Food is such an integral part of travel, I can't imagine places without remembering what I ate there, and how it tasted: those golden tastes of lemons and olive oil on the coast of Spain, the delicate sauces and rich foods of France, and the white truffles of the Piedmont I was privileged to eat, sliced thin over a perfectly prepared pasta. In a sense, good food is a kind of poetry of the soul when you travel. And eventually, it does go into poems, just as smell and taste and touch do.

The Last Day


"Without Matter, Light Is Invisible."  Rene Magritte


That last day, when we walked along the beach, I could name each wave, 
As if naming a thing could stop time, give it a function like sine or cosine
That abstracts, precludes death.  In the face of inevitability, we are
Most alive, and the day hides nothing from our eyes. Each dune is a singular
Crest of sand; we walk slowly forward, our feet sinking into the grains,
As we begin down toward the car.  On the ride home over the mountain, 
The curving water disappears behind us, the valleys stretching in their green 
Coat of winter. Tiredness  comes over  us when we reach the house, 
Carrying the black and white striated stones we found on the beach,  
The smooth feel of their weight tumbled miles toward that shore to our 
Hands. I watch you slowly climb the stairs, then lower yourself on your 
Bed, barely able to move.  Your fur holds the smell of the ocean you love.
I give you the pills that hold off the pain, but they no longer work.
The next morning we know it is time.

Nothing explains death. 
Absence has a shape bigger than light. It absorbs the cold body, 
Until the ground claims that exquisite brightness.  Days  later, we lay
These black and white stones on your grave, high on the hill you loved,
Their heaviness  holding down the pain we could not bear
To allow you to endure.

On the internet, by and large, I think there is a new flourishing of talent... particularly in places such as Ireland with the Electric Acorn site and the site called Absinthe in the US, here. Poetry Scotland, and all sorts of other journals (such as your own) and the best part is that the answers of whether or not the poem is accepted come quickly. Which is not the case with literary journals that only accept snail mail. I try and read literary journals and attempt to stay awake. Of course there are good poets out there, but the academic ones have just about bleached the bones of poetry into white shards. I realize poets have to earn a living, but they ought not to be trying to create clones of themselves. The one thing that was remarkable about William Dickey as a teacher is that none of his students ever ended up writing like him... he made them find their own voices. And he was one of the first to embrace the internet and teach computer technology to his students. If you want to read bad poetry, pick up any august literary magazine. There are absolutely reams of bad poetry there. At least with the internet, if you don't like the poems, one click and you're off and you don't have to pay to be assaulted by puerile language. I'm all for the internet and its wonderful possibilities. It's even nicer when the site allows readers to make comments and they get back to the writers: no matter if the comments are good or bad, you have feedback!