3/30/11

At times the only way to bear this life,
While wading through the depths of deep despair,
Is keeping busy and preoccupied,
And so exhausted we no longer care.

Our lethargy deflects.  Each drowse defends.
A tired mind, befuddled, numbs our fears.
Fatigue is suffering’s enduring friend,
For weary eyes sleep tight and shed no tears.
3/29/11

No matter how much we may try,
And strive to finish in one day,
A curse befalls us each sunrise,
To have one item slip away.
One task will fail to be complete,
And sit uncrossed-off from our lists,
Accomplishments, commitments, feats,
Among them, one thing will be missed.
It may be something we forgot,
Or else, some unseen circumstance,
That renders efforts all for naught, 
And thwarts our every move by chance.
Yet, life goes on despite demands.
And thrives oft times as aims fall through.
A note to mock all great laid plans,
Should top the list of our to-do’s.
3/28/11

We run ourselves into the ground,
Like inexpensive toys,
And when we finally do shut down,
We all get quite annoyed,
For like all things that we may waste,
And carelessly mistreat,
Our bodies, when they fail, shall break,
Beyond their warranties.
3/27/11

From time to time old friends are met,
And, through them, all our years betrayed.
The mirror, day to day, forgets,
But rare reunions reckon age.
The memories that we maintain,
Like dreams on waking, are dispelled.
When hearing how much life has changed,
No longer, can we fool ourselves.
Long friendships are a blessing, yes.
I pray that mine shall never end,
But, some small grief, I must confess,
For, no young man has lifelong friends.

3/26/11

Gazing up into a star filled dome,
Lost in the vastness of this endess sea,
Who’s speckled dark expanse sets minds to roam,
Among its clouds of luminosity,
To ponder our existence, so minute,
To wonder what significance we have,
And in this beauty lies such mortal truth,
The sight of it must be why men go mad.
3/25/11

Another week has reached it's end,
And brought it's scheduled reckoning,
To look back seven days again,  
And steep my soul in questioning.

What is the bounty of my toil,
Where have my steps and stumbles led,
How weighs my fortune with my foils,
Wherein is worth interpreted?

But what is this day from all else,
That marks it's dread significance?
Should I account all sense of self,
In spans that bear no relevance?

If time defines us, then perhaps,
I'll count this moment now, alone,     
My temporal assessments lapsed,
To greet next week,  peace in my soul.
3/24/11

What dormant seed inside of us,
Sprouts forth when we must speak?
Whose stifling, strong, constrictive vines,
Constrain us, mute and meek?

These grappling, saplings of the mind,
That smother forming words,
That thread our hearts and doubt entwined,
With thoughts that go unheard.

How diligent must be our skill,
To trim these web-like weeds,
To rend and rip, to strike and kill,
These creepers where they feed.

And yet, at times, in retrospect,
My clever comments lost,
Have kept my clumsiness in check,
And spared me precious cost.

And so, a gardener I must be,
To tend the wilds within,
With brush permitting gentle breeze,
But, blocking brutish winds.
3/23/11

A frost in Spring cuts short impatient growth,
Those buds which strive too ardently to be.
This chill conveys a warning to us both,
Lest we press our advance too eagerly.

And yet, my heart goes with those brazen plants,
Who rose ambitiously in Spring’s first light, 
Who broke new ground to rise and take their chance,
Their swift emergence stilled by chill and ice.

To know of nature is to be afraid,
For chaos is the hallmark she portends.
Though caution is consulted most our days,
We must dream past our winters now and then.

A frost in Spring reminds to seize the day,
To know the danger and bloom anyway.
3/22/11

I’d like to think the fact that we must wait,
Has purpose and exists by some design,
A pause penned by the architects of fate,
That keeps an ordered universe defined.

Perhaps, it teaches patience and respect,
Our reverence generated over time.
And maybe it dissuades us from neglect,
Lest we, unwary, leap and venture blind.

Could waiting truly be a random thing,
For does not our delay have some reward?
As wait abates the painful hornet’s sting,
Is not some method of prevention stored?

We earn our wings by each delay from flight,
Thus, boredom wets ambition’s appetite.
3/21/11

I write another poem,
To prove that I still can.
To show myself, if nothing else,
I meet this one demand.
Cause if I still am writing,
It must mean I’m still here,
This poetry is proof of me,
Albeit most unclear.
3/20/11

Who are the drivers in my head,
That steer me safely on my way?
When otherwise, I walk half-dead,
Remotely conscious, lost, and dazed.

Who are these pixies wielding will,
When mine own has none left to give,
As duties somehow stay fulfilled,
As life continues somehow lived.

Perhaps they always held the rains,
As, falsely, I perceived control,
Such vanity, now all in vain,
My next steps known not to my soul.
3/19/11

While tidying my home, I chanced to find,
That digging through odd clutter and effects,
Has sent me on a journey back in time,
By portals opened up from my neglect.

Old artifacts and fragments stowed and saved,
Or simply set aside and left behind,
A record that remains of older days.
My unkempt habits now become a shrine.

A capsule of my choices well preserved,
Receipts and scraps, a map of what I’ve done.
A loose collage of what my motives were,
A glance of who I thought I would become.

Such rubbish reconstructs my history.
Is this my waste, or wasted bits of me?
3/18/11

Necessity demands we build machines,
Then as these gadgets of salvation break,
A new invention must be forged to clean,
The damage that results from our mistakes.

And as time passes, if we come to find,
This clever cure has caused another ill,
Some new technology will be designed,
Which, no doubt, leads to further problems still.

If we should someday perish from this world,
We’ll meet the last day of our history,
Left treasureless for all our wisdom’s pearls,
And victims of our ingenuity.
3/17/11

They say St. Patrick charmed the snakes,
And drove them out of Ireland.
He banished them for all our sakes,
The island cleansed, made free from sin.
But, where did all the serpents go,
Once they had fled their native shores?
Did they spread out across the globe,
Afflicting evil, hate, and war?
Thus, as today, you toast good health,
True love, and long prosperity.
Don’t pass the buck to someone else,
Should snakes infest your property.
3/16/11

Oh, to be a simple creature,
Left with but a few concerns,
Nature as its only teacher,
Just survival to be learned.
Nothing else to prey upon it,
But the predators at night.
No ambition, no despondence,
No internal mental fight.
Simple creatures do not worry,
Over how much they achieve,
Though we both may hoard and scurry,
Only one of us believes,
That his life is somehow lesser,
That his worth cannot compete.
Oh, to be a simple creature,
Oh, to get a good night’s sleep.
3/15/11

What is this wasteful wanting called a wish?
What purpose may its invocations serve,
But plague our waking days with aimlessness,
And whisper lies of what we think deserved?

We strive and find success, or else we fail.
We keep what life lets linger in our grasp.
And wishing beyond this shall not avail.
Lest futile fruits are that for which we ask.

3/14/11

It may be true that all we do to plan ahead is moot,
But, do we know all seeds will grow to blossom and take root?
We cultivate in leaps of faith and wish for fruitful yield.
These dates we scope are fledgling hopes we foster in the field.
3/13/11

Full calendars, and times reserved, and dates made in advance.
Long lists to do and follow-through, dissolve in happenstance.
Such scheduled blocks are all for naught despite our schemes and plans,
We author not, our roles and plots, yet act as life demands.
3/12/11

When comes my final season, where I must succumb to time,
Erect no mausoleum, lasting monument, or shrine.
Etch neither words that go unheard, nor pointless epitaphs.
Refrain from long memorials contrived on my behalf.

Recall me realistically, a common, simple man,
A mute component to the crowds in which I used to stand.
An ordinary gear in life’s prosaic manifold,
Who kept his place, allegiant, chaste, and did as he was told.

For such a proper gentleman, a plain grave should suffice,
Thus, let me rest, invisible, much as I was in life.
3/11/11
What purpose does it serve that through the night,
When evening’s veil is drawn across our minds,
A finger-painted world of unclear sights,
Parades before us, symbols, shapes, and signs?

What message lies therein I might decode,
What secrets of my soul deciphered hence,
Before the living light of day erodes,
That life my psyche, nightly, reinvents?

Perhaps the dreamer sleeps while I’m awake,
My daylight hours, but another dream,
For him to then interpret and mistake,
And puzzle from the images he’s seen.

No doubt, one life is heaven, one is hell,
And daily, we are doomed to haunt ourselves.
3/10/11

Good humor is perhaps the one salvation on this earth.
For all the salves and panaceas placed on wounds are worth,
The single cure, steadfast and sure, to nurse our ills remains,
Our curious ability to laugh at our own pain.
3/9/11

How about a magic trick?
You're 16, now you're 36.
You're 36, then 81,
And no one tells you how it's done.
3/8/11

While walking down a busy city street,
A girl approached and passed me quickly by.
At no time did our glances ever meet,
Yet, I detected swollen, tearful eyes.

And as she left,  my wonder lingered on,
Why was this wretched woman grieving so?
Long after the event had come and gone,
I had not let her air of sadness go.

Was it some failure causing her unrest?
A dream run dry, a deep wish run aground?
Perhaps some lover's quarrel caused distress,
When some upsetting truth was finally found.

I know not what had caused her to despair,
Except perhaps the thought that no one cared.
3\7\11

I kicked an object yesterday in anger and despair,
It bore me no ill will or hate. My malice was unfair.

My force drew no reaction.  Quite inanimate, it stayed,
All temporary satisfaction soon began to fade.

And as I calmed and thought, ‘this thing did nothing to offend’,
My foot began to swell and sting. I kicked it once again.
3\6\11

I’d now like to propose a toast,
To all the many times,
That we forgot to be verbose,
And simply drank our wine.

Such salutations oft forget,
Our trials as glasses clink.
And those we’d mention fortunate,
Let’s have them not be jinxed.
3\5\11

I’ve never wanted more to go to sleep,
To close my eyes and drift beneath and stay.
All that I am, let my subconscious keep,
Lest spend the nightmare of these waking days.
3/4/11

In life there is no peace or rest,
Just constant streams of endless tests,
And all with one reward in store,
To live on and be tested more.
3/3/11

The winter’s twilight, edging into spring,
Blue skies shine warmth on vacant, waking lands.
The mingled sights of dead and fertile things,
The nothing-just-before is now at hand.

The air holds neither promise nor withdrawal.
The season, neither thrives nor languishes.
The stillness hangs, like some unanswered call.
A lover’s face, unmoved, expressionless.

Within this never time, I wait and roam,
Awake, yet melting, as in fleeting dreams,
A held breath just before a note intones,
Not here nor there, but halfway in-between.

And strangely, I’m at peace, so paralyzed,
And caught betwixt tomorrow and before,
Somehow both living and yet, not alive,
Love in my heart for things which live no more.
3/2/11

This dull grey day,
Promotes ill mood,
The perfect stage on which to brood.
With fitting chills,
And apt, bleak, skies,
For failing wills and downcast eyes.
3/1/11

I wish that I could somehow hide,
For one more day of rest at least.
To shield my mind. Stave off the light,
And glare of stark realities.

Alas, my duties shall preclude,
All exercise of choice forthwith.
Farewell, fond dreams of solitude,
And lasting, happy, hermitage!
2/28/11

Back home again, all seems the same,
Just as I left it days ago,
And yet so much outside has changed from that which I have always known.

How odd to find myself entrenched,
In such familiarity,
With all that I once grasped, now wrenched away and made so strange to me.

Perhaps, when we call someplace home,
We search for words which will define,
A place advance has left alone- a shelter from the storms of time.

As creatures cling to fallen trees,
That ride deep floods and float downstream,
Do we too cling to loose debris, cast from life’s tattered plans and dreams?

Until my comforts wash away,
As all things shall disintegrate,
For now, at home, I safely stay, in sweet illusion, cheating fate.
2/27/11

If there can be a reason for distress,
If darkness falls by method or design,
It must be to remind us we are blessed
With those who rally with us in such times.

Perhaps we are but tested, now and then,
And challenged with misfortune, pain and strife,
Lest we forget the loyalty of friends,
And how much love surrounds us all our lives.
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