Poetry - The Ultimate Meeting Place

"It is said — here, now — that one of the great markers of spiritual kinship is a love for the same poetry. For if two souls are equally moved by the same pulsating constellation of metaphor and meaning, they are not only bound by a common language and a shared sensibility but also exist in the same dimension of truth and possibility. Poetry, after all, is the ultimate meeting place."

      -- Maria Popova (BrainPickings)

Like a Big Umbrella

"Now everyday that we spend together
Like a ruby from a sunken treasure
I wander aimless, when she's not around me
I thank the heavens, that my baby found me"

                   -- Jonah Smith, Big Umbrella

Wintry Mix

The plows come. The salt is laid.
Puddles of quicksand slush gather at the curb.

More Gaiman, On Writing

"The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter."

                                        --- Neil Gaiman, Eight Rules of Writing

Still Winter

"This is my winter song to you. 
The storm is coming soon, 
it rolls in from the sea . . . 
Is love alive? Is love alive? 
Is love?" -
                                        - Sarah Bareilles, Winter Song

Neil Gaiman's Instructions

"Remember your name. Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story." 

- Neil Gaiman, Instructions

The Words Between Them: Desire

She is covered with the dark smudges of his want.

The words leap across the crackling space between them, 

and tumble across her, forming small bridges.

A deep red tumbles down her arm, 

a thin line tracing out a single cursive word, 

Freeform prose runs together and then bleeds apart.

The letters gently slip over her skin, snaking and rearranging. 

The 'D' spills out first, spreading, pooling and finally taking shape on the top of her hand
Trailing behind it, as if on a kite string, 'e' and 's' and then 'i,' 'r,' and 'e,' follow.

He imprints his want first onto her body,
then her soul.

Hurling Poems Over The Edge

"It's like flinging rose petals over the edge of the Grand Canyon & listening for the BOOM."

                                                   - Don Marquis, on writing and sharing one's poetry

Better Man?

She lies and says she's in love with him, 
can't find a better man.

She dreams in colour, she dreams in red, 
can't find a better man.

                                         - Pearl Jam, Better Man

What Places Countenance and Treat Loneliness?

"Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion — these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.”

                                                       — David Foster Wallace