If you look out your window southerly,
you’ll see the moon most lovely.
You’ll see the glow, even through the clouds
that surround the moon, just like a shroud!
And as you fix your gaze there, southerly,
so shall I; that’s where I’ll be!
And you and I shall have the same view
and it will be as though —
even though the sheets and night are cold —
I’ll be laying next to you.
http://cyranowriter.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/cropped-empirebeachsouvenir4_071.jpg
http://cyranowriter.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/cropped-empirebeachsouvenir4_07.jpg
Note: I’ve tried to get the blog explanation (next article) up to this position, but can’t figure out how. If you want to know how my blog is structured and what it’s about, make certain you read the NEXT posting as well. THIS posting is more of a “Why/how I was inspired!” piece!
Inspired by President Obama’s Inauguration Speech, I recognized it was my time (after half a century) to start writing. Tell me what you think. (I’m feeling very uninspired tonight!)(PS: Please make certain you read the next entry, below, to understand HOW my blog is set up… this is mostly about the “Why”).
But now it is morning — and I feel more inspired. In brief, two things happened during the Inauguration that inspired me. One was very simple: As the Poet read her work after President Obama’s speech, I listened, and thought to myself: “My work is just as good.”
More importantly, though, is what happened to me as the inauguration took place. I was thinking about all my African-American, Native American, Hispanic, Gay Rights friends, soldiers who’d “fought the fight”, who must have been ecstatic with the events of January 20th, 2009.
And I felt very ashamed. These were people who’d LIVED with segregation, who’d been the “first to”, who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed, who’d been oppressed themselves. And me? What had I done? Certainly nothing revolutionary like they had done.
Then I thought of my life, and the very different path it took, in one way, on the outside, a path of ease and comfort, but in another way, a path very different than I had anticipated, an uncomfortable path personally, a path of coaching soccer and baseball, of youth groups, of planting gardens, of doing service projects. And I realized that, in a small, personal way, I’d also been a revolutionary and that, because of President Obama’s remarks, and the examples of thousands before, I was able to come out about it, to shout from the rooftops that there are things I feel passionately about, things that matter, and although in the history of this nation, and in the minds of many, those things don’t matter as much as what my friends went through — they matter to me.
This blog contains my revolutionary statements.
At the same time, I experienced a personal “coming out” of the romantic writer. That writer had always been there, hiding, ashamed, not willing to believe that he was “any good”, assuming that people reading his romanticism, his rhyme schemes and free verse and prose, would giggle and say “Romance is stupid” or “You sound like Dr. Seuss / writing about the love of a Moose!” or “I don’t get it.”
Thanks to several friends — old AND new — and thanks to the belief that today IS a new day, I’ve decided to start writing, and posting my writings, along with my experiences as both a Romantic Poet and a Revolutionary Writer. Maybe it’s not right that I self-proclaim that I’m either — or both — of those things. But who is to say that I am, or I’m not?
Thanks to several friends — old AND new — and thanks to the belief that today (Inauguration Day, 2009) IS a new day, I’ve decided to start writing, and posting my writings, along with my experiences as both a Romantic Poet and a Revolutionary Writer. Maybe it’s not right that I self-proclaim that I’m either — or both — of those things.
But who is to say that I am, or I’m not?
Within my blog I will attempt to have two main thought process categories.
Revolutionary: Poems, stories, thoughts that are “Revolutionary” in nature. That is, they will be thoughts about anything topical and worthy of discussion, including self-discovery, OUTSIDE of my romantic writings.
Romantic: Poems, stories, thoughts that are “Romantic” in nature. That is, they will tend to focus on writing toward a woman or women, discussing romantic relationships. They will probably be divided into:
*”IMbic Poems 4an IMprov Age” (typically poems created “on the fly” while Instant Messaging (IMing) friends),
*”ConTEXTual Poems” (typically poems created on the fly, but within the confines of sending cellphone text messages), and
*Other poems and writings, either created within emails directed to someone, or as random thoughts. (Note: Some of these may deal with mature themes. I won’t publish them as posts, but will create a working page of “Mature Poetry” that I’ll add to on occassion.)
It’s my hope to eventually publish these into a book (or several). I only hope that the formatting of the pages on WordPress allows me to put them into the various categories!
Dave Kuhns 20 January, 2009
My professional writing, marketing, communications, training and curriculum development site is here: https://www.cyranowriter.com. My romance letters, canoe tour, and poetry business is at http://www.romanticlovepoet.com. You can write me at cyrano@cyranowriter.com
Biznik.com has my professional writer/editor and curriculum developer profile: 
Thanks to several friends — old AND new — and thanks to the belief that today (Inauguration Day, 2009) IS a new day, I’ve decided to start writing, and posting my writings, along with my experiences as both a Romantic Poet and a Revolutionary Writer. Maybe it’s not right that I self-proclaim that I’m either — or both — of those things. But who is to say that I am, or I’m not?
Within my blog I will attempt to have two main thought process categories.
It’s my hope to eventually publish these into a book (or several). I only hope that the formatting of the pages on WordPress allows me to put them into the various categories!
Dave Kuhns 20 January, 2009
http://www.geocities.com/dgkuhns
dgkuhns_writer@msn.com
https://www.cyranowriter.com has technical writing, marketing collateral examples, curriculum development and training examples.
My business profile is available at Biznik.com:
(The words stare out from the page,
although I’ve seen them in my mind before.
Have I?
I’m not sure!)
I’ve ridden – and ride — the bus
Not when it was dangerous
But when it is obnoxious.
Not for Civil Rights.
But for Earth’s Rights.
I am a revolutionary.
I’ve dug my hands deep
Not into plantations’ soil
Nor sharecropper’s clay,
But into the teaming,
Steaming,
Still hot, though winter’s day
at minus 20 degrees,
Compost heap,
That I first learned to keep
At ten,
And again,
At thirty,
To get my hands dirty.
And now
I know how
To show younger folk,
That they may pick up
That revolutionary yoke.
I am a revolutionary.
Though not the great-great grandson
Of anyone
Who history would honor
Nor remember.
Mine came across the water as well,
To seek a new life
in a promised land.
A land of opportunity they sought out
Of their own choice.
I follow that dream
Because I am the son of a father
Who has been to many mountaintops,
And rivers and marshes and forests and lakes
And said: “Make no mistake:
This is ours to preserve …
Or to eradicate.”
I am a revolutionary.
As the son of women who
Gave a hand up
When that’s all they could do.
Who, when others saw opportunity,
In times of greed,
Looked through with clarity,
And saw need,
And gave with charity.
Even now,
within my soul, I guess,
There is an inner vow:
“I can do no less!”
I am a revolutionary.
Lest there be any confusion
The earth,
and its people,
Are the roots of my revolution.
— Written after the Inauguration of President Obama, on my mother’s birthday, January 20, 2009
I read this poem at a committee meeting of the Seattle City Council in August, 2010. If you go to this link: YouTube copy of Inauguration Day Revolution Revelation at Seattle City Council sub-committee, “Words Worth”, 2010
romance is never about buying things.
cyrano_d_sensitive: It’s about doing.
cyrano_d_sensitive: Being.
cyrano_d_sensitive: It’s a gentle caress.
cyrano_d_sensitive: A held hand.
Jacque Dempster: I agree wholeheartedly. But, way too many men think that buying things like flowers or candy solves everything. Ugh.
cyrano_d_sensitive: A plucked wildflower.
cyrano_d_sensitive: an opened door.
cyrano_d_sensitive: a poem on a sticky note on a mirror.
cyrano_d_sensitive: A breath on the back of a neck as the full moon shines through the window, softly stirring her but not awakening from her deep slumber.
cyrano_d_sensitive: Just enough so she feels safe and protected and together.
Jacque Dempster: Whoa…..a poet
cyrano_d_sensitive: two decades of desire
cyrano_d_sensitive: fuel the fire
Jacque Dempster: I’ll bet it does.
cyrano_d_sensitive: long smothered
cyrano_d_sensitive: but at last uncovered
cyrano_d_sensitive: and, given fresh breath,
cyrano_d_sensitive: roars to life, from near death.
cyrano_d_sensitive: And to her invited
cyrano_d_sensitive: to fan the flame,
cyrano_d_sensitive: poetic romance, now requited,
cyrano_d_sensitive: will never be the same.
Do we truthfully/
frustrate each other? Or just/
hold up truth’s mirror?