“Garden Party” Take on Ricky Nelson’s 1972 Hit Song

Went to a poet party to reminisce with my old friends,
A chance to share old memories and say our poems again.
When I got to the poet party, they all knew my name.
No one recognized me. I didn’t look the same.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

Poets came from miles around, everyone was there.
Willy brought his sonnets, there was magic in the air.
And over in the corner, much to my surprise
Langston Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes, wearing his disguise.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

They knew how to write back then, with type, pencil and pen,
No Apple pad or Zoom they had on which to send.
No screen saver or backup savior or the Internet
No searching for electric bars, just gasoline cars and a cigarette.

Said them all the old poems, thought that’s why they came,
No one heard the lyrics, we didn’t look the same.
I said hello, Emily, she belongs to me
When I saw her patient spider, it was really time to leave.

I did not want to slight her, in that certain slant of light.
And then there interposed a fly, a heavy buzz in flight.
I picked up a newspaper and folded it into a shaft
I mashed that fly on Emily’s nose, that was the end of that.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

Rushing through a door from Baltimore in came Edgar Allen.
A purloined letter was in his hand, his eyes looked all abandoned.
Like a crazed mailman, not Neuman or Cliff Craven,
He looked about and left his route, followed by a raven.

That master of horror, that Baltimore-er, left like an undertaker.
Dressed in black, we knew just that, he’d seen too much of his maker.
It must be here stated. he should have been sedated, or more,
Not incastled in the dark somewhere between Elsinore and Modor.

Then I observed Mr. Robert Frost, hurried and looking lost.
I sensed his emergency, he had to go at any cost.
And when he asked whose woods they were, I really did not know,
I simply pointed to a tree, behind which he did flow.

But he’s all right now. He learned his lesson well.
You see, If you gotta go at a poet party, you got to tree yourself.

Wallace Stevens came in three-piece suit. He’s an insurance man.
He pleasured words like exotic fruit, the emperor of Isfahan.
He ate persimmons on his Simmons in the seraglio
Of cockatoons and macaroons, he didn’t diet paleo.

You’d need a mind of winter, to know why he’s not thinner,
And why you see a jar in Tennessee before he came to dinner.
He tested our endurance. Did his jar hold insurance?
Did it pallavier by the clavier, played by Peter Quince?

Stevens wrote of seeing blackbirds from thirteen different ways,
But when I looked for them, they had all flown away.
Maybe some went south to stay, maybe some were hit by a car.
Maybe they all flew back again into that Tennessee jar.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

And there’s Edward Estlin, ee’s writing like a clown,
Like Denis the Menace playin’ tennis, with the net all down.
He did not care about ego, nor to copy any Id,
His poems look sloppy, but they didn’t as they did.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.

And there next to Lowell, good old Ezra stood.
Ranting with his cantos, none could be understood
He kept poundin’ on those old keys, and scratching his jail fleas,
Praising that hood Benito and fascism on his knees.

But it’s all right now. We know Pound was a fascist as well.
You see, he can’t please everyone, so he’s got to please himself.

Sylvia Plath walked down the path. She came from afar.
Carrying poems and combs, all in her precious bell jar.
She says what will kill her is what she does most desire,
She strolls to the table, to stick pins in all the caviar.

Sylvia wore daddy’s jackboots, polished to a shine,
Few saw her coming, and no one saw her in time.
Her pale dress raised my distress, she looked like Lazarus unwell,
I almost lost my mind by walking blind into her deep well.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, you got to please yourself.

In came friend William Carlo. He pushed his old red wheelbarrow.
The images he owned, he really honed, right down to the bone marrow.
As a good doctor who mends, he covered his newborns’ ends
Of which he knew, keep it new, on so much Depends.

But it’s all right now. I wear Depends as well,
You see you can’t please everyone, you got to tinkle yourself.

Wendell Berry brought strawberries, and his old plow horse,
Seamus Heaney plowed with his pen, smelling a little bit gorse.
Poets came from north and south. I tried to crack them wise.
But understand, awards in hand, some were Nobel guys.

Gwendolyn Brooks came in swayin,’ and sayin’ We Real Cool.
Poets were jumping naked in, to play in that poetry pool.
Gwen’s gin shots went down straight. They didn’t lurk around late.
Then she dove right into that pool, but forgot to compensate.

Ted Roethke was sort of a strange feller. He Raced up from the root cellar.
This bipolar bear rushed from his lair, he had something to tell her.
But she didn’t want to papa waltz, or the veggies he brought.
She danced jazz, not what he has, didn’t give him a thought.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, you got to please yourself.

Bill Stafford came in from Wilson River Road, I offered him a beer,
He had rolled his car over river’s edge, and decided to keep the deer.
He had been traveling through the dark, when the accident occurred.
That deer had wrecked his car, and now it is interred.

But he’s all right now. He learned his lesson well.
You see, your car needs a cattle guard if you got to drive pell mell.

Richard Hugo had just pulled a body from Kicking Horse all wet.
He’ll have much to say about shades of grey in Phillipsburg you can bet.
Tess Gallagher came with him. She’s from the Puget Sound.
She carried in a salmon that Raymond Carver found.

John Williams came embracing Yvor Winters and J.V. Cunningham,
They all thought modern poetry wasn’t worth a damn.
Right behind came Miller Williams with an Arkansas ham.
He takes them from feral hogs and cadaver dogs whenever he can.

T.S. approached the crab buffet, always late in tie,
The rest already had eaten, no hollow men he’d spy.
They all let out their waistbands, after stuffing full their craws,
They left poor T.S. a wasteland, only some ragged claws.

But it’s all right now. Eliot learned his lesson well.
You see, if you’re first in line, you’re fine, or you gotta feed yourself.

Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti were very bolden, had stolen all the spaghetti,
Both were tight from City Light, their dinner knife always ready.
These dead beat ghosts fingered our host and howled like a beagle,
They smoked their fags, waved their flags, and stuck it to the Eagle.

Lawrence talked of Coney Isle, where you could get a good dog.
But Golden Gate is much his style, of bricks and Haight and fog.
They railed against big money, and that Tyrannosaurus Nix.
Milhous wasn’t very adorous, nor their other political pricks.

Some worried about the poet party. It became too hot and hip.
Wanting iceberg not the steamy ship, in they let Bishop slip.
Liz stayed observational, of armadillos and fish and all,
Please, nothing political, and certainly not confession–al.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, you got to please yourself.

Robert Service walked up in mukluks. Like Dangerous Dan McGrew.
He plucked his time with simple rhyme, and didn’t care who knew.
He mentioned someone’s cremation, up in the nation of Midnight Sun.
Then he said it was no big deal. Art’s imitation, it’s just a bit of fun.

I remembered Rod McKuen. He was listening to the warm.
He catered to the maudlin, there wasn’t a cliché he’d scorn.
He brought us some calendars, with cuddly dogs and cats and things,
He read his 60s verse that was on them. He had pocketed lots of bling.

Next came Richard Brautigan, trout fishing as an American can.
Throwing his stones on the Yellowstone, he wore a red bandana band.
Although he had just fallen off, that acid turnip truck,
His brain in mambo recited “Driving Rommel through Old Egupt.”

Dr. Seuss appeared with his moose. He wished he ran this zoo.
If he could corner all these poets, he’d just know it’s what to do.
He’d lock up all their pens, so they had to start over again.
Then he’d stick ‘em in the Geisel, if they wouldn’t rhyme amen.

I swear I’d seen Shel Silverstein. He was right where the sidewalk ends.
He tripped quite appalling, but instead of falling he ascends.
He floated up so high there, he was about to throw up,
But he threw down on me, even magic has bad luck.

Don Blanding flew in from Hawaii, He wore no coat or sweater,
He brought his aloha shirts, and said paradise is mo’betta.
He wrote of swaying hula and did no paying on Hulu,
The shirts he wore said aloha, certainly not boogaloo.

The cowboy poets rode in, as if this were their corral.
The fishing poets right behind, riding on a big swell.
The cowboys were thirsty, they cleaned out the bar,
Fishers took theirs with them. They left to cross the bar.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lessons well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

At the end of the poets’ party, I was left with all the trash
It hung in Whitman’s lilacs. It was strewn in leaves of grass.
I saw the burned out ends in the dying of the light.
The smoky day went away into that good night.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

So if you go to a poets’ party, better take a friend,
For I won’t be going, don’t want to do that again.
Don’t want my cat to wear a hat or show up in a sestina,
No, no, enough of that. You’ll find me in the cantina.

But I’m all right now. I learned my lesson well.
I see, I can’t please everyone, so I got to please myself.