I don't leave all at once, but slip away like ink running off old pages,
Like a song you swore you'd never forget, until you do.
It starts small—your name becomes foreign on my lips,
Your messages remain unread, not out of anger, but from a strange helplessness.
You don't ask why, maybe you don't notice, or maybe you just let me go,
And that hurts the most—not that I faded, but that you watched.
You let me dissolve into silence, to become a shadow of a thought,
To lose the weight of my name, to become an echo lost in the wind.
Tell me—did you ever truly see me, or did I disappear from the start?
A silent dance of shadows among memories, each step a whisper of goodbye,
In this labyrinth of silences and echoes, I wonder if I was ever more,
Than a blurred dream in a universe where words scatter like leaves.
We remain prisoners of our own illusion, searching for meaning in the void between us,
A void that deepens with each day that passes without us touching,
And in this silence, questions dance like stars in an endless sky,
I wonder in the quiet of the night if I was ever more than a faded dream.
Like a typical elderly woman or man,
I play back the scenes of my life in my mind’s eye -
To yesterday and today from the time love began.
At successes I smile, and at failures I sigh.
It seems like I mostly did what I had to do.
I made it atop the mountains I had to climb.
To do what was really needed, I made it through.
I can do most anything, one step at a time.
Yet there are two things I could never do at once,
Impossible for me, at once, ever to do,
Over all the years, during all twelve months -
To look into your eyes and not love you.
That creature that walks inside your soul
has become a house cat,
but beasts are beasts after all.
Before the fall and rise
there was just a middle moment
when we were only bewildered angels.
We are still within a puzzle of our own making,
but God is infinitely patient
and She has a long leash.
A cosmic stage
The evening sky
Time and space
In wondrous display..
Yet..the view may
Seem as
Emptiness appearing
All-at-once..
Tales and teachings
May seem to
Sequence and separate
Yet these too seem
All-at once..as
Vastness explodes...
All at once…
I realized that it was peace
Who left me breathless,
Hope who left me without a question,
Faith who knew my deepest need,
And love who silenced my every fear
All at once…
I knew, down deep inside me,
That there is something more important
Than my own tears – my own needs…
There is someone who prays, prays
And, in my gift of time – my gift of light…
I answer those prayers, those prayers
Who abide on the heart’s beating,
Abide in the questions, the believing
I answer those prayers
With the gifts I bring, giving
My hopes, my dreams, my friendship
Gifts of grace, listening, faith
Interest in the smallness of a star
Attention to the kindness of a heart
All at once…
I knew that real faith gives away
More than it takes
All at once…
I simply knew that God’s love
is generous and plentiful
it is lavish and lives in those…
who listen to the heart who believes
it is far better to give than receive
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 22 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
December 8, 2022
breathing at...
mossed-fears
is
breathing with a...
time-meme oar-ease
as
most-spheres of...
mind are reflect-shuns
that
define some re-all...
at-tea that soak-cursed
my
......favorite t-shirt.....?
stans sand
An art
a calendar of mountain
Murba, unreliably shuts.
At Once
by Michael R. Burch
Though she was fair,
though she sent me the epistle of her love at once
and inscribed therein love’s antique prayer,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would dare
pain’s pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once,
the dark, haggard keeper of the lair,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would share
the all of her being, to heal me at once,
yet more than her touch I was unable bear.
I did not love her at once.
And yet she would care,
and pour out her essence ...
and yet—there was more!
I awoke from long darkness,
and yet—she was there.
I loved her the longer;
I loved her the more
because I did not love her at once.
Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Grassroots Poetry
Sometimes there's time that you're trying to fill,
A stretch with no upcoming plans,
When suddenly, hours you were needing to kill
Disappear like a movie with pans.
For everything happens at once, so it seems -
Obligations, repairs and requests,
Adding stress to your life and appearing in dreams
Where you find yourself failing all tests.
The expression is apt - either famine or feast
Is the way that the world tends to go
And, of course, at those times you expect it the least
That's when problems and obstacles show.
Be free at once
And for all time
Fight the evil
In our minds
Enlightenment awaits
Folding the past
inside the present
Rolling the future in layers
of perpetual time
Escaping from one then the other
leaving all three in simulation
A dancer shrouded in mystery
—all things forever at once
(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2014)
If I was an octopus I could slap eight people at once
Whatta creative mind I have, just realized it last month
Might partly be my diet
More people should try it
Might lose friends but think of how peaceful you'd become
if at once
I was lost
you paid
the cost
to find me
and set
me free
thank you
God for always
being with me
AT ONCE
Love can kill you at once
Hatred can bring you alive like stunts
I am silly, I am a dunce
Please, don't get any more blunts
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando September 10, 2016
why can't my friends
just mean what they say?
Say what they mean
on any given day?
On any given day
I have so much
going on in my mind
for me to make sense of
for me to make sense of
whats in all my friends minds too
is just an impossible task
for me to be expected to do
for me to be expected to do
is read all your minds
but its driving me crazy
and even a little hazy at times
So this is my word
that from now til the end
this fortune telling goddess
will do for all her friends
I'll always say what I mean
on any given day
In hopes that you too
can mean what you say?
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