Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocolate

SECRETS & SHELL
Down at the bottom, if you happen to read backwards, we are forming a Secret Society of Shel Silverstein Soldiers. First of all, Shel Silverstein Soldiers are dedicated to Peace, Poetry and the Right to Play. The Secret part of the society is just for fun. I love secrets. The secrets are not meant to keep anybody OUT of the society. That would be a Select Society. We don't want anybody kept OUT, we want everybody IN.

Join us in our Secretness and our Shelness. Bring you favorite poems, drawings, or just come and listen, eat chocolate, make chocolate hand prints and finger prints on things - and each other. If it gets hot enough we can finger paint …

I was having a moment of militant irreverence while not feeling like comforming to anybodies anything, I told Peridot that we should run away somewhere and hide and read Shel Silverstein and eat chocolate. I decided that Everland was a good safe spot, so here we are. I suspect I am going to get chocolate finger prints all over my books, but, heck, it will just give them Character.

Here's to you Shel Silverstein, Irreverent, disrespectful, gross, delicious, brilliant, poet of childhood. THE MAN KNEW HOW TO PLAY!!  Here we are, kind of underneath a bower, a grape arbor maybe? It's summer and a soft breeze is blowing in. I've got the books and I'm reading, Peri is digging into the chocolate. Here comes Aly! Crawl back in here with us!. . I brought lots of chocolate bars. I’m gonna read out loud. Here's Sprite and Cat! There is a lot of room. Ooooh someone brought Hostess Cupcakes!

Here is a poem that I just wrote for Shel. In my life as a grown-up I have known some other grown-ups who did not understand Shel Silverstein or what he does for children. They saw his silly pictures and gross words and thought it would teach the children to be anti-social. Not so. Not only is his work the perfect way to intorduce children to poetry, but his books can be a safe place of words, for children who are threatened by words, or, indeed, threatened in any way by their lives in the “real world.” A child who doesn't like to read, doesn't like books … read them a little Shel Silverstein and then causuially leave the book. I promise you it will disappear.

Shel Silverstein's work is not just for children. It is great poetry if you are six months or a hudred and twenty six. Shel's books really were some of the first I “read” to my babies; they are fascinated by the long line's of the drawings that cover two pages.

So I had the nerve to try and write a poem for a master poet. I've always wanted to make some sort of memorial for this brilliant man. Such that it is, I'm glad to have done it.

I love you Shel
I think you’re swell
You’re most my favorite poet
I guess you were a grown up
But you didn’t have to show it
By looking down your grown up nose
Every single minute
If you thought about your nose
You probably named the boogers in it

You proved a man who grew quite tall
Knew what it meant to still be small
Not having any rights at all
But those your dreaming gave you

You wrote your words right on the wall
Words that delight, enchant, enthrall
Saying hope can make the darkness fall
And that your dreams can save you

We followed you into the attic
And to the sidewalk’s end
You taught us about giving
You were our loud, irreverent friend
You showed us that it was OK
To be just the way we are
You sawed a hole into forever
And you left us each a star
You were funny, you were brilliant
You were preposterous and wild
You made us brave, strong and resilient
You were the poem in every child


A Poem for Shel Silverstein
©Edwina Peterson Cross

FALLING UP

I tripped on my shoelace
And I fell up -
Up to the roof tops,
Up over the town,
Up past the tree tops,
Up over the mountains,
Up where the colors
Blend into the sounds.
But it got me so dizzy
When I looked around.
I got sick to my stomach
And I threw down.

~ Shel Silverstein

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

I love Shel. I LOVE the Giving Tree! My favorite kids book of all time….and I lvoe chocolate with Caramel in it..thanks Dryad…I am going to like this place!


Aley

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Yummy, I am eating a choc treat from France called Le Noi Amer, 71% dark chocolate, full of healthy antioxidants :)  I am saving the exotic one (yes, it says that) for when I finish exoticizing the boudoir.  I can 't believe I spent so much money on a candy bar but it is for a special occasion :-D  Ha, it has Mexican ancho u chijpotle chillies, Ceylon cinnamon and dark chocolate and includes directions on how to properly savor it.  It is sure to be an… experience :)

hugs and merrymints,
Sprite

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Hi!!! I found you all! Yippeeeeeeee Aley is here! I've brought some Hostess Cupcakes! The ones with the creamy white stuff in the center! MMMMMMM! Totally gross but delish!
Hey Sprite, that chocolate sounds totally good and decadent and sinful and yummmmm!



Ah, it's nice to relax here with you all! I love Shel Silverstein! I'm breathing in and out as letting this place soothe me … as, well do you mind if I rant just a little bit?

I just spent a frustrating 45 minutes making an incredible posting about a hike along the Oregon Coast … and including a trip down to Lincoln City to watch surfers from all over the world and I found the coolest site about haunted places in Oregon … and dang it! I forgot that I had everything saved in the “posting box” and used the same window to find a photo of something! EXCUSE MY FRENCH!!!! I did that the other day as well!  OH well, I'll recreate it another time!  Now, back to Shel and more chocolate!!!! mmmm! Thanks Winnie, you are so very smart! I'm done RANTING …

Now let me share my Shel poem … do you all  remember…

A Boy Named Sue
by Shel Silverstein

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,
and it got lots of laughs from a lot of folks,
it seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
and some guy would laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,
but I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honky tonks and bars and kill
that man that gave me that awful name.

But it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I had
just hit town and my throat was dry.
I'd thought i'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon in a street of mud
and at a table dealing stud sat the dirty,
mangy dog that named me Sue.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
from a worn-out picture that my mother had
and I knew the scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old
and I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
and I said, “My name is Sue. How do you do?
Now you're gonna die.” Yeah, that's what I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell you I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when.
He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laughin' and then I heard him cussin',
he went for his gun and I pulled mine first.
He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile.

And he said, “Son, this world is rough and if
a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
and I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I gave you that name and I said 'Goodbye'.
I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's
that name that helped to make you strong.”

Yeah, he said, “Now you have just fought one
helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you've
got the right to kill me now and I wouldn't blame you
if you do. But you ought to thank me
before I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit
in your eye because I'm the nut that named you Sue.”
Yeah, what could I do? What could I do?

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun,
called him pa and he called me a son,
and I came away with a different point of view
and I think about him now and then.
Every time I tried, every time I win and if I
ever have a son I think I am gonna name him
Bill or George - anything but Sue.

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

I do like hostess cupcakes :)  Sorry you lost everything on your post.  I know we'll enjoy reading it when you get it back up.

A chocolate candy bar with chillis, I had to look twice and then chuckle and, hm, it sounded so unusual I had to purchase it.  Now, whether it is good, I suppose we'll find out.

I had my first meal on my new table.  I think I'm liking this new life I have going on :) 

hugs and twinkees,
Sprite

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Ah ha! I went a-huntin’ and a-huntin’ and found you guys! Thanks for the secret clues to finding this wonderful place.

As I’m reading through A Boy Named Sue, I knew I had heard this story before but for me it never came from a book. Honestly I thought it came from a very big and dark figure by the name of Johnny Cash. I had no idea Shel Silverstein wrote this? Johnny Cash just moved up a peg in my book! See, growing up I thought we were the original Hee-Haw family, pretty much everyone could play an instrument. A Boy Named Sue has always been and forever will be etched in my heart.

What??? Hostess cupcakes! Let’s mash them together with the Twinkies… yummers!

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Here are some things that I like:

1) The word “meal.” I love it when people say they are going to share a “meal.” It is also a word that means ground up grain, but that is beside the point. I like saying “A meal on the table.” I also like the word beverage. “Would you like a beverage with your meal?”

2) I like it when my daughter Lezlie says the word “LOAF” and when my daughter Laura says the word “TUBE.” Laura is very nice about saying “TUBE” but I have to trick Lezlie into saying “LOAF” sometimes by drastic measures like buying her a Loaf Pan. When we do not hear each other talk, we do not know if there are any words that we love the way we say. I have a rather desperate lisp. You see? You didn't know that at all, did you? My typing does not lisp.

3) I like Secret Societies. I like Secrets of all kinds. I don't like Secret Societies because they keep people out, I don't want anyone kept out. That is a SELECT SOCIETY. I like Secret Socities because they are secret. Anyone can be in my Secret Shel Society, but it is still Secret. Except I went and told a lot of people about it.

4) I like the way the word Chocolate didn't quite make it on the title here. ” Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol ” yeah.

This is a piece of news: I think the librarian in my famous story who hated Shel (and made me become militant in my Shel'ness) didn't like him because she heard that he wrote for Play-Boy. He wrote for the New Yorker as well, which some people find more offensive than Play-Boy. I took the New Yorker during college. I remember days that were so horrible that they were saved only by The New Yorker showing up. I would sit in class knowing that it was snowing up a blizzard out side and that my car would be covered and I'd have to dig it out before I could go home, knowing that my wide belled Levi's would be soaking wet to the knee and frozen before I got to my buried car, no less got it dug out, knowing that my acres of golden hair which I was too vain to cover with a hat would also be wet and then frozen, knowing that nothing good was ever going to happen again and then I would think … “Maybe The New Yorker” will have come

Back to what I like.

5) Knowing people who would play dress ups with you if you lived in the same town and who you could have Champagne Frock Parties with and write on the sidewalk with chalk and spray each other with the hose and hold your finger over the hose hole and make rainbows and you would hold the rainbow and your friend would dance in it and then you would change places. And you would be fifty-three and not six and you would still do it.

6) Jena's red glasses.

7) Cat went to see Jesus Christ Super Star tonight and wrote “cool beans” on her “is.” I just love that. I also know every single word and note of JCSS by way of listening and dancing to it in 1971 ad naseum and then having  replay when April did the same thing in 1996 ad+ad+ad+ad+ naseum. Do you think you're who they say you are?

8) This song: Six soccer socks walking down the hall … WAIT!  O.M.G.!! U-Tube, do you believe it? Nostalgia-on-a-stick. What an amazing creation.

9) That new super soft stuff that they make bathrobes out of and blankets and stuffed animals. My bunny socks are made out of that and they are warm and super soft. I'm going to find them now.

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Dryad, to me you are like a blond, warm, super-soft fuzzy world to gently sink into for the evening.  A perfect way to end an evening after Jesus Christ Superstar. 

Hey, did you know Jesus works at Dell here in Austin when he's not singing?  I even have the playbill to prove it.  He even TALKED to ME after the show!  I'm not kidding!

I'm singing myself to sleep… after my Hostess Cupcake(s)

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And we want you to sleep well tonight.
Let the world turn without you tonight.
If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

G'nite and turn you clocks forward my dear friends,
Cat

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Magic

Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblin's gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I've had to make myself.

~ Shel Silverstein



This is a Mighty Chocolate “S” for “You Know  … … … ….

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

ONE OF MY FAVORITES!

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

This is fun!  I had boys so they loved the gross ones!  Most beloved:

Inside everybody’s nose
There lives a sharp-toothed snail.
So if you stick your finger in,
He may bite off your nail.
Stick it farther up inside,
And he may bite your ring off.
Stick it all the way, and he
May bite the whole darn thing off.

http://www.geocities.com/nightoftime/warning.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors." />

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

why can't we all stay happy and eat like that??

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

A Chocolate Song :)

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Love, love, love that Chocolate song.  The cravings are hitting hard now and it's too late to make a run to the store!  No more Valentine's chocolates to be found in the usual places.  No hidden pre-Easter stash stored yet.  Wait!  Those chocolate covered Luna Bars might do the trick.  I could peel off the coating…   However, next week I will feel compelled to sing a different tune!

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Eighteen Flavors

Eighteen luscious, scrumptious flavors -
Chocolate, lime, and cherry,
Coffee, pumpkin, fudge-banana,
Caramel cream and boysenberry,
Rocky road and toasted almond,
Butterscotch, vanilla dip,
Butter brickle, apple ripple,
Coconut and mocha chip,
Brandy peach and lemon custard,
Each scoop lovely, smooth, and round,
Tallest ice-cream cone in town,
Lying there *sniff* on the ground.
by Shel Silverstein
from Where the Sidewalk Ends … !!!!  

and tonight in honor of this poem, I'm trying some of that chocolate, lime and cherry (though I might go easy on the lime!!!)

love you Winnie for creating this “secret” place!!!! :-) peri

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

This is great. Thanks for the invitation and the treasure hunt. My favorite Shel Silverstein poem has to be Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout ( Would Not Take the Garbage Out). It makes me laugh and at the same time contains a message about recycling!

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

WELCOME CHANIN!  Oh Boy!  Do we have a surprise for you! Stay tuned …
coming soon to a PLAY-POD Near You …
Something Special About Chanin …
What could it be?

(I told you that I like secrets!)

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Writer Waiting

Oh this shiny new computer -
There just isn’t nothin’ cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don’t need no writin’ tutor,
‘Cause there ain’t a single thing that it can’t do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I’ll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).

~ Shel Silverstein ~

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

HI Winnie and Shel,
I'm eating some Chocol and does anyone else like “Dots” ? you get them at the movie theatre and well, you usually have “left-overs” … we got the JUMBO box today when we went to see Juno … my second time, my daughter's first. She liked it … and we shared DOTS and chocol.

and here's another Shel … for ye all … and it is so appropriate for me here in Portland as it was yet another rainy springy, rainy, splendiforous day! It rained, the sun came out, it rained, the sun came out, it sprinkled and two blocks over - the sun was shining! Then, it showered and a mile away there was a rainbow!

It's Springtime in Oregon and it is rainy and pink blossoms are everywhere!

Rain
by Shel Silverstein

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand–
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said–
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

Re: Hiding in Everland Reading Shel Silverstein and Eating Chocol

well well well
I finally found this place
now I know where all the chocolate in the world has gone
there's a chocolate hole here created by our beloved Dryad

I must tell you something a freind said to me a few days ago
while we were sitting in the sauna
I lamented the fact that I seem to be growing a tummy
for the first time in my life
i used to have a chocolate slab tummy when I was a child
from climbing trees and wrestling boys
but now here I am on the wrong side of the chocolate wrapper
getting flab instead
what is going on?
Well, my friend said, she heard that eating too much choclate
is a substitute when one is missing the sweetness of life!
My god, she nearly cured me.
But I fixed that. I decided, 'She's lying!!'
Why can't we have both.
I've seen both. Winnie sent me a picture of me
having both. I hope she posts it here one day.

You know I must be honest,
I have been feeeling very left out of this secret society thing.

Winnie, you mentioned you were going to make me a member
about a hundred years ago but I never got the invite or I never saw it
I guess you had to do a Harry Potter thing and jsut blitz my chimeny
so I could see the invite peeping out above junk email.

Shel Silverstein
I'm going to have to be radically honest
at the risk of feeling like a philistine
never  heard of him til this second
well as they say, it's never too late to have a happy childhood
love the stuff posted here,
the *sniff* icecream that's the tallest in town

the things I love?
all of you playing here
chocolate
all winnie's paintings and poems
yours too!
oh, yes. women with strong backbones.
have you noticed? Winnie's is  getting stronger
by the minute. It must be the chocolate.

they say everything living is either growing or dying
every second. Like a plant.
So if you move a plant into the sun and give it water
and food it grows. If you lock it in a dark room it starts to wilter


cartwheels all round
xx