Just a Note: December 23, 2013

Hello World!

The winter solstice has happened…whether you put it at the 21st or the 22nd it has come about.  The Longest Night of the Year has just passed us by and the new cycle has begun!  Of course, we still have to get through three months of cold, ice, fog and all that jazz, unless, like Leanne Cole or Summerstommy some of you live in the land down under!  So, for me it’s kind of like New Year’s Day and so I’m going to try to thank at least some of you for a wonder year!

Most will be reading this in my tomorrow, some will perhaps read it in my yesterday, like Eric Alagan or Canadian Travelbugs (which reminds me I have a photo prompt to do!) in China!  Some will be reading from England like Barb Taub, who was one of my first readers actually and the lady that introduced me to AWARDS…but I still love her.  Some may pop in from Florida, like dear Cranky, another of my first readers and award givers.  These two ladies have been ever so busy lately…publishing and an added feature for Cranky studying, as she’s gone back to college!  One of the great bloggers I met in this period was OM for whom I wrote a haiku, I think it was, and learnt how to ping by accident 😉 and Christian Mihai.  Two of WordPress comets who’ve since flown high in the sky of blogosphere!

I got “into” poetry around the middle of March. Thanks to Sahm King from whom I learnt about Papizilla (then with We Drink Because We’re Poets), Charles from Windemere fame, King Midget, Lilith Colbert, MT Blu and many, many others who came later, who soared in my life and mind, sometimes briefly sometimes intensely, always leaving something of their passing.

I also became interested in Haiku (this was my first haiku) and followed Betty Generic’s year-long effort to write a Haiku a Day looking out her bedroom window! Haiga thanks first of all to Sahm and then Rick Daddrio and Wabi Sabi and Haibun through the Ligo Haibun Challenge and Ese’s Voice.   I wrote power shorts, short fiction, and 100 words a week for the Friday Fictioneers…The Trifecta (which I seem to have missed last week…hmmm) and The Speakeasy people, and – and – and….I could go on and on.  So many to thank so many who stimulated me.  I can’t even begin to thank some of you for whom I’ve written over the Poem a Day Month back in October and other random blogs I chanced upon and for whom I felt inspired to write.  Go through the blog by category or date if you like.  I always mention who inspired me…except once…that Bltz Poem still haunts me!

Thanks to the Daily Post:  Weekly Photo Challenge (the star up at the top of the blog is for you), I came across such lovely blogs and blogger’s like: What’s in a Picture, Chronicles of a Public Transit User, Patchwork Ponderings , Frizztext and so many more I really can’t link you all…

I’ve written posts for We Drink Because We’re Poets, Poet’s Corner, 13th Floor Pardigm, We Poets Show It and a Paperbook Collective (and maybe for something or someone else that I’ve forgotten).  Wow…I’ve been a busy beaver folks!  Many of you have followed through poetry many other’s photography…and some of you liked my stories.  You’ve all been very supportive in one way or another and it’s been a pleasure to have met you, blogged with you, chatted with you (a special thanks to The Dragon Don for a great talk about computers by the way…still fighting with Ubuntu, but may try Mint in the not too distant future!)

So in the end…this is a lot of ramble… I haven’t mentioned even a fourth of the people who have had an influence on my life, like T.J.Therien (who often inspired me to try different poetry form, like the Ghazal, Sonnet, Kyreille Sonnet etc), Running Son, Belinda, Traces of Soul, My dearest Cubby of Reowr, Oloriel, Ye Olde Foole, Idiot Writing, Rarasaur, HA who is now Anmol, Sun, Al, Nerd on a Bridge, Lexborgia, Words of Birds and heaven forgive me and you if I haven’t written your name!  I now follow 476 blogs (whom I sometimes have to refollow because they disappear) and am followed by a little over 900 people thanks to my two blogs and my Facebook link to the blog (don’t know about Goggle + etc.) no big time blogger but I feel that’s a pretty respectable following after nearly a year of blogging.

But here I really have to mention a blog which very few of you have ever heard of.  It’s administered by a formidable Italian lady of a very fine intellectual cut, her name is Elena…and she blogs at Elena e Orlando if it hadn’t been for this dear friend, I wouldn’t be blogging at all.  It was upon her instigation that I created Bastet and Sekhmet last January.  If you like the blog thank her…if you don’t blame me.

I better go and write something interesting!

You all have a wonderful holiday: serene, peaceful and safe…A hug to you all.

and when all is said and done
whether I’ve mentioned you
or what you’ve done
the memories of a year together
writing and reading
laughing and crying
may all just be an ephimeral moment
of cyberspace and loneliness
I’ve loved some of you to heartbreak
and other’s have been my muse
the point of all this is just to say
that I’m happy I’ve met you
and look throughout the day
to find you and read what you’ve got to say.

Oh well…you know what I mean 😉

Ciao!