NOTE: TODAY’S POST FOLLOWS BELOW:

Dear poetry-lovers,

         Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following my blog. Some of you have been daily readers since it began 9 years ago, some are more sporadic or more recent followers.  Thank you one and all. As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount of time to write and choose both an original poem (and select a photo to pair it with from my own work.)  Besides the blog, I spend a fair amount of time finding journals and anthologies which are looking for poems to publish and I’ve been honored to be included in hundreds of them from around the world.  If my work has moved you, made you smile or laugh or feel the depth of my writing in your hearts, then my work is all the more meaningful.
          Plain View Press published my second collection of poetry, Free of the Shadow,  this month,  It has been 16 years since I’ve taken the time to gather and organize my work into a manuscript and sent it to a publisher.  I was thrilled they accepted it and the response from people who have read early copies is beyond what I hoped for.  You can find it at B&N, independent stores and at Amazon for $17.99; check it out, if you like online HERE:

          But to thank you for being a follower, I am offering to send you a (signed, if you like) copy directly from me for $10.00, and I’ll pay shipping if you order it from me.  Just CLICK HERE.

Thank you again, my readers, whoever you are, one and all.

You say that I speak out of both
sides of my mouth, that I lack
real principles, but I decry your
claim for I have only one voice
and it comes off my tongue and out
the middle of my mouth, not the sides.
I do have principles, I do believe
in justice and the rule of law but
just because I coddle those who act
in my interest, who may bend the law
to my advantage, the consequences
and innocent body count be damned,
does not mean I have no principles.
For you see i am the sole arbiter
of what is just and allowed and my
guiding principle is simply this:
if it benefits me it is just, if I do not
lose a proportion of my supporters
it is proper, and if the world says
otherwise, what do they know,
for I am God’s chosen emissary,
and the rest of the world be damned.
Learn to live with my collateral damage,
I have and I sleep fine in my palatial
bed in my big white house each night.

TO MY SUBSCRIBERS/READERS

I began this daily blog on March 26, 2016. Since that date I have made over 3,300 posts (trying very hard not to be repetitive). With a new collection of poetry and short prose from Plain View Press entitled “Free of the Shadow,” now released, I will be devoting time to the book and cutting back this blog beginning on April 15 to occasional posts without a fixed schedule.