Letter to My Grandchildren ...

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids and, looking back, I'm afraid we actually made things worse for them.

For my grandchildren, I would like so much more. I would really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches ...

Playing in the Mud and Loving it

To my Precious Grandchildren:

[Edited by CJ Heck]

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope you learn to make your own bed, rake the leaves, mow the lawn and wash the car. And I'm sorry, but I really hope no one gives you a brand new car when you turn sixteen.

It would be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you honestly believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother or sister. And it's all right, if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when they want to crawl under the covers with you because they are scared, I hope you will let them.

When you want to see a movie and your little brother or sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll allow them to come along.

I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away, so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as Mom or Dad.

I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and, after a hard rain, make mud pies and splash in the puddles.

I hope you can watch a thunderstorm from your front porch and lie in the grass at night counting stars and making hundreds of wishes.

I hope you'll climb a tree and build a tree house, and if you fall out, get back up and climb it all over again.

I hope you'll always find time to get lost in a book and if it's sad, that you'll cry out loud.

I want you to learn to use computers, but I hope you will also learn to add and subtract in your head ...

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush, and when you talk back to your mother, you'll learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain.

May you burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole just one time, so you'll learn to never do either again.

I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he is NOT your friend.

I hope you make time to sit on a porch swing with Grandma, go fishing with Grandpa, and ice skating on a pond with your Uncle.

May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs and kisses you at Hannukah, or Christmas, when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you -- tough times, disappointment, hard work, but most of all, happiness. To me, it's the only way to truly learn about and appreciate life.

Written with a pen.
Sealed with a kiss.
I'm always here for you.
... and if I die before you do, I'll go to heaven and watch over you.


[Original Author Unknown]


"A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck

Remembering

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose -- and you know that you're in love when the hardest thing to do is say good-bye.


This is for all you lovers out there who have ever loved and lost ...

I Remember Then
by CJ Heck

I remember
many things
about those
days, and you.
I remember
staring into
brown eyes
as though
I couldn't get
enough of them,
then burning
the love
I saw there
into a memory
to keep
for all time.
I remember
how with you,
total silence
could be so
comfortable,
and how it
was the only
time in my life
I ever felt
that to be so.
I remember
how safe I
felt with you.
Even the way
you said my name
was different
from how others
said it
and I remember
thinking then
that even my name
was safe
in your mouth.
I remember
how sometimes
we made love
all night
and stayed
in bed all day,
then skinny
dipping
to cool down
the places
the lovemaking
heated up.
I remember
lying in your
arms in the
afterglow
and thinking
how profound
it was,
the way
the brain
hitched a ride
when the body
did all the work.
You were
my miracle
in our own
short season.
And it makes
me remember
the last time
I saw you
because
I will never
forget the pain
of my loss.

A Poet for a Lover

Okay, folks, I'm going out on a limb with this one.  Since I'm predominantly a children's author, I don't usually post things like this, but today I'm feeling bold and courageous ... and after all, I am a woman first. You'll have to let me know what you think ...

A Poet For a Lover
by CJ Heck

Oh Lord,
give me a poet
for a lover
whose words
stroke me
like velvet hands.
Word-tender
caresses more
reaching than
the caress of a
mere mortal man.
A poet's
light touch
is so gentle.
Word-fingers
probe deep
every time,
arousing me,
haunting me,
wetting me,
seducing me,
body and mind.
Oh Lord,
give me a poet
for a lover!
Lust and fire
burn in
his heart.
A silver-tongued
devil whose
words make
me ache
to be on
my knees
in the dark.
Word-foreplay
making me
want him,
only mind-loved,
I want to be free
to feel
just one time
my poet inside,
where only
mind-lust
up to now
has loved me.

At The Cemetery

When Love is Gone
by CJ Heck


I watched 
in guilty silence
feeling like
an uninvited
voyeur as an 
elderly woman 
slowly tucked 
a folded missive 
under the vase
on a flat 
headstone.
As our eyes 
met, I felt 
her thoughts.
The wheels 
of time 
keep churning,
turning days 
and months 
to years
till the days 
become a lifetime
and still 
we miss 
the ones
who are gone.
Like a bucket 
with a hole
the sands 
of love sift 
through, yet 
the cold granite 
at our feet
belies the warmth 
yet in our hearts
and the words 
etched there below,
like dry ice, 
burn the soul.
After the old 
woman left,
I felt compelled 
to read 
her words:
"I’ll always 
love you.
I hope you like 
the roses"

and I cried.

Halloween Fiction

In the spirit of what today is, here's a little flash fiction for you.  Now, if I could only do a scary witches cackle, this would be the appropriate time for it ...

Happy Halloween ...

Terror On Hilltop Drive

 by CJ Heck

She was home alone. The sound of breaking glass had wrenched her from sleep. Fear in icy tendrils prickled at the nape of her neck, yanking the wisps of hair and standing them on end. Perspiration beaded her forehead, little runnels slipping down between her breasts and soaking the front of her nightgown.

A shot rang out in the darkness.  It was a bold flash, all at once blinding! Her ears were stunned to sudden silence. A scream tore from her throat, as she waited in the hushed gloom that reclaimed the dark, her eyes again adjusting to the night.

She crept through the doorway and into the hall. The smell of burnt gunpowder and blood was nauseating. Smoke clung to her like a shroud, its gray wisps still rising from the trembling.38. 

Afraid of the dark, but even more afraid of turning on a light, she dialed the number ...

“Nine-One-One ... go ahead, what is your emergency?”

“Help me ... I’ve just shot an intruder."

"Ma'am?  Could you repeat that, please?" 

 Please HURRY ...”

An Announcement

I have some good news, everyone! My website for children, Barking Spiders Poetry, recently won two awards for it's design.  I may have written the content inside the website, but the credit goes entirely to CJ Design, a company located in Germany, for their gifted creativity in developing the website.  I couldn't have chosen a better website designer.

To see the awards, please visit:

Easy Design.Org - Page 3

Easy Design.Org - Page 6

To see the entire website:
Barking Spiders Poetry


Thank you, Cedrik, for your friendship and for your patience over the last year.
Your friend always,
CJ

Monster in My House

In a child's imagination, monsters do exist. According to my brothers and sisters, years ago, monsters came from many places ... the streetlight shining through the curtains let them dance around on the ceiling; they whispered and chittered through the heating vent in the floor from the furnace room in the basement; or they tapped and clawed at the window, wanting to get in, from outside in the big apple tree that stood nearby. My own imagination convinced me that monsters lived in the crawl space under my bed and, if I wanted to get to the bathroom, I had to hit the floor in a dead run. On my return, I had to leap back into bed so they wouldn't grab my ankles and drag me under.

Of course, all of our monsters disappeared when Mama and Daddy came in to kiss us good night and tell the monsters to go away. Here is a little children's poem dedicated to my youngest sister, whose monster was of a different sort ... Happy Halloween!

Monster in My House
by CJ Heck

(Shhhh) there's a monster in my house.
It came in a great big box.
Mommy says it isn't so,
but something eats my socks.

I used to have a full sock drawer,
with red socks and some blue.
I even had some white ones,
'cause I wear white socks, too.

There's a monster in my house.
It came in a great big box
and I must make it angry
or it wouldn't eat my socks.

It lives around here, somewhere.
(Shhhh) I hope it's not around
'cause every time I wake it up,
it makes such awful sounds.

Most times, it says, 'Yum-Yum---Yum-Yum'
sometimes, it just goes 'SWISH-H-H'
and then it eats my socks up
without a spoon or dish.

Mom says they're underneath my bed
or spread around the floor
(the monster musta' burped 'em there
when she opened up the door).

(Shhhh) there's a monster in my house
and it came in a great big box.
Mom says it's just the washer ...
but it's a monster that just eats socks!


Note: Personally, I could never see it as being a monster. I always thought the washer was saying, "This is awful, this is awful, this is awful, this is awful" so I always kinda-sorta thought it just didn't like it's job ...

Bats

I'm going shopping today -- I want to have plenty of candy on hand for the ghosts and goblins who ring my doorbell this weekend.  Last year, I was new in town and not around for "Trick or Treat".  I was in Ohio visiting family.

I wonder, do kids still prank if no one answers the door and they can see lights on inside the house?  I remember years ago, we pranked houses that ignored trick or treaters. We didn't do really bad things, although I heard stories about kids who did. Our pranks were mild compared to some. Did you prank as a kid? Feel free to send me your stories and I'll post them here:   CJ's Email

Again in the spirit of Halloween, here's another little Halloween poem for children:

Bats

by CJ Heck

Bats can hit a baseball.
Girls can bat their eyes.
But the bats I want to talk about
fly with radar in the skies.

Bats are cute and furry.
I think bats are cool,
(if I could only catch one
I’d bring it in to school).

I’m sure YOU think they’re creepy.
They might even make you scream.
But bats will always be a part
of scary Halloween.

It's not so hard to like them,
well, it's not exactly automatic,
but mom and dad don’t mind them
IF they don’t live in our attic.