Thank you for your comments.

@kadenajack: I always thought it meant drugs for sale. Below is a link I scrounged up dispelling that urban legend and coming up with a few other ideas as to why, namely, why not? Although, in the Reader Comments section one NY'er notes that where they're from it means someone has died and symbolizes "feet that will never again walk the face of this earth and are suspended in another place."

Sneakers on Powers Lines:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/factoids/a/sneakers.htm

@Nick: Apparently it took one girl 15 minutes and she was exhausted. And she didn't even think to take a photo afterward.

@cferroni: No this wasn't a crop, just a thoughtless post. Those "dark specs" are birds...ACK! And the poor image quality is due to my utter failure to apply the Neat Image filter first, which I have since done, along with zapping out those pesky feathered fiends. Anyway, thank you for your honest feedback.

Ah, King, you have once again found one of my meager offerings. Thank you so much for your kind words.

Alas, all 5's won't help, my Relevance score, for example, is pretty darn low. I scratch my head at this, but your words give me encouragement, thus I will endeavor here at WS, unless I'm given the boot first. :0)

Happy New Year to All!

Hi, Patti,

Did you know that I am a HUGE poetry fan? Mainly famous, dead poets. If you were to prompt me (from a list I would have to provide), I could probably recite for over an hour poems I have memorized out of love for them. I've written few poems, too, but that is secondary for me.

So let me know if you want to talk poetry.

Keep shooting photos and keep up the good work.

P.S. - Love your Santa Gnome!

Hi, King,

Of course, you are a man of poetry! It just makes sense. And I would gladly sip wine and sit at your feet shouting, "One more, one more!"

I hope you don't cringe when I tell you I am a fan of Billy Collins and love to see him read when he is in town. And Mary Oliver, Philip Levine, Robert Hass, and Jane Hirshfield. Many contemporary poets.

I was a good poet. I hope to be a better photographer.

Yours,
Patti

Can't cringe at the name Billy Collins cause I've never heard of him. I'll have to look up the other names you provided.

I have Alan Ginsberg's autograph. Does that count?

Your photographs tell me that I'd like your poems.

Oh, but you must fill-in the Billy Collins void your life then, for you seem a bittersweet sort. They call him the modern-day Robert Frost, hence the cringe-factor mostly attributed by other jealous poets and critics, because he fills auditoriums--young and old come to hear him and THAT is part of the greatness of attending one of his readings, hearing their polite rapture, if you will. That "Ahhhhh" sound all poets strive for at the end of one of their poems when read aloud.

Oh, and he was our nation's Poet Laureate for two back to back terms.

Here is a perfect introduction and a link in case formatting gets messed up (as it most likely will) http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forgetfulness/:

Even better a link to cool video made by a fan with the audio of Mr. Collins reading the poem. That way you get to hear his famous "melancholic" voice:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6343045405558348712

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins

Wow, I live in SF, so Alan Ginsberg's autograph is a pretty worthy item here.

And thank you for your faith in me.

Fingers crossed re: the above formatting.

Thanks P... (I *know* your first name starts with a "P")

Yes, it's a worthy poem, although, at my age, a bit forboding.

I usually pay attention to who our poet laureate is...it's not a little thing, that title. I'll check the links you provided this weekend.

Thanks!