I’ve cried for days, countless days
and my tears filled up pools
the kind of pools that are so deep you’re too scared to dive in
I stare at my own reflection as I stand at the very edge and fear takes over my body
so I close my eyes as a tear falls down my cheek and I throw myself in
I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SWIM
it feels nice underwater even though it’s cold
because I can’t cry underwater
I don’t know if my tears are different than yours
but my tears are of those that fill up my eyes very quickly
they’re the heavy kind, heavier than a mountain
so heavy that they carve paths on my face
and flow like rivers
Rivers of hurt and pain
And so underwater they don’t come out
which is good because I’ve cried to the point where my eyes started to hurt
I’m sinking slowly
meter after meter
and I’m losing my breath
my back hits the bottom
my lungs dry out
and darkness fills my eyes.
First, they sent the dogs
And it became a dog’s toilet,
So, we moved to more remote areas.
Then they burnt the restaurant
So, we carried our own water and fruit
To the fringes of the liveable sands.
So as not to dry out like desert dates
We became slimmer and saved money.
Then they closed the parking lot
So, we walked miles on foot
We got fitter and saw more of nature.
What we saw became more beautiful
With each countering passage
For those of us who persevered.
Now there is hardly a soul left,
But those who are, are strong and fit.
Dune flowers are blooming again
Without the constant threat of trampling feet
And everywhere you can hear the rhythm of the sea,
White waves breaking and reforming refrains
Without the cries and shrieks of spoiled children
Or the barking of undisciplined domestic beasts.
We felt how beautiful everything is
Sub-human, man absent from God’s creation.
And even his attempts of countering and ruin
Were turned into creative and regenerative forces
Within us now greater love’s awareness courses.
My friend is sad and so am I
For different reasons I ask Him, ‘why?’
He looks at me neither bold nor blue.
A light glows pink in merry hue.
She called me up and poured her mind
I felt the same, of a different kind.
When spirit’s measure stretched at length
I woke up to find, I’ve lost all strength.
She has been trying to dry out her tears
While I here, myself was driving my fears.
No one to share my feelings drawn
I gathered strength to fill her morn.
With laughter and light she retired to bed
I worked the night, was awake instead.
Today it was told it’s not required
I had my share of the pain I shared.
Then reasoned out ‘was it all meant
To surrender my wisdom or my strength?’.
He looked at me and waited long-------
Till I blew my breath of scorn
Was that how You cleaned my eyes?
Was it healthy for the spirit to rise?
My friend’s laughter at the end of the call
Made me realize once and for all
My hard work somewhere has paid me well
I have reasons for love to dwell.
Love for Him came naturally, through,
I looked at Him and felt so blue-----
He could have gone but He never did.
He had to show me my greatest need.
The alarm clock sounds off to the tune of Neil Young’s, There’s a World.
A place that is non-existent in today’s life of a constant upwhirl.
Our dreams and aspirations are put to the side.
To get ready for the day of demands and haste for pride.
We enter our vehicles to begin a long drive, tiredness and red eyed.
To a place called work.
That requires you to do the tasks for that special perk.
No time to think.
No time to blink.
Your life is full of deadlines, distractions, until the pen runs dry, out of ink.
For hours on end, is this constant repetitive action.
You’re told what to say.
You’re told what to do.
Colleagues are fighting over who is using the offices favorite glue.
We are all in this mess together.
Bound like pieces of sewn up stitches of leather.
All for the reward.
A paycheck to continue to do it over and over again.
Feeling like a dartboard.
Designed, controlled in the trap.
It is the life of a well paid collapse.
A pretty little rose born in desert land
Growing in torched hot sand
Where loneliness all around
And no company can be found
Lashed by sunlight
Dry out in hot thirsty night
Though don't know why to live
Fragrance it can give
And it will do
Thought I can't smell you
Wednesday 2004
I’m from Michigan.
I don’t know what I want.
So I just go to school in state to save money.
The money lives in a Michigan bank.
I cheer our school mascot.
At a football game and it rains and snows.
I’m from Michigan.
I’m as worried as the Great Lakes.
Someday, we’ll dry out together.
But for now.
We stay in a forgotten state.
I’m from Michigan.
I'd love to dry out your arteries,
and expose all your pleasantries.
Lose you in the deserts braid,
and use you as vulture bait.
I'd drop you off the highest tower,
into a monster eating flower.
Id collect your scrap metal,
throw it into acid and let it settle.
I'd hunt your hulking form,
unafraid of your silver scorn.
I'd drown you with my own hands,
Because as it stands,
You threaten my own
You alone
Must go
Into hell below
For you are a plight bringer,
Dear person in the mirror.
I wore my thoughts on my head like a ball cap today
Ready to take off and disregard
or to turn around, tilted in the opposite direction
Easy to grab at, to throw away, to steal,
to sneakily hide a lost trinket underneath.
I am unbalanced like a scale
trying to measure dancers
as they prance about unwavering to any schedule or song.
I am a thrash of discombobulated noises and symphonies,
never harmonizing quite right but still quite beautifully
Imperfect.
I wore my heart in my hair today, let it ruffle in the wind
allowed the speed of an old beat up car roar its engines
like it was reliving her glory days
and I was alive again.
I hung my past up on the clotheslines in my backyard to dry out,
but it rained and that seems to be the story of my life.
At the end of the day
my thoughts are all but worn out completely
ready to be chucked away like a sweat drenched Sunday thinking cap.
People started running,
for buses, taxis, trains,
with umbrellas no defence,
against the wind and rain,
a drowned rat cycled past,
then disappeared down a lane,
when lightening flashed, I dashed,
hoping to dry out again.
I shot past the pub’s “welcome” sign,
“No Prams or Pushchairs Inside”,
then scrutinised the menu,
for something not micro’d or fried,
with my paper, pint, pasty, and peas,
I sat by the warm fireside,
waiting for the storm to pass,
and brighter weather outside.
Written: January 22, 2024
_________________________________________
I hear the wild cry as I sleep,
no roaming goats or gulls or sheep.
Tire them out, no trace of dread sweep,
seamless grass is combed by reap.
I heard the humpback cry whale site,
before the day turned into night.
Hunt for krill, girls, and young scouts fight,
boys, singing, as one, of raw dight.
Meadowlarks wave wings in the breeze,
hunt flies in the sun, fly with bees.
Breathe fresh air as lowly birds tease,
tweet, and perch on red tussock trees.
Meadow wrens chirp as streams dry out,
fly high to low till storms cross route.
It’s quite a thing to lay a life to rest,
to place rocks over roots rotten with age,
cover leaves once green with soil, sodden from rain.
Conceived in the meeting of metal and wood,
born a size from which never to grow;
used to move seeds, heave grass and then stone,
but trapped in the molasses of time, never carrying oats of my own.
It is quite something though to be grabbed by a child,
palmed by summer sweat,
and then chosen again by that same hand as a man -
to see your farmhand’s wrinkles in your own creaking frame.
Man, beast, or object, we all age the same.
I’ve lugged more than my weight,
cracked near ruin and wrack,
then just tied together with twine to dig holes!
his summer son giggling on his back.
I’ve been thrown, stamped, battered; called all manner of names.
Left to freeze in snow by this fence, kept warm in that shed,
replaced briefly by plastic but found again, under dust and cobweb.
It’s quite a thing indeed
to rust and be painted,
to dry out and then see
as this tool of a family,
the generational uses of me.
I have a woman.
I’m proud to call her my wife.
Some give theirs’ nicknames, ‘her indoors’ and ‘the trouble and strife’
Now, I have my flaws and they are many and vast.
I think like a man, slowly and ‘at last’!
But my wife asks me to hang the washing out in the rain!
Her argument for using the balustrade and radiators to me seems pretty lame!
They dry out too quickly!
They dry out too fast!
So, while it’s overcast and drizzling the wind will still give them a blast!
Now, I have a chunter as I’m stood outside getting my bald head wet! She says that there’s sense in her logic though I can’t see it being approved by Spock from Star Trek!
If they get wet we can give them a spin! Then wait for some sunshine to hang them out again!
The weather app says it’s going to clear up - so that’s what you’ll do. Get out there in the drizzle and hang the washing out you fool.
Some things we can touch are truly set in stone,
From creatures living in sand, to ones choking on fish bones
They get stuck in mud, and dry out under the sun,
til after a hundred million years, fossil’s are well and truly done
You see many died at sea level, in any shape or measure,
some resurface atop mountains, forced up by tectonic pressure
Now we chip away slowly, using a chisel and hammer,
breaking open their mould, without making too much clamour
Information cannot be destroyed, it lives on forever
and human consciousness too, is simply far more than clever
We give the universe meaning by making observations
without us to see it, there would be no quantifications
Death is not the end, merely a quantum vibration
from mass to energy and back again, without any violations
So go ahead live your life, then come full circle,
time and space can’t endure oblivion, consciousness being eternal
Originally written 12/07/22
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 23 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
12/19/22
A briefly wrung-out sky
is blotched with clammy clouds.
A humid air clings to my chest.
Damp squirrels hang limply
from dripping branches.
Desultory birdsong mops
but not much.
I yearn for the cold slap of sea-spray,
chill cheeks and fresh lips
not this damp-dive-walking
through a moist miasma.
Maybe the day will shake itself free
of its mope?
Perhaps this drizzle will tip over
into a cresting surf of sunlight,
or anything that smacks of a
rolling ocean
that can dry-out, rinse and clean.
Curse you! Oh! The river of time,
Why should you be so cruel
And embarrass your beautiful chime?
Why should you bring her carriage,
To ruin the song of love,
To ruin a beautiful marriage?
O' Princess of the stars,
Don't go so soon away,
What does this land lack,
So plenty in the distant stars far away?
The Mononoke may still be standing high,
Waiting for her next prey,
Let her sleep,
For she will be tired
Of all the standing.
Let us sing the song of love,
For it will be a sin to leave it unfinished.
O' Princess of the stars,
Let the river of nebula be born from your hands,
Where we shall sail in a land,
Where reality and dreams meet,
Let each colour touch me,
As they touch you,
Let your song echo through the galaxies
For eternity,
Let time become futile,
Let its river dry out,
Let us sail for eternity,
Let us be lost and be found again as stars,
Stars of eternal youth, with stories of love to tell.....
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