Get Listed - August - Carpe Diem -- Real Toads

Robin Williams died this Monday. 

The headlines are saying, "Robin Williams dead.
at 63."  That was Monday. 
This is today, Wednesday, 

the headlines are saying many things.

We will miss him.

 

I like it best said and not lived as Sylvia Plath
put it in her now mortal poem, Lady Lazarus:
 
"Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
   
At home on me And I a smiling woman.   
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die."

 

Sylvia Plath did not attain those nine lives, not even four. 
She took her life when she was 30 and
could not wear her skin again ever. 
Desperation. 
Only her poem is mortal.

 

Robin Williams died at age 63, he took his own life.  

Desperation.  

I suppose Robin Williams never read Ms. Plath's poem,

if he did he would see the folly.  Instead, he is dead today. 

 
The headlines of the tomorrows will have passed
pretty much over Mr. Williams,
will history remember him at all? 
Life goes on. 
Mainly noble persons, barbaric villains, and authors
will be in the encyclopedia, home to those remembered.
 
And mainly the generations alive today
will be the ones who remember Robin Williams. 
They will tell of their favorite movie they watched, perhaps
even bought.  My favorite was RV, a 2006 film, really funny.
 
The List today is dreary today.  A soul has passed,
passed from earth to who knows where. 
I believe there are only two, perhaps three places it can go: 
Heaven, Hell, Purgatory

May he RIP.  We are missing you.

- - - - - -

 

Poem copyright, ©  Jimmiehov 2009, 2014, all rights reserved
Robin Williams picture credit to Wikipedia, Robin Williams

- - - - -

 

Today I am linked with Grapeling, at the Real Toads, Get Listed (link)

He wrote and posted an excellent run-down of the life of Robin Williams.  Grapeling also gave us the list of words below and instructed us to then "choose at least 3 words of [his] list - taken from dialog in the film [Dead Poets Society] - compose a *new* pen, and post it."

Notes:

 

The List (of words I was encouraged to use here—I used four, dead, desperation, barbaric, and noble—I decided to write my first thoughts behind each of them):

worm - Wormwood, that junior temptor student to the Chief Demon Screwtape in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. 

verse - Second verse, third line: TBD (i.e. you name it poem)

dreams - Broken, much crying and tears, hair pulling, ashes and torn clothes

suck - Life sucks

rout - Win the race, it's a rout, one way or the other for life

daring - Young man on the flying trapeze

caution - To the winds, 'p' on caution (have your ever driven 180 mph?  I have, on the German Autobaun)

seize - The moment, it may be your last

dead - These men don't talk.  Das ende, schluss (German, it is over)

desperation - Don't worry things WILL BE WORSE

barbaric - People with this propensity are presently trying to rule the world, their way only can be 

noble - This man may prevail.  Noble thinking at the least

Grapling's post: Get Listed - August - Carpe Diem

Theme: Robin Williams passed on August 11th, evidently a suicide.

Additional Reading:

Robin Williams was a 'genius so manic he said cocaine helped him keep calm' | Mail Online
 
References:

http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2014/08/get-listed-august-carpe-diem.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178961 (Sylvia Plath's poem, Lady Lazarus)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449089/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_26 (movie, RV)

https://www.praise.com/content/what-difference-between-heaven-paradise-and-purgatory

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110422174320AAK11gF (Does St. Peter really hold the keys to Heaven)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters

Darkness comes

When darkness comes rats are ready

By the hundreds they've primped and groomed 

.

They're slinking around, teeth are sharp

Slick, greasy, dragging hairy tails 

.

Rats will come to your castle home

They will come to my shack as well 

.

Before the dusk we must prepare

Keep the lights on, they'll stay away

 .

Photo, poem copyright, ©  Jimmiehov 2009, 2014, all rights reserved
 

Today I am linked with Grace at the Real Toads, Sunday's mini Challenge (link)

Grace introduced us to Gabriela Mistral and her poems.  This one of hers here below was inspiration for my attempt to show how it affected me.  I used the dusk idea, the animal too. 

Dusk

I feel my heart melting
in the mildness like candles:
my veins are slow oil
and not wine,
and I feel my life fleeing
hushed and gentle like the gazelle.

I was also inspired by Ms. Mistral's poem, Woman:  The Mad One (click to read it, three pages long).  It is a tale of what a concubine woman would experience when her 'master' would come up the stairs for their conjugal visit.  Nothing explicit, much implied was her style of writing.  It was a little scary.

That in turn reminded me of the rats who used to come into the shack where I was on guard at a radar site out in the middle of the desert.  I was in the Army, stationed with a group who had several Nike Missile Radar sites scattered over a few thousand acres in Texas 

We took turns staying in the 'shack' pulling guard duty.  We were allowed to sleep.  But I would always keep the lights on which meant getting up, going out, and refueling the generators in the middle of the night.  Otherwise the RATS WOULD COME, running up and down the braces on the wall, nailed to the stud boards.  I think a few of did get bitten by rats.

Could never let the lights go out 

If so those rats would surely come