I have always said, "I write with pictures and draw with words."
In addition to the miscellaneous prose and the Pollyanna Polemic pieces in which I indulge, I am also a poet and lyricist with a full length e-book, "Rugs On Puddles, Coats Over Oceans," and a smattering of original songs available online.
To know me is to know that my founding literary idol is Charles Dickens, to whom my collection is dedicated and for whom the introductory poem of my book was written. Here is a newly penned piece for you, dear reader, a prequel of sorts to the masterwork Dickens gave us so many years ago, a tale whose message resonates with me as gospel -- and of course a modern-day commentary to take as you see fit.
JACOB
One thousand one
One thousand two
Better far for me than lonely, low-born you
One thousand three
One thousand four
Ennoble surplus men with virtue borne of poverty
For an absent income is a higher, holier riches spent
If the pithy monk can do this
Every hour in obeisance bent
In grateful misery
To those for whom intended is the gilded, worldly best
Then any man can do it
And any man so should
And when he does
And when is done
And done is did
And as a doornail is fulfilled
He can yet find rank amongst
Sewer-bent captains and cast-off kings
Who command the hillside holes in silent testament to lie
So mouths of babes are at long last spared of their greedy, ceaseless cries
One thousand five
One thousand six
When nothing's broken
What's to fix?
One thousand seven
One thousand eight
Oh Midas, king, thy gospel here I replicate
One thousand nine
One thousand ten
Pull up your own bootstraps, ye merry gentlemen
No matter how molded, or if by diggers' spades are shredded
I have long since pulled up mine
One thousand eleven
Not In My Back Yard
For out of sight is out of mind
One thousand twelve
I don the rose colored glasses, not you
...thirteen
I strap on the blinders; you had better too
...fourteen
And from half-staffed salutes let banners serve as shrouds
...fifteen
I gladly lock myself into my fortress' stone-walled wards
...sixteen
And vow to keep my prosperity for only, only me
...seventeen, seventeen now let me see...
Are time and tithes not apparitions worthy of a hard-won price?
Eighteen, nineteen and twenty.
copyright 2014 Kimann Schultz