Victor D. López, Author

This poem from my Echoes of Dawn at Dusk collection was written in response to my coming across two statements made by Che Guevara quoted in the poem. It is my response to him and to all those who proudly wear his likeness on their t-shirts across college campuses and elsewhere world-wide. As good old Charlie Brown might utter, "SIGH - My stomach hurts."

Este podcast contiene una de las seis partes de mi poema en verso libre, Héroes Desconocidos. Esta parte concierne a mi abuela materna, Remedios.

Esta es la primera parte de un poema de seis partes, Héroes Desconocidos, sobre mis abuelos y padres que vivieron vidas increíblemente difíciles sin quejarse ni esperar elogios, levantándose a sí mismos por sus propios medios, y superando tragedias y dificultades que aplastarían a los humanos inferiores, como este, su nieto, que nunca podría ser su igual. Esta imperfecta traducción del ingles original es mia. 

Maria was my paternal grandmother and one of my unsung heroes. She was left with four small children to fend for herself when her husband, my paternal grandfather, self-exiled to Argentina during the Spanish Civil War after being warned that his arrest was imminent due to his support of the failed Republic and opposition to fascism. For the better part of two decades,  my grandmother was left to run my grandfather's business without his skill or business acumen and to raise four children during and after the Spanish Civil War and its sad aftermath. As is true of my maternal grandmother about whom I also wrote in this my longest free-verse poem, I never heard her complain even once about her burdens in life, or talk about her hardship, or of her self-sacrifice. I know their stories through my parents and others who knew them well, and through my own experience with them. Both grandmothers were as different as can be from one another: Maria was regal, very soft-spoken and seemingly aloof, while Remedios was gregarious, fun-loving and a people-person. Both shared unspeakable hardships in very different ways and both got along very well in later life when they met for some time in New York, perhaps their unspoken past hardships a bond between them that bridged their differences. It is women like these that built and rebuilt this world from the shattered dreams and other physical and emotional debris left behind by good, honorable, well-intentioned, idealistic men like their husbands who followed their conscience down the road to perdition leaving them to pick up the pieces on their own and rebuild a future from the wreckage of their lives through sheer force of will and hard work. 

This podcast is a reading of a poem about my paternal grandfather, who faced nearly 20 years of exile in Argentina for his support of the doomed Republic during the Spanish Civil War, leaving behind a wife and four children, one of whom would die at the age of three from meningitis in his absence.

This podcast contains my reading of the first two pages of the 10 short stories in my Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories collection. The book is available at most booksellers in eBook and paperback versions, and well as an audiobook from Audible and Amazon (read by voice talent Dale M. Wilcox).

This is a reading of one of the new poems in my recently published second volume of poetry, Echoes of Dawn at Dusk. I hope you enjoy it.

This podcast is a reading of the last two parts of my longest free-verse poem, Unsung Heroes. It is about my mom and dad who both had very difficult lives from earliest childhood until their deaths including living through the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War that caused the death and exile of their fathers, living under dictatorships on two continents, pulling themselves by their bootstraps to a very comfortable life only to lose it all in business ventures in a times of economic chaos. Through it all they never once lost their moral compass, made excuses for their plight or wallowed in self-pity. They bent under circumstances that would have crushed lesser human beings, like their only son, and pushed forward with unshakable faith in themselves and the belief that God may test them but never crush them, and that hard work would allow them to once again prosper if they simply persevered. I wrote my dad's poem in one sitting the day after his death as a means of dealing with the grief and sharing his life with those that did not know him. My mom's poem I began writing during the fourth year of her four-year losing battle with dementia when I sensed the end was near and completed it the day after she passed in 2018. They are both together again with God and I am comforted in the possibility of seeing them once again in the fullness of time should I prove worthy of the honor when my time comes. 

This is a simple introductory lecture on copyright law based on two of my books, Copyright Law: A Practical Guide (C) 20218 and Intellectual Property Law: A Practical Guide to Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks and Trade Secrets (C) 2013. Both are available in eBook and paperback editions from Amazon and other booksellers. I should note that this is not a formal lecture from one of my graduate or undergraduate courses, but a brief lecture intended as a video presentation on one of my author sites as a companion to my Copyright Law: A Practical Guide. 

Un cuento de ciencia ficción sobre un mundo en un futuro no muy lejano donde un hombre está siendo juzgado por el último crimen penado por muerte en un planeta mediante el mundo entero.