Hardly. Poetry
is sweet perennially
and wine improves with time.
So years can be kind.
Poetry and wine,
vintage friendships too -
all that you have done,
and have yet to do...
Laden with fruit, boughs bend.
Thank you, dear old friend.
Happy Birthday to you.
Rachel Hadas
Cheers & Happy Birthday, Mike!
Friends, let’s fete an honored guest,
Michael Peich who is the best
patron of poetic arts
near and dear to all our hearts.
Founder of Aurelia Press
finest printer in the West
Chester village and environs,
hallowed virtue that outshines
any folks might care to name.
(This poem is limping, though not lame.)
Founder of the Feast we share
each new June, foul or fair,
celebrating formal verse—
(ok, it's gone from bad to worse)—
our gratitude for all you do
contained in poems we write for you
o’er brims the shallow metric cup
each time we fill the damn thing up.
We toast you, still, with shouts and cheers
and wish you seventy more years!
Angela O'Donnell
I am a Founder—
—For Mike Peich’s 70th Birthday
Ever fondly, from Kate Light
I am a Founder—and you’ll see,
Although I don’t write poetry—
My praise West Chester ever chants—
And so do the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
And so do the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
The poets and the pod’iums and the plants.
O’er a bottle of fine wine
Was born a Conference divine.
And now West Chester’s rafters dance—
As so do the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
And so do the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
The poets and the pod’iums and the plants!
'Though other callings call,
You may still find me in this hall,
Because West Chester was my first romance,
Including the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
Including the poets, and the pod’iums, and the plants!
The poets and the pod’iums
(All the poets send encomiums—)
And the plants!
Kate Light
For Mike Peich on His Birthday
The lowly fish thatswims through brackish lakes;
The weapon brandishedto a soldier’s end;
The peak arisenthrough tectonic quakes;
The toll road where,with one reluctant hand,
You pay and go yourway; cheerleaders’ jumps
Quite complicated anda bit absurd;
The submarine,submerged, that gently bumps
A rock, a wreck, acoral reef; a word
That firemen use tostop a fire from spreading
When they lift thepole it signifies;
Pi Kappa Alpha fratboys always heading
For the keg—All these,you realize,
And far more bear andshare the name of “Pike,”
Though only one’sworth celebrating: Mike.
Ned Balbo
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