Don Blanding

[interracial_sex]

Does anyone else love his poetry?

 

[interracial_sex]

For those who are unfamiliar with Blanding, he is a relatively obscure poet who amassed a volume of work in his lifetime that I personally find to be superlative to what most (and more heralded) poets have accomplished, yet he languishes in obscurity. This submission is my all-time favorite poem because it so perfectly captures my life and the inner struggle of my two selves.

The Double Life
By Don Blanding


How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content

With hearth and home dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where… just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back,
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "no,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

 

[wildsweetone]

now that's interesting. i'd not heard of the poet before, nor read that poem.

...he's not an easy one to find poetry on, online.

 

[bluerains]

I just read this and thought it wonderful reminds me of verse from thomas...ty..

Epitaph

Do not carve on stone or wood,
"He was honest" or "He was good."
Write in smoke on a passing breeze
Seven words... and the words are these,
Telling all that a volume could,
"He lived, he laughed and... he understood."

http://www.nsirtech.com/Graphics/JPEG/horse.jpg

 

[interracial_sex]

I first became aware of him when I read Jimmy Buffett's "A Pirate Looks at 50," as Buffett had included the Double Life. Since then I have become a frequent visitor to his website and purchased three books of his. He's a wonder poet. I would also recommend reading the "Song of the Seven Seas."

I'm glad that you both enjoyed. That epitaph is particularly poignant to me and has been since I discovered it on his website.

 

[Liar]

A new name for me too. Coolness.