He hides his coldness behind a mask of charm.
His true intentions only to disarm.
Lies escape his lips
That never tell.
He plays the game so well.
He is an obsession
A handsome vision
With one glance you’ll be smitten.
He’ll wrap you up tight in his contradictions.
Fanning the flames
Of your incineration.
-Tosha Michelle
On and Off
This last year was like Gilbert Gottfried’s voice.
Annoying and hard to forget.
Well-meaning, I suppose
And quite a funny darling to some.
This last year was akin to reading Kant
Difficult to understand and once learned
Excessively demanding in its requirements.
No lesson comes without pain.
There’s renewal in regret.
I run away from self-loathing and apathy
into stirring truths and shameless living.
And a new year made up of only sexy, sassy things.
-Tosha Michelle
Random song. This takes me back to London and the O2 The year-2009. There’s a story there. Next time.
Invictus ~ poem by William Ernest Henley with text: http://youtu.be/LZRSPyvy23w
We grow and learn from every trial and test. Listen to the words of Henley. He wrote ” Invictus” in the midst of tragedy. As a child, he had tuberculosis. In his twenties, he came down with an infection that stemmed from his childhood illness. As a result, he had to have his leg amputated . However, even at such a young age, he knew he was captain of his destiny. His soul and spirit were invincible. He refused to be broken. In later years, Henley would recite his poem as a mantra whenever he felt his courage waning. We can let adversity define us, or we can as Henley did, turn our weakest moments into our greatest triumphs
..and once again wonky formatting. Sorry. I’m currently under the weather. I don’t have the patience to try and figure it out. Someone pass the whiskey. That might change my tune. At this point, just roll the bus over me, and let’s be done with it. I’m such a breath of contagious air. This isn’t about me though. This is about Daniel. He is a delight. Read on to find out more.
Daniel von der Embse wasborn and raised in Mansfield,Ohio, educated in Catholicschools, and graduated from
Ashland University with a B.A.degree in Theatre. He beganwriting poetry after a four-decade career as a copywriter for
advertising agencies in NewYork, Chicago, Los Angeles,Seattle, San Francisco, and SaltLake City. His poems appear The
Missing Slate, Across The Margin,Harpoon Review, Decanto, PoetryPacific, and Poetry Quarterly.
He blogs at
WritingInAirplanes.com.
20 Questions: Daniel von der Embse
1. If you were Alice, would you rather stay in Wonderland on the other
side of the mirror, or come back to the real world to tell the tale? I have ahard time staying in one place, so I’d probably be a short stint in Wonderland.
2. Happiness is _____ writing poetry. I am truly happy when I am writing poetry.
3. Can we have happiness without sadness? For me it is strictly a co-dependent relationship.
4. An author with whom you would like to have lunch? Kurt Vonnegut if he were alive. So I’d go with David Sedaris now. I like a funny lunch.
5. If you were a drink. What would you be? Why? Old Fashioned. I’m that
6. Once, the movie. Are you familiar with it? Yes, love it. The song “Falling Slowly” was the only Oscar winner I picked correctly that year.
7. Does darkness soothe you or frighten you? Sitting or lying in darkness isvery soothing. But having to make my way in the dark is frightening because
8. If you ruled your own country, who would you get to write your national anthem?
Frank Zappa if he were alive. John Cale – as long as he is
9. What makes you nostalgic? Listening to vinyl records.
10. Narnia or Never Land? Well, I’ve actually been to Narnia – it’s in Umbria in Italy. It’s not that great so I’d probably go with Never Land.
11. Do you remember your dreams? Only the bad dreams. They make the best
12. What’s your favorite time of day? Lunchtime.
13. What’s your favorite season? Spring. When everything begins.
14. Does pressure motivate you? I use self-induced pressure to push myself to do better. But I’m used to the external pressure of deadlines. It has made me work faster and not overthink things.
15. Would you rather live to write or write to live? I’d rather just write to write.
16. What published book do you secretly wish you had written? Anything by Raymond Carver.
17. Are you the paranoid type or calm, cool and collected? Not paranoid, but easily excitable. Under pressure, very collected.
18. What would qualify as the afternoon of your dreams? People watching at the Pitti Palace in Florence.
19. Are you more like the sun or the moon? Definitely the moon. I move in cycles. Currently, I’m going though male menopause.
20. Do you hear voices? I have constant ringing in my ears. It’s called tinnitus. I hear lines of poetry in my ear over the ringing.
21. Please tell our readers about your upcoming projects. Thanks for asking that! I’m working on a collection of poems. It might be the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted. And thanks for asking me 20 questions! Make that 21
Tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:00EST, I’ll be a guest on my own podcast. That’s not weird at all, right? My co-host and friend Niles, aka James, has decided to interview me about my new little book of poetry, Confessions of a Reformed Southern Belle: A Poet’s Collection of Love, Loss and Renewal. I’m honored. If you don’t have anything more pressing to do (like cleaning your dryer filer or rearranging your pantry), we’d be happy if you tuned in. I have it on good authority Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon will be calling in. That’s if you consider my cat “good authority.”
You can click the link below to listen.
Three of my favorite poems. Yes, I am a romantic.
“since feeling is first,” e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
“If You Forget Me,” Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Music is a force of nature.
It can inspire, provide hope, turn us inside out, and shake us to our core.
Music is food for the soul, a balm for the heart, and stimulation for the mind.
It teaches us, it molds us, it redefines us.
Music is a memory, a touch, a time, a place.
It is the life within, the love we give, a palpable energy.
Music is everything we were, we are, and what we long to become.
-Tosha Michelle
___________________________________________
My latest musical attempts.
My book of poetry, Confessions of a Reformed Southern Belle: A Poet’s Collection of Love, Loss, and Renewal. is now available on Amazon. I would be honored if you read my words. I’m certainly no Whitman. I don’t claim to be. My poetry is simple and a reflection of me. You’ll find a melancholy, introspective, and somewhat snarky woman between the covers of the book. A woman who is no stranger to loss and heartache, but a woman who also has experienced love in its purest form, along with moments of great bliss. This book is an expression of my heart. Is it a work of art? I’ll let you be the judge. I can tell you, it was a labor of love. Be gentle.
I’d like to share the Foreword with you. Note, it was written by USA Today reporter, Ron Barnett.
Foreword
How do you write a foreword for a book of poetry that has you on the verge of tears, then laughter, then soaring through the high places only a true poet can take you? Hang on, and check your preconceptions, because Tosha Michelle is about to take you on a journey through depths of the heart, and you won’t return unchanged.
I have a particular bias in support of this beautiful woman-child, because I am the guy she calls “Dad.” I’m actually not her biological father, but I have loved her deeply since before I married her mother when Tosha was eight years old, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about me.
She was always a witty little girl, with an incredible imagination and a talent for storytelling. And growing up, she read – a lot. She had some vision difficulties and would hold a book right up to her nose to read, but it seemed like she could read from cover to cover in a few minutes. I’d like to take some credit for her writing, being a writer myself, but I think she soaked it in on her own mostly, through all that reading she did as a child. She developed a love of words and stories and the worlds they transported her to, and her talent blossomed as an adult.
She also spent a lot of time with her grandmother, and around the good folks of the small town of Walhalla, South Carolina, where she absorbed the Southern culture that marked her personality and writing style. She has broken that mold, as the title of this collection hints, but is forever marked by the richness of the Carolina ambiance. The pathos of love lost early in life, recollection of the pains of adolescence and self-doubt still haunt her sometimes, but she has found her salvation through creativity – through expressing those dark feelings in verse, and in her singing. (If you haven’t heard that, you’re in for another treat.)
I’ve been a writer and journalist for a long time, and part of that time as an editor. When I read material written by others, I invariably find myself mentally editing, changing things around to the way I would have written them. In this collection, however, I found very little that I would touch as an editor. Tosha has an incomparable sense of rhythm and diction and style that are uniquely hers.
I’m no poetry critic, and I am biased in this case, but I think you’ll agree with me that her poetry is for the ages. She’ll take you through the depths of melancholy and loneliness with “Yearning,” and sing a “Love Song to the South” that will take you back to a simpler, more beautiful time. She’ll have you cracking up with a poem about her cat, dancing with her “Goddess of the Night,” and ready to take on the world, with “One Voice.” One of my favorites is her expression of soaring of the universal soul in the Whitmanesque “Edges.”
And everything she writes cries out with the words of the poor little forgotten book on the shelf – Read Me! Go ahead and turn the page.
City Haze
by Tosha Michelle
Dance with me in the city haze,
Through September grooves.
under the beauty of a harvest moon,
in pattern fields of amber.
Colored by a heavenly mist, dust of serenity.
We’ll set the night ablaze.
While the shadows enfold us
as the willow whispers
And the wind sings us a melodic tune.
Our imagination sets the beat.
We’ll find solace and cohesion,
As melancholy drains away
on cracked sidewalks of urban decay.
Remember at the station, waiting
On the train, on that sultry summer day?
We stood lost in an embrace, breathing in
each other that way. that awful, terrible,
perfect mad and delicious way that took us
to the shrouded place.
Remember at the station that day, waiting
on the train, as the wind hummed a lovers tune?
She sang of sublime ends, from supple beginnings.
the alluring medley of serenity in a war of rhyme
on the sharp bloody edge of Neverland and Narnia,
the peaceful enchanting interlude of rage & myth.
Remember at the station, that day, as
the train churned closer and we cussed goodbye
His steam a prelude to our eternal kiss, the sun
soaked, never ending fuel of light, of love, of
heat. Basking and bathing,
merged and emerged and submerged,
Dancing and swaying in time
with golden chariot and the huntress.
Remember at the station that day, as
the train tugged away, on a endless track?
We gazed as it came — as it came — as it went
through the crossroads. We did not know,
our own separate, distant destinations,. Our own
rail-less wild paths cut into unimagined mountainsides
You to the west, me to the east.
Remember the station that day as
the train, conducted our last kiss?
That gaping wound where our lips met. Where
we learned cruel fate is hot love and all love is
the calamity of UN-armored battle. We all go under
wrong or right. Each of us blankets miles and the ground
is nothing but a shifting litter with irascible iridescent hope
and hurt-dulled dreams, unfulfilled plans and schemes.
Remember the station that day, waiting
in twilight until we forgot and traveled on, and on
alone, with only prayers of new Twilight to set
in stony slumber with hard solace of old loves loss
then found again.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 