There are days when my capacity for anguish runs thin
I can’t grok suffering as deeply as once I did,
In those carefree days of work and timelessness
Lacking the necessary sense of direction to ask
Is this place where I find myself truly mine?
I’d gladly rehash now this desultory vision
To fill the desperate need of balance and calmness
But it always occurs too late to be changed.
Who can tell why the autumn brings this anxiety
In a hindsight, what looks like a budget movie, poorly directed
As if I’m passing some young guy
On a shady street, in a lunch hour
In whom I would never recognize myself
With whom I don't have a word to share.
Late Summer
PoetrySoup Weekly Challenge
Theme: Memory
Emotion: Hope
Color: Gold
Season: Late Summer
Form: Free Verse
Object: Lantern
Verb: Remember
As the snow melts on the mountain
And a trickle began to fill the fountain
Filling the drained spring below
Then the river begins to flow
Snow on the mountain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
I remember when our love was young
Sometimes the lights would go out
We'd light the lantern to see how to walk
But never has it snowed this early before
That snow covered the gold poplar
All the leaves turned brown and fell
This shouldn't happen in late summer
But on this we couldn't dwell
Snow on the mountain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
Your hair was thin and white
Your hearing had disappeared
But you kept going and going
Until your health disappeared
Snow on the mountain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
I know we'll meet again my love
Jesus is waiting for me to come home
That will be a great reunion
Happiness we'll all share
PoetrySoup Weekly Challenge
Theme: Memory
Emotion: Hope
Color: Gold
Season: Late Summer
Form: Free Verse
Object: Lantern
Verb: Remember
As the snow melts on the mountain
And a trickle began to fill the fountain
Filling the drained spring below
Then the river begins to flow
Snow on the mountain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
I remember when our love was young
Sometimes the lights would go out
We'd light the lantern to see how to walk
But never has it snowed this early before
That snow covered the gold poplar
All the leaves turned brown and fell
This shouldn't happen in late summer
But on this we couldn't dwell
Snow on the moutain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
Your hair was thin and white
Your hearing had disappeared
But you kept going and going
Until your health disappeared
Snow on the mountain
A fire in the hearth
Snow on the mountain
Losing you broke my heart
I know we'll meet again my love
Jesus is waiting for me to come home
That will be a great reunion
Happiness we'll all share
The day I arrived
in my own good time
(not at all shy)
neither early nor late
13th July
I remember it well
t'was a memorable date
as a present from my parents
(their pride and joy a baby boy)
a Wednesday I recall
some time in the morn
the best day of my life after all
for it was the one
on which I was born
I remember the gold that late summer keeps~
not in the fields, but in the soft corners
where light settles without asking.
A lantern rests there~
its glass warm from the day,
holding the small shimmer of evenings
that never learned how to leave.
Memory moves through it gently,
a slow-burn brightness
that refuses to dim even when the air cools.
I lift the lantern,
feeling its weight like a promise
that hope can be carried
even when the path is quiet.
Outside, the sky leans toward autumn,
but the gold stays~
a thin, steady amber
teaching memory how to glow without burning.
LATE AGAIN GAUTAMA BUDDHA
I am late again Gautama's teachings
Where’s this child? All I found was Dukkha, karma, nirvana
A man crucified. A well-rounded God
It's been some time since I've last written, staring at the sky while the clock reads 12:37.
My eyes wander, jumping cloud to cloud through rays of moonshine,
noticing holes in the floors of heaven with gleaming eyes.
Stars that twinkle.
Rip Van Winkle? The Time Traveler's Wife?
Thoughts run through my head.
Another ponderous night,
while crickets play music under the moonlight.
Government owls generating hooter calls
as I lay here in the dark.
The wonders of God keep my soul in His Light.
She is a walking juxtaposition:
Amicable qualities dressed in futility, far-fetched pictorial in a living illustration, painstakingly carefree—a telltale tribulation.
Ambivalence irks aptitude.
Foreshadowing scurries in a frenetic gambit, a stratagem of the devil himself.
This oddity is a fleck, resurgent in its nature—a drop of dew, a grain of sand.
Do all you must to bait her,
debate her.
Commotion, admonish, plaudit.
The audacity of her tacit agreements.
Such abysmal fervor could be the making of a luminary.
the voices are overwhelming
I can hear so many conversations in my head a few good mostly not
all pointing to one subject
her
they talk about her life choices
making mentions of her checkered past.
Just another junkie, might as well throw her in the trash.
I'll say this line I just heard is classic
she is like problems you stuff in basements and attics.
An addict in an attic well that's a new play on words.
one voice cuts through all these conversations with three simple words
She has God.
He has seen every wrong and every wrong made right.
He walked with her in darkness and still brought her back to light.
He has watched every moment when she thought she was alone.
The nights she cried herself to sleep, in the car she called her home.
He seen all these things and still sees her for who she is.
All voices now stopped.
Thank you to the Father
my Savior, my Rock.
Isaiah 55:8-9
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
can I ask for just a moment
don't want to take up much of your time
you asked how I was doing
I lied and said I'm fine.
thoughts have taken me outside of myspace.
into my Facebook, tick tok banned and erased.
ig stories tend to be staged
then Twitter went an X'd itself out of the page.
I open YouTube music begin floating on icloud.
Google drive my way with passion.
Pandora cruising windows down.
vibe check with a mixtape wins my heart 10 toes down.
The pop of the fastball into the catcher’s mitt
The catcher’s snap throw to third
The crack of the bat from a great hit
Snap, crack(le) and pop were part of baseball first
The enemy knows the power of a hook.
One verse repeated got your whole world shook.
Because your ears are the gateway to an unseen realm.
Lead in a pencil becoming the ink from a well.
Escape room within the confines of a mind bass ackwards.
Sea horse in a bubble, Jessica Rabbit past her prime.
Thoughts cruising down dead end streets and round abouts for no apparent reason or rhyme.
Letting it flow in the changing of seasons.
I've sat within darkness, led by light back to freedom.
Brain set ablaze, while stumbling within a self made maze.
Thankful to the Lord my God, after how far I strayed.
Restored a mind which had become lost in the hallways of insanity. The mind itself had made.
Writing to find the keys of the rooms I've still no access.
Lead leading the process of imagination on paper.
Art.
A
Release of
Tension
squiggles make me smile, looks like dancing in ink
line sketched zigging or zagging on purpose, leave room left to think
eraser shavings from every Mark drawn. where your mind said,
"no such thing as happy accidents"
having learned a real artist,
makes friends with freshly painted trees.
whispers to the babbling brooks, as the water trickles down.
Relaxing under the shade of the tree that you just drew on your notebook
putting yourself out there with squiggles and zig zags
a
release of
tension
art
waded in waters waiting out the storm
weighted thoughts try to wait me out
weightless while wading in waiting waters.
waters waiting in wading while weightless.
paradoxal
the wait of the water becoming weightless while wading through it.
The weighted thoughts wade in the shallows
waiting for me to just float away
sobriety is what it means to breathe life back into the Dead
shame having filled their lungs with toxic fumes
living unalive while the sky is fifty shades of Blue
through self-indulgent deeds the devil let himself into the house without an address
squatters rights in your mind
I'm sorry no I don't get that context
this is the power of economy versus innocence
hurry hurry step right up get your tickets here
obscured unstable thoughts playing out within the furrows and crypts
reflection in the mirror
pupils dilate as I focus
but either way you spin it I'm spun
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