Promise of the Rainbow Through My Tears is a collection of romantic, lyrical and metaphysical poems, together with songs and ballads. The themes are a roving vagabond's stroll amongst images, scenes and telling experiences. Some reflect profound memories-pleasant and unpleasant-seen through the eyes of childhood and adolescence. Some are filled with a young man's romance and ripe with rhyme and imagery. While others are introspective and searching an old man's coming to grips with his mortality. Above all, these poems tell the story of life's journey; from the cradle, along the dream of life, to the grave and beyond. The poems themselves are not divided into any particular order or theme; they roam much like the authors experiences and gather their own rhythm as their theme dictates. Although the poetic style of rhyme is not popular in modern poetry,much can be found throughout this collection, which accents the author's nonconventional approach to his work. What is evident though, is the varied themes reflected in this volume, which suggests that any reader will find some poem or line that would draw on his or her personal experience.

There is a Great Loss Here There is a great loss here, Perhaps unaware The eagle flies alone over the tops of mountains, Leaving its mate behind to settle the score of unitys prize Aloneness. That shriek that tears the night-sky, Calling back memorys Gentleness. That peat and pith within the wombs Oneness. In silence its wings dip behind the mountains arch, Falling away In feathered farewell to Goodbyes endlessness. Richard Claude Valdez Bidding farewell to anyone or anything is never easy. In his third volume of poems, Richard Claude Valdez shares verse that pays tribute to goodbyes through separation, disconnection, and death, all echoed through nature and the human heart. While immersed in a lyrical struggle between youthful passion and the age of compassion, Valdez reflects on love, joy, sorrow, regret, passion, and hope amid the after-effects of an unforgiving circumstance, remembrances scarred on an ancient landscape, a miracle cradled in comfort, a misty memory of a carefree dance, and dishonor heaped upon a generous spirit. East of Goodbye shares thoughtful poems that explore and reflect on the many aspects of separation while inspiring others to look inward and study their own journey through life.

Aperture is a collection of poems drawn from life experiences and reflected through the emotional lens of love, joy, pain, disappointment, anguish, loneliness, and exhilaration. It is an opening by which the light of simple human experience is collimated or diffracted. Subjective, though it may, the poet sacrifices his mood, temperament, disposition, and personality at the altar of emotional expression. Aperture affirms that this emotion is the great leveler and that mankind- the embodiment of pure emotion- all drowns in the depths of its gentle wrath.

Fulfilling a promise made to his dying grandfather, Max sets himself a hard road - the Vatican or bust! An unlikely hero, Max lurches from challenge to challenge in his bid for the big job; from his secret adoption of a lost lamb to his thwarted attempts at saintly behaviour. This is a gently comic, yet respectful look at Catholicism, and religious conventions in general, not only memorably amusing, but also thought provoking.