places and, yes, a dragonfly (in which I break the rhyme shackles). The first is to a lady, the Spanish lady I experienced during my research stint in the lab of Professor Tomás Ruiz-Argüeso of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. While I worked hard at the bench, I took advantage of weekends and holidays to explore Spain. For my going-away party, I recited a poem of farewell to Doña España. I wrote it in Spanish, and it is scary to see it in the cold light of day, now 24 years later.

In Columbia, Missouri, back from Spain (2001), I translated the farewell into English.  Both versions follow. The English version was recently revised several times—no way to treat a lady. 

Dame Lady Spain

Española, Dame of mysterious identity
Lighten your shawl’s dark opacity
As I linger, helpless drone at your feet 
Shine on me a honeyed aura so sweet

Let me stroll your heaven-spiced soil 
Of saffron and garlic, anointed with oil
Your signals mixed—dark dazzling flower 
Aroma mysterious of penetrating power 

Immersing me in crypts of light and dark
Ancient chambers of colors both soft and stark
Of thee I savor only a lace most ethereal 
But a thread of your shawl’s magic material

That ancient shawl, made of stone and steel
Now grazes my soul with a silky lace feel 
Through history ferocious did you endure
Distilled to the present, sweet, yet not pure

Your ancient voices so varied and mixed
Now serenade me to stand transfixed
In your chorus of fused blood, I willingly burn
Your hot Siren's breath demands my return 

I accept that you will always hold sway
I will heed your call, I’ll not stay away
For a thousand guilds did truly bond
Your days immemorial into one song—

its sweet cacophony, like your gnarled web,
has me your prey, with joy more than dread
Doña España, my thanks do overwhelm
For being received within your vast realm

Sincerely I applaud your sweet reception
Qualified am I to make these reflections?
That I try to express with inadequate verse,
But a blink of a shooting star in your universe
© Joe Polacco

Now the poem in Spanish...

Doña España

Dime España, dime quién eres
Anda, dime de tus varios seres
Dime de tu dulzura envolvente
Que me deja en desamparo doliente. 

Al umbral del cielo provees un atajo
Bordeado de perejil, oliva y ajo,
Eres flor obscuramente deslumbrante
De aroma misterioso, picante y penetrante.

Entré en tu laberinto de luminosos colores
Por antiguos vericuetos de dolorosos amores
De ti he saboreado solo un hilo etéreo,
¡Hace falta una vida pa' indagar tu misterio!

Tu mantilla forjada de piedra y hierro
Hoy roza mi espíritu con sedoso destello,
Porque es tu historia feroz que perdura
Un destilado fino de perenne dulzura.

Producen tus voces dulces y variadas,
Un coro sonoro de épocas pasadas,
Cálida serenata, amoroso soneto,
De la bella sirena que exige mi regreso.

Acepto que bajo tu poder continuaré
Atiendo a tu llamada— no me alejaré
De la tribulación de mil mil talleres
Se forjó la canción de tus muchos ayeres

Es la dulce cacofonía de tu telaraña
En la cual soy tu preso, Doña España.
Cautivo sí con gratitud mas que temor
Dentro de tu dominio degusto tu sabor

Tierna amada España, dulce amiga mía
Sincero agradezco tu dulce acogida
Que puedo expresar solo con simple verso
Pestañeo de una estrellita de tu universo
© Joe Polacco

An Ode to the old neighborhood (An Interesting Life––You kiddin’ me?)

Fellow Brooklyn refugee Joel Migdal uttered “you’ve lived an interesting life” as we were chiacchierando/kibbitzing in a Columbia, Missouri, public gym. I thought: Really? Or am I just gilding the lily? Yes, this ode also rhymes; tough to break old men of life-long habits.

Saith a landsman who, late in life I met, 
		that my own was interesting, and yet . . .

Midwife draws from wet bulrushes,
“Bath Beach Baby, saved!” she gushes
Delivering me beyond the strife
That I may live “an interesting life”

From the humble hood, a mazel tov
“O mio figlio,” many hats are off
Landsmen, less fortunate and older
Slap my back or poke a shoulder

With feigned humility I smile
Along the way, do I just beguile?
Have I lived up to my gift,
Or has life been an easy grift?

I was set up to make a reach
Beyond the hood’s rich pastiche
Yay, to bootstrap my brothers 
Or did I opt for my own druthers?

From Baby Basket to the Final Casket
Faced with choices along the way
Though I always chose the selfish outlet
The hood ALWAYS hit its own payday
© Joe Polacco

Post Script: Bensonhurst is separated from Gravesend Bay by a ca. three-block strip that belongs to Bath Beach. So, the bulrushes are properly in Bath Beach, whose border with Bensonhurst runs through 86^th St. My home on the South side of 86^th puts me properly in Bath Beach. But both sides of 86^th have the same 11214 zip code, so there. And, no, I ain’t no Moses.

An Ode to SPRING (now sadly gone, at least for this year, in this hemisphere). It first appeared on MasticadoresUSA (check out the lovely dragonfly photo by Stuyvesant HS classmate, Stan Mandel)

“SPRING-A dragon’s fly-by story” by Joe Polacco

A dragon’s fly-by story (no rhyme, but maybe reason here)

The wound spring of Nature
Unwinds, rewinds, death fosters
And springs forth NEW LIFE

Dragonfly emerges from a horned chitiny chrysalis—
	Yes, a naiad’s casing on a reed
It need not read the signs about—
The sun’s shadows, the buzzing neighbors
It flies its liberated journey, 300 million years-old, wantonly winged
From before dinosaurs’ appearance.

Liberated, she flies forward, backward, yes hovers—not a nestling, 
nor even a levitated toddler.
She hunts on the wing, fed by robotic jaws

Dragon Fly—why now a life so airborne?
	Why? When your youth was in the dark
	—in a swampy muck under icy film.

Even your love-making is a breezy airborne couplet
	A circle of love in flight
Spring is transient, and you must kill, and then—
Seed the swamp with grotesquely cute rascals—
	Little monsters with prehensile jaws clapping,
Chomping, winding the cycle’s next turn.
© Joe Polacco

I still believe:

that verse is far from perverse,  
and that rhyme makes it sublime

© 2025 Joe Polacco

For more odes by Joe Polacco, you can check HERE or on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback.

From Joe’s website:

From the back cover:

From Brooklyn Streets to the barrios of Cali
from momma’s pasta to a neighborhood bialy
Our lives become a meandering ramble
as we put fate and faith in each daily gamble

De las calles de Brooklyn a los barrios de Cali
desde la pasta de mamá al matutino bialy
La vida es un largo camino sinuoso
Ay! que cada día sea bien venturoso

Cover Artist: Danielle Hrdina

Odes are presented to loved ones, colleagues, students, and to cherished places.

Ahh, but there is more: Joe exercises his biological background to answer in rhyme/rima:

why we humans tend to the obese,
why some male moths fall prey to rapacious female spiders,
how a corn plant “mines” iron while killing root-eating grubs. And more still.

Joe’s collection can also be a resource for students of Spanish, if only as an example of pitfalls to avoid.

Joe also mentions Bensonhurst. You can read more about Bensonhurst and Joe in his book, Brooklyn Joe and Sal: Two Bensonhurst Boys. It’s on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback format.

Author Biography

Joe is a native of Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the University of Missouri.

Joe and colleagues authored research papers, book chapters, reviews, patents and monographs. They made contributions to understanding plant nitrogen and mineral metabolism and plant interactions with bacteria. 

Non-science books by Joe: Vina, A Brooklyn Memoir; Giovanni, Street Urchin of Naples (Historical fiction novel); A Life’s Rambles/Ramblas de una Vida (Bilingual English-Spanish rhyming verse); Brooklyn Joe and Sal—Two Bensonhurst Boys (A memoir and tribute to Salvatore La Puma)