FORWORD –
Discreetly and by chance
A poem I found of elegance -
Words of a plain spoken man
Who mainly worked with his hands
Yet his thoughts are from his heart
Though now gone his ideals live on.

YOU TELL ON YOURSELF

You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time
By the use you make of a dollar and dime.

You tell what you are by the things you wear
By the spirit in which your burdens you bear,
By the kinds of things at which you laugh
By the records you play on the phonograph.

You tell what you are by the way you walk
By the things of which you delight to talk –
By the manner in which you bear defeat
By so simple a thing as how you eat.

By the books you choose from the well filled shelf
In these ways and more you tell on yourself
So there’s really no particle of sense
In an effort to keep up false pretense.

Howard N. Brown
1903 – 1983

(© Herbert Holzbauer
August 2009)

Midi: “Getting To Know You”
Composer: Oscar Hammerstein
(The King and I)
(www.gagirl.com)

Graphic: “Introspection”
Photographer: Dave Watkins
(gallery.photo.net/photo1940725)

(Original handwritten poem - backside of menu)

 

( Front side of Menu)