"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually live your way into the answer..."                                                                                                                                                 Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The above graphic/link to home is a portrait of me whipped up by my daughter amy.  She did the cover art to the left, the art in the chapbook, and is working on additional art for this website.  I think that she accomplishes more than creating art. I believe that she interprets the essence of my poetry.  And that's way cool. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but she's rather talented. Here's her auto-bio:    My birthname is Amy Michelle Lynn, but I sometimes go by Michyaelangelo.  I've been drawing since I was old enough to hold those crayons that were for some reason made larger for smaller hands.  I've been creating stories for as far as I can remember.     I started college when I was sixteen and should be receiving my associate's sometime next year.  I have a job, also, working as a barista at a local coffee shop.    Currently, I have o'er forty-five books, over sixteen mangas (graphic novels), and about five screenplays.  All of these are incomplete, mind you.    You may see one or two short writings of mine on this site, but mainly there'll be the pictures...

The Boy Who Loved War

My name is cliff lynn, named for my grandfathers.  I am a retired Navy Chief, son of a retired Navy Chief.  As a child I was a reject from the Gong Show, and as an adult played the Cowardly Lion in amateur theater in Spain.  I have three splendiferous children, and a job, and I have written my whole life.  I've always written--notes from my mother, newspaper pieces, short stories, really really bad country songs, letters to the editor, memoir stuff, personal letters that I never post. I've started the same novel at least six times.  In June of this year, I discovered that I'm black. Earlier this year, I decided to take a Creative Writing class at Anne Arundel Community College near my home in Annapolis, MD.  Our professor passed out a syllabus in which the word "poetry" was dripping all over the first eight weeks.  I reckoned it either a mistake (maybe the syllabus from another course with which she was involved), or perhaps our professor was insane. This is Creative Writing, I protested.  You know, fiction.  Poetry, that's not writing creatively, it's just...well, it's wrought with weirdness, that's what it is.  I don't like poetry, don't read poetry, don't understand it, I certainly can't write it, of this you can be assured.  Our prof's reply--Just relax.  Try it.  Everything'll be fine, you'll see... After sampling the wares herein, you may agree that I can't write poetry.  But I learned very soon into the eight weeks (I think it was week two), that I do like poetry, and I read it now, and I try my best to understand it. And I listen to lyrics in a new way.  Aimee Mann is a genius.  I went out and bought all of Tom Waits' cds.  He should be our poet laureate.  If only he weren't nuts, I think he'd have a shot.  Or maybe that's why he should get the nod. My poetry isn't too difficult to understand, I fear.  Even if it ain't what you would consider poetry, and even if you don't like it, I sincerely hope that you enjoy the read. Lemme know.                                               best regards,                                                         cliff

I would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement of family and friends, and my prof!  They'll remain nameless until such time as I can contact them individually, and ask their permission to put their names here.  Figure the odds. You know, I don't know the last names of some of my best friends.  That's strange, isn't it? Oh, yeah...Thanks, Becky.

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