We were not built to sleep.
Or stay. Or slink in the shadows.
We were forged in the fires of primordial nebulae
To seek, to search, to know.
Born longing, we grow reaching.
First faces, then here, then out there.
As did the ancients, we look to our stars.
Stars of wonder, light, elsewhere.
As centuries pass, so too does the torch.
We stand upon the shoulders of giants.
Still we climb higher, held up by our histories.
To fear, to dark, to standing still; we are defiant.
We ask-
And from neurons that mirror that nebulae,
Knowledge is given.
We seek-
And from the wonder and the beauty,
We do find.
We knock-
On doors from the abyssal sea to the distant stars,
And they open to new horizons.
We are no cosmic accident.
We are stardust.
Longing, reaching, seeking.
Returning to celestial skies.
Faster, higher, stronger, together.
For all humanity,
We rise.
When it was,
That none did work for money
And not one would work for fame,
And the work was done for joy,
With each and everyone,
In each their separate ways,
Possessed by honest eyes
That would and could and did,
Draw the thing's, as they themselves
Knew the things to be.
Truly, had this happened,
Or so it seems to me
Not so long ago,
In our far flung histories.
It was when all the art and all the war
Was done, for all the good of folk and tribe,
Just as it is and was, and will forever be,
In each
And every
Child.
Wherever you roam, the shadow of death,
Keeps dancing upon the rhythm of your breath,
As and when the rhythm ceases its measure,
Your life dissolves into the black shadow of death.
You work day and night for some hollow delight,
You sacrifice your rest, consumed by restless nights,
Every fleeting moment poured into empty pleasure,
At the end of the day, you find yourself prey to decay's diet.
Histories and all the stories hum a hymn of glory,
For which every life became a black and white story,
All heroes got no chance to dance upon the songs,
Of their epic and immortal tales of glorious victory.
The souls are intoxicated by the drug of the maze of life,
A husband is dying to satisfy his beautiful wife,
All the wives are making efforts to control their husbands,
Childhood dissolving into oldness follows the mortal rite.
The days of old have a certain manner
The hardness of issues that sometimes matter
With shadows and echo's they bring up the past
The worries of tomorrow that grab and hold fast
Histories once worried in their day
Set examples for us to learn and display
News and stories the media has a say
To make us worry of how to go and which way
Gossip and rumors with whispers have a crave
Telling secrets and lies that send some to a grave
Speeches and announcements with mics engrave
Issues that move us to act with haste
Letters and notes in there own silent space
Tell their own story without the expression of a face
Whispers and signals tell secrets few know
Embarrassing answers from friends and foes
Thoughts and ideals may reach a dangerous goal
The evil of the heart when the damage unfolds
The wants and desires of ones secrets sold
The shame and mourning when the secrets are told
The judgement that follows eventually told
The way of ones thinking expresses their goals
The vile and the pure go their separate ways
The truth and the fiction will find the end of days
A glance. A glance that speaks time.
A glance that knows histories—where, how, and why.
A shiver. A shiver down the spine.
It won’t still for reason. It won’t still for lies.
A choice. A choice of the mind.
The balance seems level—composed, almost fine.
But look deeper and you’ll find:
the scales tipped long before you called it time.
The shoulders—curving out from the spine.
This pressure they carry is unnatural, not right.
The nighttime.
When silence lets the ghosts arrive.
Wine, whisky, cognac—
they soften the edges,
but never make the past die.
When death comes, that life-story
we have been retelling
will become sets of imaginary histories,
threads of false moments, woven on
an unravelling, threadbare tapestry.
None of my own stories will matter,
they will wash away like sandcastles
on an unknown shore,
all but the look in my father's eyes
as the lights went out -
that was an indelible moment.
Of course, there are other tales to tell
rehearse, edit and recycle,
they all could be set to paper
as a word-web of pulp fiction,
nothing more.
Life happened, we allowed the past
to become an elaborate explanation
of what we think we became
and are.
When our time comes,
behind a dying sight,
a book will close on blank pages.
Only the imprint
of a love given and received
will remain.
All else will be the dust of delusion,
and that will be both mine
and your story.
Snuggle down and cuddle up
For the nights are drawing in.
Listen! Worms are burrowing
Deep down to below the frost line
To the black damp
Sweet damp Kingdom of the earthworm.
Six feet under
In subterranean chambers,
These humble sinkers,
Tunnel to the hum and pulse
Of the seasons.
Dragging and pulling,
Loaming and ploughing
A mosh of decaying debris down
Beneath the overburden,
Into the clag and quiet crush
Of the dark soil.
Worms, the intestines of the earth
In endless toil turn the world
Over, and over, and over.
In the cosy of my blanket
I hug my cup of tea,
And I look out above and beyond me
Up to the autumnal skies.
A twilight of stars
Flung far across the deepening violet,
Twinkle old light.
I ponder the nebula -
Neighbouring planets with their own histories,
And stories of water.
What became of their worms?
Venus worms, Mars worms,
Jupiter and Saturn worms -
What fate awaits the Earth worms?
Our dormant earthworms
Sleeping cold tight,
Deep down, away from the light.
Earthworms coiled spherical
In their protective sheen of dew,
Patiently waiting springs anew.
We’ve reached a point,
As in 1861, when America
Is a nation divided,
But unlike then
It’s unlikely the current state
Of rebellion and silent coup
Will spill into a larger
Outright civil war
Mostly because it’s not a battle line
Drawn on geography
But instead on ideology,
And those ideologies aren’t about to change.
If anything the divide just widens
And solidifies with each passing year.
The effect is cultural apartheid
Separate media, schools, sports and entertainment
With of course, the resulting separate histories
To be lived and told
In separate lives and libraries
Until we live in a single united states
In name only.
(2/10/26)
I admire the stone.
I love the layers of grieving moss.
Tracing the names history forgot.
The hum of Death settles in the air
I saunter holding my precious heartbeat,
In awe of what is no longer here.
Epitaphs are stories
Rows upon rows of histories
Listening to the echoes of lingering grief.
Aware of the decay nobody can see.
The wind sighs on granite wings,
Angels mourn yet still they sing.
My feet are one with the dirt,
From dawn til dusk ghosts slumber so,
Shadows dancing towards the sky,
Enjoying downtime here on Earth.
I am a taphophile, in love with decay.
Every breath brings me closer to my grave.
A taphophile who lingers in the hush,
Tears embedded in the grass so lush.
Reflecting heavily with resting bones,
This place is truly a second home.
I
The forest of generations
Each tree with a tale to tell
Upon the rings of their foundations
Where each history dwells
Tress of new and trees of old
Wear leaves like feathers
To display their colors in bold
A culture’s greatest treasures
Peaceful lives preserved
Fallen seeds writing new histories
Until the process was disturbed
By unexpected naval deliveries
A new species brought aboard
And spread among the trees
Where years’ traditions are stored
We’ll replace them with these:
That eat away at the leaves
Like a caterpillar without a cycle
These cultural thieves
Stole with greed on their arrival
Although some free of evil
Just a species displaced
A threat to the people
When their local culture’s defaced
As they die away
Their colors become one
A global shift underway
Their histories undone
For every leaf that falls
A culture’s dead and gone
Hearing the distant calls
As we approach the dawn…
On the wings of winter wafting in the polar wind,
the wilted leaves of longing cold
blow away rustling to the chilled realm of nowhere.
The frosted yearning turns into freezing embrace,
she escapes from the fold of frozen love
with the blurred sense of icy longing
that lingers in the glacial crevice of his frigid heart.
In the congealed psychic cauldron,
fabricated by the flakes of snowy soreness
he stands at the edge of his own freezing,
a steep precipice of stillness of unspoken regrets
where silence is made of blue layers of ice.
She sees his sapphire beauty in the cold architecture,
the way pain can sculpt something splendid.
In the milieu of frozen emotional abandonment
man mimics the texture of ice hardening at the surface,
protects what lies within the arctic mind.
Ice and men is a transient duality
of coexistence of strength and fragility,
lone coldness and moving compassion,
both holding the histories of fleeting silence.
The poet apologizes to Donovan
Thrown like a fly on the wall
It's sixty years since his last call
Who would have thought we would see
The ending of democracy
When will the Hurdy Gurdy Man, come singing songs of love…
Not learning from histories past
Abdicating power fast
Self-rule is not certainty
Despots don’t serve humanity
When will the Hurdy Gurdy Man, come singing songs of love…
Behind each charge of valour
Undeflected off Death's stare
Spirit is confessed. A shield
Held of a self luminous, scorching ware.
Search the histories, thick for
The unfanciful! In vales'
Open wounds of disclosure.
That shine out with great sacrificial tales.
What I want to do is purge you from myself
All of you from all of me
And move into the future, alone
Find a new purpose or
Float aimless without a home
.For eternity
But
If we are tied together in this life
and the next
and the next
and the next
If we were tied together before
In lives past
Through the ancient histories
10,000 times repeated
and repeated
Who am I
To ask you to go on without me?
Who am I
To ask myself to go on without you?
Who am I to ask?
I'm unable to forsake you
Perhaps I can ask myself now
...In this time
Plead with my soul
Persuade my heart to petition my mind
Beg
"Please, forget her."
But you cannot be separated
from the substance of my being.
You are essential.
This time was a failure
It hurts to exist here alone.
It hurts that I cannot be there for you.
It hurts that you don't hold a place for me.
It hurts that you don't see me
recognize me.
The twist of the knife...
Here, in this place, I am an imposter.
The only thing left to do?
Cut this life short
and Wait for you
in the next
Long, wide, vast, high, dreadfully deep protective walls
Battlements, ramparts, bulwarks, and tower folders
Living quarters, arrow slits, gatehouses, and halls
Monstrous walls built as though with steel-alloy boulders
Water-filled deep massive moats to obstruct the foes
Bastions and merlons within majestic meadows
Forts and castles are mysteries of histories.
They are focal themes of bewildering stories.
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