Please read to the end. I have a few things to give away.

I’ve been thinking a lot about poetry lately.

Why poetry? One writer has said poetry is important because we can “say what needs to be said in a direct, powerful and beautiful way”.

Which is how I really want my life to be right now: direct, powerful, and beautiful.

I no longer want to waste time skirting issues or shrinking back from a just cause.
I no longer want to invest in fear, cowardliness and playing the victim.
I no longer want to spend on what is ugly, inhumane and deadly.

Direct. Powerful. Beautiful.

Poetry, for me, as do good song lyrics, these have a way of pulling me down into a deeper and more honest connection with myself and with mystery and wonder. Words that are direct, powerful, and beautiful liberate me from silly, cruel and false attempts to control me, my mind, my heart.

My thoughts have been turning to one of my favorite writers, poets and speakers, David Whyte. I read his book, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, during a pivotal point in my life. Years ago he decided to leave the corporate world to risk living as a full-time poet. He’s doing it. His words helped me muster the courage it took to make bold moves for my personal health and happiness.

I used to read and write poetry. Then I stopped. I’m picking it up again. Because it takes me deeper.

One of my paintings, i will endure this solitary, was used for a cover of a book of poetry, Frozen Latitudes, by Thérése Halscheid. They paid me properly, but they also sent me 5 copies of the book. I’m keeping one and I’m giving the other 4 away today.

Here’s one of the reviews from the back of the book:

“In Frozen Latitudes, Thérése Halscheid welcomes the lucky reader into a world of deep love, familial illness, and the dual human urges to speak and be heard. The narrator takes a look at “how it really looked long ago” and how “lips, bright as scars, are parting open with words so the great air can take them.” The settings of these exquisite poems range from a childhood home colored by a father’s dementia to the northern interior of Alaska with its stories from The Real People in which each word is “a language of light.” These are moving, masterful poems in a brilliantly cohesive collection.”

I found myself in tears as I read her beautiful poetry.

Direct. Powerful. Beautiful.

If you want a copy, you have to do something. You have to share some of your own poetry that you’ve written. The first 4 to leave a poem or song lyrics on the main site (not Facebook) will get a copy mailed to them.

So, to break the ice, I will share a poem I wrote in 1986 to God when I began noticing his absence and silence:

I Have a Room

I have a room
full of obsolete dictionaries
about you
I used to delight
in reading
… but…
you evade periods
duck behind question marks
jump from parenthesis
and applaud continuations.
You’re the greatest satirist of all time
breaking pens
hugging fat pencils
caressing erasers
wasting paper.
I picture you laughing
at my picture of you
laughing.
How dare you dare me
to ‘etcetera’ and ‘so on’,
to erase ‘in conclusion’
and burn my head.

Okay, now it’s your turn!

Remember, the first 4 to leave a poem will get a copy. After the first 4 leave a poem, keep submitting poems for our pleasure please. You can order the book yourself HERE for around $13. Totally worth it!

Love you guys!

david