The Magic Golden Pen and Poems

By Mark A. Dema PH.D

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2004
• ISBN: 9781469128566

Mark A. Dema PH.D

Mark Dema PhD is a Poet in Residence at Washingtonville Middle School and Marlboro Middle School in the Hudson Valley in New York. He lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley with his wife, Kristina, and his daughter, Victoria. Mark is also a N. Y. State Certified English teacher and a N. Y, State Certified Elementary School teacher. He graduated from the State University at New Paltz, New York with a Bachelor of Science Degree in 1973, and earned his Master of Science Degree in 1984 from that same University. He earned his Doctorate in English and Comparative Literature from Cambridge State University in 2001. He taught at St. Francis of Assisi School in Newburgh, New York for sixteen years. He then left St. Francis to become a private tutor and a Poet in Residence. Mark also regales students with Poetry Presentations throughout the Hudson Valley. He teaches students through the magic of words and music. He recites poetry and sings songs on his guitar just as minstrels did hundreds of years ago throughout Europe and Asia. The students learn that poetry transcends time because it expresses feelings. Technology may change but human emotions remain intact throughout the centuries. Mark considers his work a vocation, and feels privileged to touch the lives of so many students in such a special way.

Book preview

Chapter I

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I could not understand why my mother died. Indeed, it made me sad that people were sort of like flowers. They bloomed into wonderful colors, enriched the world with beauty, then withered, and eventually died. When I went to my mother’s wake, it did not look like her in the coffin. She looked more like a waxed doll than a human being. I often wondered what happens to people when they die. It wasn’t so much death that frightened and saddened me; it was that unknown realm, beyond death. It was that dimension beyond my imagination that puzzled and perplexed me most. I had the sense my mother’s body was only the shell left behind, and my real mother took her smile and essence to another place.

It had been nine months since my mother’s passing, and although it still felt like a knife passing through my heart, I tried to think of happy things. My sister, Jasmine, told me she tried to think of all the happy times we shared with mother. Her advice was good, but difficult to put into practice. They say time heals all wounds, but my mother’s death was forever.

On a crisp October Sunday afternoon, Jasmine, and my father and I went to an antique shop in London. As we rode along a ribbon of highway, the golden sun burned away a grey fog, and a deep, blue sky appeared. The colorful leaves were dancing and laughing. Orange, red, and yellow foliage rose and fell under the strength of the wind. Squares of white light and black shadows created a checkerboard upon the open road. As we listened to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the trees and the wind blended into one. It cheered our hearts.

When we entered the quaint antique shop, Jasmine noticed a golden tipped fountain pen. The pen gleamed from inside a glass showcase. It had a glossy, black body, and its point shined like the golden sun! I peered into the case and said,

Look, the tip says 14 carat gold upon it. Suddenly, a tall, thin elderly man approached my sister and me. His long hair and beard were as white as snow, and he wore glasses that rested on the tip of his long, pointed nose. Then he said,

Yes, indeed, that is a beautiful pen, and I might add quite a remarkable one.

May we see it? I inquired. He took the pen out of the showcase, and said,

You pull this side lever to fill it with ink. Then he explained and demonstrated,

See, you place the point into the bottle of ink, pull out the lever, and the ink is then drawn into the bladder inside the pen.

Wow, awesome! my sister and I exclaimed. So we chipped in our money and purchased the pen; it was over fifty years old. As Jasmine grasped the pen, she felt a strange sensation transmitted to her slender fingers.

When we arrived home, we couldn’t wait to write with the pen. We sat at Dad’s