(Selavy)
Nobody seemed to much like my post from this morning.
There are limits, I guess, to what some can stand. Once a man starts discussing the effect of poetry, well... eyes glaze, if not all other senses.
The book, Rimbaud, has had a strange affect (or, is it effect, or both) on my life. I was reading it at the age of 16, shortly after dropping out of high-school, when I met ol' Carnivore S. Levy (don't worry, dear loving mothers here, I went on... graduating with 'honors' from high-school, then college).
Have I told that story?
He walked by me, being a teacher at the adult high-school that I was attending. (Note: considering current criminal laws, don't all high schools now qualify as adult ?)
Never mind that.
But he asked me, "I heard you're reading 'Rambo'?"
Now, he claims to be a hillbilly, but oh my lord.... you'll never know. Because I will hide it more completely than him, or try to (hint, hint). I'll at least deny it, when asked. Some of you may have noticed, etc. But, he is more honest about such things, he claims.
We trade honesties when it comes to certain subjects, and then other objects.
Semi-immediately I snapped, "Um, no...," thinking that he was asking about the action-film hero, "Rambo"... Sylvester Stallone's Vietnamese disaster.
But I had the book in my hand, with my other books, and he pointed right to it.
Then, and only then, did I realize that it was not pronounced Rimbod, the term I been wowing my friends with.
A careful reader will recognize the rhyme.
For all the others: clod.
... and then facade.
Next semester, I took one of his classes: science. He let me teach, once.
So, fast forward ~30 years.... We're still friends - it is only intermittently easy, for either of us, horror for most others involved. Old friends, etc.
But, that's how it goes, say the Egyptites.
I have a riddle for you: What crawls upwards through air in the morning, strides across clouds in the middle of the day, then sleeps in the dancing sands for the remainder of night?
I'll give you a hint: memory.
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