POETIC LICENSES

I was chatting with a friend from my childhood, this morning.......she asked about my "missing period"......"When was that?", I asked......"Well, from 8th grade, till...well, you know.....until now!", she retorted..... I remember, with the advent of pubic hair and my more increasingly questioning philosophical outlook, came a relative disinterest in 'popular tastes'......I was drawn to the 'beat scene'......which there was slim evidence of in N. Alabama....As soon as I was old enough to get out...in a black 1955 DeSoto coupe with grey wool flannel seats......my Life expanded to a preoccupational wall, with Warner Bros. and American International Films, from a frustratingly shunted development, within the context of Pleasantvilleness and middle class takes on 'what Life is all about', featuring Annette and Frankie Avalon.....from The Lyric Theater's continuum of MGM musicals and Disneydom.......to the vehicle-accessible Wo...

Thanatopsis Poem – by William Cullen Bryant (Text-Version) To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice— Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim...