Diamond Dust (Poems From the Black Sea) Volume V

The Black Sea doesn't ship the most colorful or ornate seashells on its beaches, yet restrained in spines and threatening colors, such smooth seashells in muted colors form the pillars of this collection of designs. New life was blown into such pieces as they became the vases, the leaves, the flowers and the buds of the offbeat marine Ikebana compositions you are about to see. Sometimes met with anxiety and other times met with nostalgia, impermanence is the main yarn spun throughout these visual poems where I talk about the effort poured into creating quality art that ends up forgotten and into raising minds shining like diamonds who nevertheless crumble into dust. I also talk about serendipitous artifacts of nature that nevertheless last far longer than expected. Carbon life forms that switch places on the wheel of life and death as well as carbon that turns into diamonds. Apparently timeless diamonds that reenter the cycle of carbon once turned to smoke and ashes. Throughout all these yarns, aquatic words form the skeleton of this volume: from blue open space to subtle waves, snow flowers, lyric seascapes and swimming letters, water permeates these pages even if the book you are about to hold is dry. Many poems are colored by my medical background as I talk about the art of making art out of disease and spinning suffering into something not necessarily worthwhile, but at least bearable. The scientific branch of medicine helps sustain life during emergencies, but the beauty of art makes those added moments of life worth living for. Inspiring art will not relieve an asthma attack, but it may make searching for hard-to-find medical help worthwhile.