Influenced by the example of Donald Hall, in 2001 I took early retirement from a college teaching endowed chair in order to write poems virtually full time, drive Hondas around America, study Zen, listen to bluegrass, and search for the nation’s best Chinese buffet.My new poetry collection, Zen Master Poems, will be published on August 23, 2016 by Wisdom, Inc. /Simon & Schuster. Should anyone be interested, it can be checked out or preordered by clicking this link : www.wisdompubs.org/book/zen-master-poems. More Zen Master poems can be found weekly at my homepage/blog: https://zenpoemszenphotosdickallen.net

Editor's Note: In his submission letter to me Dick wrote: "Sometimes I imagine I’m on a one-poet crusade to bring back heavy use of the refrain in American poetry.  But sometimes I also remember that I’ve been on a lifetime search for both the muffin man and the meaning of muffins, just as others search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and for El Dorado.  :-) "

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

                                                Do you know the Muffin Man,
                                                The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man?
                                                Do you know the Muffin Man
                                                Who lives on Drury Lane?
                                                                         -Child’s Nursery Rhyme
Yes, actually, it so happens
I do know the Muffin Man.
He’s a broad-faced, pleasant fellow
who lives on Drury Lane.

I like his oatmeal muffins,
his blueberry muffins, his bran,
the banana-nut muffins he bakes
in his shop on Drury Lane.

I like how happy he is,
how he tells jokes in the rain
when he hands us the muffins he brings
from his shop on Drury Lane.

There’s a sort of Zen to him,
like loss rerouted to gain,
a calmness, a look in the eyes
that may come from Drury Lane.

But it also may have to do
with the muffins themselves, the muffins
to end all muffins, the ones
you might find on Drury Lane.

The ultimate muffins, the muffins
to die for, the muffins of fame,
the gray goose muffins, the cusp
of the muffins of Drury Lane,

the muffins of Meaning, the muffins
none can explain,
the smell of the muffins, the taste
of the muffins from Drury Lane.
 
So “Muffins!  More muffins!” we shout
at the sight of the Muffin Man
and the cart he wheels each morning
filled with muffins from Drury Lane.

And the muffins are warm and sweet
as they crumble in our hands,
each baked by the Muffin Man
who lives on Drury Lane.

-from This Shadowy Place (St. Augustine Press)

Editor's Note:  If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF​