Oh No! “Poetry”

jc

In my soon to be 50 years on planet earth, I have worn many hats and been called many things.  I have fancied myself many things also, although most of them were nothing more than an over inflated ego just waiting for something sharp to come along and pop the bubble.  As a student I am always fascinated by the autodidact, the polymath, the Renaissance man/woman (see Hedy Lamarr). But I always had trouble spelling that word – men…  HA!  No – but really – I thought it was cool when I found another word that was easier to spell than renaissance that meant the same thing.  But I had to quit using it cause not too many people knew what a polymath was, and most people thought I was talking about geometry.  Anyhow, for most of my life, I have been real good at inventing ways to fail – I am pretty good at it.  I dont know why?  I have a lot of interests, and I am ok at a lot of things.  I just aint great at anything.  But from an early age, I loved words.  I suppose I didnt really have a choice given who my mama was.  I love syllables.  I love phonics.  I love rhymes.  I love meter.  I love inflection and tone.  I love synonyms and antonyms.  I love the multiple meaning words can have.  The power words hold.  Similies, metaphors, personification.  Randy Owen, the lead singer of Alabama tells this story in his autobiography about the song “Mountain Music”.  There is a line in the song that goes “playing baseball with chert rocks. Using sawmill slabs for bats.”  When the song became a number 1 hit, the record label threw the band a party and the label president came down to congratulate the boys on their success.  He slapped Randy on the back and said, “I like how you made up that word there for playing baseball.” Randy was kinda caught off guard, but didnt really want to make a scene, until it reached a point of being made fun of.  Randy said, “I didnt make up a word – it is a type of rock we have in the Alabama mountains, and I believe it is spelled C-H-E-R-T.”  Well, the president, his bluff being called, had his assistant go get a dictionary – thinking Randy couldnt possibly be right.  Moral of the story?  Don’t mess with a country boy.

I was in the 9th grade when I read something that changed my life forever – the way I looked at life and “manhood”, and what I wanted to do with my life – even though there was no path or financial means there.  I was amazed then, and am even more amazed now at just how much can be condensed in so few words.  I can assure you this:  if a person follows the instruction of this piece of literature, and can master its instruction, he/she can be whatever he/she chooses to be.  I have tried ever since the first time I read it to write something even remotely belonging on the same planet – and I cannot do it…  BUT…  I will never stop trying either.  Poetry is probably the most maligned, misunderstood, and misused part of literature that exists.  IMHO, the best poets are mostly troubadours (or are called that anyhow), 6 string cowboys, Greenwich village singer/songwriters, etc.  Here is the poem that changed my life.

If—

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

There is a Texas country singer named Pat Green with who recorded an incredible song “Poetry”.  Walt Wilkins (the poet songwriter) is a genius. Jim (my brother) describes Pat’s music in the most complete and correct way that I have heard it described.  He says it is impossible to be in a bad mood when listening to Pat’s music.  I, for one, agree 100% with that assessment.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/poetry/1440718265?i=1440718422

 

I used to fancy myself a poet.  🤔😂🤣. I dont anymore.  A writer maybe.  I think the real poets have to be able to shake off convention. Is the poet’s path a detour off the paved road onto the dirt road? Hardly.  The dirt road stopped a long time ago.  The game trails are not even there any more.  The wilderness they see is free of form, path, trail, or road.  It is those of us who come along later who spoil the beauty.  I dont belong in that class and I know it.  Here is as close as I got to copying Kipling – so far…  SMILE… with apologies to Sir Rudyard (he turned down knighthood — twice), I used his theme and made it an IFF equation.

 IFF

If you can see the wind
Hear the trees as they grow tall
Have the love to give a friend
After giving one your all

If you can feel the powers
Of a newborn’s first heartbeat
Taste sweet life in thundershowers
Learn to walk in your barefeet

Be the salt of earth in ocean
Listen for the silent fog
Feel poetry in motion
Flames dancing on a log

Can you smell the rising sun
Or catch time as it flies by?
Grasp the good in everyone
Without boasting, touch the sky?

If you heed advice from others
Yet to yourself be true
Then wisdom is your brother
God’s bright light shines in you

God himself may not be found
Searching for him you will find
Love’s circle does surround
The soul of all mankind