what is success?

For a writer (of which community I fancy myself to be a part of on a good day-- Like Seamus in 'Key West' my response to the comment, "A writer?" would be "Yeah... somedays... sort of... no"), as it is in many other artistic fields, it is difficult to balance the desire for an audience and to be a bestselling writer with the greater goal of being true to oneself-- and offering the best one has to offer. One might compare Hemingway and Fitzgerald... but in an age when bestsellers are written by such as John Grisham or Stephanie Meyer, Hemingway looks considerably more challenging than he was considered during his heyday. The challenge is however to curb, somehow, the desire to be number one on the Barnes and Noble list and reach for something better, to create something that will challenge the mind and heart. I don't know if I can or ever will attain that which some call "great literature" but I do know that to present less than the best that I am capable of is to sell out which ultimately makes the work meaningless.

Strong words?? perhaps...

but something to keep at heart.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

~~C.P. Cavafy

Dreams

Last night I dreamt of you-
dreamt of the day on the beach
our skin browned in the sun
the sand clinging to limbs
We swam out to the rocks and reclined,
limbs interlocked
flesh melting
The water laps at the rocks reminiscent of
sex
you
in me
out
in
We are tugged and pulled,
the ocean's fingers draw at us
enticing us
to dance with the residents of the deep
to linger
in our forgetfulness