There are the wins and losses,
carrying our cardboard crosses.
People on the sidelines chanting,
the politicians are panting.
A military show of force,
that wants to go back to the horse.
The night is for taking chances,
while the Earth and the Moon dances.
Sometimes Life is such a drama,
like jumping in snow from sauna.
Then there are lovey dovey times,
when you can make up lots of rhymes.
When you are the guard at the post,
or when you are playing the host.
Everyone knows you play the game,
its all about selling your name.
Just remember the end of time,
when your writing your final rhyme.
You'll be the master of this place,
when you must show your sacred face.
When it comes down to push and shove,
the key is to turn it to love!
I have learned to walk through sorrow softly,
As one might cross a field of dew at dawn—
Each step a shimmer, each breath a prayer.
The world does not stop for grief,
Yet the roses still unfold their tender hearts,
Unmindful of the ache beneath the sun.
There is no shame in silent tears,
No weakness in a bowed head—
Only the grace of those who endure.
Pain is the shadow that proves our light,
A companion we neither curse nor praise,
But carry, folded in the heart’s deep pocket—
A secret weight that teaches how to love.
An hour poured into my fragile mind, each minute carrying meaning,
Seconds stuffed, the death of the past pulsing silently in their ticking,
The future hides beneath an aged present, slowly fading away,
An absent figure from the future asks me if I will be or not be.
Thus, I found within myself, hurried to face the moments that ceaselessly flow,
Tiny traces of infinity in my current occupations, endlessly repeating.
Attached to life, in my square dream, without profit or clear aim,
The secret, tenacious struggle with windmills that are my own burden.
I seek the antidote, the anti-EVERYTHING, to my poetry, the tears of burning candles,
Passions long corrupted, unfinished sculptures, from stones still uncarved.
When I feel my soul weary from the youthful sprint losing its momentum,
I shake all the windmills of the biosphere, while I am still alive and present.
Through life's intense stress, an illiterate of success, I pass through sonorous time,
The seconds of the past, fractures from a future losing its outline.
In the flow of thoughts, an esoteric and melancholic dance begins,
Searching in the mystery of time for a hidden meaning that can still uplift us.
He carried our sins as He carried the cross.
He walked up to glory through pain and through loss.
He fell many times but got up once again
As He carried our sins.
A man from Cyrene they had pulled from the crowd,
Who wished not to help, who protested aloud.
But in the end took up the cross of our Lord
And carried it forward.
A large crowd of people, women who cried
As they watched the Savior go forward to die.
They followed along, lamented and mourned
For the pain of the Lord.
He took up the cross, was prodded and pulled
On the way to Golgotha, the place of the skull.
Where He would do what He was born to do
For me and for you.
Take up your cross and follow Him.
Die to yourself and be born again.
Take up your cross and follow Him.
The wind blows fiercely tonight, carrying with it cold whispers,
And my thoughts fly to the boys in the forgotten row of life,
I hope some of them find solace in a bottle of red wine,
For on the edge of that world, you clearly see how everything is locked and barred,
You realize every corner already belongs to someone, with locks on the gates,
That's how our democracy works, a well-directed play,
Where you get what you can, keep what you have, and maybe add more,
If luck wills it, if the wind doesn't scatter your dreams,
That's how dictatorship works too, only there slavery comes to life,
And the lost are swallowed, forgotten like shadows in the dark,
But we have forgotten our own, let them disappear into the wind,
In both worlds, you feel the cold, harsh wind piercing the soul,
It reminds you of our collective loneliness, of indifference,
And in this wind, which knows no borders or regimes,
I realize we are all lost travelers, without shelter.
Hidden Face Man of Des Moines was carrying his steed to Derby Town.
It’s the oddest sight, agreed a jokester, a monkey, a duck and a clown.
Onlookers wanted to take a peek, for it is not a matter of course
When you see a man in a turban carrying a brown upside down horse.
Handed down from generation to generation
Letting the light shine
Having the business mind
Young entrepreneurs
Shines.
So is your card from the NRA
or the LGBTQIA?
It depends on the card;
sometimes, “Get off my yard!”
is all that one needs to say.
----------
in response to Gershon Wolf's Card-Carrying Septuagenarian
Do colorful ducks get all my food
a lot depends on my shifting mood
If I feel sorry for a plain brown duck
I might throw him more, to change his luck
Does the best-behaved kid get this teacher's praise
not necessarily, if his arm's never raised
I encourage questions from inquiring minds
not 'perfect kids,' who sit on their behinds
As a card-carrying septuaginarian
I'm just as proud to be a contrarian
As a boy
I explored shallow river beds.
I carried home in a jar unnamed water-bugs,
minnows, tadpoles and
little frogs that glowed yellow
when the sunlight swam in the creek.
Now the sun comes to my window,
sheds streams of light
to carry me back
to where shallow waters sing
of all unnamable things.
A vital piece of information
Released with some change in intonation
By an Eve never known for variation,
Now in some measure flabby:
The handiwork of your planted baby!
Even the busiest guy sure to stand still
The never-ably-shown by actors with skill,
An upper cut men not ready for the story:
For the Don Juan seeking some other glory!
“How dare you say “You’re carrying my baby:
Where had we met for it, at which lobby?”
The ecstatically received by dreamers of it,
The low-sperm counts procreatively unfit:
The quickest embrace of a woman for rushed kisses,
One or two breakable property in accidental pieces…
The liable-to-kick-start a shot-gun wedding,
In bridal dress a woman one had been bedding;
In The West, lawyers for a paternity suit
Against the guy distancing his fruit.
The Show
By Shawn H. Hall
She slowly wakes as roosters crow
While morning breezes gently blow.
The sounds of morning fill the air
As backlit, pastel clouds now glow.
A blur of fur and bed-head hair
Soon greet the day with joy to spare,
Though half an empty bed belies
The happiness that once was there.
But each new day greets time that flies
As children's noises fill the skies.
The dawn again has joined the flow
Of life's insistent mirthful cries.
And so our daytime's habits grow:
We dress for work and off we go.
But only friends and loved ones know
We're quite convincing with our show.
Yes, quite convincing with our show.
Carrying Heart Within my Soul
As I take my heart within my soul
My spirit glad my body gold
Twilight vision God golden glow
As I move my heart within my soul
Shines God light on heaven and a new earth
I look within my eyes, and I sigh
As I carry my heart within my soul
My spirit glad my body gold
7/7/20
written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020 ©
Silvery, by the light of the moon
As the clock strikes midnight;
Fairies knock on the window
With handful of berries.
Squeezing through
A hole in the screen
Waking the canaries.
A present they carry
For Mary and Harry,
Whilst still fast asleep.
The brown hound sniffs deep
Whilst the fairies’ frown.
They creep round
And peep by the bed-light,
Carrying as much as they are able
Laying the berries on the bedside table.
One by one,
They began to fade away,
Into the crimson maples.
5/30/2020
If you can't,
Or are not prepared to carry your own weight,
Then you had better have understanding friends.
Without being able to carry your own weight,
And not having understanding friends,
Then Houston you have a problem,
And you need to own it,
Rather quickly.
I have never yet met anybody,
Who at some stage in their life,
Has not had to pick themself up off the floor,
Or had to crawl out of the gutter.
I cannot claim to be an exception,
Although I can only claim a half truth about the gutter,
But I have made up for that by picking myself off the floor,
More times than I care to remember.
It has helped having friends and family who have,
Not been in a rush to carry my weight for me,
Opting for a supporting role instead,
A fair measure of the quality of their friendship,
Don't you think?
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