
Text by Shanell Verandez, Copyright 2022
.
The Creative Director of Drinks
.


.
To access additional articles by Shanell Verandez, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/shanell-verandez-the-sexibeast/
Fine Art Publishing
Text by Shanell Verandez, Copyright 2022
.
The Creative Director of Drinks
.
.
To access additional articles by Shanell Verandez, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/shanell-verandez-the-sexibeast/
Poetry by A.H. Scott, Copyright 2022
.
Night, Angel
.
Call me Serenity
With charm to disarm, here I am for you
None of what we long for comes out of the air so thin
Casting a spell
You know me so well
I move through the night ever so sprite
Now, here I am with you
Something it was, something it is
Back when our eyes met for the first time, there was a delicious reason and parallel rhyme
Yeah, it’s the way she moves
Slick glide of mercury across the floor she is
Knock at her pad came after dark
Under his arm was a white box with a bow
Oh, I’m a curious woman who wants to know
What could it be that he brought for me?
A few suppers here and there is beyond a simple blind date that is ever so rare
Getting to know one another has amplified my horizons in such varied ways
Oh, a tender gentleman puts me in a haze
But, I’m not silly to think that it’s only my visual that puts a guy like him on the brink
I’ve got that magic inside of me that illuminates in special ways
Soft melody plays
Not a cover-up is this gift, as my body slowly shifts within it
Delicate lace bow I release in a sensual tease with thumb and index finger is a breeze
His hands cradle gossamer the color of night upon my flesh, as I offer a humble sigh
My bedroom is my sanctuary and we are here together
Fragrant aroma of cherry blossom fills the air
As you hold me in those strong arms that are so dear, I nibble and whisper gently in your ear
You know me
Yes, I know her
She is tranquility that I never thought I would find
I am the man who she treats ever so kind
Tender words from those lips and actions that are mutual fascination is the magic we share
Gossamer vanishes to the floor
I want her more and more
Hardening as I do, it is when I’m with her that there is that lustful follow through
Soft hands of mine touch along his expanded crotch
Oh God, I want him inside of me so much
I guess I am a woman of a blissful spell, cuz’ I can get such a sexy man to swell
Not tooting my own horn, but there’s going to be more than one grind between us from after midnight to the coming dawn
Hands make their moves with rapid speed
This night is going well, indeed
Blush upon my lips is like a siren song
I picked up on her signs, as on the bed we climbed
She below me and my flesh entering slowly at first
Deeper and deeper we are making our connection with such untamed thirst
Sensuality’s spring is about to burst
Back and forth, I take that ride upon him
Feelin’ good, feelin’ groovy
Damn, this man is really knowin’ me now
Her body flourishes with every point of contact we make, as I am about to make a fast break
We hold onto each other, as what comes about comes
Both of us are heady in our passion as the room seems to spin around our bodies in a mystical way
As if we are imbued with the essence of falling leaves, we listlessly lay upon the bed
Strands of my raven hair are slightly entangled through my fingers as I touch his chest and rest my head against it
I hear his heart beating like a snare drum
Wow, what a torrid duo we’ve become
Silently I wonder if he thinks I was just a bit too wild
Midnight holds magic in ways neither needed to voice
Being with her was a delightfully humbling choice
I lifted my head from off his chest, kissed him and was lost in a sweet caress
As I look at your softness, your feathers are invisible to most who gaze at the woman before my eyes
Yet, I see them as I look at you….
She tenderly smiles, “I know this is true”
He whispered, “Night, angel….”
.
About The Author: A.H. Scott is a poet based in New York City and senior contributor to Tony Ward’s blog. For additional articles by A.H. Scott, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/a-h-scott-wavelength/
Poetry by A.H. Scott, Copyright 2022
.
A Second Look
.
.
About The Author: A.H. Scott is a poet based in New York City and senior contributor to Tony Ward’s blog. To access additional articles by Ms. Scott, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/a-h-scott-nightcap/
Text and Self Portraits by Diana Desiderio, Copyright 2022
.
The Satanic Temple in Salem Mass
.
Salem has always been a place I felt in my bones. A place that has the lore of young women bewitched and signing over their souls to the Dark Lord himself. September had approached so fast as it does every year. I got a wild hair and the availability to stay at the Satanic Temple had availability. I called one of my friends Roxy and recruited her for this amazing last minute get away. And why not; who wouldn’t want to live deliciously?
An 8 hour truck up to the New England area and just shy of the Spooky season tourists.
Once we had arrived at the satanic Temple, I instantly felt at home. Something no one will ever tell you about Satanist who belong to the Satanic Temple is; they don’t believe in the devil himself at all but that them using the symbol of Baphomet in all its glory is a symbol of triggering critical thinking. The mission of the Satanic Temple is to “encourage benevolence & empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits.”
The Satanic Temple has seven fundamental tenets:
All of which I have always felt kindred too. Once we had checked in; we asked that if after the temple closed we were able to take photographs within the temple to use at our own discretion and they were more than happy to oblige. While we waited we waked around downtown Salem learning about the poor innocent women persecuted and accused of being witches to pacify the puritan settlers. Some hung by their necks from the hangman’s tree. Some were pressed with a heavy stone until they were crushed to death.
There was a very daunting feeling when walking around those areas especially after dark. We retreated back to the temple, and got to open the rooms and take full advantage of the interior of the throne room and the main hall where a 10’ statue of Baphomet sat in all its glory. In honor of the witches of Salem who sold their souls while dancing nude in ceremony of the Dark Lord; we stripped down & I got to taking some amazing shots all on an iPhone no less. If you are ever interested in going, I would highly recommend it. Live deliciously and HAIL THYSELF.
About The Author: Diana Desiderio is a motion picture production manager based in Philadelphia.
Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2022
SOME PRISON THOUGHTS
.
“Sometimes I think this world is one big prison yard,
Some of us are prisoners, some of us are guards,
Lord, Lord they laid George Jackson down,
Lord, Lord they laid him in the ground.”
— From the prison song ‘George Jackson.’
George Jackson was a California prisoner killed by guards who shot him in the back of the head.
I am approaching the beginning of my fifteenth year of incarceration, which will begin on September first. People ask me, ‘How have you kept your sanity?’ Actually,it hasn’t been that hard, because I know in my soul that I am right and they — the so-called ‘justice system — are wrong. My conscience is clear. I can truthfully say that I never killed another human being, or contributed in any way to the death of one. Nor have I acted inappropriately with any of the over two hundred women who have modeled for me. That’s why so many of them are my friends today. I always respected them, treated them as persons, collaborators in the production of my photographs. They were always paid well.
In January of this year, after looking at all of the evidence in my case, most of which is demonstrably false, the Innocence Project took my case and assigned me an attorney. Their standards are very high, and they only accept a tiny fraction of the hundreds of cases brought to their attention. They studied my case for five years before taking it. They have asked me not to talk about the specifics of my case here, so that is why I can only speak in generalities, but I have genuine hopes of release.
Photography was in my life ever since my father taught me to develop film and make prints in his basement darkroom in my early teens. I had an old Ilford Ensign folding camera that I bought at a Goodwill store for something like fifty cents. It took remarkably good photographs. I even adapted it to work with my microscope. As I learned more about photography, my father let me use his cameras, first an Aires rangefinder camera, later his Exakta and Leica cameras. I got hooked on photography and never looked back.
But I originally didn’t think of making a vocation of it. If I thought about it at all in those early days, the late 1950s and early 1960s, I envisioned it as a hobby, like my father’s.
In 1965 I graduated high school near the top of my class and went on to college at Virginia Tech, majoring in biology and fine art, where I took my first, and only, photography class. After graduation, I was offered a job at the Smithsonian Institution, and went to live in Washington.
Fast forward to the 1980s. By 1985 I’d established a reputation as a photographer and writer, with agents for my photography in Europe and Japan. I became known for my classic nudes and Virginia and other US and foreign landscapes. My agents placed my photographs in many publications, including Asahi Camera, Japan’s preimminant photography magazine, on the covers of the Japanese editions of Danielle Steele romance novels, in a series of books published by Rotovision in Switzerland, and in ‘Asian Photography’ magazine in India. I won an international design award from Graphis for one of my magazine covers.
I made my first trip outside the USA in 1980 to attend photokina, the ‘World’s Fair of Photography’ in Cologne, Germany, and attended that event every even-numbered year until 2002, meeting photographers and people associated with photography from everywhere in the world, networking, establishing a worldwide network of friends and associates, many of whom I am still in contact with today.
My first one-man gallery exhibition of my photography was in 1973, in Richmond, my last in 2004-5 in Chicago.
By the time of my arrest in June of 2003, I was, in the words of Federal Judge Glenn Conrad, “A renowned photographer with a long-established reputation.” My arrest was reported by media in England, France, Germany and Italy, that I know of, perhaps in other countries where I was well-known.
I worked very hard at my photography and writing to establish that reputation, but to the small-minded police and prosecutor, it meant nothing. A lifetime’s work went up in smoke.
As a result, I have not so much as touched a camera since August of 2007, and only had limited access to computers in prison law libraries, for legal research and writing only. These computers are not connected to the Internet.
I write these posts and my blog on a JP5 mini tablet, which has a 4 1/4 inch screen and a tiny Android keyboard. I’m on my fifth one, because the batteries don’t last. We’ve been promised the larger JP6 for well over a year, haven’t seen them yet.
So here I sit on a hard bunk at 4:00 in the morning writing these thoughts. Going back to the question of preserving my sanity, writing these posts has really helped as has writing my blog, and a few magazine articles as well as my 2019 book ‘Cosmic Dance,’ which has sold fairly well considering I have been unable to actively promote it.
Before my incarceration in this human warehousing system I’d written more than two dozen books and over a thousand magazine articles for magazines in many countries, translated into most major languages, even Serbian.
Contact via letters and email with friends around the world has helped me keep a positive attitude. They know the truth about me. I even have one friend who emails me regularly from Tehran, Iran. Anyone reading this can email me via JPay. On JPay.com you can sign up using my name, Robert Shell, and my ID number 1201280. I’m always happy to hear from people out in the real world.
At age seventy-five I know there are far fewer years ahead than have passed, and can only hope to be free once more when I have some years left. The man in the cell next to me is in his mid-90s, feeble, possibly suffering from Alzheimer’s. I have watched many men die in prison in my years of incarceration, the saddest death I can imagine, and I certainly don’t want to be another one.
.
About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 15th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read Bob Shell’s, first essay on civil war, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/bob-shell-photographers-language-and-thought-police/