Hi guys, today I would like to talk to the new family I have found at cosmofunnel.com an interactive community of writers and painters sharing their work, their ideas, and mostly, their friendship.  I have been there participating in the poetry family of friends.  Today I consider myself incredibly blessed to have found this new family of poets and true friends, so much so that I am now on a first name basis with some and communicate with them outside of the site as well.  One of my new friends actually had a vision with me in it where she described everything about my room (where I write) down to the finest detail.  It is a physical impossibility considering that she lives across the pond in England.  Another, has inspired beyond myself to try new styles of writing that I would never have attempted without his encouragement.  It is a self-less community where the number one rule is to share and support others.  I don’t know of another community where this exists.  But the magic of cosmo is real and palpable.  Because of this community I am involved in several writing projects.  My friend Jeremy Hennessee has shown me what the Edgar Allen Poe’s and Sylvia Plath’s of the poetry world have evolved into.  This guy can write with intelligent darkness of both of these great writers and still finds the time to message with me until all hours of the night talking of new writing ideas and everything under the sun.  For a writer these types of friendships are invaluable for they allow you to see through the eyes of others and, for a writer, perspective is a HUGE part of the equation.  See what I mean, selflessness!  I have never seen such an outpouring of kindness and sincere affections a poet when their pice strikes a chord in the community.  
                           Whoever it was that set-up and established this format for writers and painters was/is a genious.  It seems every day a new friendship is made and new love affairs with art of writing are cemented.  It is because of my friendships with members of cosmo that my blog is doing fairly well now, Oh who am I kidding my blog is doing VERY well because these new found friends.  I passed three thousand views as of yesterday, due greatly to 4 of my cosmo friends.  Georgina Richardson, Curtis Longstreet, Cherie Sumner, and, (of course) Jeremy Hennessee.  Who’s time with me has made me insane and competitive……two attributes most writers would kill  for. (lol)  What these individuals have done for my blog is this…….there are now conversations going on in the comment section of my blog.  People are discussing my daily topics, because you (my cosmo friends) started it all by commenting daily yourselves.  I don’t think i’ll ever be able to re-pay for their kindnesses.  Cherie Sumner, a great poetess and weaver of Romantic poetry is a fantastic writer and very dear friend who just yesterday took a fledgling writer under her arm and gave to her the contacts and game plan for publishing her first book without asking anything in return, she took hours out of her day yesterday, just for the sake of helping another writer.  I don’t know about you but these sorts of things just don’t happen very often but, on cosmo they happen each and every day.  Curtis Longstreet reached inside of me with kind words of encouragement and helped me find what will now become my first “Themed” book of poetry, without ever even knowing he did it.  This is what I mean by the magic of Cosmo.  So, if you are reading this and you are considering writing as a hobby or a career this is one helluva place to start.  So, when I chose the picture of the man on his knee offering a rose to another, I chose because I feel like I have been invited into a home and relationship of love……..and I humbly admit, that I feel blessed to have accepted the rose……
                             And in honor of that gesture I would like to submit a poem, which was inspired by this team of loving artists and which I never could have written without their collective kindnesses.  My friends have read this before (I think) but you have not……..

                                                   ACCEPTING GRATUITY

The nonchalance of boys who wait in hunger
And touch their toes to the dirt and do not look up
Are not giving way to the ruling classes
They are giving way to human nature
They will not grovel, they will not beg
But they will wait for darkness, to rummage through
The garbage bins
For they would rather give way to their hunger
Then bow down to other men
Who wear their evil arrogance upon their
Thorny brows
NO! you will not find them, on their knees
As cowering clowns
You WILL find them, in line, at break of day
Waiting for an opportunity, to pay their own way
Prepared to slave
Prepared to participate, in saving human dignity
Prepared through their own Faith, and nightly prayers
I think these souls are more familiar, with
Common decency
More than most
For they are heavens army
Standing every post
Bowed heads, accepting handouts
That they return to other starving souls
One by one they built this city
With honor and strength of will
I consider them
The very best of men
And the foundation upon which
OTHER men
are able
To accept
Gratuity…..

I am Dartanion2……and that’s the way I see it………………cheers  t      xx