The Long Road Home

By Dr. Diana Prince

The Long Road Home is the newest book of poetry by Diana Prince. Here the poet explores love, relationships, and their impact in our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546246732

Dr. Diana Prince

Dr. Diana Prince has a Master’s Degree in English and a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from California State University at San Diego. She has a PhD in Psychology from United States International University.

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© 2018 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/18/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4674-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4675-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4673-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018907080

Cover Photo is used with permission of Getty Images.

CONTENTS

Seeing You Again

Heartbeats

Poplar Trees

The War They Never Talked About

Time

Angels Over Texas

Anatomy of a Poem

To Corey Who Died

The Jungle Airfield at Botswana

Shah Jahan at the Taj Mahal

On Seeing You Today

The Creaking Floor

Chrysalis

Breathless

Night Sleep

Resurrections

Encounter

Pieces of You

The Real Fairy Tale

You Are Not Gone

Life is a Dance

Still Here

Becoming a Tree

Love Lost

My Grandfather in New Brunswick

Going

What Matters

Ten Years Later

Leaving the Station

November Night

Sleep Interrupted

Looking Back

Waking in Camp

The Smallest Light

Uprooted

Piano

That Morning

Reading Tea Leaves

Leaving Again

Perfect Day

Philosophy Teacher

Meeting Again

Captive

Loss

Morning

Your Letter

Chance Encounter

When the World Breaks

Making Love to You

Country Morning

Keeping Things

The Rabbits of Capetown

April in Monterey

The Man Apart

Shark

It’s Done

Shah Jahan Waiting

So Much For Glamour

The Rabbits in the Moon

When He Was Done With Her

Your Life As A Play

I Should Die in the Fall

Dance Marathon

The Tiger’s Dance

Love At Seventeen

Hummingbird

Fish Man

Resisting Endings

The Risk of Love

Spring Unannounced

Waking From the Dream

The Beast and the Dwarf

Autumn

The Old Man Speaks of Love

Rapunzel

Morning at the Cafe

My Father’s Roses

After All

Looking Back

Missing You

Not An Ordinary Day

God and The Bee

Rose Bush

The Homeless Man

Surviving You

Letter To My Mother and Father

Life As A Puzzle

Trying To Please You

Walls

October Night

From A Seashell

Ash Wednesday

Together

Casablanca

Songs

We Were So Young Then

I Loved You Before

When I Imagine

The Day We Met

I Remember

About the Author

"Life is not measured by the number of

breaths we take, but by the moments

that take our breath away."

Unknown

Seeing You Again

                    There you were in front of me –

                    We had come full circle

                    Like a pale horse,

                    panting and escaping

                    from a carousel.

                    The last time

                    I wasn’t there to see the end of it.

                    I wasn’t there when all the music stopped.

                    So here you are

                    all over again.

                    And here am I

                    torn by the old quandary –

                    How much of you I wanted,

                    and how much I could keep.

Heartbeats

                            Life does not come

                            all-at-once

                            but in heartbeats.

                            Not indigestible

                            but incremental.

                            Mathematical precision.

                            And life unfolds

                            now nicely wrapped,

                            sometimes just twine –

                            A card someone forgot to sign.

                            Surprising us for good or bad –

                            A flicker of light,

                            A final closing of the eyes.

                            The heart

                            like a small, warm bird,

                            sees everything –

                            the glad hellos,

                            the long goodbyes

                            Carrying the heart

                            into the smallest of places.

                            The dark. The light.

                            The dark. The light.

                            Then, finally

                            the Dawn.

Poplar Trees

                                Today the poplar trees

                                rise on slender trunks

                                like the thin legs of horses –

                                A forest of white and black,

                                Stiff in the wind

                                and determined.

                                Am I nearer now

                                to what I wanted?

                                Looking up –

                                leaves, orange and red

                                assault me with their color.

                                Today the poplars are aflame.

The War They Never Talked About

                        Above the ocean cliffs and sand

                        In barren fields of Normandy,

                   

Reviews for The Long Road Home

[klarsenmd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another interesting installment on the gunslinger comic series. The difference between the stories is slight and the artwork is wonderful. Lots of fun.

[whatnot_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dark Tower: The Long Road Home is the first collection of these comics that are not based on portions of Stephen King's seven Dark Tower books. The events in this volume were previously alluded to, but were never fully fleshed out. I found the previous volume, The Gunslinger Born, to be (more or less) a highly enjoyable condensed version of Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in King's cycle, which tells a story of young Roland and the formation of his ka-tet. As adaptations go, I was impressed. I was even more impressed with this second volume. Robin Furth and Peter David have done an excellent job of continuing where the flashback in Wizard and Glass left off. Many questions are answered about what happened on the way back to Gilead. The world of the Dark Tower series is fleshed out even more. This is in no small part also thanks to the fantastic artwork by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove.This is obviously not the place to start reading the series, and this review might make little sense to one not already acquainted with the books. If you've not read any of the series so far, pick up a copy of The Gunslinger or, at least, The Gunslinger Born. The Dark Tower series continues to impress.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's funny, as I read this, I was thinking to myself, "Why don't I remember this from the books?" Well, I guess that's because Stephen King did not write this! And it shows! I love Roland, and I loved his ka-tet (Cuthbert and Alain), and I really wanted to like this graphic novel. And it looks great too! But the story is very muddled, and, for me, it did not add anything to the DT tale. The whole Sheemie subplot completely baffled me! It wasn't a long read, but it wasn't really worth it either.

[readafew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Long Road Home continues the tale of Roland and his ka-tet as they find Susan's charred remains and try to evade the pursuit of Farson's men. They survive to get home with Maerlyn's Grapefruit, only to find more trials. This series is interesting and I still haven't read any of King's Dark Tower novels. As a comic series I think I'd find this a little slow and lacking in story, but since I'm reading them in the combined 5-6 comic sets it hides this somewhat. I liked the series, the artwork is incredible. This is a fairly gruesome and gritty bit of artwork so not for the squeamish.

[jarratt_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like "The Long Road Home" near as much as the first comic "The Gunslinger Born" for two reasons: the writing and the art. "The Gunslinger Born" was good mostly because the writing was in fact Stephen King's, albeit truncated for the appropriate medium. But the writing in "The Long Road Home" is far from King's voice. Ironically, a note from the comic's writer, Peter David, is included at the end of the book noting how scared he was of this task--writing without existing material of King's from which to pull. And, to his credit, he says it was all approved by King himself so who am I to say?As to the art, it is amazing. But why they chose to draw Alain so oddly I've no idea. Strange shadows mark his face; in fact, he looks more like what I'd imagines Sheemie to look like.Still, "The Long Road Home" is an interesting interpretation of what happened during Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain's trip back to Gilead from Mejis. This content is barely referenced at the end of "Wizard and Glass" (which I happened to be finishing at the same time) so it offers a unique perspective.

[bibliophile_pgh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The graphic novels for the Dark Tower series are a must read for anyone who enjoyed the Dark Tower series. Learning about Ronald as a young gunslinger as well as Cuthbert and Alain gives a great background story to the original series.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to know how people who haven't read the original Dark Tower series would find this graphic novel. It takes place during a journey that's not really explored in Stephen King's books. I enjoyed getting more time with Cuthbert and Alain, but I also think that it was not as much fun with Roland in a sort of coma throughout most of the action. Their wisecracking and squabbling were tempered by Roland most of the time. It was of course a quick read, but I wish it had been a little more in depth. Somehow I came away from it not feeling like all that much had happened.

[arkrayder · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These graphic novels are beautifully bound and the artwork is immense. The characters look as I pictured them. There is just enough to let your own imagination work too. Any Dark Tower junkie should own these. Truly beautiful.

[daniel5estes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Long Road Home treats us to more original material as compared to its predecessor, The Gunslinger Born. In the Dark Tower book series (from which this comic book series is based on), Roland, Cuthbert and Alain's journey from Mejis is mentioned only in passing, as are the major plot hooks (Sheemie's powers, Roland succumbing to the glam of Maerlyn's Grapefruit), but here the individual moments are fleshed out in better detail with some new revelations.We know so little about Roland's tet-mates (his friends, say thankya) that having much of the story told from Alain and Cuthbert's perspective is a welcomed addition. The narrative is a little thin, but that's okay because it's sandwiched between two larger tales. And the professional panel artwork is breathtaking, as I come to expect.

[questbird · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A somewhat interesting and rather short sequel to 'The Gunslinger Born'. The story is a bit all over the place. Roland and his friends (his 'ka-tet') are making their way home. It is made more difficult because Roland himself is lost in the dreamworld of Maerlyn's Grapefruit, the Palantir-like seeing-stone recovered from Eldred Jonas at the end of the first book. It makes for a well-illustrated but disjointed story, half in this dream realm and half showing Alain and Cuthbert's travails in Mid-World. And the revelations of the dream world are not so earth-shattering, or even particularly plot-illuminating for the reader. Roland is taken by Marten in the form of a crow -- sorry, raven, to the Crimson King, who taunts, tempts (or attempts to tempt) and eventually tries to destroy the young hero. Ultimately the story is too short and moves the protagonists in ways which are not sufficiently explained in the text (or of course the images, for this is a graphic novel).

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This graphic novel picks up where the previous The Gunslinger Born left off. Roland and his friends are traveling back home to Gilead with a posse from Hambry hot in pursuit. Unfortunately, at the beginning of their journey, Roland is sucked in the bizarre world of Maerlyn’s grapefruit, where he is tormented by old and new foes. Meanwhile, Alain and Cuthbert struggle to bring the comatose Roland home while facing a myriad of obstacles. Therefore, this story is more about getting into the psyches of Alain and Bert than anything else. The story is only so-so, although I’ll admit it sucks you in (much like Maerlyn’s grapefruit!), and you won’t want to put it down until you’ve finished. The illustrations are once again remarkable, with three-dimensional realness and beautiful coloring.

[krau0098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the 2nd book in the Dark Tower graphic novel series. There are a total of eleven books in this series. I didn’t like this book quite as much as the first book, but still really enjoyed the illustration throughout.Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain are fleeing the Big Coffin Hunters in an effort to get home in one piece. However when Roland’s mind gets taken over by the big grapefruit-like globe that they stole from the Coffin Hunters he goes on a strange metaphysical journey of sorts. Meanwhile while Roland is off in lala land the rest of the ka-tet is struggling to escape from both the Big Coffin Hunters and other strange beasts. Additionally we follow Sheemie’s story as he gets a bit lost and undergoes horrible torture to gain great power.This book was a bit more scattered than the first one. We alternate between Roland, Sheemie, and Cuthbert/Alain. While some interesting things happen in this book I missed Roland and would have liked to see more of him in this story.We do get to meet the Crimson King which was intriguing (and kind of disturbing). This almost seemed like a transitional volume; like it was setting up things for the next part of the story. However, after the first book the story in The Long Road Home seemed a bit anti-climatic.I continue to really enjoy the illustration throughout. I love colors and the detail in the illustration.Overall I enjoyed this second installment in the Dark Tower graphic novel series. The whole thing has this very fantasy post-apocalyptic western feel to it that I really enjoyed. I do think that this installment was a bit weaker than the first one. I would definitely recommend this graphic novel series to those who enjoy gritty fantasies.

[writertomg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. It was good to finally read a comic version with new material. It also made me realize how much I miss Roland Deschain and his story.

It felt exactly like Stephen King was writing it and I commend the authors for that. I cannot wait to read more.