Tee-Shirt with the book covers for Sun Shadow Mountain, Moon Mist Valley, and Midnight Dance/Pathos, all poetry and art anthologies.
|
Barnes and Noble Poetry Reading Event. John Morearty in the overalls, Donald R. Anderson in the red striped jacket, and Elizabeth J. Parrish next to him.
|
What is Midnight Dance / Pathos, Comb-bound Anthology of Poetry and Art?
Printings
Record Article
In 2004 Donald R. Anderson and Nikki Quismondo (later to become Nikki Anderson) teamed up to coedit and copublish the anthology of poetry and art, Midnight Dance / Pathos, including over 54 contributing creative artists, in comb-bound form locally, printing them up and binding them by hand and stamping them with numbers when they could afford to print up more. The book only got up to the 69th copy before it fell apart due to lack of understanding and compromise between its contributors, as well as due to lack of funds to continue to print up more copies. However, this was a learning step that taught not only some valuable business lessons to the partnership, but also some insight into what could be improved in the search for becoming an actual publishing business at some future point. In 2007 Donald and Nikki published a new anthology, Sun Shadow Mountain, with a few years of more experience and thought put into making publishing actually succeed.
Art below by Tony Melrose © 2004.
Previously Published in Midnight Dance / Pathos
Record Article
In 2004 Donald R. Anderson and Nikki Quismondo (later to become Nikki Anderson) teamed up to coedit and copublish the anthology of poetry and art, Midnight Dance / Pathos, including over 54 contributing creative artists, in comb-bound form locally, printing them up and binding them by hand and stamping them with numbers when they could afford to print up more. The book only got up to the 69th copy before it fell apart due to lack of understanding and compromise between its contributors, as well as due to lack of funds to continue to print up more copies. However, this was a learning step that taught not only some valuable business lessons to the partnership, but also some insight into what could be improved in the search for becoming an actual publishing business at some future point. In 2007 Donald and Nikki published a new anthology, Sun Shadow Mountain, with a few years of more experience and thought put into making publishing actually succeed.
Art below by Tony Melrose © 2004.
Previously Published in Midnight Dance / Pathos
Above, Donald R. Anderson, co-editor, holding a copy of Midnight Dance/Pathos.
Above, Midnight Dance / Pathos front cover © by Jeremy D. Azevedo “Defo”
Back cover © by (removed years ago due to one of the contributor's requests) :
Christina Aguilar, Tony Melrose, Anonymous--previously included but withdrawn on demand, Nikki Quismondo (later to become Nikki Anderson)
Midnight Dance / Pathos © The Aertherials 2004.
Back cover © by (removed years ago due to one of the contributor's requests) :
Christina Aguilar, Tony Melrose, Anonymous--previously included but withdrawn on demand, Nikki Quismondo (later to become Nikki Anderson)
Midnight Dance / Pathos © The Aertherials 2004.
The following Poems are by Donald R. Anderson
From the Poetry and Art Anthology Midnight Dance/Pathos
Love Is Feeling The Wind
© Donald R. Anderson
Love brushes up against you,
pushing you in some direction.
Invisible, you don’t know it’s there
but it can be felt,
and when felt,
you cannot explain it away.
Gentle, at most times,
like some guiding hand.
Rough, once in a while,
rushing you headlong
without being sure
of where
you’re really going to.
O How, O Lord
©Donald R. Anderson.
I clasp my hands
and bow my head,
shut my lids,
and kneel like lead.
How can you Lord
make justice,
like purchase
of taking of life?
Where’s the flower,
once vital?
“Cry not, my child,”
is all I imagine you to say--
but where is the means
to carry my way, weighed
by guilt, anger, and in their suppression,
finding myself in need of the Lord.
Should I ask
“Why,” and weep ever pressing deep,
or should I ask,
“Please, Lord, make my burden,
and of those I love around me,
and of the one I still see smiling,
with all your power,
make that burden less.”
Madonna Blue
© by Donald R. Anderson
Blue aqua--
aqueous--
sadness tinted with gray,
the indifferent shades of gray
only bounces off and makes Madonna
the desperately seeking rebel she is.
The blue may not shine bright
but it penetrates the night.
This blue star is hot,
approaching,
closing in on the blue part of the spectrum.
Blue jeans are a symbol
of the constant war
for our comfort.
To get back to that comfort zone,
one must buy these blue jeans,
spending aqueous blue rain
of emotion woven in tune, lyric and stone.
© Donald R. Anderson
the evening was waiting thinking of you and me
and ready to be drunk, like freshly made cream
as whether I was lying to myself or just lying alone,
I never would see
cause these three little words came so unexpectedly
as I watched the dying light of the Poinsettia leaves
cause reflections in me.
was it more a reflection of you or more a reflection of me?
which is this love eternally?
Epitaph of Democracy
© by Donald R. Anderson
I can’t see my own face,
without another to reflect it for me;
have mercy on our souls for our actions and them for theirs,
and may we go and do better, and see our faults.
Democracy is a phoenix.
Quest
© first 2002, in Darwin’s Children © 2004, in Midnight Dance/Pathos, by Donald R. Anderson
Serendipity is a science.
Do not be fooled into believing that Fate
has no second chances for you.
It does, for ME! is IS is, doing is all we’ll ever know.
Feel it now!
The unknowing need;
the existence -
not reasons to be but driving force,
that which swims up to where an anatomical heart is,
searching (for) not a resolution, more like an action,
a meaning in itself -
to see its fleeting fleshy glow at dark,
what I yearn is,
is to do things that I only dream of the gods and goddesses doing,
in their immortality,
in their infinitesimal, yes proud but finite, knowledge;
in their silk faux bindings of not being bound by circumstance,
doing that coupled, amorous, giddy, frozen dance of the flame;
it IS “to be”, there IS no question!
A quest has become me - I feel it pumping, the location of my eternally mortal soul.
Synchronous with the motion of something fanciful.
But perhaps that is all.
Perhaps not to attain some pinnacle,
but to make the new one,
one on one making love with the mother nature, with God, with neutrality,
black sky on black earth,
like truth upon the aptly named question - THE PRESENT!
Under the Stars
© by Donald R. Anderson
The fantasy-myth trees loom like
Juggernauts over the two lovers
As I kiss you and hug you
Dancing in the starlight
Feeling the wind upon my hair
Wishing for more
Wishing for you
Without limits,
Without end,
Laying in your arms
To never come
Upon the sight of land
Lost in your tears
Of your fantasy fulfilled
I murmur to you softly
Living with more than I can imagine.
Release---Completion!
a two word poem by © 2002 Donald R. Anderson
©1989 by Donald R. Anderson
dedicated to Gram, dying of cancer.
One who creates beauty
is a poet.
The truth of the world
lies in the secrets of happiness
which comes from the heart;
where would one start
to make love’s inner rhythms unfurl
into explainable thoughts
that show what is bliss
even when our lifeline has knots?
When people stray as they progress
they must back up and repress
the problem which is a sign
of a need for specific improvement.
It is wise to be happy
and to hold on to what one has--
to be thankful for wisdom
and the importance it casts,
for whatever knowledge we gain
in each of our lives
there are always surprises
and changes to be prized.
When something is missing
or something goes wrong
that is our opportunity
to make ourselves strong.
© by Donald R. Anderson
I miss you much
My soul
that’s that little black dot on the sun today
that’s that ant caught in the sap
that’s that dust blown in a swirl
to the dance of your heart
that’s that droplet dried before it reaches the ground
that’s that falling star wished upon and burned
that’s that door that lets in the rest but stays the same
that’s that bluebird drunk on the berries
that’s that jewel ring lost on the beach
that’s that scarf in the tree always out of reach
© by Donald R. Anderson
Lonesome For You
If I find myself a lonesome thing
The clouds will beckon to flap my arms
And run, wind against my face
Till birds launch upwards flee
And swirl on air fun of Sun.
© by Donald R. Anderson
The pieces
Of a Winter morning
Tuned inside out
Reaching the undiscovered country
Missing a connection
Feeling a truth
Seeing beyond the form
Touching you real
The heart
Where the cold is eating
Shooting the stars from mountain tops
Branching into the buds of a Summer
Turning the righteous on wings of the future
Missing a time
Missing a time
Missing a time
Missing a time.
A letter to myself,
© by Donald R. Anderson
A letter to myself
a plea to the inner will
where somewhere somehow
it has a reason to feel
Too many times has the pain
overwhelmed the joy
Too many times before
there was a wish for no more
A need arises from somewhere hid
in shadows dry they come unbid
And when we see it come from nowhere
we find in despair that we do care
I am the one to feel these words
I am the one who wants to be heard
and though I may not stand today
perhaps I rise again to stay
A short story
© by Donald R. Anderson
A corpse lover stares up at her from under the twilight water, bubbles coming up and hair moving in the stream. He sees her face is beautiful and she is wearing a beautifully laced nightrobe. She pushes aside her hair and bends down to look. He raises a hand through the ripples, blue-gray rough fingers pleading. She swipes at the water, splashing and runs away. He starts to move. She has opened an irrigation ditch and he starts to rock. He starts to slide down into deeper water. He is pushed by the current as she watches, catching her breath laughing. He goes off a waterfall. Fade to black.
© by Donald R. Anderson
I look at the center of our world
a crossing point between blue sky
and a dark and mysterious red moon
between bright sunny air full of flight
and a cool flaming in defiance
turns to dusk with
the falling of the ashes
of pitched oil pluming indefinitely
It was a dark and stormy night
© by Donald R. Anderson
It was a dark and stormy night. The clouds beckoned with elusive thunderbolts. The rain poured. It was miserable as we just walked out of the grocery store with paper bags and they ripped spilling the contents all over the parking lot rolling cans opened spaghetti and cars honking wanting to get through. It was a dark and lonely night. Shortly after we got home there was a knock on the door. My spouse was there dripping wet with a torn umbrella looking like the bride of Frankenstein. She came in stomping and demanded an explanation for my not paying the parking tickets from last year. I knew I should have but somehow I just avoided the issue as I did again. She burned the spaghetti on purpose that night. It was a dark, dark and stormy night. As we drifted off to sleep the house creaked and the water dripped on our bed. So I had to put buckets on the bed and sleep on the floor. She went home to her mother that night. It was a dark, dark, dark, lonely night.
Romantic Love
© by Donald R. Anderson
You’re the smoke, I’m the fire
You’re electricity, I’m the wire
to the edge of the world.
to cross oceans to find you.
to rush your ocean to my shore
to describe your indescribable intense loving
to feel your wild compassion.
to yearn for hot burning desire
to climb your mountain
to be on top of the world
to be happy enough to cry
to magnetically pull me north
to not get enough.
to keep you, the ship keeping me afloat, from running aground.
To passionately breathe each other’s air.
to read your mind
to care.
to feel of you in my arms, when we’re the same.
to make nights passionate.
to honor your name,
to make the real world and the one you dream it could be the same.
to remember you forever laying with me.
to wish on a falling star again.
to see my future with you across a vast room.
to see your beauty.
to withstand any obstacle
to hear your heart.
to burn deep with passion through my deepest soul.
to romance you.
to clear my mind.
to not feel this pain.
to kiss you in the wind in my face in the rain.
to see you again.
to do it all again.
Life is worth it
© by Donald R. Anderson
The edge is never far
I see the abyss
and it looks beautiful
but I fear it.
Actually I can still taste the fear
it lives in my subconscious
eating gnawing my soul
but it is a soul that grows again
and endures all that intense pain
till the sun rises
and you can see the world
more than the abyss.
© By Donald Anderson
Brilliance of the Sun that weeps for your tears
Serenity of the Moon this cries with you
If you could see the way the birds sing your name
And how the waves whisper of the things you do
And how the stone mountains ache for your body
And how the valley yearns to feel you there again
To live here next to you
Is to realize a new existence
Where the skies are purple sunrise
And the ground is hardly touching my feet.
On a Moon They Wished
E major
A2
B susp.
C#
susp.
????
lyrics by Donald R. Anderson and Chris Andersen
title: On a Moon They Wished
Verse one
A fish and a bird
fell in love through the waves reflections
but they could not speak
only felt
their need
to live as one
Dose the bird stay underwater
can the fish live in the air
their passionate stares
through the waves
did nothing but say it to each other
so on a moon they wished
(Chorus)
On a moon they wished
swimming against the tide
oh to try to fly
we cannot lose hope
because they tried
(background soft female vocals, perhaps by Lyn and family for demo)
a bird and a fish
(Verse two)
they had waited so long
and now they found each other as one
the fish jumped towards the sun
and the bird took a breath and dived in
(build to bridge)
When the moon glow disappeared
two new dreams appeared
(Bridge)
People say they've been in love
when they are still in love
and they say they were not in love
when they fall out of love
that's just because we feel
whatever it is that we feel
in the present (the following three words with background vocals) not the past
(Chorus then plays again. Maybe the last time the chorus uses background vocals to back up the lead. I want Chris to sing the lead for the demo.)
From the Poetry and Art Anthology Midnight Dance/Pathos
Love Is Feeling The Wind
© Donald R. Anderson
Love brushes up against you,
pushing you in some direction.
Invisible, you don’t know it’s there
but it can be felt,
and when felt,
you cannot explain it away.
Gentle, at most times,
like some guiding hand.
Rough, once in a while,
rushing you headlong
without being sure
of where
you’re really going to.
O How, O Lord
©Donald R. Anderson.
I clasp my hands
and bow my head,
shut my lids,
and kneel like lead.
How can you Lord
make justice,
like purchase
of taking of life?
Where’s the flower,
once vital?
“Cry not, my child,”
is all I imagine you to say--
but where is the means
to carry my way, weighed
by guilt, anger, and in their suppression,
finding myself in need of the Lord.
Should I ask
“Why,” and weep ever pressing deep,
or should I ask,
“Please, Lord, make my burden,
and of those I love around me,
and of the one I still see smiling,
with all your power,
make that burden less.”
Madonna Blue
© by Donald R. Anderson
Blue aqua--
aqueous--
sadness tinted with gray,
the indifferent shades of gray
only bounces off and makes Madonna
the desperately seeking rebel she is.
The blue may not shine bright
but it penetrates the night.
This blue star is hot,
approaching,
closing in on the blue part of the spectrum.
Blue jeans are a symbol
of the constant war
for our comfort.
To get back to that comfort zone,
one must buy these blue jeans,
spending aqueous blue rain
of emotion woven in tune, lyric and stone.
© Donald R. Anderson
the evening was waiting thinking of you and me
and ready to be drunk, like freshly made cream
as whether I was lying to myself or just lying alone,
I never would see
cause these three little words came so unexpectedly
as I watched the dying light of the Poinsettia leaves
cause reflections in me.
was it more a reflection of you or more a reflection of me?
which is this love eternally?
Epitaph of Democracy
© by Donald R. Anderson
I can’t see my own face,
without another to reflect it for me;
have mercy on our souls for our actions and them for theirs,
and may we go and do better, and see our faults.
Democracy is a phoenix.
Quest
© first 2002, in Darwin’s Children © 2004, in Midnight Dance/Pathos, by Donald R. Anderson
Serendipity is a science.
Do not be fooled into believing that Fate
has no second chances for you.
It does, for ME! is IS is, doing is all we’ll ever know.
Feel it now!
The unknowing need;
the existence -
not reasons to be but driving force,
that which swims up to where an anatomical heart is,
searching (for) not a resolution, more like an action,
a meaning in itself -
to see its fleeting fleshy glow at dark,
what I yearn is,
is to do things that I only dream of the gods and goddesses doing,
in their immortality,
in their infinitesimal, yes proud but finite, knowledge;
in their silk faux bindings of not being bound by circumstance,
doing that coupled, amorous, giddy, frozen dance of the flame;
it IS “to be”, there IS no question!
A quest has become me - I feel it pumping, the location of my eternally mortal soul.
Synchronous with the motion of something fanciful.
But perhaps that is all.
Perhaps not to attain some pinnacle,
but to make the new one,
one on one making love with the mother nature, with God, with neutrality,
black sky on black earth,
like truth upon the aptly named question - THE PRESENT!
Under the Stars
© by Donald R. Anderson
The fantasy-myth trees loom like
Juggernauts over the two lovers
As I kiss you and hug you
Dancing in the starlight
Feeling the wind upon my hair
Wishing for more
Wishing for you
Without limits,
Without end,
Laying in your arms
To never come
Upon the sight of land
Lost in your tears
Of your fantasy fulfilled
I murmur to you softly
Living with more than I can imagine.
Release---Completion!
a two word poem by © 2002 Donald R. Anderson
©1989 by Donald R. Anderson
dedicated to Gram, dying of cancer.
One who creates beauty
is a poet.
The truth of the world
lies in the secrets of happiness
which comes from the heart;
where would one start
to make love’s inner rhythms unfurl
into explainable thoughts
that show what is bliss
even when our lifeline has knots?
When people stray as they progress
they must back up and repress
the problem which is a sign
of a need for specific improvement.
It is wise to be happy
and to hold on to what one has--
to be thankful for wisdom
and the importance it casts,
for whatever knowledge we gain
in each of our lives
there are always surprises
and changes to be prized.
When something is missing
or something goes wrong
that is our opportunity
to make ourselves strong.
© by Donald R. Anderson
I miss you much
My soul
that’s that little black dot on the sun today
that’s that ant caught in the sap
that’s that dust blown in a swirl
to the dance of your heart
that’s that droplet dried before it reaches the ground
that’s that falling star wished upon and burned
that’s that door that lets in the rest but stays the same
that’s that bluebird drunk on the berries
that’s that jewel ring lost on the beach
that’s that scarf in the tree always out of reach
© by Donald R. Anderson
Lonesome For You
If I find myself a lonesome thing
The clouds will beckon to flap my arms
And run, wind against my face
Till birds launch upwards flee
And swirl on air fun of Sun.
© by Donald R. Anderson
The pieces
Of a Winter morning
Tuned inside out
Reaching the undiscovered country
Missing a connection
Feeling a truth
Seeing beyond the form
Touching you real
The heart
Where the cold is eating
Shooting the stars from mountain tops
Branching into the buds of a Summer
Turning the righteous on wings of the future
Missing a time
Missing a time
Missing a time
Missing a time.
A letter to myself,
© by Donald R. Anderson
A letter to myself
a plea to the inner will
where somewhere somehow
it has a reason to feel
Too many times has the pain
overwhelmed the joy
Too many times before
there was a wish for no more
A need arises from somewhere hid
in shadows dry they come unbid
And when we see it come from nowhere
we find in despair that we do care
I am the one to feel these words
I am the one who wants to be heard
and though I may not stand today
perhaps I rise again to stay
A short story
© by Donald R. Anderson
A corpse lover stares up at her from under the twilight water, bubbles coming up and hair moving in the stream. He sees her face is beautiful and she is wearing a beautifully laced nightrobe. She pushes aside her hair and bends down to look. He raises a hand through the ripples, blue-gray rough fingers pleading. She swipes at the water, splashing and runs away. He starts to move. She has opened an irrigation ditch and he starts to rock. He starts to slide down into deeper water. He is pushed by the current as she watches, catching her breath laughing. He goes off a waterfall. Fade to black.
© by Donald R. Anderson
I look at the center of our world
a crossing point between blue sky
and a dark and mysterious red moon
between bright sunny air full of flight
and a cool flaming in defiance
turns to dusk with
the falling of the ashes
of pitched oil pluming indefinitely
It was a dark and stormy night
© by Donald R. Anderson
It was a dark and stormy night. The clouds beckoned with elusive thunderbolts. The rain poured. It was miserable as we just walked out of the grocery store with paper bags and they ripped spilling the contents all over the parking lot rolling cans opened spaghetti and cars honking wanting to get through. It was a dark and lonely night. Shortly after we got home there was a knock on the door. My spouse was there dripping wet with a torn umbrella looking like the bride of Frankenstein. She came in stomping and demanded an explanation for my not paying the parking tickets from last year. I knew I should have but somehow I just avoided the issue as I did again. She burned the spaghetti on purpose that night. It was a dark, dark and stormy night. As we drifted off to sleep the house creaked and the water dripped on our bed. So I had to put buckets on the bed and sleep on the floor. She went home to her mother that night. It was a dark, dark, dark, lonely night.
Romantic Love
© by Donald R. Anderson
You’re the smoke, I’m the fire
You’re electricity, I’m the wire
to the edge of the world.
to cross oceans to find you.
to rush your ocean to my shore
to describe your indescribable intense loving
to feel your wild compassion.
to yearn for hot burning desire
to climb your mountain
to be on top of the world
to be happy enough to cry
to magnetically pull me north
to not get enough.
to keep you, the ship keeping me afloat, from running aground.
To passionately breathe each other’s air.
to read your mind
to care.
to feel of you in my arms, when we’re the same.
to make nights passionate.
to honor your name,
to make the real world and the one you dream it could be the same.
to remember you forever laying with me.
to wish on a falling star again.
to see my future with you across a vast room.
to see your beauty.
to withstand any obstacle
to hear your heart.
to burn deep with passion through my deepest soul.
to romance you.
to clear my mind.
to not feel this pain.
to kiss you in the wind in my face in the rain.
to see you again.
to do it all again.
Life is worth it
© by Donald R. Anderson
The edge is never far
I see the abyss
and it looks beautiful
but I fear it.
Actually I can still taste the fear
it lives in my subconscious
eating gnawing my soul
but it is a soul that grows again
and endures all that intense pain
till the sun rises
and you can see the world
more than the abyss.
© By Donald Anderson
Brilliance of the Sun that weeps for your tears
Serenity of the Moon this cries with you
If you could see the way the birds sing your name
And how the waves whisper of the things you do
And how the stone mountains ache for your body
And how the valley yearns to feel you there again
To live here next to you
Is to realize a new existence
Where the skies are purple sunrise
And the ground is hardly touching my feet.
On a Moon They Wished
E major
A2
B susp.
C#
susp.
????
lyrics by Donald R. Anderson and Chris Andersen
title: On a Moon They Wished
Verse one
A fish and a bird
fell in love through the waves reflections
but they could not speak
only felt
their need
to live as one
Dose the bird stay underwater
can the fish live in the air
their passionate stares
through the waves
did nothing but say it to each other
so on a moon they wished
(Chorus)
On a moon they wished
swimming against the tide
oh to try to fly
we cannot lose hope
because they tried
(background soft female vocals, perhaps by Lyn and family for demo)
a bird and a fish
(Verse two)
they had waited so long
and now they found each other as one
the fish jumped towards the sun
and the bird took a breath and dived in
(build to bridge)
When the moon glow disappeared
two new dreams appeared
(Bridge)
People say they've been in love
when they are still in love
and they say they were not in love
when they fall out of love
that's just because we feel
whatever it is that we feel
in the present (the following three words with background vocals) not the past
(Chorus then plays again. Maybe the last time the chorus uses background vocals to back up the lead. I want Chris to sing the lead for the demo.)
