Best Pocketful Poems
When I think of what to write
often the ocean comes to mind
Endless sea of pretty blue
and stretched out horizon lines,
impossibly flat
Yet when I actually arrive
it isn't the sea that my eyes
take a liking too
Rather it's just below the waves
my mind does go...
...to the little trinkets
beside my toes
Fossils of sea creatures,
alive one - and now, even in death -
you can see the beauty of their features
Seashells of every shape and hue
(even if they're familiar,
somehow they're always new)
Some are inky black or cobalt blue,
creamy whites and nutty browns
(pretty oranges, too!)
Some are hefty like a throwing stone,
others quite miniscule,
blending in with the sand
Some are fragile -breaking easier
than the waves-
others are like a hardened sunrise
Their well defined rays,
my fingers always finds themselves,
unbidden as an eye-blink
(as unthinking as a smile)
I like the clanky sound they make
when lightly shook in a mason jar
I shake them like dice in cupped hands
(loaded, in my case...
I don't gamble with a good time)
Yeah, when it comes to the beach
I'm like a kid at a candy store
My treats aren't in bins,
but glisten on the sandy shore
I scoop them in my hands,
still wet with the sea
Stick them in my pockets,
if the case need be
(and you know it always does
if I'm being honest)
Where it gets me, I don't know,
but, please,
just one more keepsake!
(this simple joy I try to harness)
I pick up a second then a third
while still admiring the first
A dozen or two, is only of mild concern
(a wagon-full is even worse)
Yes
It is an obsession through and through
I could be just as happy with one
as with a thousand
(maybe happiness isn't something
you can attach a number too)
And I don't know why I do it,
treasure to me (but not for thee)
And even rarity isn't an excuse
You can pick them up by the shovel,
they aren't difficult to find
You can count a hundred alone
within arms reach
(maybe joy doesn't have to be rare,
but can be as common as clouds...
maybe it's not something "out there",
but somewhere near,
even to the ground)
Near as an object
lying beside your feet
Near as a thought that came to you...
...while walking on the beach
I have a pocket Full of dreams
that, I carry wherever I go
I wonder what dreams I'll dream tonight
for I never seem to know
I closed my eyes to drift asleep
as I reached in for a dream
I grabbed one tight within my hand
then, flying became the theme
Now, I'm in a dream and flying
and, this feeling of flight is grand
I have no wings to fly at all
Yet, my feet lift off the land
I used my mind to fly around
such freedom I can feel
For, deep down in my heart I know
that flying can't be real
I woke with the dream of flying
And yet, it's never as it seems
But, I know I'll dream this dream again
from my pocketful of dreams
I’ve got a pocketful of dreams
And very little else
What I have I give to others
And keep nothing to myself
I spread myself too thin
And tire myself out
Many times I’ve been taken for granted
Of that there is no doubt
Polonius in Hamlet said
“To thine own self be true”
Why live all your life to please others
When they don’t appreciate what you do
Everybody wants to live the dream
But they don’t realise the cost
By striving for what they can’t achieve
The true meaning of life is lost
People trying to outdo each other
Always trying to go one better
Living beyond their means
Never the lender, always the debtor
Material things are no good to you
If there’s no food on the table
People having a job for life
Has now become a fable
Unemployment is at an all-time high
Over-crowding in high-rise flats
Money wasted on the salaries
Of the government fat-cats
Families living in squalor
Trying to make ends meet
No food for the children
And no shoes upon their feet
I saw on the news today
We're going to be paying more for our pills
Soon we're going to find
It’s too expensive to be ill
A country on the bread-line
Run by a band of stuffed shirts
Determined that they’re going to hit
The poor and the sick right where it hurts
The rich are getting richer
And the poor are staying poor
Streets littered with homeless people
While the upper classes live lives of grandeur
The world is in an awful state
Filled with war, poverty and pollution
We must have a wind of change
But I can’t see a solution
If you come to my occasion
Maybe birthday or dedication
You'll be to me like a red rag to a bull
Asking for rice knowing the price of a bagful
Our common and daily food
Is becoming an august food
Either our leaders aren't aware
Or they just don't care
This continuous bulging in the price of rice
Coming from a government thought will be super-nice
Is nothing but a rape of hope
Pushing the masses to where they'll never be able to cope
With the lamentation of those who market rice in bagful(s)
And the masses that don't have their pocketful
We don't need a teacher to tell us that the situation has become rotten
Yet they want to make the rotten situation golden
Those who failed to achieve their pocketful of promises
See this rottenness as golden to make many more promises
Our situation is either feast or famine
Which we all need to examine
The rapes and the ravages are too many
that make us pickle
While the precautions are too little that make us tingle
In their timetable they've made it turn by turn
It's left for us to learn or continue to yearn
They come with pockets full of sunshine,
yellow pills like dying stars,
scattered along Kensington’s broken spine—
this avenue of hollow breaths and burnt-out dreams.
Neon signs flicker in the fog of dusk,
their glow mocking the dim light
in glassy eyes sunk deep
into faces carved by hunger and haze.
Skin stretched thin over bones
like plastic bags snagged on rusted fences.
The streets breathe slow and shallow,
littered with needles—
silver promises turned poison.
Laughter here is brittle,
shattered glass crunching beneath tired feet.
Even the wind moves carefully,
afraid to stir the fragile ruins.
Once, there were playgrounds—
now swings creak with the ghosts of children
who no longer laugh.
The scent of fast food grease
mixes with the copper tang of blood and despair.
Deals whispered in alleyways
like prayers to a silent god.
They clutch at that sunshine—
tiny suns to burn away the cold,
to melt the ache gnawing at their ribs,
to blind them from the slow decay
creeping up their veins.
But the sunshine is ash.
It burns bright for a breath,
then leaves them colder,
slumped against crumbling row houses
where no one knocks,
no one waits.
Mothers with hollow gazes
search for sons lost
in the amber glow of spoon and flame.
Sirens wail like mourning doves,
carrying bodies wrapped in stillness
from corners that forget names.
Kensington weeps at dawn,
the city waking
to streets swept clean of stories
no one dares tell.
And still—
they come with pockets full of sunshine,
chasing warmth that turns to shadow,
burning out beneath a sky
that never learned to care.
I have a pocket full of stardust,
I am sprinkling all over you.
My simple wish, so lovely, that
all your dreams come true!
When Sunday comes, I wish health
and happiness,do a dance with you.
Where the Light is sunny, bright and
the sky is lapis blue!
It really doesn't matter, what other
folks think of you.
You know who are the treasured ones,
hold them close to you!
If anyone, in public tries to shame and
belittle you,
Remember, to cherish the gentle ones,
who are always there for you!
You own your day and night!
You are God's delicate creation.
It sparkles all over you.
Let no person, ever dare insult you!
5/21/2021
4am PST
Time seems an insidious beast, deceptive
by nature, appears to promise so much by giving least.
So, I got old, almost as if in an instant flash of lightening,
one day I looked away, then looked back, so fast it was frightening.
The future had arrived.
Life is a gift that keeps on giving, but as
time moves on you know as many dead as you do living.
Well, maybe more. Funny how it works, how it's done,
but I'm able to keep perfect account of each and every one.
I see them so clearly.
I have seen so much, I have known so much, some acute sixth
or seventh sense helps me keep in touch
with the scythe-like days of the present, the slow waltz of the past.
Though my movements may be frosty, in my head the thoughts collage so fast.
I just sit and let them spin.
People I knew, cared desperately about, so many have died, yet they
live on in part for me in every silent tear cried.
For the feelings never dissipate, remaining fresh and sharp
like melodies plucked on the silver strings of a priceless golden harp.
They play so bittersweet.
I know of generations now around me, see the
best of me reborn in them; their humane love surrounds me.
I can live forever for they embody all the dreams I had,
and that is why I sit content, at peace and never sad.
It makes my days complete.
I have so much more left than the naked eye can see, got a
widescreen vista to scan for timeless, endless company.
I have this pocketful of memories I dutifully keep,
and, let me tell you people, these pockets are so deep.
They will never end.
Walking Dante's ninth circle,
a pocketful of sunshine
and blood full of blossoming promise.
I'm alive
and dead.
The gods laugh at me—
or is it Bacchus alone?
A hedonist,
looking for approval,
unaware of mine own godhood.