Warren E. McDaniel

Valdez, Alaska

Warren has been a poet and artist since childhood. His poems and ability to draw have delighted children and adults alike for many years. The National Library of Poetry has published several of his poems, he also has one collection out entitled, "Poetic Nostalgia". Warren and his family have made their home in Alaska for the past thirty some years, most of that time in the bush country. Many of his poems are about Alaska and run the gamut from sincere to satire.

The Artist

How dare I take my pen in hand and think of beauty I'll create.
Place it then within a frame, stand back in awe and say, tis great.
Then hang it in a gall-er-y, on a wall for all to see.
As people come from miles around, to stand in awe of me.

See the life he puts in frame they say to one another.
He's sure to come to fortunes fame, a talent like no other.
When truth is seen, its only dead and never will it live.
Frozen now within it's tomb, life and love will never give.

One alone can beauty make and hold in tender care,
To spread it forth to live, no other can compare.
When I look at all the beauty in God's created span.
Then I alone can see, the fake, the fraud, I am.

The Time Machine

It was so cold it was bitter, to quit hurt my pride.
If I'd stayed any longer, I surely would have died.
So it's out of the bush and down out of the cold.
I'll wait till next summer, to search for the gold.

Well I crossed the river and rounded the bend.
Stopped off at Chitna, to see an old friend.
He invited me in and we sat down to chat.
There's this big odd thing and I said what that?

You'll never believe it, I've not had it long.
It's a time machine that I bought for a song.
A time machine? Well I said "you're daft."
He looked at me grinning, then started to laugh.

No - No tis true tis onto the square.
This time machine will take you anywhere.
You can go to the future, or turn time back.
Well he turned it on and it sparkled and cracked.

Then it whisks us away, in flashes of light.
To places unknown, incredible sights.
One place it took us was off to the stars.
We went by places like Venus and Mars.

I was sorely amazed, it took over my mind.
Thoroughly captivated at the beginning of time.
Things beautiful and odd in this time machine.
Cave men and dinosaurs that I'd never seen.

Take a trip to Paris or the desert sands.
Travel to all, of the far distant lands.
Why a thousand lives that I never had.
I could live them all and it wouldn't be bad.

Why I'd set in to stay and take off my hat
And give all my gold for a gadget like that.
There's just one thing, very odd it seems.
They keep having commercials on this time machine.