The poems in this collection are a strange marriage of love poems and speculation. It didn't start out that way. When I was organizing my poetry into collections, they were separate categories, but by the time I had finished, neither one was quite long enough to be a book and a bit too long for a chapbook. So I combined them together. What resulted is part emotion and part reason, both of which are important parts of being human, and this comes through in the speculative poems on love in Part 1.
Parts 2 and 3 relate to the pursuit of love (particularly its newness, hopefulness, and uncertainty) and what it might bring when it lasts. Of course, not all ventures in love are successful, and Part 4 encompasses the frustration that love can bring when it is unrequited. However, love is also resilient and new opportunities often arise in the wake of such failures. Alas, much of this section is autobiographical in nature, inspired by my misfortunes in this area. The last section of love poems relate to the end of romance and, in some cases, the hostilities that sometimes follow in its wake.
The annoyance portion of the book relate to my interests in sociology, philosophy, and ethics. Part 6 are commentaries on the environment, economic inequality, and other less-than-ideal aspects of our society. Part 7 explores various aspects of the nature of reality and morality. The concluding section is an odd mixture of poems related to religion, some of which are inspirational and reverent, others critical and dismissive. This diversity is reflective of my journey from theism (with a Fundamentalist tendency) to a staunch atheistic stance, to my present agnosticism.
