"With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion." (Poe)

.....A word of advice. Sometimes--well almost every time--when you try to make a comment, a warning shows up that states your comment couldn't be done--try again. Just ignore it. Also, if you're going to comment as "anonymous" why sign your name at the bottom or your comment? Doesn't make sense--does it? But lots of anonymouses do. .....Today was not one of your A1 days; more like a D-. The cleaning crew arrived at 12:30 and I had to find something to do for a couple of hours. I did plan to go to the Isle Casino, but that didn't work out. First I went to breakfast at the bagel place because I didn't have time to have it at home. It's a new place and everyone is trying it out so I had to wait about 35 minutes before they called me in. I knew I was called because the gizmo I held in my hand began to vibrate. After breakfast I went to Murphy's to get gas--it was $2.61 a gallon. I remember when it was $1.25--or even less. But so everything is going up these days to amounts I thought impossible years ago. When I first arrived here, it was easy going out to dinner with friends and winding up with a $25 check including tax and tip. Now, it's hard to find a place where the bill comes to less than $50. Except, of course, at Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's, etc. Not only is dining expensive, but clothing prices are beyond belief considering the fact that they were made cheaply in some Asian country. I ordered a pair of jeans with a 28" inseam, and it came with 31". It was made in Timbuktu or maybe Grenada or Kamchatka in Russia where they must have different tape measures. Then, the complete mystery is how can kids out of high school or college make millions of dollars just for playing a professional game? When I was a kid growing up on the same street as Colin Powell I never heard of a million dollars. My world was an allowance of 3 cents a day which I spent on candy.

.....Rhoda and I finally got to see a movie last night--"Bright Star". It was the story of the love affair in the 19th C. between John Keats and his beloved Fanny Brawne--the girl next door. If you go to see it, bring a box of tissues because this unconsummated, passionate affair ended after Keats died at the age of 25. The film's title was lifted from the last sonnet Keats wrote, and most obviously it celebrates his love for Fanny. If you have never read it in high school or college, you ought to. So, courtesy of Red Baron, here it is:

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--

No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

.....I've written many sonnets, myself, which can be found in a booklet named, "Shadows in the Sunset" or as an addenda to my book, "Memoirs". I'm afraid to think, however, that none achieves the quality of John Keats. Unfortunately, many people are loath to read poetry because they fear the lack of understanding. A reader of poetry, before looking to understand a poem must be able to let the poem first affect the senses and the emotions. One does not look at a great painting that is daunting to the understanding without first allowing the painting to reach him as an "experience". Poetry, likewise, must be read on a totally different level than searching for meaning. Meaning is a secondary accompaniment to poetry. At least that's what I used to tell my students. Poetry is a vital source of enrichment to life--at least it was for me--and Edgar A. Poe. (See blog title above).