Following the outline in my previous blog post "Revised program proposal," make the critical call on the pair of poems below.  Are they not significantly different from one another? Or is one superior to the other? If so, which? And what is the criterion you used in making that call?


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You must excuse my petty view of stuff.

I know I shouldn’t spend my wit like this,

On notes about my neighbor in the buff,

Or office politics, like what to kiss, 

But I’m ‘mature’ and deep in routine life;

Adventure’s rare at best (and doesn’t last).

I’ve learnt a trick or two for dodging strife

And like the slow lane, don’t mind being passed.

The small and not-too-awesome holds my eye:

I will attend the way a sparrow eats

And count the spangled joys that flutter by.

I let more skillful tongues tell grander feats.

   The lines I write serve very modest aim:

   They fill the time until I join some game.

 

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The slope above the river has a path

Not lately marked by any human feet

A passing lane held empty for the fleet

Or those who would avoid mosquito wrath.

The broader path through shaded leafy green

Invites its victims to mosquito beaks

And other things to make you itch for weeks.

The fetid mud records where you have been.

 

The water there is nothing you would drink

To linger there is silly, don’t you think?

 

The grimly merry hikers breast the thorns

Uncaring of the risk of sudden flood

To bring to needy insects human blood.

They’re celebrating nature.  Blow some horns!