The past plays back
Like a reel softly buzzing in a dusty projector
Frames jitter
Grain dances
Scratches run vertical like timelines
Nobody bothered to clean
On quiet unassuming days
Friends flicker in and out of the light
Laughing in that warm sepia tone
Not knowing they were becoming memories
Gate weave wobble
The joy stays centered
Family moments spool through
With light burn marks at the edges
Holidays melting into birthdays
Birthdays melting into twilight talks
All of it patched together
With tape only nostalgia understands
Workdays show up as overexposed flashes
Bright
Loud
Then gone
A few frames missing
A few frames scratched
The story still runs smooth enough
To feel like you were there
Somewhere in the reel
The dust settles on the parts you forgot
You didn’t mean to forget
These parts just fade like film left in sunlight
Still visible
Still yours
Just softer now
The projector keeps spinning
Casting old light on new walls
Every flicker reminds you
Even flawed reels can carry the whole story
In a room without walls,
stars lie scattered across a long workbench,
each one dimmed in a different way~
some cracked at the edges,
some holding a faint pulse
like a memory trying to stay lit.
Tools hang from nothing:
a hammer made of cooled starlight,
a spool of night threaded with silence,
a brush that leaves a trail
only the dark can read.
Someone
or something shaped like someone~
leans over a fractured constellation,
turning it slowly in their hands
as though checking where the story failed.
A soft sound rises,
not quite sorrow,
more like the sigh a myth makes
when it realizes it can’t return
to the shape it once held.
Pieces of old legends
glow on the floor,
still warm from the moment
they fell out of belief.
A wing, a vow,
a name that used to matter~
all waiting to be reassembled
into whatever truth remains.
And in the far corner,
a single star brightens,
not repaired,
not restored,
just choosing to shine
despite the fracture
running through its center.
This sad old devil seems tragically nasty and cruel
Her creative writing is just not very helpful or cool
She needs to take her goofy old self back to school
Her fate is now a loose thread on a withering spool.
Note: dedicated to the late Dr. Jason Arday. I didn't like how that one lady talked about him and I'm glad people called it out.
I feel my thinning purpose slipping fast~
a fragile spool with only scraps to give.
Each sheet you take recalls the recent past
when I was whole, and certain I could live.
Now every tug reveals how close I am
to joining hollow rings upon the floor;
I cling to what remains, a quiet jam
between becoming less… and being no more.
The spindle hums, indifferent to my state;
the cabinet waits, aloof in its supply.
I balance on the edge of near-not-fate
and ask what worth persists when comforts die.
If meaning blooms in moments nearly gone,
then I, half-spent, still matter as I wane.
Any-
one's sane inven-
tory contains exact-
ly seven hundred and thirty one ax-
felonious monkeys waving hatchet faced playing cards around
as if
they had a good
vocational training
spool of massive yarn bards stacked with fun brain
splatter at their wastefully
toxic
disposal.
thought loosens its grip first~
a single thread slipping from the spool of waking.
then the room tilts, quietly,
as if the walls have grown tired of holding shape.
shadows gather in corners
where I’ve hidden the parts of myself I never name.
they shift, rearrange, becoming silhouettes of choices I almost made.
a door shimmers into being, breathing in slow, steady waves,
its frame throbbing like a heartbeat I misplaced in sleep.
when I reach for it,
my hand passes through as though time forgot me.
the floor dissolves into a gossamer veil,
a place where gravity loses its conviction.
I fall inward, not down, past my unspoken fears—
until the dream whispers the only truth i trust:
embrace the void
The center yields. The spindle turns.
A fragile thread of silk returns
To open air, to wild design,
To break the neatly measured line.
We spend our hours wound tight and strong,
Convincing every knot belongs,
Protecting all the spool protects,
Ignoring where the weave deflects.
But then the turning takes its hold,
And secret lengths begin to unfold.
The hidden past, the silent space,
Released into a wider grace.
It is not breaking, nor a tear,
But shedding every weighted year.
A slow unwinding, calm and deep,
Where promises we couldn’t keep
Now drift as dust upon the breeze,
And leave the spirit quite at ease.
To be unspooled, to be undone,
Is to dance within the sun—
No longer bound, no longer tense,
But part of the circumference.
I heard the ravings of a fool
as his yarn flew off his spool,
but did I need to hear that stuff
from a brain thus turned to fluff?
The answer, my friend, is there,
blowing in the air.
The only movie on this flight that's shown
is an episode of The Twilight Zone.
That's what my flight attendant said,
staring strangely at my head.
My brain thread's still mostly on the spool,
so why look at me like I'm a fool.
My eagle eye saw the wind dislodge
a key piece of the fuselage.
That's the lynch pin, says I.
Without it, we can no longer fly.
The cabin's leaking oxygen and air.
Clueless passengers sit and stare
as I see my hand become a claw
to stop the destruction I foresaw.
The flight attendant meant to do me harm.
She stuck a needle in my arm.
I was on that accursed flight, inbound.
Now, I'm sleeping safe and sound.
Is not creative impulse fed by need,
to give shape and meaning to a lost mist,
seeking solace for our heart that does bleed,
yearning to be by rhythm of bliss beats kissed?
Spontaneity is but a buzz word,
for is it not preceded by intent,
born of the unstruck sound by our soul heard,
to which childlike innocence grants consent?
We rest thought to transcend limitation,
yet in this realm it is the preferred tool,
to translate in symbols, each sensation,
refrains replaying on memory’s spool.
Renewal continual ebbs and flows ~
Thus in the pregnant pause, light of soul grows
“Do you want to fly a kite?”
My curious eyes said yes.
He took me to the rooftop,
handed me the spool —
and there it flew.
High in the sky,
almost invisible to our eyes.
The kite sought destiny
amidst the clouds,
while strong winds whispered
secrets it never knew.
Slowing down its pace,
descending from its height,
bringing an end
to its beautiful flight.
Now the kite clings to a branch
by the street, beside a blue ranch —
for kids to try grabbing it with glee,
for passing birds to see
and wonder
what the story could be
behind the kite
stuck on a tree.
Rad mad hatter batter approach
Kiwi coach who Key did poach
It seems he is beyond reproach
When it really matters in tatters
Castle clatters Ashes hope shatters
Our guys bowling pies on platters
Memes scatter legacies splatters
Egos not heroes BazBull flatters
The urn won’t return with the Mac
Yearn but burn totally out off whack
Concern can’t learn not got the knack
Brendon a torn forlorn tendon on the rack
But will still earn a packet deserves a smack
Bitten not smitten his racket of cricket crack
Wouldn't change tack and deserves the sack
The hack pack giving him a stack of flak
Finally a step back from just all out attack
Too little too late the recurring soundtrack
Whittled & skittled fate well we were cack
Drunk monkeys just sunk spunky flunkies
Lack guts gumption gusto were so slack
The lies spool pulls over our eyes the wool
Must backtrack no crackerjack comeback
Debunk the funk & gist of narcissist gunk junkies
Cool over old school fool rule of Baz (load of ) Bull
Time these harlots & charlatans brought Test best back
Freedom is a birthright—
No one has the right
To tread on anyone’s foot
On the pretext
Of one’s own freedom.
Everyone has the freedom
To punch the air
Or swing one’s hand,
But that hand must
Stop short of others.
Like the kite we fly,
Freedom is conditional.
Kite flyers fight
To bring down
One another’s kite.
The powdered glass
On the twine
Sharpens the twine
To sever the kite
At the point of contact
Both try to cut off
The other's kite
By pulling the twine
Or by releasing more twine
To create friction
Finally, the winner
Severs the kite
Of the loser
And the severed kite
Glides down to the ground
Now, whose freedom
Is superior?
The one that is severed
And becomes absolutely free
But what if it falls to the ground?
Or, the one that is still
Tied to the twine,
The spool, and the kite flyer
But soars higher and higher
Into the sky?
The sky is a slow bruise of amethyst and rose,
the sun, a tired king, bleeds gold across the land,
paint the western fronts of the city by the bay
a million dying lamps before the swarthy rise.
I am a cruise ship returning to its harbor,
while another ship sails filled with the day’s spent wind.
My every footstep sounds more like tiny pebbles,
like being dropped on the quiet of the asphalt
the echo of my journey home is astounding
Streetlights and shy fireflies wait to see who’ll glow first,
start their weak pulse, as if unsure the day is done
My thoughts fading like the lamp carried by my mind,
while reviewing the day's encounters like phantoms.
Each house exhales the scent of a tasty dinner,
a warm, domestic breath into the cooling air.
The moon, a pale coin, is tossed into the worn blue,
and the first star is a pinprick of forgiveness.
My own body knows this liturgy of descent,
the knee-jerk turn of the foot, soft exhale, tale’s rest.
I am not just walking up, I am unspooling,
bit of a loose thread of my former self, reeled back,
into the arresting arms of the spool of night.
I've had this spool of wire for nearly 20 years.
And I’m almost out of it.
Sure, people may look at it and be confused at my sadness.
They’ll ask why I’m so fixated on this spool of wire.
But, inside my head I just keep thinking to myself.
I’ve had this spool of wire for nearly 20 years, and now?
I’m almost out of it.
Sure its tightly wound, held together tightly by the forces that be,
The whole thing under tension unless I’m near people I trust to unravel it.
But I’ve- I’ve had it for almost 20 years.
Now I’m almost out of it.
And- I’m looking down at it, the same way I did 20 years ago and just-
It’s almost gone.
This wire,
This steel straight I’ve had for 20 years,
This.
Lifeline.
It’s almost gone.
Sure theres some rust on the underside,
Sure there’s cuts in places from when I got mad or upset-
But
It's almost gone.
And it’s stupid, I know it is,
But- I looked up to this spool,
This thing I always had.
I realized I had it in my mind that it would always be here.
Now its clear it won’t be one day.
And- I’ll need to get a new one,
With the knowledge it’ll also run out, 20 years from now.
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