To Prose Folk And Fam:

First, may each of you have a safe and meaningful holiday.

It’s been a wealth of good, bad and indifferent here across the pond, as both my personal world (and the other one at large) has been shaken upside down and then some.

Some of us have felt that we have been put into a blender set on interminable charge and at the speed of sound, with the noisy collapse of sun sheltered dreams burst into a massacre whose rebounding echo ripples on seas of broken glass skin.

Ergo, the turn of the proverbial hand into 2025 ushers in renewed sensibilities of…ok, scratch that.

That’s the pretentious Chardonnay talking (or the pretentious lipped “poet” sipping on it through a crazy straw).

Ditching the flowery wordplay for a minute, I genuinely and wholeheartedly want to first extend enormous gratitude at the friends I’ve made here.

A few of you (you know who you are) have become blessings that far exceed the platform’s poem oriented circle of many disparate characters.

Jeff and Mariah are two that I want to thank by name for their precious kindness, humble approachability and for being not only extraordinarily gifted at words, but also at the virtues of empathy, compassion and simple amiability that this world doesn’t always so graciously afford.

There are other writers here whom I’ve grown very fond of, for both their unique work and their kindness to me and others.

There are a number to say thanks to, but I’m sure you know who you are!

We’ve inboxed a number of times and conversed via comments. You all rock!

For every like, share/repost, comment on my poems, that truly was energizing warmth for tired typing hands and caffeine fueled writing benders whereby I wasn’t sure if each poem’s creative outcome would reach the stars or crash into the neighbor’s yard (that was a joke!).

But, I sincerely appreciate the feedback and kind words!

To fully flesh out both spectrums of experience on the platform, my humble hope is that we, first as humans and second as writers, learn how to appropriate the essential elements of empathy, kindness, humility and compassion towards each other.

-A writer who parades their ego around and steps like a lumbering giant on perceived ants is not only a failed writer, they are an incomplete person, for you can’t grow fat on heady pride and expect to fulfill transparent connection with readers.

-A writer who utilizes AI and passes it along as their own work is sacrificing the wondrous utility of self discovery, for in the heart and through experience come poems that have the power to shake the earth.

-A writer who learns how to handle sometimes painfully necessary criticism, will then empower their own work into highly sharpened skill set development.

-Don’t be a callous hearted meanie who thinks they walk on air and has no time for “lessers”.

You will only isolate yourself from opportunities to meet great people. You will appear petty and churlish.

-Do be an approachable and simply decent human being, who makes time for others.

Connectivity and community are creative bedfellows and one is integral to the healthy functionality of the other.

I think free speech is a very significant and essential component for writers and I’ve read work that’s made the paint peel itself from walls from sheer shock, been roused to action by sociopolitical observations and disagreed with bluntly crude assertions and tragic musings on faith, love and life, while also being captivated by works of incredible beauty and works of incredible ugliness that revealed themselves to be gorgeous tragedy.

These are writers.

This creatively blistering ideology is what fuels an impeccably potent writer.

Every word that bleeds off the page is significant IF it is significant to YOU.

I hope this platform will continue to let every voice breathe and release every pen scrawled (or typed) bloodletting exorcism of the soul.

Here is to renewed hopes, open doors, God kissed blessings and poetic works that set the world on fire.

Your friend and fellow rider on the storm,

LDW