No Regrets Now (When Later Comes, Young Geoffrey Will Deal With It)

The Buddha told a parable about a man pursued by a hungry tiger. The man fled for his life to the edge of a cliff, where he found a vine hanging to the ground below. Without a minute to spare, he grabbed the vine and began to climb down - only to discover another tiger on the ground below, leaping up at his feet. As he hung there wondering what he was going to do, he noticed that two mice had begun to gnaw away at the vine. Beside him a single wild strawberry grew in the cliff face. He picked it and ate it. "How sweet it tasted!" said the Buddha.

(- Garret Keizer, "World Enough and Time", Harper's Magazine, October 2003)

Shinny was good this morning,
Three men on the bench for both sides
Fast-paced and hard-fought
in a manner of speaking,
we don't much care if
we win or we lose

The beer was tart this morning,
A beer and the paper on the side
Notes jotted in my sprial workbook
no essay on politics completed
no fiction started or ended
the moment lives

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.

- Johnson to Boswell, September 19, 1777 (as reported by the aforementioned Mr. Keizer)

* * *

I know, I'm no poet - I can't explain why you, my Gentle LiveJournal Reader, have been exposed to my doggerel - perhaps because you are such rare and noble creatures. Or, maybe, it's just one of those things.

Regardless, I feel at once pompous and self-denigrating, closing this entry with a quote from Dr. Johnson and opening it with a quote from what is perhaps the most sublime essay I have read.

But I am nothing if not (occasionally) audacious. And I don't expect - or even hope - to get paid for this, so what the hell.