Oh My Son My Son

Salem is a divided land. Civil War is a near constant, half of the nation starves while the other half lives in luxury. The people begin to cry out for a leader, a king to soothe their discontent. Many men desire the throne, but it takes more than a desire for power to make one worthy of it. There is a very old prophecy that one day, a king will rise up and bring peace and balance, not just to Salem, but to the entire world. Some believe in it, others reject it as silly superstition. Only time will tell who is right and who is wrong, but what is beyond argument, is that the prophecy has brought Axel and his family nothing but pain. His father was a mere farmer who rose to be the King of Salem. His uncles were warriors, his sister a princess, but Axel was an usurper, and an enemy the king, and God. This is not a tale about heroes and villains. This is about life, and life is not about good versus evil. This is a story about pain, betrayal, war, and hope.

Fire?ies at dawn. . . Winged essences, charred bodies still on ?re. This evocative poetry-essay collection issues a call for a renewed embracement of the readers own expressive self. Weve each a persona to hear --- a voice to resonate through silences of night and the noises of everyday. Life is a mystery hard to crack. We bang it like a door and strum it like a lyre until it opens some new portal through which the voice can authentically sound-out the truths of being human. Thats the happening of this book. Altarpieces have always been artistic creations to conceive lifes sacred space. This book follows that tradition, if rather untraditionally. These pieces speak to hear life on ones own terms; from ones own altar and cathedral. This gathering created a poet-self identity --- called Apokstrophes. The essays join with the poems to conceive poetry and the spiritual quest with a renewed existential-eco-romantic perspective; sounding that quest with both feet grounded on worldly other Planet Earth. The challenge to grasp life at the core is a wrenching-wrestling match with the Other, that ever-present dimension of poetry on lifes path. --- Joining philosophical play with the authenticity of word-pieces as true orients, OKellys book, with many poets helping along the way, has taken up that challenge with unflinching creativity. Want a spiritual adventure? Fly! Take the ride! Oh, the ride! Fins spurred in shivers of hide. Lifes dearness reined in the roll of the tide.

A Companion to Vittoria Colonna offers a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary vision of this important writer of the Italian renaissance, whose influence extended far beyond her own century.