To thine own self be true

Chuck Yeager, 97, who had “The Right Stuff”.
Legendary American test pilot who broke the sound barrier.

Beautifully played by Sam Shepard in the movie of the same name, based on Tom Wolfe’s book.

Beethoven: “I shall hear in heaven.”

Elizabeth Barret Browning: (asked how she was feeling) “Beautiful.”

‘Stonewall’ Jackson: “Let us cross over the river and sit in the shade of the trees.”

Louis Agassiz: “The play is finished.”

Bing Crosby: “That was a great game of golf, fellers.”

Noel Coward: “Goodnight my darlings. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.: “I’ve never felt better.”

Allen Ginsberg: “I am quite happy. Unaccountably happy.”

Rudolph Valentino: “Don’t pull down the blinds. I feel fine. I want the sunlight to greet me.”

John Stuart Mill: “My work is done.”

Picasso: “Drink to me.”

Raphael: “Happy.”

Humphrey Bogart: “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”

Cary Grant: “He was lucky and he knew it.”

Emily Dickinson: “I must go…the fog is rising. Oh, is that all it is?”

Katherine Mansfield: I believe…I’m going to die. I love the rain. I want the feeling of it.”

John Burroughs: “How far are we from home?”

Thomas Hobbes: “I am about to take my last voyage. A giant leap in the dark.”

O. Henry: “Turn up the lights. I don’t want to go home in the dark.”

Brigham Young: “Amen.”

Jesus: “It is finished.”

John Ford: “May I please have a cigar?”

Goethe: “More light!”

Brian Jones: “Don’t judge me harshly.”

D.H. Lawrence: “I think it is time for morphine.”

Richard III: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”(Shakespeare’s version) “I will die a king of England. I will not budge afoot. Treason! Treason!” (what the real Richard said) “Print the legend”?

‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson: “Lord have mercy.”

Dorothy Parker: “Forgive my dust.”

Edgar Allan Poe: “Lord help my poor soul.”

Leonardo da Vinci: I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”

Alexander Graham Bell: “So little done, so much to do.”

Hart Crane: “Goodbye, everybody!”

George Sanders: Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I am leaving you with your worries. Good luck.”

(as grandson napped)

He lay back, hands
behind his head,
certain of so much
in this unguarded moment.
He and the dog,
similarly assured and
comfortable with
their lots in life.

A winter afternoon
thru sheer curtains–
an illuminated poet
with pet, his socks
white as the truth
of the dog’s fur.
The lamp behind his head
was not needed with
this much light, this much
momentousness of being.

Elsewhere on his red shirt,
Cookie gobbled
chocolate chips
and spoke of a world
of action and desire–
the maddening nature
of consumption,
satiety and chaos,
and what it was like
to be ‘let loose’ and be
free, uncontrolled.

In the end, there were
just moments and choices–
some simpler than others–
of peace and contentment
with one’s own-life and
the slow afternoon
drift of all things.

…………………………

“The poet does not think of himself as making his poems. He thinks of himself as a place where poems happen.”–Northrop Frye, “Reconsidering Levels of Meaning”

You make it up
It starts like this:
an empty room
and paper to write on

Quill in hand
the peacock’s feather
an eye upon the world

You are the optical
On your bones
are fleshed the words
of your very seeing

Vision, your deliverance
crafts the songs
you sing to life

You make it thus:
the winds on reasoned sands
gulls wheeling above

the waters of mind:
mermaids, coves
and drowning men

It starts with the ebb
of experience
that change in season

Works of hope
galleon landfalls
of imagination

It starts with you
and the tides
of desire

It starts with you
on quiet shorelines
alone and looking out to sea
alone and looking inward

There’s a lot
to be said
for clarity

especially at
2. 3 &
4 a.m.

In order to in-
crease perspective
u need

many people asleep
Mental dis-
engagement

& openness to
suggestion
don’t hurt either

So what can
u see or
figure out?

The future
past & present
for starters

Overall
u must be
ready to learn

to love silence
& whatever u ken
invent in the air

not blowing your
infrequent chance
to be

immaculate
on paper
& so u wait

wait for the
first words
to come on paper

each one of
them
pure
simple & true

……………………

Written around 4 a.m., back in the early ’80s, when I was very ill with asthma (which I later ’outgrew’) . The poem wrote itself, as the best work usually does.

in not wearing a mask to protect others during the pandemic. Anyone who thinks they’re uninfected and doesn’t know about how asymptomatics can infect others is really ignorant.

Basketball
Caesar (drink)
Canadarm
Canola
Easy Off
Egg Carton
Gas Mask
IMAX
Insulin
Jolly Jumper
Pablum
Pacemaker
Pager
Paint Roller
Plexiglass
Poutine
Snowmobile
Sonar
Standard Time
Walkie Talkie

On his dime:
The Naked Edge (1961)
The Bridal Path (1959)
Laurel & Hardy: The Laughing Twenties
The Americano (1955)
Bedtime Story (1964)

On my dime:
Blazing Saddles (1974)
The Verdict (1982)
Deliverance (1972)
Jaws (1975)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Forrest Gump (1994)