Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

March 29, 2008

 Today’s Announcement

Don’t forget to order your copy of Angels Watching Over Me, the story of an ordinary woman facing less than ordinary challenges.  Angels Watching Over Me is a story of family love, sacrifices, poverty and an undying faith that makes heroes out of all of us. Here is the link in case you have forgotten it: http://www.lulu.com/content/964306

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

 ~**~**~

My Wish

Sharon Bryant

Maybe I'm writing this tonight because of what someone told me three days ago.

A man, age 32, is dying from cancer.  The father of two small children, knowing he does not have much time left.  Six months at the most.

A friend of mine went to visit him this past week.  When the wife let him in and motioned to the room the man was in, my friend stood and tears welled in his eyes. 

This father had set up a video camera, had it fixed on himself, and he was reading bedtime stories for his children.

We can only imagine what this father is dealing with right now.

When we're young, most of us never think about death and dying.  A child isn't supposed to think of those things.  But when we get older, we often think of it.  I know I'm thinking.

Some only have a few boxes or albums of photos from their past.  Some never really found out from their parents or grandparents the whole story of their roots. 

I've decided I want these things left for my children.  I want them to know where they came from, their heritage, and how much I loved them.

I'm not a grandparent yet, and only God knows, if I'll live long enough to be one.  But I'm leaving something behind so that the day my children do become parents, they will know how I felt.

I've started a "baby hope chest."  Unknown to my son and his wife, I am accumulating things that I think they will like and need.  I've knitted a beautiful baby afghan, and I've purchased baby blankets, little newborn outfits, a tiny spoon and fork set, etc.  My husband knows, if the day comes and I'm no longer here, the box I am filling is to be given to my son and daughter-in-law the day she lets out the news that she's expecting.

I have made a video for my family.  My funeral arrangements are already made.  I want no one to have any regrets.  Something many are left with when they have to guess what their loved one would want.

I don't feel I'm morbid, I feel I need to prepare. 

None of us know if tomorrow will come.  Being healthy does not give us a guarantee on living long.  An automobile accident can take that from us in an instant. 

I feel it's so important to mend fences with those we really care about but may be mad at.  For if something happened to them, we have to ask ourselves, "Can we live with the regret?"

My own sister and I were not speaking when I found out I had cancer.  I wasn't going to let her know.  But something deep inside me told me, one of us had to break thru that thin ice and make amends.  I chose to be the one.  When I did, it brought us back together, better than it ever was.  I don't know what I would do today if I did not have her in my life.  We clung to one another when our father died two years ago.  We helped hold our brother up who was taking the blow as bad as we were.  We all three loved our father deeply.

Today someone asked me what I would do if I knew today was my last day on earth.  I replied, "I'd make a lot of phone calls and say good bye to those I love and care about."

I wish for two things before I leave this earth.  One is that I never get to the point that I have to be put into a rest home. 

The other is that I can fulfill my life with the greatest gift I can give.....helping others. 

If I can touch a life for a moment, if I can bring a smile to someone's face, then I've fulfilled my wish. 

I can't help but think of the man who is making the videos for his children.  I can't imagine how his children will feel once he is gone, seeing his face, hearing his voice.  Knowing daddy isn't coming home anymore.

I shall continue to work hard at the things I think are important.  I will continue to leave little things behind so one day my own children will be able to smile when they remember me.  Just like I do today, when I think of my own parents.

I believe with all my heart it's not what we gather, but what we scatter that means the most.

Sharon Bryant

Choklite@bellsouth.net

  ~**~**~

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

Soldier’s Heart
by Gary Jacobson © September 2007

A soldier’s heart beats within me
Call it the vapors, battle fatigue, PTSD...
For me it's living insanity, you see
Still inside I feel the bestial ogre's caress
Carried from yellowed fields of combat stress
Which long ago left my world a motley mess
Eternally enlisted in hell’s vile red stream
Days of yore still staining nightmare’s dream
Roam wherein I die a thousand times
Commit beaucoup carnal crimes.

I walk intertwined jungle bowels of hell
Show passport stamps to Hades as well
Hear dreadful sound of guns
Revisit daily war’s blazing suns
My discordant mind again and again
Lost in verdant underworld yet again
Smelling battles decayed cordite mist and vapor
Reliving wartime terrors in youthful caper
Where sandbox memories rule sun-splashed days
Filling sweet-and-sour nights with combat forays.

A soldier’s heart sees desperation still
In every man I spy, a shadowed assassin’s eye
Forever back in a land where still
People horribly die
Where still
Waiting for those aiming to kill...
I kill
Still sweating in contentious combat drill
Rising anxieties besmirching a fragile mind fleeting
Marching forever to endure once more the killing.

A soldier’s heart feels intimately sore pain
Dancing in an addled brain
Driving me nigh insane
Throbbing in memoriam psychological
Pulsating with dinky dau rhythms pathological
Palpitating nightmarish flashbacks
Drumming on the senses virulent attacks
Disruptive uneasiness in worried anxiety
Awakening combat's somber memory
Both good and bad falling on me accusatory.

War’s hammer smashing hand-to-hand
Brought from that sweet-and-sour land
Wreaks today a wretched isolation
Giving veterans no protection
Forevermore hearing cruel war on senses pounding
Thumping crescendos in ears mournfully sounding
Load and lock
Shell shock
Creating violent depression
Thrumming strings of hyper-vigilant obsession.

A soldier’s heart
By what he's seen and done torn apart
Wears a badge of 'forevermore' to impart
Forgetting not
Frustrating memories bricky hot
Won with egregious trauma’s death bought
Combatant nerves to hell shot
Always feeling dirty with an ageless dirt
Beaten unmercifully with Satan’s wicked quirt
To the pits of the soul painfully hurt.

Deep in a soldier’s heart
Hide deep dark secrets behind a fortified rampart
Where from time to time
Veterans take out memories sublime
When they're all alone
To remind them of war grown weary to the bone
Recalling lost humanity
The boy lost along with their sanity
Tied with self-loathing devoid of acceptance
Grown tired beyond physical endurance.

A soldier’s heart
Beats in old warrior's skeptical of authority
Who answer "freedom's call" with nobility
By empyrean angels sent
To save a world by oppressor's rent
Enticed by the political mob's lie
Sounded by those caring not for boys who die
Bringing to veterans a painful sigh
Who well up in the dead of night to cry.

Will in vain be my warrior legacy?
Will we not learn lessons from history?
Taught in this most foul debacle called war
By political fat cats keeping score
Ever skewering those who’ve seen more
Than they can bear to see
Who’ve done much more
Than they can in good conscience do
Who’ve lost much more
Than they can afford to lose…

A soldier’s heart lost in war's spin-the-bottle
Still hides much deep pain in a bottle
Fighting anew anxieties darkning thought
Eschewing cruel scars cruel battle wrought
Lost the tender touch
Riding steel horses into battle’s grinding crunch
Relishing lives of anguished sorrow
Needing balm of Gilead to borrow
Seeking understanding healing
Love’s reconnecting.

A soldier’s heart makes frail life insane
Dredging up old memories profane
Inhaled through clenched teeth
Hearing bullets final crack bequeath.
The Master of Hell must pay the cost
For fresh innocence lost
For the foul carnage of the brotherhood
For boys-next-door lost in rotting mud and blood
For war veterans nightly playing hosts
To brother combatant ghosts.

My memorial wreath comes wrapped in a flag
Zipped in a bag…
Sent home
Wretched tokens forever to atone
Wearing the fragrance of death like cologne
Hearing a battalion of warriors beleaguered cry
Wondering still why they had to die...
Yet not I … not I
Yet though I know not why
I too, rivers of tears cry...

Brothers and sisters, ATTENTION:

The good people of Morton Illinois (near Peoria) are sponsoring a display of a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall, May 1st - 4th ... and I will be there reading my poetry, and displaying my pictures. I would like to invite all of you to come by during this gathering of patriots, as well as those who need to know, to honor and remember our brothers who gave the ultimate sacrifice. American Legion Post #318 MORTON, Illinois, and Larry Stimeling (larrynamvet), are putting on a wonderful display to open the hearts and minds of AMERICA, and to honor with solemn remembrance the sacrifice of so many of our young princes ... our soldiers, our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, our brothers, our friends, who went into harm's way for us.  This long black wall honors those who paid the highest price, their all, for what they believed.  So come on by and pay tribute ... and say howdy ... I'll be there, and I will proudly shake your hand. For more info, contact: http://nam-vet.net/wthhome.htm 

Gary Jacobson

"My Thousand Yard Stare." You asked for a book of my poems ... well, here it is, 270 pages with over two hundred full color pictures and graphics in this book of my most popular poetry. Buy my book instantly at, http://namtour.com/marketplace.html with the security and ease of PayPal or your choice of credit cards.

If you wish it signed by the author, email me.

"Vietnam Picture Tour," http://namtour.com/namtour.html A walk in "the park" grunts called Vietnam, with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. Experience chilling reality to leave the sweet and sour taste of "the Nam" pungent on your tongue, the smell of "the Nam" acrid in your nostrils, and textures of "the Nam" imbedded in you as though you were walking beside me in combat.

My poignant poems directory, pictures and artwork to show the essence and feeling of war on young "boys next door," http://namtour.com/nampoemsNpix.html

Read my online novel, "A Walk in the Park, One Soldier's Vietnam."
http://namtour.com/Nam.html

"Realm Of Poetry," http://dreamerzz.tripod.com/SiteMap.html Poems of love and romance, spirituality and meditation, Golden Oldies, comedy, Quests of the regal knight Richard Lionheart to the crusades and seeking the Holy Grail, dueling dragons, frolicking fairies, and comedy....and also links to my site of riding that bestial ogre called war...

Announcing a March Madness 20% off sale for my book of Vietnam poems ... "My Thousand Yard Stare."  There are over two hundred full color pictures, beaucoup poems in this book of my most popular poetry. To get the 20% off you must purchase from me directly @: 

 Gary Jacobson, 6325 south Old Hwy 191, Malad, Idaho 83252

where I will gladly sign it.

Price during march madness is $20 - 20% + $6 postage = total $22 USA dollars.

I would appreciate your vote for "Vietnam Picture Tour!" as a "Top Military Site," at "Veterans Topsites." Just Click this link to vote: http://www.worldwidetopsites.com/php/in.php?id=knights
Vietnam Picture Tour is presently in 3rd place on "Military Topsites," due to your efforts ... only a vote or two out of first ... so whether you vote once, every day, or now and then... I sincerely Thank You! 

~**~**~

.    Readers Feedback

~**~**~

 Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Marilyn Sink, Victor Buhagiar, Clarice Hinson, Conrad