To thine own self be true

(Tulips at the main waterfall in the sunken garden at Butchart Gardens, B.C.)

The Definitive Collection! First of two volumes. This one a limited edition of my best poems up to 1990 AD. On sale March 2019.

(rare pic of The Bird Man of Mill Woods on a warmer winter day doing the daily feeding)

with a wicked winter wind blowing from the frozen north. A good day to feed them. Makes me think of those birds down on their luck, starving and freezing, seeking out a bush or remote corner to die in. Interesting, given their numbers, that we don’t find more bodies in the spring. Cats and other predators figure in, I suppose.

(each parent–each easily contributing half to your views, attitudes, values, beliefs, character, and sensibility)

(friends who changed your life and opened doors for you; I would never have developed as a teacher, poet, author, and presenter without my first co-author)

1. the loss of the live in-person presence of that person and all its many positive a/effects on you
2. the loss of that unique sensibility and unique way and style of communication
3. the loss of a shared, mutual microcosm which ends or diminishes a large chunk of the survivor’s life. We are talking end of, or the irreplaceable diminishment and shrinkage of shared perspectives and kindred-spirit common ground. In short, a major diminishment in one’s own life (as in Donne’s “No man is an island”).

as I hear about the tragedies, miscarriage of justice, and insane acts of human beings in the news, the cases of people ‘doing it to others’ and ‘doing it to themselves’ with poor choices and the negative effects of others and contexts, it becomes more obvious that one should mind one’s own business and lay low, keeping whatever common sense, normalcy, sanity, and stability in one’s life that one can eke out in a world gone crazy. It is best to stay focused and not get distracted by the chaos and madness out there. One has to take care of oneself and watch out for those closest to one. That will do/suffice as a daily course of action.

As I said in an earlier entry, one learns a lot by observation and experience, enough to make up one’s own mind as to how one chooses to live and the kind of life and values that one aspires to. “To thine own self be true” continues to work very well, by and large. There is no point in being anyone else, of course. One’s life is one’s own life. So that requires a fair bit of independence, inner strength, immunity, ignoring, perspective, and adaptation in many ways. And, most of all, one may have to leave the herd or formation and step to the rhythm of that different Thoreau-ian drummer. Of late, my recommendation to others has become: Paint your own life, write your own story, create and follow your own bliss.

(above: a poet in the Impressionist exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery last September)

http://strathconadental.ca/videos/

Check: Strathcona Dental Clinic Patient Testimonial! (guy in dark purple shirt)

One-take camera-shoot spontaneously ad-libbed for his dentist-friend immediately after a scaling appointment!

To see a World in a grain of sand, /And a Heaven in a wild flower, /Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, /And Eternity in an hour.

He who bends to himself a Joy/Doth the winged life destroy; /But he who kisses the Joy as it flies /Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

I must Create a System, or be enslaved by another Man’s; /I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create.

Love seeketh not itself to please, /Nor for itself have any care, /But for another gives its ease, /And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

Without contraries is no progression.

Energy is eternal delight!

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

Man’s Desires are limited by his Perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceived.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the Night.

I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.

Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradictions.

Exuberance is energy.

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

The imagination is not a state; it is the human existence itself.

Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.

How can a bird that is born for joy/Sit in a cage and sing?

I will not reason and compare, my business is to create.

The eye altering, alters all.

We become what we behold.

A robin redbreast in a cage/Puts all of heaven in a rage.

The nakedness of woman is a work of God.

Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens.

I know that this world is a world of Imagination and Vision.

A unique, original poet-artist for sure. Kultur has done many strong videos on famous artists and this one does a nice job outlining and explaining Blake’s life and achievements.

He started having visions when he was young, which continued into adulthood and inspired his best work. He was truly one-of-a-kind combining engraving, watercolors, and poetry in his own self-published illuminated works. Despite having only one modest, loyal patron, Blake cobbled a career, with the help of his devoted wife, during the late 1700s-early 1800s. He is, unquestionably, the first significant artist of English Romanticism.

The video shows many of his works from beginning to end with comments and opinions by English art critic-Blake fans. They all comment on his apprenticeship, his departure from classicism, his Gothic influences, his unique swirly style (shades of van Gogh and Emily Carr), and his own strange personal (religious) mythos. They emphasize his imaginary powers, his unconventionality, and integrity in not compromising or selling out.

Simply put, there has never been anyone who created poetry and art like William Blake. He is a true Master as this 50 minute documentary argues successfully.

Other artists in the English Masters series include: Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and Constable. Highly recommended and not a waste of time like all the unfunny, rude, crude, asinine current tv sitcoms.

(my signed Lightfoot photo from his mid-’60s beginnings)

Hands-down, his best is “If You Could Read My Mind” with its many conflicts between reality/truth and romance/illusion. It was his first top ten hit and I liked its lyrics enough to use in one of my first high-school student anthologies. “But for now, love, let’s be real.” An amazing narrative with some of his best imagery and most fearless self-assessment. Maybe the most honest love song ever written.

His earliest memorable love-song with equally strong imagery, this time of a man alone in his winter room, writing to his love is “Song for a Winter’s Night”. Classic, classic. The feeling of deep winter, solitude, and loneliness, complete with sleigh bells sound effects. This may be the best winter love song of all time. “The lamp is burning low upon my tabletop/My glass is almost empty–“

His most ‘naked’, ‘open’ love song, though, is “Shadows”, from later in his career, about a man looking back on a former love.

Won’t you reach out, love, and touch me?
Let me hold you for awhile
I been all around the world
Oh, how I long to see you smile

There’s a shadow on the moon
And the waters here below
Do not shine the way they should
And I love you just in case you didn’t know
Let it go…

Let it happen like it happened once before
It’s a wicked wind and it chills me to the bone
And if you do not believe me
Come and gaze upon the shadow at your door

Won’t you lie down by me, baby?
Run your fingers through my hands
I been all around the town
And still I do not understand

Is it me or is it you?
Or the shadow of a dream?
Is it wrong to be in love?
Could it be the finest love I’ve ever seen?
Set it free…

Let it happen like it happened once before
It’s a wicked wind and it chills me to the bone
And if you do not believe me
Come and gaze upon the shadow at your door

A very powerful disclosure of personal desire and candid longing as no other songwriter has ever equalled. There is something extremely poignant about many of the phases and lines Lightfoot uses:

“Won’t you reach out, love, and touch me?”
“And I love you just in case you didn’t know”
“It’s a wicked wind and it chills me to the bone”
“Is it wrong to be in love”
“Come and gaze upon the shadow at your door”

I used to love the first song; it is still very memorable and powerful. The second remains an old favorite from a time in the ’60s when I myself was still a folksinger playing stages and coffeehouses back in Winnipeg. But the third will always remain the last word on love as far as I’m concerned, and I suspect, Lightfoot, too.

“A little calcium chloride on your roads, sidewalks, vehicles, kids, pedestrians, and dogs?”

I predicted this would all be found out/prove to be dangerous when it started willy-nilly with no public consultation.. Seems they themselves lacked vital info upfront before they laid this on all of us. Typical, disastrous council bonehead choice and decision to save a few bucks and lose millions as a consequence.