Freedom is found In knowledge sought Connections imagined – New dawning era of thought Yet none speaks wisely Who claim to know all Pushing forth their opinions As to not seem so small Compensation calculation For indiscretions of past Look instead to the future Nothing Can Last
11 December 2020
There’s a light in the forest Beyond the break in the trees Where water flows gently Among the rustle of leaves. Pardon the intrusion Where humans should not be I’ll return to the shadows– Darkened path no one sees
9 December 2020
I hold space in the darkness Where someday I pray There will be light
8 December 2020
“Dans Macabre–” you say With a permanent pearly grin “It takes your breath away.” As your long limbs sway Stripped of their flesh Now immortal as stone With your clattering bones: Restless soul with no home.
Thank you for taking the time to read my poetry today! These originally appeared on my Twitteraccount.
We climb into the cloud forest– Sleepy trees draped in moss blankets Slumbering to bird song lullabies Dreaming of snow covered melodies Melting into symphonies of spring
Thank you for taking the time to read this post! It first appeared on Twitter here.
A slightly different forgotten poem. This one is from December 2014. I found this one while organizing my office and included a horrendous drawing I found with it. Written while in San Francisco, it’s not anything I would submit for publication. I can’t provide insight into the title I gave it, but I’m open to any interpretations others may have.
外人
Ten floors above Mission Car horns and clanging Parking garage lights Dabbling in polluting the sky: Here I am standing on the ledge Contemplating perspective –
Fires are not born; they are given With the perpetuated myths of spontaneous Combustion In the depths of our primitive we wait: Struck by lightning Or by flint
We reach back into Darkness of our memories Pollute the idealized or traumatic sky With knowledge
Where past: Plato’s Cave And I: emerging into the light –
We are our own outsider Reclaiming life As we know it – our identity
Fighting the inner demons in darkness Before we can escape into the light
Thank you for taking the time to read these today! Have you ever found any of your old writing? What did you think of it? What do you think of this one? I’d love to hear in the comments!
If you’d like to see more of my forgotten poetry, please like, comment, and/or share this post. It helps me know what content my readers are most interested in seeing, so I can better know what to share here.
“Christmas Magic” is a collection of 7 short stories by Alaine Greyson and Marie McGrath focusing on love and family around the holidays in the face of struggle with grief, tragedy, and of course everyone’s greatest enemies: themselves. Each story takes the time to address what it means to be successful, and how the characters’ actions with that success defines them.
As an added bonus, one of the stories by Alaine Greyson is a spin-off of her current Reclaiming Life series, so we get to enjoy characters fans already know and love. Another one of her stories featured acts as a preview to an upcoming release.
Marie McGrath’s short stories center around family and the preservation of traditions around the holidays. These wholesome themes are brought to life with unique, lively characters, each with their own hopes and aspirations.
My Overall Response:
In “Christmas Magic” Alaine Greyson and Marie McGrath took on the task of producing a collection of wholesome Christmas themed stories with a tight deadline against some pretty tremendous personal circumstances. This was the book that inspired me to theme December 2019’s reviews in anticipation of its release. Guess what I learned?Planning, writing, and executing a holiday-themed book with a deadline is hard. Please stand and give everyone at Creative James Media, Alaine Greyson, Marie McGrath, and Brian Paone a round of applause.
With that tight of a deadline, there are going to be mistakes, and I will mention some of them here. I also recognize how AMAZING the turnaround was from when the stories were “done” to when I received my copy of the book.
Now that I’m done explaining that, let me get into some more details on my responses to the individual stories. Many of the stories I really enjoyed – they were the wholesome, sweet, and Hallmark Card style warm fuzzies I imagine readers look forward to using to decompress from holiday stress.
My favorite stories were “Christmas Spirit” and “Paws and Santa Claus”. These are my favorites because they are unique and went against the cliche Christmas Romance stereotype. “Christmas Spirit” really brought out that winter magic that I mentioned being so important to me. It is also a story about mourning and grief during the holidays. “Paws and Santa Claus” brings out the overcoming adversity theme I was looking for, and while there are hints at romance, it is not at the forefront. Enjoyably, it is almost part of a joke about how romance can wait.
I did run into a bit of confusion with the story “The Christmas Locket”. Two major inconsistencies hit me in the story: the main character was both adopted and not adopted, and the family has 5 kids then 6 kids. Only 5 kids are named. In the case of the adopted vs. not adopted issue, it was less of a concern until the mother referenced being pregnant with the adopted child. These sorts of inconsistencies should have been caught, but as previously mentioned this book was on a tight deadline. I imagine a second edition providing clarity.
The other issue I ran into a couple of times was that some of the stories, even ones that I loved, had ambiguous dialogue that could not be attributed to a specific character. This threw me off because I wasn’t sure who was saying what.
Overall, I really enjoyed this collection of short stories and encourage a second, expanded edition to be released next year. I look forward to reading more from both Alaine Greyson and Marie McGrath.
LGBTQA Friendly? Not mentioned in the book. Does not impact the author’s recommendation, but would not be recommended for LGBTQA book lists.
Grammar and Formatting: There are a few issues with consistencies (plural pronouns vs. singular pronouns) that do not interrupt the reading experience too badly. This is not terribly surprising given the short turnaround, but the grammar and spelling are otherwise as expected. There are some formatting errors in the book where the font size changes mid-word, but it returns to the original size. This seems like an issue with the formatting program. I would expect that these be corrected with additional time to review for future editions.
Did This Book Bring Holiday Cheer? Absolutely! 100% – This book brought me holiday cheer and helped me destress. The stories were wholesome, and while some were a bit on the extra-cheese cheesy side for the modern fairytale ending that’s what the holidays need sometimes.
Want to know more about the authors? The book was published by Creative James Media. You can follow Alaine Greyson on Twitter or visit her website here. You can follow Marie McGrath on Twitter and follow their books on Amazon here. You purchase your copy of the book here.
