Tag Archives: Fame

IF YOU CAN HAVE YOUR OWN TALK SHOW

Poems about Poetry / tagged , / / by

IF YOU CAN HAVE YOUR OWN TALK SHOW

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs for the blaming that you do,
If you can trust yourself when wise men doubt you,
But make offensive all their doubting too;
If you can wail and not be tired by wailing,
Or being lied about still deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t blame it on your hating,
And yet still look too good, and talk too wise

If you can talk down to crowds and call it virtue,
‘Or walk on Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor losing friends can hurt you
If all men count with you, but not as such;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of drivel spun,
Yours is the air and everything that’s on it
And – which is more – you’ll be a rich man, my son

DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged , , / / by

DEGREES OF SEPARATION

C.A. tells me the other day
about his genuine cowboy father
who worked Wild Bill’s “Wild West” show

And if I shake C.A.’s hand and I often do
I’m only one away from Buffalo Bill
and Sitting Bull makes two

And then there’s Black Elk and Crazy Horse
and a whole passel of Little Big Horn Sioux

And shaking the hand of the Queen Mom
and loving her lots and holding on some
I was only one away from Churchill
and every crowned head for a hundred years
and Lady Di too, don’t that bring some tears

And I also hug Greta now and then
who worked for Hammarsjold at the U.N.

Yesterday I had a rum with Eric
who lived with the Yanamami
and natives of a Southern sea

All those amazing thousands
and I still haven’t counted past three
anyone here want to shake hands with me