approach may seem a bit on the lazy side, but it was the only way I could be sure of the poem getting to the wedding on time, or to be frank about it, getting to the wedding at all. I should add that it also allowed me to repeat what I felt to be a universal truth, namely, marrying someone you love, but have no way of knowing well, can be a very risky business. My former wives will testify to that.
I abandoned using Hux’s poem as a model after I began composing spontaneous oral poems I call SOULSPEAK. I found this ancient method allowed poems to form quite easily, like rock candy around a string. It was almost as if the Muse couldn’t wait. I also found that by adopting some of its composing techniques, I could produce original written poems almost on demand. The result is this small collection of poems honoring the births, weddings and deaths of family and friends. I also had the feeling that by using the SOULSPEAK method of composition, which is almost totally unconscious, that many of these poems would turn out to be prophetic. They certainly felt that way as they poured out of me. Only time will tell as they say.
At this stage of my life, time seems somewhat of a blur, so I have no idea when some poems were written. Many moons ago is the best I can do. Some poems have dates simply because they were a part of the original poems. Let me also add that the poems are not arranged in any order, or along any particular timeline, so that it may appear in many cases as if time took a holiday, which I wish it would. Permanently.
Unless I depart sooner than I’d like, there will most assuredly be additional poems. I have included in this collection all the wedding/birth/death poems I have written since I wrote that first one for Hux in the early nineties. I have also included some very early poems I had written for my children in the early eighties. They are at times a bit awkward and overly sentimental, as I had just returned to writing poetry, but they have heart, which to my mind makes them worth rescuing. Finally, I included three short poems