DESERT LOYALTY

For the holiday season and the coming of hopefully a better year, this poem is dedicated to all my dearest friends and fellow true believers.

Patrick The Poet

 

DESERT LOYALTY

 

Once you found yourself alone…far from trust and paradise,
Bereft of all those you gave every ounce of loyalty to.
Though now these sands are harsh and hot–they are as cold as ice!
And rife with the rage of a world that has turned against you.
Yet time after time another promise has come along…
Heard from the lips of ardent friendships that swore to be true.
Instead, you were left to die…like silence murders a song,
Or as wind does over the sand…to leave the desert askew!

 

Then here upon this barren plain you happened upon me.
To find and save my life when I was at death’s very brink.
Still, though I humbly thanked you and swore eternal loyalty,
You no more believed me…though I wrote it in mortal ink!
Now over time and other lifetimes the desert has fed
More betrayal to you, and too much disdain of me, I think.
Still, I have waited years to be thirsting and almost dead…
Ah, to find water…and give you the first and only drink!

 

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Happy Turkey Day!

To all my followers, fans, friends and family members throughout the universe, I hope you enjoy a memorable and immensely wonderful Thanksgiving.   Enjoy the time and cherish the company.  And make unforgettable memories!

Patrick The Poet

WINTER HAS ME IN ITS GRIP

There’s a lot to choose from, but when anyone asks me for further evidence of Don McLean’s songwriting greatness, I tell them to listen to this song: WINTER HAS ME IN ITS GRIP.  I’ve pasted the lyrics hereinbelow so you can sing along and enjoy this master torch songwriter as no other.  Just remember to have a box of Kleenex handy!

Patrick The Poet

LINK TO SONG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3jXZ9uQ-A

Winter Has Me In Its Grip
Artist : Don McLean
Title : Winter Has Me In Its Grip
Album : Homeless Brother

Winter has me in it’s grip
Think I’ll take a summer trip
On a sunny sailing ship
Where the shells lie in the sand.

I feel so lonely
I’m too young to feel this old
I need you and you only
When the weather gets this cold.
That’s why…

Winter has me in it’s grip
Think I’ll take a summer trip
On a sunny sailing ship
Where the shells lie in the sand.

There’s no use in going
Cause it’s cold inside my heart
And it’s always snowing
Since the day we broke apart.

Winter has me in it’s grip
Think I’ll take a summer trip
On a sunny sailing ship
Where the shells lie in the sand.

I tried to run from winter
Like this spring and summer run to fall
But when the weather’s in you
There’s no hiding place at all.
That’s why…

Winter has me in it’s grip
Think I’ll take a summer trip
On a sunny sailing ship
Where the shells lie in the sand.

EXHORTATION

I missed the holidays that were and the company of loved ones and special friends now gone.  I find this to be true for those still around among family and friends who celebrated as I several decades of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.  The festive atmosphere, shimmering lights and decorations and hoopla for the holidays still hold some appeal.  But not like before.  And, as the years go on, the appeal wanes a little bit more each holiday season.  Tried as I have, it seems impossible to prevent this gradual feeling of ennui from setting in.  It appears to be as unavoidable as is the passage of time and growing age. 

I think the older we get the less appealing and less fun become the holidays is something that really begins to happen when we hit our fifties. For some, maybe during their forties.  This is because as the years go on we lose more and more loved ones and friends.  And so it is at this point in my life I don’t really celebrate the holidays.  I acknowledge them and still realize their importance and reverence.  But they’re more a fun and joy to younger people, in my opinion.  To us older folk, they become more and more bittersweet and continually rife with past memory.

The only decent advice I have to give is cherish the holidays that were and the better memory you can keep until the end.  Most of all, cherish those loved ones and friends now gone, and the ones still with you until the end!  Hopefully in a better way, my poem here will tell you what I mean.

Patrick The Poet

 

EXHORTATION

I will always feel love that is true and magnificent
And hear lovers repeat words that are well worth repeating,
(So it is with true friends who share every careful greeting);
And yet, though love is potent and happiness is well meant,
I would tell them to hold on to every precious moment,
For love is frail…and happiness is so very fleeting.

For I have felt the spark of hope and the sunlight beaming
Through the eons of life that selfishness and greed distort
(Which truth and wisdom often fail to repair or comfort);
And though there are those who dream of sunlight always gleaming,
I would tell them to hold on to every dream they’re dreaming,
For dreams are such fragile things…and life is so very short.

THIS WEEK’S BAR QUOTES – (from 11-13-09)

Lots of funny quotes in this week’s post…to get you ready for gobble, gobble day!

Patrick The Poet

THIS WEEK’S BAR QUOTES – (from 11-13-09)

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
–Henry David Thoreau

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
–Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

A great man, if he cannot leave his fame behind for 1,000 years, should [try to] leave his stinking repute behind for 10,000 years.
–Huan Wen (312-373)

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
–Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

I think it would be a good idea.
–Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
–Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!
–Will Rogers (1879-1935)

If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?
–Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
–Irving Kristol

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
–Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.
– A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
–H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

Everything that can be invented has been invented.
–Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt!
–Mark Twain (1835-1910)

PROFILES IN COURAGE

I believe John F. Kennedy was a very brave man.  He was warned not to go to Dallas, Texas, on this date fifty years ago, but he went anyway. He went, I believe, not because out of blind audacity or false bravado, but because he refused to be intimidated or cower in fear.  His heroic acts during World War II showed him to be a very brave man, and he was until the day he died.

Disagree as any of us may with his politics, his bravery was something to be admired.  So were his gifts as a communicator and writer, and as a public speaker. He needed no teleprompter when he stood in front of throngs of people and spoke, and he wrote many if not most of his own speeches.  He was a very articulate and educated man.  This is no greater shown than in his Pulitzer Prize winning book “Profiles in Courage.”  Here below my signature is a write-up of the book you’ll find online and in many places as it was when the book was published.  Below this I have included excerpt from Profiles in Courage.  And whoever visits my blog, I hope you read on and become even induced to grab a copy of Kennedy’s masterpiece tome.  It is a brave and inspirational read.

Patrick The Poet

“This is a book about that most admirable of human virtues—courage. ‘Grace under pressure,’ Ernest Hemingway defined it. And these are the stories of the pressures experienced by eight United States Senators and the grace with which they endured them.”
— John F. Kennedy

During 1954-1955, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft.

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, Profiles in Courage—now featuring a new introduction by Caroline Kennedy, as well as Robert Kennedy’s foreword written for the memorial edition of the volume in 1964—resounds with timeless lessons on the most cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. It is as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword, “not just stories of the past but a hook of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us.”

EXCERPT FROM PROFILES IN COURAGE:

Today the challenge of political courage looms larger than ever before. For our everyday life is becoming so saturated with the tremendous power of mass communications that any unpopular or unorthodox course arouses a storm of protests such as John Quincy Adams – under attack in 1807 – could never have envisioned. Our political life is becoming so expensive, so mechanized and so dominated by professional politicians and public relations men that the idealist who dreams of independent statesmanship is rudely awakened by the necessities of election and accomplishment. . . .

And thus, in the days ahead, only the very courageous will be able to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy – an enemy with leaders who need give little thought to the popularity of their course, who need pay little tribute to the public opinion they themselves manipulate, and who may force, without fear of retaliation at the polls, their citizens to sacrifice present laughter for future glory.

 

FAST TRAINS BOOK SIGNING THIS SUNDAY!

Join co-author Nancy Bolts at Old Books on Front Street in Wilmington, NC, this Sunday, November 24, for signings of her book FAST TRAINS and for an exciting look at the history of trains and the future of high speed rail in America. It’s going to be fabulous fun! For more info, visit here: http://oldbooksonfrontst.com/node/31530