It came late in life. Poor no more and Peace on Earth forever. I spoke with everyone on Earth. They all became my friends. The poor, the crippled, the forgotten, all of them. We had a party, a worldwide party made beautiful by all the colors of skin. We danced different dances. We ate different foods. We shared different customs. We all prayed, each in his and her own religion. It was a festival of togetherness. All eschewed all weapons from guns to bombs. The air we all breathed was fresh and clean, as was the water we drank. It is possible to awaken truth, that all are sacred and divine. Live your life with love.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I once had a friend whose great-grandfather was a partner of J.P. Morgan. My friend had grown up in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was a good man, and you wouldn't have known he was heir to a vast fortune, except for his anamnestic autos. In fact, he eschewed the affected life. He was an organic farmer outside of Lawrence, Kansas. I mean he really was a farmer. He was up at 6 and drove a tractor til sunset. He and I would get together from time to time eating tapioca pudding at Denny's and, of course, chatting. The one idiosyncrasy that gave away his untold wealth was anamnestic autos. To the side of his modest farm house was a field within which were old antique cars spread out as if they were cattle, but they were not. There was an Alpha Romeo, a Horsch, a Lamborghini, a Maserati, and a Ferrari. My friend would get an impulse to buy a certain antique car, and because he had the money, he'd buy it. But then after enjoying it for a time, he literally put it out to pasture. The scene reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali. He never talked about his fortune, but he often ordered a second tapioca pudding.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

We spend roughly one third of our lives asleep. What does that mean? I suppose that means different things to each of us, things that are different, but at the same time, in all cases integral to our lives, variations on the same thing, if you will. Freud thought that one-third was the most important of all three. Many of us find our dreams are meaningful, not necessarily in a clinical way, but in a personal way, and therefore meaningful nonetheless. Perhaps surreal is an apposite word to use in the latter cases:  former girlfriends, in my case, appear in many of my dreams, sometimes erotically, other times in a symbolic way it seems. Other dreams appear enigmatically, ones that are hard to tell what their import is;  they are not unlike clips from Ingmar Bergman movies. Some people say they never dream;  my guess is that they do, but for unknown reasons, they unconsciously repress them all, easier, I suspect, for them for various reasons. Pedro Calderon de la Barca wrote LA VIDA ES SUENO (LIFE IS A DREAM). Perhaps he had the answer.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

I was in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, doing human-rights work. I made several Malawi friends. We decided we would go out in the countryside to camp. The African terrain was beautiful. We pitched a large tent and enjoyed chatting after roasting chicken over the campfire. We spoke Chichewa, the main indigenous language in Malawi. Before sunset, I saw, at a distance, an animal slowly approaching us. It was long and slender, about a-foot-and-a-half in length. It was a mongoose. When I stood up, the mongoose stopped coming toward us. We stood there looking at each other. After several minutes, I began to walk in measured steps toward it carrying with me some crispy cooked chicken skin. The mongoose didn't move. In due course, I got within 10 feet of the mongoose and sat down in the tall grass. The mongoose still hadn't moved, which surprised me. I tossed a piece of chicken skin at it. It landed within a couple of feet of it, but still the mongoose didn't move, only lying in the tall grass looking at (and smelling, no doubt) me. The sun continued to set. Finally, the mongoose moved toward the piece of chicken, smelled it, then picked it up and ate it, then lay down again in the grass. After a few more minutes, I tossed another piece toward the mongoose, again landing about two feet from it. And again, after a few minutes, it moved toward the chicken and repeated this ritual. I continued to do the same thing until the mongoose was within, I'd say, about four feet from me. The sun had set, but the two of us sat close to each other in the tall grass for about another half-hour, neither of us moving. I felt we were, each of us in or own way, getting to know each other. This was most surprising and satifying to me. Finally, I slowly arose and began making my way back to what was left of the campfire. When I turned around, I saw the mongoose then get up and amble into the darkness. I had made another friend in Malawi.

Dissembling is the abri of those who find being real is impossible.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

I am taking a wide interpretation of what is poetry here, but after all, what singers sing is poetry. I am 76, so I have listened to a vast number of singers, individually and in groups. But like you, I am particular. So here it goes:  SIMON AND GARFUNKEL, JOHNNY MATHIS, BING CROSBY, ANNE MURRAY, THE PLATTERS, WILLIE NELSON, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, TONY BENNETT, JOHNNY CASH, PATSY CLINE, B.B. KING, BRENDA LEE, ROY ORBISON, ARETHA FRANKLIN, BEE GEES, THE CARPENTERS, CAT STEVENS, JANIS IAN, THE MAMAS & THE PAPAS, ROBERTA FLACK, ELTON JOHN, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN; CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG; DON MCLEAN,  FLEETWOOD MAC, JAMES TAYLOR, k. d. lang, COLDPLAY, and ALICIA KEYS.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Roy Orbison was no Luciano Pavarotti, but then Luciano Pavarotti was no Roy Orbison. Born in Nowhere, Texas, Orbison had an inauspicious musical beginning. He was shy growing up, but got a guitar at an early age. He drifted around tiny towns as he tentatively began his career and over the following years signed with several different recording companies. He remained extremely self-conscious as he slowly gained some success and wore dark-tinted glasses to allay some degree of his unease on stage. But in the late 1950s and early 60s, Orbison made it big, so big, in fact, that his songs went to the top of the charts in the U.S. as well as Europe and Australia. But by the mid-60s with the musical invasion from the United Kingdom--ironic though it was, he became close friends with the Beatles who admired his talent and songs--and the dramatic culture-change in America, Orbison's career and his popularity waned terribly. It was not until the 80s that Orbison experienced a grand resurgence of popularity, which pleased him so. But he did not have long to enjoy it. He died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 52. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks