5 comments

  1. Ke11y

    Right now – and there’s a ‘right now’ every day since my father sailed away – I am thinking what a gift he had. Those who read me know my father was a fisherman. A Scotsman. He, too, loved to write. He said he wanted to touch people with his poetry; have his words lie by the ears of those too troubled to sleep. I suppose my ego runs amok when I’m writing. It certainly does so when I write about my father, so much wanting to be like him. Today would have been his birthday. He was a hundred-point-man, more than my pen could ever reveal. When I think about him on an intimate level; who he was, what he thought, how he loved the pen when his thoughts were running dry and scratchy across the page, being driven by the ink from a splitting nib, I recall that he was a man constantly in pain. Oft days knocked from bow to stern, his food ruined by the perpetual taste of salt in his mouth. But och! He would say these were just the rich rewards for a man crippled by a thousand frost bites, a thousand falls down the deep brassy troughs of reckless oceans, only to be sent on his way by the saxophone-seahorse before being pushed home by violin winds, under percussion skies.

    1. mcullen Post author

      You had my attention right from the beginning. . . “since my father sailed away.” Is it too dramatic to say I’m swooning over your luscious words? You have painted a word portrait of a man I want to know more about and you have written prose that I want to read more of. . . The last line is exquisite. Beautiful writing, Kelly.

    2. Kathy Myers

      Och! What a bonny bit of writing we have here. There is a lilting variety in the sentence structure and length that hints of a bouncing brogue and boundless energy. I love the orchestral metaphors to describe the symphony of the sea (brass, violins, percussion,sax) I don’t know the term hundred-point-man nor do I need to— your showing words are so rich. Your line “Driven by the ink from a splitting nib” makes me want to chuck my laptop and dig out my old calligraphy set. A split nib offers no spell check however,so alas and alack I must stay with my (Scottish?) Mac.

      1. mcullen Post author

        Oh, you guys and dolls. . . your brilliant writing is filling my day with fun!

  2. Ke11y

    Oh goodness! I just saw this comment. How touched I am that you chose to remark upon my writing. I feel complimented. Thank you, Kathy.

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