Saturday, June 7, 2025

A Celtic Twilight

Moonlight washed itself up to the shimmering shore,
Silver woven into the magic of night’s approaching farewell.

The Druid stood alone in the shallow, shadowy dunes,

His breath slowing for the incantation of an ancient spell. With hands outstretched he closed his eyes, the evocation began.

Mist descended, the Earth heard his low voice beckon.

Ghostly tendrils rose from the soft green land,Weaving themselves with the very sea and air to become one. His words “For hope or death” entwining with the dancing waves.

Above the stars began to hear a waking sunrise serenade.

“I’ll see the dawn as corpse or king” he whispered,

“Tell all, you Faeries wearing capes of jade.” The misty sands listened in their cold silence,

In time a soft rolling came upon the gloom, soon a figure walked.There were neither eyes nor face to see,It’s hood the shadow of a darkened hawk. The risen Faerie moved as smooth as glass,

No footprints left to see,
And as the sky began to grow,
Approached toward the wizard he. Its voice a drifted leaf upon the air,
Gone past before you even hear.
Such Elvin folk have never need to shout,
Their skill alone is what brings all to fear. “You ask us to begift the powerful crown”“To place upon your undeserving head”

“What treasure will you give to us for this”“Speak well, or soon your dance is with the dead” The Druid’s garb now showed its crimson hue,

As sunlight almost spilled. “I’ll pay with blood of course” said he,“Whoever you wish killed”. No movement was there on those spoken words,

To show if heard as soft or hard,

But the air stayed taut and sharp with thought,

As the floating offer slowly sank its barbs. “So you would take a life, at this Faerie’s whim?”Came a hissed reply to chill the spine.“

Why would the choice that I make be less damned,

Than any made by wickedness unkind?” 

The Druid bowed his head at this, and solemnly spoke back,“

I am already damned, but would do some good before I die,
if you will say a name it will be done,To rid the world of one you know who only has an evil eye.” 

The two stood still as stone, unblinking in stare,

And as the sun burst bright upon the sand,A river passed between them both,The Elvin cloak now lifted with both hands. The Druid dared to look upon this face,

The horror of it draining him to gaunt,For the face was his in ancient form,It was in fact himself come back to haunt. The Elvin figure spoke as if amongst the clouds,

“I made this same mistake so long ago,Though barely can remember why I cared,

But every year return here from below” 

A scrawny hand grasped hard the Druid’s arm,

As sparks lit up the East with filling morn,

And soon there was now only one stood there,

With empty footprints looking much forlorn. So kings and crowns must wait another day,

for Elvin Faeries always have their thoughtful, final say.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Walt Whitman

"Few poets have had such lasting impact as Walt Whitman."https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70243/walt-whitman-101?utm_source=join1440&user_id=66c4c92f5d78644b3ac5d5b4

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Guiding Light



Guiding light shine your light upon thee,

Guiding light for us all to see.

Guiding light, oh guidiing light.

You are so great for all who you shine on.

#BENOTEWORTHY
#piccadillyinc

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

You shouldn't be Afraid.



Always be brave.

For you never know what the future holds.

Life is miraculous,

In all the events you choose.

You should always be cautious but not fearful. 

The future is unwritten.

#BENOTEWORTHY#piccadillyinc

Monday, May 12, 2025

NATIONAL LIMERICK DAY



"Observed annually on May 12th, National Limerick Day celebrates the birthday of English artist, illustrator, author, and poet Edward Lear (May 12, 1812 – Jan. 29, 1888)."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-limerick-day-may-12?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13464701&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Monday, April 28, 2025

NATIONAL GREAT POETRY READING DAY

"At the tail end of National Poetry Month, April 28th marks the observance of National Great Poetry Reading Day."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-great-poetry-reading-day-april-28?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13258306&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Easter

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick    

Let all the flowers wake to life;  
Let all the songsters sing;
Let everything that lives on earth  Become a joyous thing.    

Wake up, thou pansy, purple-eyed,  And greet the dewy spring;

Swell out, ye buds, and o’er the earth  Thy sweetest fragrance fling.    

Why dost thou sleep, sweet violet?  The earth has need of thee;

Wake up and catch the melody  That sounds from sea to sea.    

Ye stars, that dwell in noonday skies,  Shine on, though all unseen;

The great White Throne lies just beyond,  

The stars are all between.    

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,  And ring the glory in;

Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—  Ring out the stains of sin.    

O banners wide, that sweep the sky,  Unfurl ye to the sun;

And gently wave about the graves  Of those whose lives are done.    

Let peace be in the hearts that mourn—  

Let “Rest” be in the grave;

The Hand that swept these lives away  Hath power alone to save.

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,  And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—  Ring out the stains of sin.

Downtown Oakland Poem


Barbara Jane Reyes

We wait for the light here, at 14th and Broadway,
Here, we hand passers-by silk ribboned poems,

We staple them to our neighborhood bulletin board,
We paste them to lampposts. And here, we fold poems

Into parking lots, under each windshield wiper blade,
We tape them up in the Ruby Room bathroom stalls.

Here, we hand letter haiku on Dubs colored confetti,
Weave them with daisies into vacant lot chain fences,

Slip them into glossy envelopes, and drop them
Into the mail slots of whole blocks downtown.

Here, 8th and Webster bullhorns and firecracker fists
Here, spray paint odes for boarded up storefronts,

And here, baybayin in balisong carved verses
For oaks lakeshore. Here, we set paper boat songs

Alongside egrets and geese, to float slow to the bay,
Westward paper airplane and origami crane poems,

Here, boombox blasting Digital Underground,
Here, our hella Baller ballgame singalong

Friday, April 18, 2025

NATIONAL POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY

"During National Poetry Month in April, National Poem in Your Pocket Day shares the way poetry brings joy by simply carrying one in your pocket."https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-poem-in-your-pocket-day-last-thursday-in-april?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13218820&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com

Monday, April 7, 2025

Butterfly

Butterfly in my dreams, 
Nothing is as it seems; 
Whispered winds and silver gleams,
Lost in labyrinthine streams. 
Shadows dance, and time redeems, Forgotten, half-remembered schemes. 
A world where fantasy teems, 
And waking life, like fading themes.

#BENOTEWORTHY
#piccadillyinc

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Hymn of Nature



Felicia Dorothea Hemans

O! Blest art thou whose steps may rove

Through the green paths of vale and grove

Or, leaving all their charms below,

Climb the wild mountain’s airy brow!

And gaze afar o’er cultur’d plains,And cities with their stately fanes,

And forests, that beneath thee lie,

And ocean mingling with the sky.

For man can show thee nought so fair,

As Nature’s varied marvels there;

And if thy pure and artless breast

Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!

For thee the stream in beauty flows,

For thee the gale of summer blows;

And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,

Voices of joy still breathe for thee.

But happier far, if then thy soul

Can soar to Him who made the whole,

If to thine eye the simplest flower

Portray 

His bounty and His power:

If, in whate’er is bright or grand,

Thy mind can trace His viewless hand,

If Nature’s music bid thee raise

Thy song of gratitude and praise;

If heaven and earth with beauty fraught,

Lead to His throne thy raptured thought;

If there thou lovest His love to read;

Then, wand’rer, thou art blest indeed!

Creativity in Life

A lifelong creative who dabbled in cartooning, songwriting, and performing, Shel Silverstein is best known for his whimsical poetry for children. His writing strikes a clever balance between mischief and sincerity, often using bizarre characters as cautionary tales.In one of Silverstein’s most well-known poems, a girl named Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout refuses to take out the trash, and eventually meets “an awful fate” in the garbage she neglected. But many of his poems aren’t ominous at all, and instead turn real life on its head in delightful ways.In beloved books such as Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic, Silverstein often returned to themes of dreaming big, taking life one day at a time, and the importance of being yourself — things you don’t need to be a young reader to appreciate.

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Shadow

M. J. Fraser

Fickle fibrous tendrils creepingSeeking out, no longer sleeping

They writhe and slither and work their way through

For all they've got and what they will do

Shadows dance, just out of sight

Hiding away, avoiding the light

But there they creep, for when we weep

They take hold and start to mould

A new feeling, more bold

They grip the mind and soul

Attempting to consume it whole

But breaking through a sliver of light

The shadows retreat, apparent fright

For sparks within will start to fight

To turn it round, to make things right

The spectre's gone, away from view

The sun it shines, trickling through

For now the peace holds dark at bay

But never gone, it's seeks a way

To slither through in shadows wait

The darkness or light depends on fate

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Wait



By Galway Kinnell 1927-2014

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

My Song

Joseph Seaman Cotter Sr.



Wait

By Galway Kinnell 1927-2014

Wait, for now.

Distrust everything if you have to.

But trust the hours. Haven’t they

carried you everywhere, up to now?

Personal events will become interesting again.

Hair will become interesting.

Pain will become interesting.

Buds that open out of season will become interesting.

Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;

their memories are what give them

the need for other hands. The desolation

of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness

carved out of such tiny beings as we are

asks to be filled; the need

for the new love is faithfulness to the old.


Wait.

Don’t go too early.

You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.

But no one is tired enough.

Only wait a little and listen:

music of hair,

music of pain,

music of looms weaving our loves again.

Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,

most of all to hear your whole existence,

rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Prayer



Langston Hughes

I ask you this: 
Which way to go? 
I ask you this: 
Which sin to bear? 
Which crown to put 
Upon my hair? 
I do not know, 
Lord God, 
I do not know.

Monday, February 24, 2025

Ocean

M. J. Fraser

A glow shimmers in the star specked sky

Upon a mountain, rising high

We gaze out to the distant sea

A place of rising waves, a place to be free

To drift and sail to journey ahead

By moon and stars and magic lead

Up and down on gentle waves

Passed rising cliffs and hidden caves

A journey onwards far and wide

On open oceans nowhere to hide

And so the journey forwards through

To lands uncharted, somewhere new    

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

A United Wave

A United Wave:
Strive to be,
the best you can,
through this healing journey,our hearts will mend.
Finding love,
for ourselves,
helps us to rise,
and break the spells.
Binding us,
to forever doubt,
living in fear,
accepting without.

May our pain,
be washed away,
like a cleansing rain,
enchanting the day.
Together we stand,
a united wave,
hearts unbound,
humanity to save.
The path ahead,
so vast, so bright,
lit by our love,a guiding light.Through every trial,joy and strife,we’ve built a bond,as radiant as life.Carry it forward,into the new,planting seeds,and dreams for you.Beloved community,my family, my friends,our journey of hope,will never end.***Poetry written by Nicholas S. Seigelaka UnityPoetry & RadioCave.Song by Riffusionhttps://www.riffusion.com/riff/5e5a4183-950a-45e0-b710-895f519d95d5.#UnityPoetry#Poem #Poetry #Writer #Author #Song #Songs #Riffusion #PicOfTheDay #ImageOfTheDay #ForYou #I #Love #Community #ArtHeals #MusicHeals #PoetryHeals #Music #Audio #Creativity

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

After

Youna Kwak

I never feel so alive as when I am      writing and have no right     

answer for what this means     
for the lives of others, how
to live in the after which after all means the now of our living
together when together means death for allthose forbidden from
entering the home so
methodically built until afterthey are dead. Only after will locked doors swing amply open to admit the murdered into rooms of vastcrushed comfort, whose inhabitants eat and sleepon furnishings carvedwith corpses, steppingwith hospitable sorrowaround the bodies of thedead, speaking dirgesinto the phantomdarkness. What happensin the quiet grave where the living make themselvesat home, where noisily they intend to thrive, wherethe poem itself concedes to suffering so it might persistin blazing against it.

Copyright © 2025 by Youna Kwak. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 5, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

Funk (#49 song)



Lily Painter

An eye from the Creator,
a fire, bright, setting slowly
over the cusp of the “new world,”
kissing the Old World, 
softly to sleep, it is the kissing that is soft,not the sleeping.
Under the light of that unwanted dawn there is
a warrior still left standing, wewar-journey them           to the battle and back,                     to the battle and back,                                to the battle and back,radiance, felt through thewater that flows blue but runs red,around and aroundthat quickly setting sun,
around and arounda circle, there aresongs for the way our warriorsused to honorably drift awayWe used to die in battlebut today they ring out— “whatchu tryna tell me?”while we slosh a bottle around,we laugh about how we are singingSongs from the wrong eagles,our war journey is through the hillswith the windows downIn a red ford withthe tribal tag tornand a car battery in the front seatWe are nurtured,
Remembered,by the birds who flyaround and aroundwhile we hit our handson the hoods of clunkersand when it stops being sacred,We laugh,We funk #49,here we live,here we are live.We laugh,my warrior, we aren’tthe warriors, of anythinglike that, anymore.Copyright © 2025 by Lily Painter. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 6, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

A Thistle Will Do



Omar Berrada

Believe me a thistle will do
away with your hungerfor lush branchesand tacky color
Not the abstracted greens
of surrender oh daughter
of our family follow the flower
that evades capture fades
into pixel pricks the prying
eyes of unmanned hunters

I wished himthroughout my life
Oh daughter focuslearn the work songof smaller creaturesthis forest of branches 
     is your inheritancecan you name                
 every twigwill you touch                      
 every leafwith bare handslet your hair danceas you blend into shrub     
and rockdry is the landthat holds you

Can you hear the familiar pitchof olive harvest the old tuneof older farmers gathered

for processions yet to comea voice of closenessto the earthThe hand that claps is the handthat kneads is the hand that dancesrepeated gestures on and off the tonguered aprons golden braceletswe are quick to breakinto song

Half an egg in a pool of oilthe sun faces up our doughwill be moist the horizon hesitateswon’t admit to rough angles withthe color purple to slanted sunsetsbeyond forbidden shores did youcapture the thistle twiceI wished himfrom the branch of a tree

The song breaks
A landscape returns

Copyright © 2025 by Omar Berrada. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 7, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Life is Beautiful

Life is beautiful.

Life is fragile which makes it beautiful.

Life is wondrous which makes it beautiful.

Life is magical which makes it beautiful.

Life is inspirational which makes it beautiful.

#BENOTEWORTHY
#piccadillyinc

Chorus Of Creation

“The megarya breathed the stars in the skies, Kindled the sun, and sculpted the moon.
The nagamor belched forth fire and ice,Stirring up seas deep blue as its plume.
The gazarou coaxed trees and plants to rise,
Seeded the earth and set it bloom.
The vandraghor wove, of its own device,
dark to brighten the sky with its gloom.
In the new realm, the seitarius thenBirthed lesser beast and two-legged men.
Their powers now drained, they chose to retreat
And sought out slumber, their great work complete.

CHORUS OF CREATION

Verse III: The Making of the Universe
Ambika Vora-NaginoSpin of Fate p. 305