I am old and my memory is not what it used to be, but if I recall correctly it was in 1948 that I first came up, in a fit of inspiration, with the basic outline of the character of Justin Smith-Ruiu. Of course that’s not what I was calling him back then, for indeed this name emerges only out of a very recent plot twist. But it was then that the seed of the person we all now know as “JSR” got planted in my mind, and quickly began to grow. I spent the next 24 years working out the finer details of his character and envisioning the entire dramatic arc of his life.
This is kind of like Wim Wenders film “Wings of Desire,” only wackier. Personally I feel this guy could have given you a bit more credit as a storyteller; he’s setting the bar pretty high for himself!
“But his many failures read/ Less as mischance than as apprenticeship.” (“For Magistrates,” p. 251 – from Josephine Miles, Collected Poems 1930-83)
BOATMAN AT MY SHORE
As I look back
I was born in Niagara Falls, and some family, the Taylors, came from Eire. We moved when I was eleven for mom's health to Dallas where dad a brakelinings and clutchfacings salesman traveled 5 states, and we kids sometimes went on his weekly trips through Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico.
I Sense My Boatman Waiting.
River of life life river the river life life a river bed all pass through Our earth is a riverbed our river of life River Styx forms a boundary between life, death Charon, the ferryman, carries souls across
Dante says there are five rivers and that Styx is for the greatest damned living their wrath cursing war with each other for all eternity
The Farthest Shore
My mischances shaped my apprenticeship-muscles
When you are young you don’t know what’s coming
Life is not the same poetry now, just verse
My inner sanctum let joy become lost in Cairo
I grasped failures through a lengthy history
Wanting to learn dying before severing life’s link
Welcome to Earth!
This is kind of like Wim Wenders film “Wings of Desire,” only wackier. Personally I feel this guy could have given you a bit more credit as a storyteller; he’s setting the bar pretty high for himself!
And they hinted that Borges was dead... I never bought it.
“But his many failures read/ Less as mischance than as apprenticeship.” (“For Magistrates,” p. 251 – from Josephine Miles, Collected Poems 1930-83)
BOATMAN AT MY SHORE
As I look back
I was born in Niagara Falls, and some family, the Taylors, came from Eire. We moved when I was eleven for mom's health to Dallas where dad a brakelinings and clutchfacings salesman traveled 5 states, and we kids sometimes went on his weekly trips through Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico.
I Sense My Boatman Waiting.
River of life life river the river life life a river bed all pass through Our earth is a riverbed our river of life River Styx forms a boundary between life, death Charon, the ferryman, carries souls across
Dante says there are five rivers and that Styx is for the greatest damned living their wrath cursing war with each other for all eternity
The Farthest Shore
My mischances shaped my apprenticeship-muscles
When you are young you don’t know what’s coming
Life is not the same poetry now, just verse
My inner sanctum let joy become lost in Cairo
I grasped failures through a lengthy history
Wanting to learn dying before severing life’s link
Welcome the far shore before you miss it
Notice the far shore before you reach it.
©Copyright Edward Mycue