Rogues' Gallery

By Gentry Thomason

From age to age human nature and human reality are ever the same. We live in an imperfect world; we are flawed creatures. The glory of being alive in a beautiful world is compromised by the complexities of existence and the proclivities to which we are all vulnerable.Greek myths advise us of these truths; contemporary realities continually inform us of our checkered condition. Managing one’s fortuity and personal growth is an endless challenge that demands eternal vigilance and a careful eye to one’s desired prosperity. Living one’s inner life in an extraverted world can make for tricky business. Life is a struggle; roadblocks and obstacles surround us. We are all in this together. We choose, individually, to make a heaven of this hell or a hell of this heaven. Along the way, we inevitably encounter and experience a baseline of human roguery that is our natural inheritance. All are born into original sin. Describing that condition and contemplating how to escape its circumstance is a preoccupation of Rogues’ Gallery. Recognizing such truths is a fi rst step on the road to recovery and to wholeness, wholesomeness, and balanced well-being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 21, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462824793

Gentry Thomason

Born and raised in Liberty, Missouri, and subsequently transplanted to San Diego, California, where he completed his Master’s degree in English Literature, Mr. Thomason began writing poetry while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Ord, California, and has been composing verse intermittently since. His undergraduate work was in Philosophy.

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Copyright © 2007 by Gentry Thomason.

Cover design by Gentry Thomason and Luis Garcia

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 09/29/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

575650

For Adine and John

and my mother,

Nancy Jane Cummings Thomason

Fire exists the first in light,

And then consolidates,—

Only the chemist can disclose

Into what carbonates.

—Emily Dickinson

There exists the eternal fact

of conflict

And next—-a mere sense of locality.

—Stephen Crane

You will hardly know who I am

or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you

nevertheless,

And filter and fiber your blood.

—Walt Whitman

TABLE OF CONTENTS

preface

poem (ograph)

beauty (and ugliness)

introduction

symbolic (elements)

laby (rinth)

workshop (universe)

modern (context)

comedy (and tragedy)

sunshine (beginning)

rose (garden)

buzz (fly)

sigmund (freud)

c.g. (jung)

cloudy (day)

symbolic (dimension)

imagi (nation)

ring (opponent)

brave (persons)

rogues’ (gallery)

fuzzy (thinking)

complex (consciousness)

neurotic (interaction)

profound (differences)

cross (fire)

destructive (element)

things (happen)

road (sign)

map (readers)

human (consciousness)

take (hold)

word (play)

words (are)

double (binders)

oedipus (rex)

exit (entrance)

shot (in bed)

relax (back)

holy (toledo)

nonsense (nonsense)

game (game)

pink (nonsense)

please (stand)

deadline (schlock)

give me (a day)

business (confessor)

number (one)

contra (diction)

horse (water)

wrong (number)

something (difficult)

fool’s (flak)

point (of view)

jazz (ercise)

outlaw (women)

ground (of being)

courage (etc.)

sneaky (suspicion)

gradual (insight)

spirit (tude)

less (is more)

look to (the real)

Figurative (expressions)

sisyphus (futility)

field (resistance)

being (bled)

assembly (line)

johnny (paycheck)

ambience (breach)

mad (journey)

good (life)

actual (poverty)

real (life)

shadow (reverberations)

fence (maverick)

true (men)

wrong (move)

turning (point)

acclamation (period)

cookie (jar)

think (about you)

rising (and falling)

dream (life)

get (in motion)