The space between your hand and mine
So vast
So empty
I feel the hiatus increasing
With every word
Every stroke across my neck
My cheek
Every move you ever made
As your fingers used to enjoy connecting dots
Tracing masterpieces along the small of my back
Leaving tingling sensations
That cry out for more
The hiatus deepens
So much left unsaid
Torment hangs heavy
Tainting the very air
We both breathe
And share
I feel so out of touch
Broken connections whisper louder than
The time you wrote love on your arms
And called me home
You are just out of reach
This touch may be your last
As I feel you slowly pulling away
Your sweat still sticking to my skin
Your last breath
Condensing sweet dew on my face
Evaporates
I will never taste again
As the hiatus consumes
The last memories
Of you
And
Me

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

Taken a hiatus
              Unhappy with the latest              
                           Words
                   Put onto pages
         They've not been the greatest
                   Need a vacation
                  Find that part that
                             CAN
                               Be
                          Creative


        Frustratingly
                          Average
   Make them look
                           Pretty
   Hide they're not
                           Witty
Ignore they're not
                           Gritty

                         Hello Poetry
           When you hold a committee
                         To judge me
                           Take pity
                         Before you
                           Unleash
                              Your
                            Critique
          Remember I'm only running at
                          Fifty-three
                          ­  Percent
                           Capacity
                          Creatively

  I think I'm due an upgrade
      To iron out these kinks.
Plug

Me

In

To

Sleep.

I commit to poems the second that I begin writing them,
And here I am committing to this one,
My cursor on the screen
Tap tap tapping like tap-roots across it’s blue-glowing surface.
With every push of every button,
I begin seeing the blue light
As more than it is. I begin seeing it as a poem.
The blue light that illuminated the Never Sink sinkhole
Was not from a screen.
Nor was it from glowworms.
As I write on this screen though, there is that same blue light
With me still. It is
Streaming from the walls of the cavern,
Still massaging the bags of tiredness
That hang beneath my eyelids to remind me
Of where I just was, having *** with my ex-girlfriend,
And of all the places that I was before that: to remind me
Of the blue lights in Never Sink,
The sinkhole that is 120 feet wide and 170 feet deep that I
Climbed out of on a rope and in the dark,
Which was anything but dark—an unlocked lock
Sat in my driveway after I got home

From having *** with my ex-girlfriend tonight,
And there, in that lock, was a comparison to or an analogy for or a metaphor of
My climb out of Never Sink: gradual ascension
And then a moment
Of absolute awe and profundity so unlike any other profundity
That the clarity I felt absolutely throughout my body tonight
Can only really be brought into my mind with full force
Through a comparison and analogy and metaphor
To, for, and of the blue lights
That that temple provided us. Looking into that lock’s
Reflective gleam, I discovered that I felt
The way I’d felt ever since climbing out of Never Sink, which was exactly
How I’d spent the past year or so wanting to feel.

“Bring me,” I said to Duane, who went with me to Never Sink,
“To the hole in the ground
Where the blue light glows; where the glow-worms lightly blaze” and Duane
Said “okay” and he brought me there without
My ever having to say those words. And then,
In the moments after the sun went down we discovered
That the glowworms were not glowworms but
Armillaria mellea, a bioluminescent fungus.
Not glowworms but Armillaria mellea,
Which rose through and across the cave walls, coating the rock
With its skin. The whole pit was covered in that skin—the skin
Of that single individual.
As I methodically climbed out of the sinkhole on my rope, I felt that
Fungus (that individual) extending
Its black shoelace looking taproots into my lungs too,
And into my skin,
Where I was but where
I wasn’t quite yet. Where I was but
Where I couldn’t yet describe to myself without the use of glowworms—
Without the use of made-up and childish sounding words
Like Depropheria, which I wrote a book about but which
I never really understood, and I, the whole concept of which is flawed,
Feel like I could be the plant on Joe’s counter,
Which he said I already am.
Because if my “I” was in all of its molecules and its “I” was in all of my molecules
Then we would both just be exactly what we already were, Joe said, and so
By the very logic I extended in posing the question
I was and am the plant.

I could be Armillaria mellea too
But what am I if I think that I am glowworms? but really
The glowworms are fungus, and while I ****** my ex-girlfriend tonight, falling
Further into the space away from her, I was also
Scraping away at the walls of Never Sink
To see the tiny little hairs that revealed to Duane and I what really was there,
The Armillaria mellea, of course, but how could something so different
(“**** me, Daniel,” she said, “I feel you inside of me, I want you.”
“**** me,” I said
“”
“I feel myself inside of you, I”)
Be the thing that I am? I would never

Stop the car because I saw something shining on my driveway.
And I would never
Open the car door
And step out into the night with the engine running.
Step out into the night to find an
Unlocked lock
Lying there on the pavement while the song that I tried to live all year
Called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel blasts loudly
From my Buick’s speakers. Step out into the night
With that song blaring through my open car door, surely waking
My soon to be empty-nested mother from her sleep behind
That second story window
Right up ahead.

I did those things though—I
Stopped the car because I saw something shining on my driveway, and I
Did those things.
I am glow-worms.
I am, and so
I am the plant on Joe’s counter, and so
I can be a glow-worm.
I can be what I already am without knowing or comprehending that I am it.
I can be the whole universe.
I am the whole universe.
I saw over one hundred salamanders at the bottom of Never Sink.
And I saw four different species of salamanders at the bottom of Never Sink.
And I saw six different species of frogs, and I saw
Three brown rat snakes, which thankfully were not copperheads, but which
Could have been glowworms that were copperheads,
I guess. If you ask Joe, anyway. I’m not sure
I believe it fully
Even though when you strip away sentimental definitions of “I”
It’s pretty **** convincing. He was convincing.

I danced around Joe’s counter (where the plant sat, even then)
In September. At the time,
The counter was quickly becoming Alex’s counter,
Because I was becoming close friends with Alex,
And because Alex was Joe’s little sister, and because
Joe had left for the college he’d drop out of,
And during his hiatus from what he’d wanted to run from
It was just
Alex’s counter. It is Joe’s counter again now,
Because Alex has a dumb boyfriend who she likes to kiss
And doesn’t really like to ****
But who she does **** anyway and as a result
Doesn’t really like spending much time not ******* me anymore.
Anyway, I danced

Around Joe’s counter in September, when it was becoming Alex’s counter,
And I sank songs like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
With all my new friends. I thought that I
Was living those songs
Because, if my “I” was in the molecules that vibrated when the song played,
And the “I” of those molecules was in me
Then I would be those songs and those songs would be me.
Being the songs wasn’t the same as living the songs, though.
Rising out of Never Sink I saw myself
Reflected in the blue dots of light that Armillaria mellea created.
I saw that I hadn’t been living everything
That I was; I saw that I was the blue dots then, but I also saw
That I didn’t know that the blue dots weren’t glowworms.

When I was dancing
Around Joe’s counter, I didn’t yet know the words
To In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.
But all my new friends were singing those words, and so I
Screamed out barely-syllabic nonsense
With a smile on my face,
Speaking like a baby who recognizes the existence of language
But can’t yet put it into use.

Rising out of Never Sink
The whole cave opened up, as more and more levels of the sinkhole
Were revealed to be stars and galaxies
Of blue fungus to climb through.
Rising out of Never Sink, I held in my hand
The unlocked lock which I would use later
To weight my pocket as I would sit with these bags of tiredness hanging
Writing this poem late at night on the screen illuminated
By the blue lights of Never Sink. To weight my pocket
As I would sit writing this poem, with
***** excreted thirty minutes prior still resting on my ****
Like the name I haven’t yet learned to call her—
Caterina, Caterina, why did she change it? Maria
Was so pretty, why did she change her name, it was
To get away from me, it was to get away from me like
I wanted to get away from her, it was to get away from me it was
Because she always hated the name Maria. And
To grow more confident in herself
She needed to become
Caterina. She needed to rebrand herself like she worked on rebranding
That company’s logo for her senior thesis project in high school
When I first fell in love with her because
Glowworms lit up Never Sink at night.

They were glowworms in Never Sink
Because the glowworms are fungus
And I am the glowworms.

If you ask Joe.

I want to take some time now to describe
Rising out of Never Sink
Without giving any time
To the lock I found in my drive-way this evening, or
To Joe’s counter-top and how I danced around it knowing
That it wasn’t his but that it was him,
Or to the remnants of Maria, Caterina, and I which are all I, and which
Stick to my ***** still. Never Sink is a sinkhole
That is 170 feet deep
And 120 feet wide at its top.

I went spelunking in Alamaba, Georgia, and/or Tennesse last week
Where I never knew which state or time zone I was in,
And where an annoying but charming guy named Glenn
Led me and my best friend through epic places of infinite beauty.
One of those places was Never Sink,
Which is a sinkhole that is
170 feet deep and
120 feet wide at its top. We repelled into Never Sink
Because Glenn wanted to show us the glowworms
(Which were fungus that were glowworms that were
**** it) and because my friend Duane, who is my best friend, who is
A 39 year-old factory worker who worries that he is much older than he is,
Wanted to see the glowworms too.
We found over a hundred salamanders in Never Sink
And Duane and I discovered that it wasn’t glowworms
That illuminated the pit, but Armillaria mellea, which is a fungus, and
It was very cool.
But ascending through Never Sink was more than very cool,
And it was much more than fungus,
Just as the fungus which I took into my body in August (which it
Almost is again now) after the summer music festival was more
Than just fungus. That fungus was more than just fungus because
I took it into my body right after breaking up with Maria-Caterina (who
I can’t not talk about) For Good (which was
The name of a song they sang
At Maria-Caterina’s high school graduation a year ago, after which
We made love (which was what we called it
Because we were cliché and in love
(Which is what we made.)))

It was a spiritual journey through the cosmos,
In Never Sink,
Or at least that’s how it felt,
And when I climbed out of Never Sink’s mouth, I hugged Duane
And he hugged me and we
Thought that it was beautiful.

I am the plant in Joe’s kitchen.
I am glowworms.

The feelings of broken minds
the rage
Creeping, freaking
feeling sage
I think thinking's speaking
from a rattled cage
And speaking's shrieking
has soured my brain

I feel clutter by thoughts
in a crowded room
Jilted by vocabulars
on an empty tome
Deafened by the silence
of the un-assumed
Subdued like a man
by a woman's perfume
Left here in a vacuum
vaguely confused

A desk, a chair
the blankness that exists
the door is barred
but I must escape this
Eyes are so distant
as I attempt to resist
Erasers and pencils
put papers in places
Desktops to blacktops
puts distance to this mess
Forgive me, my Writings,
this begins my hiatus

Exultant in hiatus hovering
Indulgent in this paused rewind,
To Jubilantly rob the reaper
Bleeding him of stolen time.

Illicit whispers silenced now
A brooding hue invades the room,
Whispy red, magenta forces
Hold at bay gloom's moody doom.

Translucence in the shadow shimmers
Time and space suspend as one,
Whilst others wither on the vine
Eternity's embraced by some.

This gentle feeling, floating there
The thrill of flying free,
From complications vagaries,
From life's complexity.

The crystal cadence starts to wither
Silky walls do billow in,
Hurled abuse invades the instant
Carping walls of harping din.

Retreating to the everyday
And wrinkled skin again,
The golden days of pause have fled
As time resumes her reign.

Marshalg
@theCoalface
Mangere Bridge
29 October 2009
www.worthyofpublishing.com

There was once a girl named indigo //
And there was a Christmas tree she wanted to chop down
She possessed all the tools to complete this task
She received a saw for chopping the wood
She picked up the saw and got on her knees
But then something peculiar happened //
Something so ******* strange yet entrancing at the same time
// The tree
began to grow backwards into the ground
the roots became a seed
and life became counter clockwise
counter clockwise of insanity and greed
Bluejays swum while cod fish flew
Her world got kicked over by the bully from school
She wanted to shoot everything because nothing made sense any more
More than anything she just wanted to be
But the subliminal messages she couldn’t read
While supercritical people just watched her bleed
The alphabet no longer went from A to Z
/and there was no such things as vowels//
without vowels she couldn’t write poetry
and without poetry she had no oxygen
her world was no more
it was all in code
it was so ****** up it was like watching the liveliness come out of her father’s throat
Oh wait, I didn’t tell you
Indigo watched the liveliness come out of her father’s throat//
Indigo became a synonym for insanity
the tornado spit her out like a beautiful waterfall
instead of ******* her in//
all she could do is fall //
but//
she can’t breathe
and she’s being compressed
she can’t see
she’s understanding less
she’s trying to act what society classifies as normal
but it is a useless approach
she is climbing in gym class, but without a rope
yet the rope is a noose
She is over analyzing herself into a hiatus space
Where it’s not actually hiatus but filled with chaotic mace
The mace is getting sprayed in her retinas
But she can’t see anything
Regretin the
Upside down world she created
Life stuck in reverse not tolerated
Revolving in ways that make her isolated//
But maybe if she stopped//
Stopped
Separating the separated
Decided to educate the educated
And learn to not under estimate the estimated
Then she too could feel that feeling again
but
Indigo can’t feel
And
She says
Hit me
Punch me
Kick me
Shoot me
Just do whatever you can to make me feel
Feel this feelingless life so I can begin heal
She wakes up and opens her eyes and now she is blind
The chaos has turned her heart into a mind
And mind into the heart
Where brain waves pump blood instead of intellectual parts
And her car won’t stop going in reverse but she is still pushing it forward to start
But it’s stuck
She’s stuck
Help indigo she’s stuck
All I want is for indigo is to be what she is:
a deep captivating blue
and I want her to captivate the blue
like the ocean captivates the white part of the waves//
the part that crashes the hardest at mid day
and I want the wave to push her over
PUSH ME OVER WAVE
HIT ME
PUNCH ME
KICK ME
SHOOT ME
MAKE ME FEEL AGAIN
MAKE ME THE CAPTIVATING BLUE
FORCE ME-TO-CAPTIVATE-THAT-BLUE
AND MAYBE MY BRAIN WILL TURN BACK INTO MY BRAIN
AND MY HEART WILL TURN BACK INTO A HEART
WHERE IT DOES PUMP BLOOD INSTEAD OF INTELLECTUAL PARTS
AND I’LL LEARN TO READ THE SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES PEOPLE SAID TO ME
AND I’LL EVEN APPRECIATE WHEN I BLEED
EVEN IF SUPERCRITICAL PEOPLE WERE THE CAUSE OF IT AND NOT ME
And I’ll learn to breath, I’ll learn to breathe, and I’ll learn all over again because
After all, all Indigo was, was one thing:
A deep captivating blue.

Helen sends me scraps of poems for repair.  "Shreds of lettuce," she calls them. I fool around with them in my role as Poetry Doctor (see my banner photo). In her extended absence, I will post our convolutions. While the final product is mine, the vision, the imagery, the notion of the poem is all hers and therein lies the true authorship.



From Helen, Dec 2
Here is the last of the salad,
dressing not required...

savoir-faire [?sævw???f??

Upon a plate
of deliciousness
the lettuce
is usually
pushed to the side
to wilt
and be scrapped
into an
Industrial bin
were we all begin
as fodder for worms
turning garbage
into words
Nourishing
nothing
but our own pride



bon appétit
Helen
---------------

The Human Word Salad

Now it is dressed....*


all poems, no exception,
the bad, the exceptional,
all begin
in an
industrial bin.

wormwood,
wormword
the ancestors,
feast on the scraps,
garbage letters discarded,
the wilts of alpha lettuce,
the word waste of the
every day beta jabber,
plate pushed-aside decorations,
all but none, bystanders

and they

turn them into words,
though inedible, incapable,
of nourishing life individually,
yet their recycled deliciousness,
unquestioned.

when
each sole word,
re-birthed in the compost
of the delivery room of that bin,
meet in the maternity ward
of our minds
words wed,
poems form,
and all the true nourishment
the world needs
begins anew.

your hiatus

from me
cut off the lights
and read in the dark
whatever it is that you need to

its clear
that i distract you
you get nothing done
whenever im around you gabbing

im itching
clawing my skin
getting you from under
easier said than could be done

comfort yet
just knowing it
we still read minds
youre listening from hours away

still though
you need plugs
to protect your ears
because these thoughts arent quiet

im screaming
with the electricity
firing between each synapse
and it shows through where i pace

soon though
certain of that
counting down the days
when i trade combat boots for bare foot

call soon
or write even
anything beats all this
writhing and pulling out my greys

i have even considered breaking poetic structure to tell you
that im waiting just by the phone for your ring tone
i promise to stop biting the nails to the quick
just when you give me that jingle or note
swear ill stop writing anxious poems
stop calling you every single 3 AM
cease to leave our song on loop
chase out all my cars dust
shave my whiskers
eat every meal
drink nothing
bathe nightly
dr. artist
me

im not done
but ill stop

To write - that flow of words is therapeutic beyond all belief.
To write - the psychological rehabilitation and relief does for me amazing things.
This ability to write - it feels so natural and right.
The words, when written by hand, simply roll across the paper,
Falling from my brain out through my hand seemingly with no end.
It is extraordinary, the physical release that comes with the act of writing.
When I write there is such a lifting of tension, a weight no longer resting on my shoulders,
It always astounds me.

When I pick up the pen after a hiatus
This in rush of positive feeling is constantly surprising,
Each and everytime.
It makes me question why - each and everytime -
Why I ever put the pen down?

The light pollution
from the lives of little people
in the big city
reflects off the lowriding clouds,
the same way my knees reflect
in the little puddles
from the big rains.

It hurts my eyes to look up
without sunglasses,
hurts my lips to think of tasting
the subway oil that
drip
drip
drips

I speculate at the transformers,
part automatic, part people
in their pre-ripped jeans,
learning to get their Ns
to drive themselves away,
yarn trailing from their sweaters
like parade float streamers.

Citizens run so fast
to catch the early train home,
freefalling down the stairs  
breathing in the exhales
of the other racer’s exhaust.
Marking their triumphs
with participation ribbons.

The pacific pants at toes,
a puppy that only occasionally misbehaves.
Impatient for attention,
waves wagging back and forth,
up the imitation river,
past the downtown.
Kicking the sea wall with it's gravity boots.


The geese are on hiatus
until they can take back the city.
Making the drains overflow,
creating their own habitat,
they’ll strut their haughty markings,
distinguished from orcas,
away from any saline nonsense.

Were we to retrain the population
to turn blind eyes,
we’d be much more efficient,
stop wasting time contending
to society’s obsession
with documenting itself.
But then, what would we do all day?

Creating light pollution
must give immediate gratification.
Once all the lights are turned off,
the influence won’t continue,
creating a lack of permanence,
making our need to be remembered
seem trivial indeed.

Happenstance to the melancholic gives leave the sin of pride.
Inbound reconnaissance tells not the bearer of influence.
Squeamish at first: a foreshadowing of calamitous bonding.

A space between the mark of corporeal and the ethereal; a stringent hiatus
That which rattles the concrete foundation of morality is scarcely a malleable recourse.
Regret stains the unfounded soul: an enigma of ephemeral perforations.

A separation of the unmitigated humanities; misandry topples the writhing snake.
Impact; a cleansing of the maker's flaws integrated solemnly.
Complacency arrests the administration of the abhorred; unbridled is the autonomy of a guru.  

Ambivalent giftedness burdens the reliant and haughty.
A flick of the tongue brings forth the cinema mortem.
Castaway: alone to wade in the sea of obscenities.

A temporal causality allows no mourning to abscond.
Negligence is not the enemy, but indulgent wrath.
Hesitant: a stroke of qualia begets the end of a maiden.

1.) Waking up alone Saturday morning means not having to get breakfast hung-over for anyone but yourself.
2.) Cleaning your room is optional.
3.) Books are so much better at pillow talk.
4.) Taking the stairs will do more wonders for your body than elevator hookups ever will.
5.) It is a blessing to have no one but yourself to debate with over Netflix selections on a Sunday afternoon.
6.) Choosing true friendship over a hasty ****** will always be the best decision.
7.) Music provokes the heart when you’re with someone, but provokes the soul when you’re not.
8.) Crying over things other than men gives you a better understanding of life’s meaning.
9.) Sometimes you discover things you thought were lost forever when searching long and hard for your key, because without it you have no where else to sleep.
10.) Contrary to the hand of another, a pen will not let go.

A time was when
Nothing short of my deepest ******
Once and then many times more
Would satiate me

Then quietly crept between us
The hiatus

When I learned new ways to play
Chanced on a week a golden day
Then over a month or more

I had found the key to the secret door.

Now at the most heightened end of the affair
Satiates me a strand of her hair!

You walk away
For a day
For a month
For a year

You say it's okay
It's a faze
It's just for a day
It'll go away

Then you realize
In a moment
In a blur

That you have forgotten
Abandon and ignored
The words you've penned
The poems you've cared for

Now you have returned
To a familiar place
With a different face
The time has come
To end the hiatus



© Sofia Villagrana 2021

~~
Then, if ever, is the red color grows fade
The petals of red roses drop
If the birds don't sing any songs
And even a butterfly doesn't
Play on a purple flower

If the mistake happens in the rain
You 'll not cry
You can't be afraid of thunder
They will cleanse you

And when I am gone
Forgive me, but the melody in the air
You will come, playing in the garden,
Dance with the lost grasshoppers

Any yellow day when red flamboyant will be bloomed
Will have to take off your colorful sunglasses
At the very noon will be floated on the Cuckoo's love song
Again and Again it will prove your arrival,

O' Spring

You'll be the very white sky after rain
Will bloom red hibiscus
On that gilded day  
Red flamboyant 'll be loved with yellow flamboyant

Patched up with melody and words
Will be made new Songs,
New Poetry,
With the yellow flowers tune

Then again,
You 'll not  sing a song of despair,
Not even a song of hiatus,
Will sing the Songs of Joy,
Stir in the way of dreams,
Mating

Back to again and again
I 'll come back to you
Both 'll make a love  
For the creation of a new life
~~

:
..
....
........
...........

As often as a human's breath,
deadlines and restrictions pop up
simultaneous with emergencies
chores, and necessities...all in a fast
pace, many things are prioritized
...though, most are unnecessary and
occupy precious space in our lives...

everyday, we struggle...silent battles
and tribulations stir the soul...
for some reason, some things cannot
be changed...some people play deaf
and stay the same.....neither could
thoughts towards them, be altered...
sometimes, our ties with useless stuff,
and useless people...need to be severed.
moments come when, we've had enough
..............of rules and regulations.
...................we just get fed up...

life is precious and short.....a part of me
....awaits a break......a cold phase,
.........when all my discontent would freeze
..............when all queasy feelings
...................this fidgeting within,
........................would turn to ice
..............................permanently.....
.................­......
...................
.............
.........
......
....
..­
.

Sally

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
(an old unposted poem from 2014)

Soft wind off the lake
In the shadow of a tree
Driving Tiny waves to
Lap against the shore
Lull you with the song
Of A Warbler on a Branch

The coolness of the earth
Soothing the Mid Day Heat
As the Sound of Cicadas
Are Hushed by the call of the Loon
All upon a mid day Afternoon

The Sound of Laughter as Red Kites
Dance in the Air among the Clouds
The creak of Swings in full Motion
Lead to Day Dreamed Notions

Coolness sets in as the sun Sinks
A chorus of Tree frogs breaks
The Nights Silence

Shadows shift in the bloom
Of a Midsummers Moon


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack

Now that people are becoming more aware of my poetic efforts, interests are being expressed regarding the background of my poetry - in addition, to my spiritual muse. One never knows exactly when the Spirit of God will move on your soul; fortunately I was paying a little bit of attention, one cold winter night...

I've been a member of the IT (Information Technology) community since June of 1981, a profession that constantly tries to turn you into a slave from an employee. Rarely did I ever bring home work; sometimes it was unavoidable, given arbitrary deadlines and poor managerial planning. After dinner on this particular night, I had spread out the pages of computer 'source code' across the entire kitchen table, while attempting to solve a logic problem. ('Source Code' is the logic written by a computer programmer, in a given computer language, that addresses a specific business function. The term is equivalent to a computer 'program'.)

Once I had spent roughly 90 minutes struggling to solve the issue at hand, I treated myself to a mental break. I noticed the gentle reflection of moonlight on the window and decided that I would step outside onto my breezeway for some fresh air. The evening sky that night was a magnificient sight, like many other times. Absent were the visible presence of clouds and the stars seemed noticeably brighter. Taking in this grand view, I let my mind wander, temporarily forgetting about the thousand lines of computer code awaiting me. Gazing upwards, I was quietly reminded of God's promise to Abraham - that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars. I also contemplated why God had designed the heavens to demonstrate His existence.

When the coldness of the winter night started to permeate my body, it was time to terminate my break. Stepping back into my warm home, my brain was re-energized and thankful for the brief, mental hiatus. Trying to re-focus on my work became difficult, as phrases of poem snippets bombarded my soul as "shooting stars". I had been writing haikus and senryus for several years, but not 'traditional' poetry. So to move on, I grabbed a blank piece of paper and started writing, capturing the poem's concept. At the time, I did not recognize or fully appreciate what had transpired. This was my first non-haiku poem written by me; it would be over a year later before I thought to publish my first book.

Having taken the time to compose this poem, I was blessed by God, for taking time to honor Him. Less than ten minutes later, I solved the problem and enjoyed immense relief; plus I got to spend quality time for the rest of the night with my wife. In addition, I completed my project deadline to my boss' delight and surprise.