Forward

Forward

This is an age of prose, an age of information, of high-speed internet connections, of harsh facts, and even harsher realities, an age where cold steel buildings rise skyward and hard cement roads spread out across the horizon, an age when cancerous toxins infest the body and the body politic. Why then a book of poetry? Prose speaks to the body, to the flesh of the body. Poetry speaks to the soul, to be a light to the soul.
There are those, in these noise-tired times, who turn aside from the language of despair and the murkiness of unfiltered waters to think of Him, the "word made flesh who dwelt among us," to remember Him, who brought forth "living waters." They feast upon the words of grace and truth which flow from Him.
It is the purpose of this book to look into the lives of men and women who have gone to Him, the divine source of spiritual nourishment to partake of epiphanies that come from communing with the Infinite. Nuggets of wisdom gleaned as gems of personal revelations to those who drank from the fountain of all righteousness, are prescriptions for hope.
Beginning with love and marriage in the present age, this book goes on to examine the paradise of Eden, passes through the Old Testament and New Testaments, and Restoration, circles back to the hearths and homes of today, looks at the sons and daughters of liberty and concludes with the poets, they who taught us that "in God we live and move and have our being."
In the days before mass communication, the wandering minstrel and the story-teller were in great demand. They kept alive the glorious deeds of heroes as they sang for their suppers while entertaining castle audiences and tavern crowds.
As you read this book, you will note not only a variety of poetic styles, but also of lyrical stories: allegories, parables, myths, love stories, and patriotic tales. The need for engaging narratives is greater now than ever before for they produce that cathartic experience which cleanses and clarifies as it entertains.
A drum roll or a clarinet break in a blues’ song often makes a deeper and more lasting impression than the combined instruments of a entire combo. Likewise, a single poem offers a more meaningful and moving experience than an entire book of poems. If, in this collection of sonnets, odes, and lyrical narratives, you find a poem or selection of poems that are so compelling as to be held in remembrance, the author’s hope of creating a literary fountain to which souls, hungering for power of the word , can go for refreshment.