Here is the eighth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
viii. Middle Age
I heard a creak, and a groan And felt a twinge of wooden pain A man running in a crowd Deep in its shadow he moved. ‘Ugly work!’ thought I, Gasping for breath. ‘Time must be cruel and proud, ‘Tearing down this body.’
With gutsy glimmering shone My dignity as the wind grew colder. This aging man jogs over the hill, Bent to make the grade ‘There is no gain without’… Sluggishly passing the trees. Aches in the joints were shrill, As steps hit hard asphalt.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the eighth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. Middle Ages is based on Sassoon’s Middle Age, with Zumwalt embracing Sassoon’s approach to meter and narrative pacing but altering the content and the violent imagery to the physical deterioration of aging and the struggles of jogging.
Here is the seventh of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
vii. The Manager
‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the well-rested Manager said When we worked through the night To finish on time the urgent task he failed To review and release until late afternoon.
And we mock his insincerity as a matter of routine: ‘I work for you’, ‘What can I do To help you finish sooner?’ As our stomachs growl from coffee machine brew, But nonetheless, still polite to his face Since his judgment alone rates our performance.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the seventh piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. The Manager is based on Sassoon’s The General. It replaces the incompetent World War I commander (“‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said / When we met him last week on our way to the line”) with a modern office superior, shifting the soldiers cursing “incompetent swine” to workers mocking the manager’s insincerity.
Here is the sixth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
vi. The imperfect cook
I never ordered something to be perfect, Though often I’ve asked for Fiery spicy or without sugar As a small invasion of mastering cooking.
I never asked that your dishes Might stand, unburnt, moist and savory Pointing the way toward Gastronomical peaks like a sign-post.
Oh yes, I know the way to the heart is easy. We found the little menu of our passion That all can share who walk the road of gourmands. In wild and succulent feasting we stumbled: Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, spicy senses.
But I’ve grown sated now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At creating new dishes. You’ve learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my stomach And the sometime indigestion that haunts me later.
You made me fat; and I can still return For seconds, the haven of my lonely pride: But I am sworn to partake of variety That blossoms from invention and exploration: And there shall be no follow-up in a failure; Since, if we ate like beasts, the plates are clean And I’ll not share with pets under the table.
You dream endless assemblies of culinary masterpieces Yet, in my heart, I dread average results But, should you grow to hate my critiques, I would ask No mercy from your glare. I’d have you turn from the stove And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and suggest take-out.
Then I should know, at least, that taste prevailed Though flavor had died of wounds. And you could leave me Unfamished in an atmosphere of ongoing appetite.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the sixth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. The Imperfect Cook is based on Sassoon’s The Imperfect Lover. Sassoon’s meditation on romantic compromise (“I never asked you to be perfect…”) is brutally transposed into a culinary critique (“I never ordered something to be perfect…”), concluding with a request for take-out rather than the original’s plea for the lover to laugh and leave.
Here is the fifth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
v. Auto Tunes
I keep such music in my car No din this side of death can quell; Deep bass booming over tar, And excess forged in death-metal hell.
My dreaming demons will not hear The roar of guns that would destroy; My ears embrace the blasts of fear, Piercing passages of painful joy.
To the world’s end I drove, and found Death in his carnival of high beam flash; But in this torrent I was drowned, And music screeched above the fiendishly beatific headlight-lit fiber-glass, glittering, splintering, metalliferous crash.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the fifth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. Auto Tunes is based on Sassoon’s Secret Music. This tribute traces the exact architecture of Sassoon’s poem, turning his internal refuge from the war (“I keep such music in my brain / No din this side of death can quell”) into a heavy-metal vehicle collision
Here is the fourth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of 10 poems in his Sassoon Collection.
iv. Butter and eggs
Robust diners, deftly forking in the fat. O greasy fauna against the heedless tongue Of buffet and banquet days, what sends them gliding through This set of dancing teeth?
Theirs are the hungry cadences between The enraptured chewing of hefty humans that make Heaven in the booth while second helpings simmer; And theirs the faintest whispers that hush the desire.
And they are the airship that floats away Out of the starlit dimness above the moon And they are the most inflexible beings—born To know but this, the phantom glare of fullness.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the fourth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. “Butter and eggs” is loosely based on Sassoon’s “Butterflies.” Zumwalt mirrors the original structure, but alters the tone and content considerably.
Here is the third of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of 10 poems in his Sassoon Collection.
iii. Blonde
Her head-weak thoughts that once eagerly gave way To looks that leapt from eye to brain and into heart, Weaving unconscious promises of love, Are now thrust outward, dangerously heard from lips to air. And he who has watched one world and loved it all, Star-struck with blindness, an ensnared fiber of pity, With feeble hopes of attracting a returning glance, Now listens with his ear to the rambling noise.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the third piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. “Blonde” is loosely based on Sassoon’s “Blind.” It directly tracks Sassoon’s opening (“His headstrong thoughts that once in eager strife / Leapt sure from eye to brain and back to eye”) and his shift in perspective (“And he who has watched his world and loved it all”).
Here is the second of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of 10 poems in his Sassoon Collection.
ii. A pickle and a black hole
Mass and form had the pickle, sweet, sour, tall and straight; The round black hole collapsing still further than it knew Made its longest shadow with gravity A ghostly bridge ’twixt the pickle and space. But stars, with their continuous day, must pass; And blustering winds will stretch all gherkins for which I’ve no measurements to express the moment of conjunction, a singularity with no exit for stars and pickled cucumbers alike.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the second piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. “A pickle and a black hole” is loosely based on Sassoon’s A Poplar and the Moon.”
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Zumwalt has provided revisions to his set of 10 poems in the Sassoon Collection. Here is the first:
i. Everyone sang while I fell asleep
voices wailing around the house thud of feet and slam of doors everyone yowling only the clocks wind down
around this small room no sense of the hour crowded with lemonade breath high-pitched voices like hounds in pain as clouds hover over my eyes
fighting sleep with the fork from my dessert plate not yet ready to go where the dreams are built where you take reality with you so as not to be alone dragging it by its rough cotton shirt collar
the blurry faces become blurry voices despite discordance from straying notes the lights descend and siphon colors whirling into a vortex that spins off dimensions like a playlist streaming fragments from the past
drifting towards sleep the hounds now whining like imprisoned puppies the darkness becoming home without furnishings everything fading into peace except for one small lingering concern for everything unfinished
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the first piece of Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised by the author. This poem opens the set by providing a misleading head fake to Sassoon’s Everyone Sang, when in reality the poem is primarily based on Sassoon’s Falling Asleep. Where in the original, Sassoon sustains a hushed, introspective mood using domestic quiet and natural sounds to mirror the speaker’s mental transition from wakefulness to sleep, Zumwalt leans into domestic turmoil and modern-day stress, even throwing in an Emily Dickensen reference for good measure.
