(no subject)
Brilliant
That is the adjective to which I aspire. Everyone has one adjective that they hope will one day be synonymous with their name and brilliant is mine. I like gifted, accomplished, talented, masterful, and ingenious but none of them are as powerful to me as brilliant.
It literally means full of light or shining. I hope that when people talk about me that they will say that I was brilliant in two specific contexts: as a family man (husband and father) and as an intellectual.
I hope that this poem is spoken at my memorial. I know it sounds egotistical but I think that it sums up what I truly want.
Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
That is the adjective to which I aspire. Everyone has one adjective that they hope will one day be synonymous with their name and brilliant is mine. I like gifted, accomplished, talented, masterful, and ingenious but none of them are as powerful to me as brilliant.
It literally means full of light or shining. I hope that when people talk about me that they will say that I was brilliant in two specific contexts: as a family man (husband and father) and as an intellectual.
I hope that this poem is spoken at my memorial. I know it sounds egotistical but I think that it sums up what I truly want.
Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.