Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

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

March 31, 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

 ~**~**~

Rainbow Bridge Gang. Yellow Sam
To: missourisage@yahoo.com
Rainbow Bridge Gang. Yellow Sam
Tink, Poo, and the Gang
tinkerpoo2000@yahoo.com

We were sitting around the camp fire talking,  we had some cookies, and
burgers to eat. Up the lane came this big guy. The Goldens all
woofed him over. Another one of them guys. Well we have room for
one and all. Remember we're one big happy family. Some are little
guys, while some are big fellows, and  those in between.
Anyway we found out this guy is Yellow Sam, from Alaska... Homer that
is. The Goldens said they believe he is the first Golden from
Alaska, we got to crank up the computer to see if they're right.
But first we got to tell you about this wonderful fellow.
Sam told us he lived his life with a most wonderful human family. He
had the run of the place, and from the size of him, why not?? And
voice? He can talk, it's going to be a while before we can think about
getting a word in edgewise.
He told us about running, and playing in the water, the snows. Well
Poo and I liked rolling one another in the snows of our back yard
too. Don't know anything about playing in water.
He told us about watching the Northern Lights. Well none of us knows
about Northern Lights, He told us that was just something grand to
watch with his family. Said you poor people that have not seen such,
you just missed out on a great sight. It only happens at a special
time of the year, and he got to see 10 of those years.
He said his family, always shared the tent with him on the camp outs,
and the good times. They always wondered what strange friend he might
pick up next on the camp outs, and hikes into the back country. He liked
watching the grand Eagles that was on sky guard duty.  He talked to the
Moose on the trails.
Sam said he had a special friend, a half wolf mushy Malamute dog, Sam
said you think I am big, you got to wait till he gets here. He
going to need two bunks side by side.
We got Sam all set up with his bunk, blankets, and bowls.   The Angels
did that you know. Sam is just like all the rest, got his own special
Dollie Angel.
So for all that he went off and left there, Sam is going to do quite
well here. He is sad at leaving, but he will wait, and watch the lane
for you slow pokes. When he sees you coming home, he will run and
greet you. Happy days are here again.
Whats the movie tonight?? Why what else? Yellow Sam comes
home. We got cookies, more snacks to munch on, and watch the life
and times of a beautiful dog name of Yellow Sam. Sam has a front row
seat, all the Goldens going to make sure of that, what a mob.
We still can't figure the name, Yellow Sam?? When we get to know this
guy better, maybe we will get it figured out.
Tinker and Poo; The Boys Write
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-35741-5

  ~**~**~

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

   This We’ll Defend
by Gary Jacobson © January 2008

Brave Americans rise this beloved land to defend
Prepare to shed very blood till very life does end
Defending God-given right on our sacred shore
Protecting bounteous blessings galore
To valiantly instill precepts of God-given liberty
To share sweet democracy to prove us purely free
Sustaining life’s qualities making very honor be...

Patriots did alight freedom’s rare light in rocket’s red glare
Bearing charity, love and mercy in sweet homeland air
For in liberty patriots breathe
Sharing all values free men can conceive
Sharing the greatness in this land they believe
For them give a hearty cheer
For dear precepts of liberty in freedom they hear.

Americans flounder in toiling sacrifice in thick bricky mud
Where painstakingly we shed heroes red blood
Humping beside brothers in verdant crawling crud
Omnipresent sweat rolling down a furrowed brow
Stinging patriot eyes in a war dinky dau
Surviving in fright one more night in a foxhole curled
Trying one another to help a brother back to the world.

Search corkscrew jungle shadows for men they fear
Abiding hatred living precariously near
Fighting white knuckle during the short-timer’s year.
Teeth to teeth brawling with liberties foe
Trying to keep together lingering body and soul
Hand over hand keeping the body count’s toll
Laughing and grinning they ignore the grim reaper
Sagacious faith straining by the eternal spirit keeper.

~**~**~

I am noticing more and more homeless men, women, and children living on the streets, rummaging through dumpsters, carrying their world on their backs ... brothers from Vietnam ... men from Iraq and Afghanistan, the fruits of war.  I am aching today for these homeless and the hungry veterans.  I wish there was some way I could feed the masses, that I could turn five small fishes and seven loaves of bread into a feast for all the world’s poor.

But alas, I cannot.

The unfortunate homeless made me think of two poems, for I feel deeply their sorrowed plight, and am constantly reminded, there but for the grace of God and the oh so thin blade of circumstance go I.  The differences between me and them are not that great.

His Empty Eyes

http://namtour.com/emptyeyes.html

by Gary Jacobson © 2003

See into the eyes of the man

Come from verdant Vietnam

Who’s seen too much

Done too much

Suffered trials too much

Pushed too far from the common man’s touch

Trying to find

That ever-elusive peace of mind...

Look into his blank eyes hollowed deep

Look where darkened horrors buried inside keep

Understand secrets feeble man cannot reconcile

In the end surviving life no longer a feat agile

Strength, imagination, deeds of courage, too fragile

Remember a war long past

Forcing him to grow up too fast

Remember unlucky brothers that hadn’t long to last.

This veteran has outflanked life’s true meaning

Outlived combat brothers yet grieving...

No longer will inherit our nation's richness

Wide eyes lost, bleeding in his heart its essence

Deadened, captured in evil’s torturous past

Numbly unable to focus on a present cast

Everywhere he looks, he sees fiendish horror profound

Sensory overload in nebulous existence bound.

It’s so hard to keep caring

A troubled world to keep on surviving ...

Hiding from Hell’s remembering

Fears forevermore recurring

The loss of brothers plays on his mind

Painful memories rack his being unkind

Burned out scenes every night he sees ...

Flashing back as snipers in the trees...

Reliving over and over and over incessant battle

Dead men in his eyes buried with a bottle ...

Trying hard to drown that awful year

That will-not-go-away fear

Voices repeating wheedlings encaging his mind cajole

Battle sounds constantly eating at his tortured soul

Disenfranchised, still fighting Nam’s fiercest battles

Misunderstood by life that daily his life belittles...

He can lose himself in the city

Uncomfortable with pity

Surviving the past, dragged into the present

Treated like he speaks with a foreign accent

Carrying hopelessness no one can understand

Who’s not fought beside him in battle ever comprehend

So out-of-step, so out-of-rhyme, listlessly he wanders

Just another bothersome obstacle to bystanders...

His eyes reveal beastly memories he tries to hide

Something savagely, forever broken inside.

In them a barbarian making passers-by uncomfortable

Solemn reminder of their own lives precariously unstable

How easily traveled the journey from acceptable

Guilt rising in those who didn’t answer the call accountable

To what his wearied eyes have seen

What in graveyards of his fragile mind clashing careen.

His eyes reveal too much his tormented horror

Burned out by too intense patriotic fervor

Brutish war’s savior now turned destitute survivor

All meaning in downcast destitution lost

Tempests tossed by killing, core value’s accost

Can anyone tally the cost

Of a man

Who’s forever lost his way from Vietnam?

Can anyone see what his pain-racked eyes have seen

By war opened wide to perturb gentle life serene?

Devoid of happiness that curses the obscene

He lives in a blind alley with senses too acutely keen

Plagued by overloading memories prevailing

Memories eternally castigating

Aggravating calm waters of past boyhood agitating

Callously hiding from carefree life utterly destroying ...

His distant eyes cannot forget that devastating toll

Untenable memories relived, permeate his beleaguered soul

Imprisoned by life’s gambled dice roll again to crucify

Lost the boy, not yet found the man, his existence falsify

Dejected by realities awareness omnipresent from Vietnam

Praying for blessed, escaping release to sweet oblivion

Released from an abrasive world to sensitivity abusive

His feral soul returned to the primitive.

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! 

~**~**~

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