I met Jim Thompson once. He was a spare man; that is, there were eight men threshing the dill-weed, and Jim (JayTee, he said his name was) was the spare.
The threshing of the dill-weed went on for a time, and then four of the men broke away and began mangling some daffodils that had burst nearby. JayTee (Big Jim, he preferred to be called) sat on the Mangle and regaled us with Nestorian Chants.
The other four men took a break from dill-threshing, and packed their pipes with pitch. The noisome pitchsmoke combined with the Nestorian noise, and Big Jim (MAJOR Thompson, he insisted) gave over in favor of somnambulic iambic quadrameter. “Better than sonnets,” quoth he.
I never saw him again, but sometimes wonder, when I smell a road-crew or see odd verses graffitti-like on juxtaposed crenellations, whether he has been about, and in what guise.
Jimtom was a bullfrog.
He was a good friend of mine.
Another failed Prep-school Grad I see, to many beats, think one beat per syllable.