The Dickinsons - Emily and Big Frank

Big Frank turns back to poetry and the travesties – as he terms them – of poems. Here is a great poem by Emily Dickinson (no relation to Big Frank that he is aware of) on the nature of worry and how it pales in comparison to what actually comes.

XCVIII
By Emily Dickinson

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came of less of fear,
Because that fearing is so long
Had almost made it dear,
There is a fitting, a dismay,
A fitting, a despair,
‘T harder is knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here,
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

And now for something completely different – the travesty. Here Big Frank turns Emily Dickinson on her head. She writes a poem dispelling worry by showing how it is not warranted by its future cause. Big Frank writes of the growth of a haunting tune of worry that follows in the wake of its cause.

Echo
By Big Frank Dickinson

While I was hearing it, it went,
But went of less than gone,
And nestled in my mind a bit
Invited to stay on,
Soon a melody, a chant,
A harmony, a dirge,
Receding first then not at all,
In repetition it does surge,
The echos in the memory,
That oft repeated merge,
And terribler than hearing it
Retrieves what it does urge.