Poem: “Don’t Tell Me” by Quent Cordair

"Atlas in Motion Trio," 14" tall bronze casting, Eric Wilson. Available at Quent Cordair Fine Art.

“Don’t tell me what to think—I can’t;

My mind can think for only me;

Don’t tell me what to do—I won’t;

My body is my employee—

My only one, through every breath,

Through every dance, from birth till death.

Don’t tell me what to say or not,

My voice must voice my mind’s true thought,

The thought on which my life depends,

My only life, so dearly bought;

Without my speech, my mind is mute,

I’ll die unheard, leaf to root.

Don’t draw your lines to fence me in;

Don’t force me where to stay or go;

My course I set as I deem best,

My destination, mine to know,

Around the world or round the bend,

My choice to start, my right to end.

Don’t tell me what to trade with whom,

Or dictate price for beets or bread;

The dearness of my coin in hand

Is mine to weigh for boots or bed;

What rate for labor, mine to ask;
What labor hired, mine to task.

Don’t tell me whom to love or loathe,

Or whom to praise or whom to rake;

The measure of my friends and foes

Is something only I can take;

I’ll walk with whom I’ll walk today;

For good or ill, I’ll find my way.

Don’t brandish now your gun or blade,

In threat of harm against my will,

As surely as my lungs must breathe,
I’ll think my thoughts, I’ll speak my fill;

I’ll do as I think best; I vow

That, by my life, to none I’ll bow.”

~ Quent Cordair, 2026

Note to Readers:

Quent and Linda Cordair own and manage the beautiful Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery in Jackson, Wyoming. Their gallery offers works of art belonging to the tradition of Romantic Realism, celebrating the heroic and the noble in man. Their artworks share a common theme: an exalted human spirit enjoying a benevolent universe.

Quent’s literary works may be purchased on Amazon.

I’d like to thank Quent for agreeing to my (entirely unreasonable) last-minute request to write a six-stanza commission poem for the ACO’s inaugural newsletter, on the theme of the evil of the initiation of force, which he submitted well past midnight in his timezone.