my every poem

a collection (compiled between 2022 to the end of 2024)

Caspar Netscher, The Man Writing a Letter.

2022

The Everlasting Escape
As I sit here dreaming wondering why
I question the things that make me cry
The inability to do the things I once sought
I find it harder and harder to keep up
This disease this sickness that keeps me weak
The death it calls upon those is hard to think
I call to thee who determines all
And wonder why he had divorced us all
But he does not forget those who prey
For doing work is doing praise
And in a frenzy through 3 days
A cure had fallen upon me like an unexpected death
The aches and pains ceased as sudden as they had appeared
The throat pain, which were like that of my vocal cords being ripped
Was anointed and returned to soundness thanks to the 4 humors and God
So I have escaped without damage
But merely suffered an abrasion of the mind
Which for the rest of my life will be stuck with the memory of when I failed to achieve my everlasting escape

• Written 7/9/2022

---

In Agreement With Wordsworth
"The world is too much with us"
Those words hold more true today
Than during the time of Wordsworth
And I should say, I can't agree more;
For should Wordsworth have seen the world today,
Surely he would have thought it a world not worth saving.
A pity we hold materials in higher regard than the nature around us,
But those who do fail to see the true beauty this world has to offer
This means most, and if Carlyle's dictum not be false;
Than we are all fools for failing to see the world within
Have it today, or tomorrow, or whenever one may get it
But do not grieve when ye pleads to see what they have Forgotten.

• Written 12/23/2022

---

2023

Desiring this mans art and that mans scope?
I see someone do what I love, but better than me,
and yet I can't help but be of envy.
For I know I do it better than he,
and this I know, for I feel it all through me.

• Written 7/24/2023

---

My pain and anger knows no bounds
Like Alexander unto Caesar I appeal to
The whole world, by which my rage will
Receive satiation. All those before me can't
Understand, for if they did they would be
Driven to the same great madness. The
Proverbs of the past pacify thee profanity
Of our human race. Yet why go on? Do they
Not see thy folly? All efforts fail, and fortune
Dissuades reason. This is why, like Xerxes, I
Despise the xenophile, and must therefore
Conquer all that stands before me. Thy will
Be done, for thy world needs more pain! From
Hercules to Agamemnon, no labor is so great
That I can't achieve. Ye future beings, gaze upon
Me in despair, for thy works are like hay, and no
Repentance can save you. This is your end.
Goodbye!

• Written 10/16/2023

---

2024

Upon the ever changing tides.
I see ever more divides.
The state of all in a wreck.
The feeling of joy deflect.
What we once knew in an old world now new.
And what had been new will one day be old.
For such is the state of our stay.
Ever doomed to repeat with no change in sight.
But hope still remains when a clear goal is in sight.
Values by which we once cherished now dried.
Like the grapes which soon become raisins when left out to fry.
I say to thee, this is not our fate.
For we cast headlong into the frightful freight.
New experiences bring about old ideas.
For nothing is new under the sun.
Except those values which are held dear to some.

• Written 3/30/2024

---

There comes a point in men's midway journey,
To seek for those things which bring about relief.
Yet in life we find that reality fills us with grief,
And almost always leads to our defeat.
Despite this, however, we find that life is a treat.

There is always hope that fills our boat.
Day by day, we get by through hope.
With strength comes resilience and a new image.
An image which changes our way,
And which brings about our day.

I say to thee, who are you.
Why are you so wise and so great.
Like Alexander, you conquer the world.
For Caesar was great, but you surpass his fate.
No one can match your face; your tall, slim greatness.

Homer, when praising the Gods, could not do.
And Ovid was nothing more than a shrew when compared to you.
Virgil gave up hope, for his Aeneas is a mere copy of you.
And Horace dropped his porridge when he laid eyes upon you.
There is none quite like you, for the heavens wonder about your origin.

One finds in you all that one could wish.
That intelligence, celestial it is.
Like the Muses which reside atop Parnassus.
Who is so bold as to claim greater heritage.
No, there is no one, for they all weep with glee.

In that hallowed out portion of my soul,
I find you constantly present.
Wit, humor, I praise thee to heaven.
The memories I've made with you.
The laughs, smiles, and cries.

I would not change the world,
For if I could, you would remain great.
No one could wish upon a star without your grace.
It is strange that you make Earth your place.
One like yourself outshines all the rest;

And such is why I think you the best.
This man I refer to: O Jonathan.
My efforts are in vain, for nothing I do could possibly praise you.
Sufficient, then, is my attempt at this piece.
For I would have no relief should I prevent myself: I would be a thief.

Like Milton milling away at his verse in darkness.
None shall remain, not even the great Petrarchus.
Homer, too, was blinded at your sight.
And Cardano knew he could not compare with you.
This world is too short for our existence.

Should it have been designed by you, we could have all achieved subsistence.
But no, this world is cruel as you know all too well.
It seeks to prevent us from reaching our goals and happiness.
We try and try, and yet we still fail.
But I would not have it any other way, for what we see is merely a spell of discontent.

You know how fraught reality can be.
And yet we go on, seeking greater felicity.
Cicero was right about the world as a whole;
For we are nothing more than a soul trapped in a horrible abode.
But this life is all we have, and in that there is much hope.

I know we suffer together like the fowls of the air;
And yet we understand each other as if we were the same.
Life is seemingly so strange, yet we all get by not knowing one and the same.
Darwin was right that there is grandeur in this view of life;
And I hope that your birth springs forth a new hope upon the Earth.

• From your loving Godbrother, Joseph Diaz. Happy Birthday Jon, xoxo.
  Written 4/14/2024

---

Wisted upon the shores of darkness;
Brought about by no misfortune of my own.
To my own shame I bring the pain upon my self,
And when it ends, wonder why I do this for itself.

Bringing the fire for your own self-pleasure,
But leaving when the kitchen it too hot.
Shame, shame should be upon your mind;
For you know not what you have done,

And no forgiveness can be brought to you.
I'm sick of your tired platitudes.
Mere foam upon the shore of the world.
You neglect yourself and wallow in shame,

And act pompous with others in vain.
You are a failure, a failure I say.
You know not what you think or do or say or be.
Why carry yourself in such a manner,

And bring hardship on your own brain matter.
The ugliness of your thoughts show themselves clear.
Like a dirty window, the light comes through but discolored.
You think the worst and hate yourself.

In a word, someone you never wish to be.
The fighting and biting and verbal abuse;
The mishap that is your will.
The call for your chains being released;

All to be put under the shackles of yourself.
Your lack of selfcare is revolting, and your appearance is vile.
You do nothing for yourself and wish it another way,
yet do nothing to bring about a change of your fray.

Why, why, why go on in this state.
You are in nothing more than in a dark labyrinth of your fate.
You are nothing but a disgrace and should be ashamed of yourself,
For you add nothing but to your own dishonor.

A sad state you are in and for no other reason than yourself.
What a poor person you are to be.
Strange that you want another state,
For nothing will be for you in that way.

Vindictive meanness is your stay,
And that is the violence of your way.

• Written 4/18/2024

---

Gentlemen,

I hope upon a great shore.
For Lord knows what is in store.
Unknown and in the wildest of states.
I'm bereft of any safety to this date.

But I move on forward and with reverence;
And light my candles upon the altar of fate.
And dream about that happier state.
For though things seem hard, there have been harder.

And in such a way that I thought myself unassailable to it.
And yet I pull through and make myself glorious with it.
I come not to bring peace but a sword, and swore to my dying date;
That no man shall ever surpass this undying faith.

I bring to you a fire, and watch it till it blazes.
Let the ashes and smog consume your faces;
For in the dark there is light about your gazes.
And in this way you prove yourself superior to this stasis.

Heavenly child, weep not for there is greatness in wait.
Time reveals all things that make you lament your fate.
Sit and meditate upon those who had fate.
And give yourself confidence to overcome this date.

In life all is vanity, but so short is its state.
Thanatos knocks but we will deny his fate.
Bring us not into that evil of the present.
But with hope shall we receive everlasting abundance and remain in heaven.

• Written 4/29/2024

---

Woe, woe, woe; the will of one man.
Strong enough to stomp all beneath him.
Like the hillside alley: empty, desolate, and bare.
He brags about his lot, but can't afford a pot.

A wretch like no other.
He is the fear that lies in people's hearts.
Of capacity, he is no doubt absurd.
For everything he does always carries a herd.

Woe, woe, woe; this man comes again.
Crashing and trampling all within his reach.
Undeterred by fear, he welcomes the greatest of pain.
For in pain, there is joy, and without, he is void.

Rage, boil, blister about the spot.
Your anger knows no bounds, and burns all atop.
Cruel, evil, the most obscene man to have ever lived.
Evil upon the chamber door, and no rest in the deeds outdoor.

But what is that thump I hear!
A little pigeon, thumping at my window.
Shoo, shoo, disturb me no more, bird.
For the further you do, I will bring hell upon you.

Thump, thump, thump; nothing more, nothing less.
And yet it seems you insist on bringing your own death!
Why bother so, what do you bring?
For I'm planning the destruction that all will sing!

Thump, thump, thump; nothing more, nothing less.
And upon reflection, I get to a testin.
Thoughts upon anger in the greatest felicity.
I rapture myself with the best of incivility.

Like that little playboy Lucifer.
He calls himself the light, but fell from greatest height.
What a fool he was to go against his master!
For he thought the servitudes made him a bastard!

O, what a great word, bastard.
Bastard, bastard, bastard! That's what I am!
For the saucy whores worship my pen.
Gobbling up all I write, and thinking themselves the best of kin.

Whore! An even better word than BASTARD!
Further your evil and bring about a great disaster.
For who makes yourself more worthless than a whore.
O! I love your screams begging for MORE.

MORE! This I have had enough. For we have had enough in this world.
Except for anger, which should parish the whored!
Good is a word foreign to me!
For all I see is the red of my enemies before me!

Enemy! That is what I am.
I seek your destruction, nothing more, nothing less!
And here that dreadful pigeon comes again to give me no rest.
Quickly, I close the curtains to catch some sleep, but am disturbed by the seat of my feet.

Redrum! Redrum! Redrum!
What is this I see! The pigeon seems to be singing to me!
Redrum! Redrum! Redrum!
O, gracious bird, you bring me delight; and inspire me with the greatest of fright!

Thump, thump, thump; nothing more, nothing less.
What wraps about my window once again like a jest?
Ah! Friends of folly, it seems you bring.
For the whole coop seems to be singing to me.

A chorus, a rapture, a most beautiful fire.
This suffering is wholesome to me, and to my heart's desire.
For it is the destruction I seek. And I will bring it about.
For more evil needs to be spread, this is without doubt.

Hatred fills my heart and sets me free
The chorus of Redrum is more than I can see.
Hatred stays with me for it is in my nature.
And I yearn for nothing more than the destruction of an acre.

Kneel before me with greatest alacrity.
Lest I should bring about an even greater catastrophe.
Redrum! Redrum! These birds still sing!
And thump about my window with the greatest solemnity.

Call forth the cavalry, battalion, and the heads of state!
I shall smite them out for heaven's sake.
No one can stop me; the world is mine to control.
For Darkseid himself could not humble my abode.

I am Tone! The greatest anger the world has ever known.
Big Behemoth, Big Brutus, Big Bahamut: I am known.
I am the Leviathan that shall control the whole state.
And finally, bring about the destruction from my heavenly weight!

Birthday Poem, written to the greatest anger the world has know. Have a great one, BigTone.

• Written 4/30/2024

---

Who amongst you is esteemed the best.
With foolish vainglories you deceive the rest.
Paltry you are when compared with Da Vinci.
You are nowhere near and will never convince me!

• Written 5/1/2024

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What a forlorn effort you bring this day,
A nonsense speech and a horrendous stay.
You argue with pomp, without any glimmer;
Losing clearly, you think yourself a winner.

Why persist in these garbage efforts?
Making no sense, your mind like deserts.
Thinking something to be clearly right,
You reason unjustly, causing fright.

Woe to you and your strange philosophies.
You seem to hold the opposite of Socrates.
Thinking yourself wise when you're really not,
Claiming yourself the best, the best atop.

The owl of Athena has not seen you,
Flying swiftly, avoiding all contact.
The schoolman's rods make no great impressions,
And folly are the arts of your conventions.

I'm tired of thinking about you, however,
And wish to rid myself of this endeavor.
Anguish I feel at the thought of your arguments,
These are, without doubt, the worst of emoluments.

So good day, to the best of false scholars I've seen,
With pompous thoughts, you will never achieve great esteem.

• Written 5/8/2024

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On the writing of poetry;
Thinking, wondering, ever upon thee.
Wandering along conformity.
Clear for those, who, forced to see.

With eyes, ever fleeting, upon those words:
A fools errand to try to be heard.
Hard it is for your own unique expression.
Try and fail, it all ends in depression.

Nothing new seems to be writ.
Stale old ideas, no new signs of wit.
Why write what will never be fit.
Try and try, they all say with glit.

But on these attempts I grow evermore;
Struggle I might, happiness is forlorn.
Thinking upon words from my memory-
In this dark labyrinth, hard solemnity.

These thoughts, never to see the light of day,
Wishing upon the buds of May:
Airy spirits filling the ocean bay,
Yet failing to inspire this corpse today

Difficult it is, expressing feeling--
Writing to live, on the hopes of hearing
The joyous praise of my fellow men.
All vain hopes, trying to transcend.

To live without reason is to live these dreams.
Fool they call me, but to me it seems
Like the hark of the angels calling;
A dream within the mind, a heartfelt falling.

But with grace are these actions undertaken.
No Pallbearer for the casket of my oration!
My efforts, always seem to be forsaken.
But my poems, I say, vindication!

• Written 5/21/2024

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You are the muse by which I turn to:
My poultry scribbles, of vain stains of ink;
And seemingly all my bronze turns to Gold.
With your power of insight upon my hold;
All else stem from thee and makes my works glorious.
For you are the thing I venerate upon the alter of my mind;
Always lifting this dreaded burden from my weary shoulders.
A burden Atlas himself could not withstand:
Blasted upon the tempest of the ocean--
Where the deluge brings forth its heated rage.
Foam, as if Venus had been born from seed;
The great array washes over me in a flurry of wave.
I sometimes wonder if I can handle this stress!
Death, death it seems to the weak:
But I withstand the mighty blast of misfortune;
And take what's mine from the spoils of this erosion.

War has been made upon the mind, in an effort to seek the divine;
That thing which drives us further: always pushing us on
To those places of better prospects and inspiring projects.
We seek the fulfillment in the process of our efforts,
And dream the day when people give us our just deserts.
Work is the one thing we mostly share, the commonality on man,
Yet the one thing we all hate, another thread we share;
All wishing we would be done with it all, not knowing what we'll do afterwards.

Searching in vain for the wrong thing in the wrong place,
Giving up on thinking on happiness entirely, but why do you quit the fight so soon?
Do you not think there are others in this sphere,
All seeking to hear their fellow man, their problems and hardships;
This is the germ of all community, where we build society from the ground--
Finding solace in the labors and appreciations of our endowed frowns.

I seek what you seek too! We all seek that comfort through-and-through.
You know things I don't and I know things you don't, and together
We make the great collection of man, the whole embodiment of our spirits and efforts.
This we call society, and, together, we find universal sobriety.

• Written 5/25/2024

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And thus he said, "Human, all too human,"
Gazing upon the heavens, wishing.
Tears falling from his face like gentle snow,
Gracing the ground with their moist presence,
Renewing the life of those lively plants,
Dreaming of those things he once knew,
Asking for the forgiveness of the new.
Never finding that lost, that empty place— a void-filled space.
But in these thoughts, he recalls those happier times,
These moments of experience that call upon the grape-filled vines.
He saw the enjoyment, the moment when he was most free,
Like the bird, broken from its harmful cage.
These thoughts quickly turn to mournful rage:
"Why must we suffer like animals on this earth?
Have I not atoned for all my mirth?
Was there no other way for me?
Was this the life the Lord foresaw for thee?
Enough was his sorrow,
Only wishing for tomorrow."
Never catching a break; on the ground, he lay.
He saw the moon in its full dress,
White and gray was what he thought best.
"It matches my soul, my sultry state;
If only I had the grace to reach its fate,
Thrust from its home and cast about the sky,
May it reside next to stars and never die.
No, no, it can never die, for full in view to all does it stay;
Unlike us, it has already achieved immortality.
How simple is its life, always moving around,
Gravity knows always where it could be found.
The same face does it always show,
Never changing as we grow.
How wonderful must it be to be so high,
Never falling, like the large ocean tide.
You are its cause, its creator and inventor,
Always surviving, providing pause for the dissenter.
I wish I could have the same view as you,
So imposing, gazing down on us as you do.
Earth is a hard-felt place,
So large and steaming with the worst disgrace.
Financial worries are absurd to you;
Rapes, killings, genocides you never knew.
Taxes, the bane of most, you rank the worst—
Government, law, police, courts, homes, depression, anguish, pain, suffering, madness, suicide, loss, envy, schools, feebleness, and eventual death.
All things of this earth you know nothing of.
How fortunate you are, never to know such things—
Mere human conceptions of our dreary mortal state.
Yet, countless millennia have passed in your wake,
Nothing new under you, great moon.
The spirit you probably embody ennobles you.
I hope you aren't tired of hearing this man’s lamentations;
Billions have views,
All seems hopeless when you're down, steeped in the blues.
I shed a few more tears from my wrenched face.
They fall to the ground, same as before,
As heavy as feathers, petals, and stones.
But now I sing of all earthly things, the woes of man and material matter.
Some cast doubt upon things of atomic manner,
Such distaste they have for the materialist banner.
But, ceasing with their strange speculation,
They begin to talk with sense upon their lips,
And no longer do their conversations end in great fits.
This is the greatness that comes with the acceptance of the worldly view.
With thoughts like this, traditionality comes to few.
We see the world how it really is—
That laws arise not from divinity, but reason.
We do not succumb to the world as most do;
We see to understand it, and allow mankind to flourish through and through.
So despite all my cries, lies, and asides, I come to a new expression.
And in our suffering, we learn to mourn,
And tell of future greatness, of the coming thorn.
And thus I end my laments, my sadness, and my songs,
For we are human, all too human after all.

• Written 6/1/2024

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I see within the rain the greyness of life.
Hard tapping on my window: Relentlessly.
Frogs crooking and procreating beneath the earth.
All sensations I feel one with. For the
Clouds can no longer hold in their tears
And must let loose and give back to what brings it forth.

I gaze upon the dew on the grass; the moisture fulfilling its purpose
Giving life and sustaining it, always moving us forward continuing the cycle
The cycle of life which we are all fated to live.
Harmony of the great within.
The Schopenhauerian representative of the all.
This, the Will, I talk of in awe.

I see the clouds burden getting lighter.
The more they cry, the whiter they become.
The grey removes itself from the sun.
All the life of life, growing and sprawling towards the infinite.
The light of lightning illuminating the luminary sphere.
And Spreading its joyous rays round about the sky;
Cast up towards the eternal firmamental dye.
Enlivening the eye, seeing all things within its perspective mind.
All greatness seen, the green of the gigantic tree;
And Moss, the light green of life which brings forth towards more.

The pits and the shadows.
One filled with the sustenance of the green,
The other blotted out by its own father.
Now we see peace within the world:
The rain has stopped, the frogs have finished, the water now trickles, and all are in harmony.
I see the dribbles from the leaking sky: diffraction waves caused upon the face of the blue
That same blue which shares the same father, all conversing with each other anew.

And now we reach the end: I bid you, adieu.

• Written 7/19/2024

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British Divine, claiming to see the all sublime.
Nothing but false idols upon the altar of the divine.
Your false preachings have done enough, coughing up slime,
Disgracing the profession for the sake of the all-seeing eye.

But I tell you fear none, for It is not among us.
Only the mere thoughts of a man, a simple idea, yet unjust.
Why bemoan the fate of our limited state?
Once and for all is all that can be said of this to date.

Search for the being within, and you will find yourself upon the shores of suspension.
A great thing to contemplate the end.
Prepared you will be when the hourglass reaches its allotted time
For once and for all you will know, like the flip of a dime,

Whether there is the great beyond or only the senseless dawn.
No more light will be seen and fewer distractions of sound will hound your serenity.
And let this serve as a message for those lost in the noise of life;
Listen a bit more finely, with emphasis on meanings of greatness, and you shall have no strife.

• Written 7/24/2024

---

We all have a muse we call upon.
With this insight we see beyond.
These views, perfection it seems.
These glorious heights for nature it deems.

Our work, so nice, the fruit of delight.
Our sea of thoughts made clear through the light.
Inspiration, the power within us all.
In great patience, the forestalling of our fall.

Grateful I am to you, my dear.
Spurring me on, sweet and sincere.
Called upon to work this task.
Burdened not, I go without ask.

Labor I do at these trifling lines.
These splotches of ink called forth from divine.
My mind called forth from a source unknown.
But I, of all, know; the power has shown.

No songs to go unsung.
No lines to go undone.
So fun to run in the sun.
With you, my dear, all is clear.

All my hopes and dreams appear.
Like a banquet, feast and cheer.
Happy times for man, all dear.
What I would give, my muse, to see you here.

• Written 8/5/2024

---

Joseph: It could be praised as such:

The joyful quiet that shakes the deep,
Rouses my mind and brings ideas complete.
Ideas so furnished to bring delight,
And block the crowd's annoying spite.

Within that darkness brings the light to me,
And light so pure it gives me all supply.
Tranquil and pleasant are my thoughts to be,
And to the sky, I praise my thoughts: sublime.

No noise or talk to bring my anger nigh,
Yet all dumb folk don't seem to bat an eye.
Trouble they give me all my weary days,
Yet air they pass without the sight of haze.

Expel your thoughts without the thought of me,
Distract you do, and no curfew you use.
Toil I do and get but great abuse.
Compel yourself to be a bane to me.

Solace I find on all the windy nights,
While airy spirits work their great delight.
I strove to show why such is great,
So weary scholar, don't belate.

For you regret the time you spend near them,
To lose all hours of the night again.
Wayward must you push on that trotted path,
And know not of the sight of weary heads.

To speak and talk as if that's all you do,
And often do you speak like such a fool.
Contemplation is the scholar's home.
Forget the scorn that they labor forlorn.

Rude they are when they collect in groups;
And hubris they abuse to make a dupe.
Stoop not to levels that they make you hate,
Return to solitude that you find great.

Glorious is the day with its bright lights,
And all is calm when noise is of respite.
So nice is night to make the chatter stop,
To bring the tired to a halting lot.

It is disease of mind that makes them talk,
And talk nonstop they do and never walk.
To make it far in thought they never do,
Nor cease their chatter, to be a fool.

I think sometimes it is a plague of truth,
That all scholars do wish for solitude.
And make a great array of their learned proof,
To show the books they read, great vastitude.

But more to say is folly of style;
Avoiding ornaments I wish to do.
No more I say unless I cause a fray.
So scholar, when they talk, do keep away.

Samuel Johnson: Ah, but I can play that game too:

For in my thoughts do sound give life to it,
To hear of chatter livens up my mind,
And calls from rough to strength, to make a hit;
To write of verse to make it most sublime.

See the sea of words that make me think,
Improve upon my works, those sinking ships:
Create a world of joy and happy thoughts,
Forlorn no more my thoughts, my works of hope.

Called upon the mind to make a sign,
A sign so big I thought it all divine.
Express my ways in all their happy shows,
Viewed upon by those with many woes.

Woes and cries and lamentations spent,
I do so wish success from their repent.
So often does the talk release our grief,
And bring about those joys of sweet relief.

Forgetting days that we were worse for wear,
And found ourselves in talks with our forebears.
New hope we sought, we found, we cherished dear,
And sang we did for all those with a cheer.

To talk the talk with those who love to talk,
To find new ways; expression is the thought.
Hard it is expressing inner thoughts,
But to talk is easy when we walk.

And walk we do along the barren streets,
To reach our destination and to feast.
We love the wine that gives us revelry,
And mark the time when no more misery.

To those who wish to know: forgetting is
That day of thinking which is all for naught.
To seek a source of unknown origin,
And raise themselves from hoary loneliness.

Let talk of talk be talk of all our minds,
Forget the mathematician's horrid lines.
That crude feeling of using reason's way;
Shun it for the conversation's sake.

To make a date, and show your friends your mind,
To pique the interest of your company.
And give ideas encouraging your rhymes,
Which show the acts of great humanity.

But moderation in all things is key,
Do not let talk dethrone reason of thee.
For if you do, hard fate will make you kneel,
Within reason, however, you may heal.

Does one not see the joys of talking free;
And does it not forestall all agony?
I speak to you convincing all our minds,
That talk, of all great things, is most sublime.

• Written 8/21/2024, taken from my book: A Journey Through the Library of Parnassus. It is an argument in poetic form on the pros and cons of writing in noisy environments.

---

Through The Terminal
We made our way through the ceaseless mass—
Tired, zombie-like, each face would pass.
Great annoyance filled me, and anger followed;
Calm sanity was yet to be swallowed.

TSA approaches, the luggage strains me,
“Remove all and strip,” they demand, plainly.
Through scanners and pat-downs, they think they’re good;
My shoes come through, I put them on as I should.

Next, my backpack, all my clothes inside;
I wander over to my mother’s side,
Along with my sister, who’s waiting there,
But where’s my dad? Lost somewhere in air—

Still caught in the scan, his turn to endure,
This so-called security, harsh and impure.
I gather my things, relieved to be free,
And head to the terminal, finally.

Packed tight on the train, squished like old gum,
We’re split in two, each waiting to come
Back together, as we wait, annoyed,
Trying to follow, but mostly decoyed.

At last, we reunite at the next spot,
Realizing that we got off a bit early—forgot.
A call from my mom, we’re three stops behind;
Back on we go, with ease this time.

We find each other and go to eat,
McDonald’s they choose, I try a retreat—
Horrible art and grimy stalls,
We wander more, till the gate calls.

Finally waiting to board the plane,
How long it took—it was almost insane.
Once aboard, we don’t take flight;
Maintenance delays us, it’s endless night.

An hour later, we lift and soar,
Two hours pass, then we touch shore—
At last, in New York, under grey skies,
We reach my grandmother’s, where comfort lies.

Small and plain, but enough for her,
With New York pizza—life’s best flavor.
I savor each bite, and wish it would last,
As the day slips by, memories amassed.

With all of this, I make myself ready—
For all the talk, the moments steady,
Prepared to party, like no tomorrow—
Fun awaits, no time for sorrow.

• Written 9/4/2024 Upon my safe return home.

---

These are thoughts for an idle mind.
These are thoughts for the weary eye.
Sleepless rest, I seem to fade —
Nothing beyond that point of shame.

Awoke with a headache, a troublesome thing.
Images hurt the eye.
I prefer my ears to hear the singing.
And at once I seem to die.

But I rise from my temporary coffin,
In hopes that I may find myself throughout the day.
My limbs are racked with pain, like my mental state;
And I walk slowly, all too slowly, to the restroom.

I dare not turn on the light, lest my eyes burn from fright.
As I gaze at myself, I think: I am the most miserable of things.
But then I recall the lower forms of life, and my joy is restored.
Often does man become assured when contemplating the worst of all.

I view my toothbrush with suspicion; has it no weariness from all its labors?
I lament for it for a bit, and then I brush anyway.
I brush twice a day—my teeth are white—but my soul is black, ceaseless in despair.
There is no escaping the terror of the world, nor is there an everlasting abode!

To think so is to wish upon a star: your ignorance is stronger than your reason.
You are seeking answers, you told me, but what have you found but nonsense?
No, sir, you find nothing but the same old cycles repeating evermore.
The hearts of mankind endure rather more than you would wish to believe.

History tells us where we have been. Modernity tells us where we are. And science tells us where we are going.
You cannot find answers where you are seeking them.
No more are you close to the truth with these façades of confidence. These mirror talks.
Find who you are first, before seeking what the answer to life's problems are.

Only when man has become depressed does he truly understand joy.
Nay, joy is nothing—understand contentment.
The advancement of learning has yielded but phantasms.
Man seeks answers in their philosophy, but is no closer than the clergyman.

Life is fraud when viewed in the wrong context.
Know thyself, and keep dignity!!!

• Written 9/16/2024

---

Woeful dread to those who sleep,
Actions missed and days' upkeep.
Always wishing for something more,
But lost you are in land's allure.
Who’s to say you speak impure,
For none have seen you in your lure?
Capture hearts and minds, senseless,
They leave themselves all defenseless.
In the swing of ever-bustling May,
Her flowers bloom, and men will say:
"What a time to be alive,
To see the delight in your eyes."
When the busy bee makes her gentle approach
And softly lands on the bud, all couth,
And begins her delight as sweet nectar fills,
Leaving her in ecstasy fulfilled.
And budding on that tall, proud flower,
Whose stem erect feels all power,
Evermore does he get his fill,
With a cleaned bud, seed all pilfered,
Which shall go on and give birth anew
In twilight hours, when the wind blew.
Whose new seed shall find its home,
When dead buds have been plucked, bemoaned.
Yet not too hard, for the cycle repeats,
When all hope and dreams, effete,
Find their place in the world of hope,
Whose telltale hearts shall soon elope.
Birth whose duties fulfill the bees,
Providing pollen for weary seeds,
Whose nectar shall become honey sweet,
With rows of combs swelling with heat.
As the sun shines down upon the queen of all,
The one who gives life and makes grand her hall.
And she shall reign supreme, adorned
In hearts of countries, now forlorn,
Pleading for a safe return
To the land that sees the fern,
Where no bee can safely rest
In the place you deemed the best.
So move they do to faraway fields,
With new flowers, the best of yields,
And power sought, which makes the choice
To rest unused, like moist soil's voice.
But better are you to the task at hand
And decide to call home this new, great land.
Home to our drunk, doddering fool,
Who then decides to take a stroll
Along his great paths of dole,
Where the air is fresh, and nearby, a happy mule
Watches closely the great buffoon
As he walks near the darling bud, half-strewn,
Where the bees rest and dearly protect,
And so sting this foolish pest!

• Written 9/20/2024

---

How often that poetic muse sings of sleep,
Where verse comes from the greatest of thoughts,
And whose ideas find themselves very deep.
But cursed be the day when my thoughts are fraught
With the care of ever worse spirits,
When one finds himself in a world of woe,
And there is no one who wishes to hear it—
Nothing in their mind but thoughts of foe.

There we find Father Time lamenting dear,
As rocks to sand in the ever-flowing stream.
No one lives eternal, despite their fear;
The reaper catches all in his grim dream.
But death is not such a grave thing—
We fade to black, and our dust begins to sing.
Happy joy is to be found in nonexistence,
Where there is no care for our subsistence.

From whence we came, there we shall go.
Wretched are those who say with great noise, "No,"
Clinging to their mortal coil.
But we find such a state peaks in vanity.
When one reflects on life, what is great?
Temporary joy, fleeting pleasure,
Crushed hopes, and ever-losing desire.
I say move on, embrace death, be happy!

Leave this barbarous place, for your own sake.
If you desire not to go,
Get your fill of the earth while you still breathe.
Make way for all options, choose the wisest.
Find yourself—who you are, and who you'll be.
Leave a mark for all to see before you cease.
Back to nothingness we shall headlong go,
And songs will be sung when one has done so!

• Written 9/25/2024

---

Election Day
The dunces have today come out to play
And in the shade of time we leave today
All our reason and our mind to fade,
And none shall have it back but those who weighed—
Weighed they did the causes of their plight,
And found themselves in hopes of better night.
Thus did they go and show support for thee,
And so they have elected him with glee.

But who is he that finds himself supreme?
The man a fool who knows not what he seems.
With that forth said, we now begin our climb,
And fight we must this hill, mount Asinine.
Four more years atop this lowly place,
And so it shall collapse in greatest haste.
But we don't care so long as we have pride,
And those who disagree can simply die.

Now why, O why, must we begin to fight?
And now the whole wide world looks on in spite.
The disagreements we have surely wed,
And now till death depart our horrid bed.
The cycle round it goes, is now complete,
Until there is one victor and defeat.

Such are our times, our strange and weary lands,
When patriots had wet their dry long-swords.
Confused the masses are—these superfans—
And thus they have brought in their dark overlords.

• Written 11/6/2024

---

Hearts ripen faster than sour grapes,
And only long after do we see what such affections bring.
Long time passes, and nothing seems to sing;
Then life comes in its fullest shade—all dissuade.
To those mournful eyes, I try my best to hide away,
Only to find you still there, ever-present—not defiant, but humble,
Ready, willing, and able to please me so,
Eager, so much so, you bring blankets and drink.
And thus do we sink, forever long, in our wholesomeest think;
Upon which, we embrace, and hold each other dear.
Who’d have thought life could be so sweet?
All it took was to have you near.
O, precious joy, the sky looks down on you and thinks:
None but yourself are the envy of the stars.
Higher upon the firmament they are,
Sultry gazes and mist-filled dazes they seem to evoke;
Yet, lubricious powers they fail, you revoke.
Turned aside, they now are in constellation sign,
Yet, my dear, I must opine—
You far exceed the houris—divine.
So let us recline, and embrace each other again!

• Written 11/8/2024

---

And alas, I come to the end of my labors—
These are the things I thought I’d not savor.
Yet I have endured them so, staying up quite late,
So much so one would think I’d begin to hate.

But no such trouble touches my mind; I am calm,
I gaze around me—amazed—and stare at my palm.
It appears lucky, having forged so durable a man,
And I am not yet done; this is not the end of my span.

I shall labor on, for the sake of humanity,
For in these exertions I find my sanity.
And blessed I am, having those around me
Who put up with my antics—clear to see.

I thank my good friends and pals,
They are the ones I want around.
They give me vigor, keep me full,
And performing never feels dull.

So, with my proof shown, I leave for later,
A later time, late date—but not too late,
Lest the ignominious hater
Attempts to thwart my lovely fate!

In like manner, I say goodbye,
Goodbye, dear friend and reader.
Please don’t forget your hi’s,
And praise your future succeeder.

Goodbye, goodbye!

• Written 11/9/2024

---

On Using A New Pen
I swear, I hate this dreadful pen,
Lousy it is, like the chicken hen.
But I write on with it, like a sap,
All the same, they end up in the sack—
Left there to remain, untouched by mortal hand,
Their dried-up ink, long past, already spanned,
Those thoughts that strike like arrowheads,
In hopes that readers may be left dead.

So write you do, inspired by that sultry muse,
To find a sense of self within your views.
You know not what you’re capable of,
To reach the heights of power far above.
Forever do they seem out of reach,
But not for your genius—for so it has breached

That citadel, those temple walls,
Sprawling across the horizon’s halls,
To be gazed on by men of frightful state,
In battle—the slaughter and maiming—they debate,
If such a duty is worthy, that
They carry such burdens, heavy and flat.

With overfilled knapsacks upon their backs,
They cling to their duty, braving attacks.
Not wishing to appear like a coward,
They draw their swords, and conquer their doubts,
Only to find that this war’s not theirs,
Lied to from on high, lost in despair.

And, alas, they curse the mighty sky,
Tears rolling down as they wonder why,
And suppressed madness gives way to rage,
Unleashed, unsheathed, with no more cage—
All of heaven can’t suppress their hearts,
Their noble lands bathed in battle’s dark arts.

In unison, they storm the capital,
Where their leaders’ camps stand tall and ample.
Only to find, to their surprise—no one?
So they begin anew, their plan spun
With hopes of rebellion's redrawn fate,
Emerging a nation on a better date.

And such are the ideas you conjure up,
Making yourself supreme, lifting the cup,
To labor, to erudition, and great skill,
Though idols rest high atop that hill.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained,
And so you act, your goal maintained—

To be a poet, to be a creator
Of vast-filled worlds, unbounded in flavor,
Of manifold plots, of complex design,
With muses singing in tones divine.
And all around, power abounds—
Like wine that leaves you tipsy-bound.

At once, you know that there is more,
More greatness within life’s mundane core,
And when you write so, earn that laurel crown,
Forevermore, renowned around.
High praise you’ll now receive; praise abounds!
My friend, you’re content with that pen, newfound—

For you’ve used it well, found good within,
And now produce your greatest hymns;
So may you achieve that lasting fame,
A legacy that always claims your name.

• Written 11/10/2024

---

The Idol Kings
In an age of scholars and idol kings,
Where truth lies bound in golden rings,
Bookshelves stretch with dusty tomes,
Yet wisdom feels so far from home.

Old towers rise with gilded spires,
Guarded by words that never tire,
Lines of ink on pages pressed,
A scholar’s treasure, a truth repressed.

In grand halls where marble gleams,
The rulers gather, lost in schemes.
Cloaked in robes of wealth and fame,
Their whispers play a dangerous game.

Each idol king, with heavy crown,
Looks down upon the humble town,
Where common folk in shadows hide,
And knowledge walks with humbled pride.

They sit on thrones, untouched by dust,
In power built on fragile trust,
Their words like laws carved into stone,
But hearts as hollow as a bone.

A scholar bends above his page,
In silent wars the mind will wage.
He scours tomes, each line, each mark,
To kindle wisdom from the dark.

He dreams of realms not bound by kings,
Of wider skies and simpler things.
Yet idol kings, with chains unseen,
Control the mind, direct the dream.

He wonders if the truth would break
The gilded walls, the kingdoms fake.
But courage flees where power reigns,
And truth is bound in golden chains.

With pen in hand and heart on fire,
He writes of worlds that kings inspire—
Of palaces, their hollow art,
Of scholars bowed and worlds apart.

The scholars search, the idols claim,
The common folk bear silent blame.
For in this age of kings adored,
The scholar’s voice is oft ignored.

Yet words alone can start a flame,
And topple idols wrapped in shame.
For knowledge grows in minds that dare,
And truth will find its place to wear.

In narrow rooms by candlelight,
He pens his thoughts against the night.
The pages fill, a whispered creed,
To plant a quiet rebel seed.

Where scholars’ minds and hearts collide,
The idols’ lies cannot abide.
For wisdom seeks no golden throne,
But in the heart, finds hearth and home.

The idol kings may take their prize,
But truth will rise, with honest eyes,
And all the scholars, bound in ink,
Will guide the world to pause and think.

The scholars dream of brighter days,
Where truth shines free from gilded glaze.
With courage, though their voices low,
They’ll plant the seeds and watch them grow.

The libraries echo silent cries,
As ancient knowledge slowly dies,
But in the quiet, brave and bold,
A scholar’s heart defies the old.

For kingdoms rise and idols fall,
Yet knowledge lives beyond the hall.
Through whispers soft and pages worn,
In minds of those who dare be born.

So let the idols play their part,
For scholars hold the world’s true heart.
In every line and every phrase,
They carve a path through shadowed ways.

And as the kings of idols reign,
They walk unseeing, bearing shame,
Blind to the seeds beneath their feet,
That scholars plant, their work complete.

For truth’s a power, silent still,
It blooms in dark, beyond all will.
And one day, through the gilded haze,
It will outshine the idols' blaze.

The scholars speak in voices low,
Their words like rivers, quiet, slow.
But waters wear the mountain down,
And turn the wheel without a sound.

The idols rule, but they are blind,
Their hollow hearts can never find
The strength within a simple phrase
To lift the mind and spirit raise.

The scholars seek no earthly crown,
No castle high, nor grand renown.
They know the truths that time conceals,
The quiet power knowledge wields.

And in that age of scholars, kings,
When bells of fate no longer ring,
The truth they wrote, with steady hand,
Will guide the lost, the humbled land.

In hidden rooms, by humble fires,
They'll pass along what truth requires,
And future hearts will read and learn,
And feel the ancient fires burn.

The scholar's work, the idol's fall,
Recorded there, beyond the hall.
No crown remains, no golden rings—
Just silent truths that echo and sing.

For idols fade like winter snow,
But wisdom stays, and seeds will grow.
The scholars’ voices linger still,
As timeless as the towering hill.

In that age of scholars and idol kings,
The soul finds peace, as knowledge sings,
And future ages still will tell
Of scholars’ work, that broke the spell.

So let the kings have fleeting fame—
The scholars’ work remains the same.
And in each heart that dares to seek,
Their truth will rise, though voices speak.

• Written 11/11/2024

---

The Antichrist! cried the wise old sage,
Hoping to correct his ancient ways.
With furrowed brow and cloak of dust,
He looked to the skies with weary trust.

Long had he wandered, weighed with lore,
Of battles lost and legends fore.
The books he’d studied, ages old,
Spoke truths both tarnished and pure as gold.

But there, in his chamber, under dim light,
He felt his spirit ignite with fright.
What horrors from his teachings grew?
What seeds of darkness sown anew?

He recalled his youth, when wisdom was bright,
A torch of promise, fierce and white.
He sought to kindle minds and hearts,
But feared now his role in darker arts.

With trembling hands, he turned his gaze
Back through his life’s mysterious maze.
What wisdom lost, what guidance failed?
What virtues gone, what darkness hailed?

“The Antichrist!” again he moaned,
In solemn tones, in grief alone.
Could it be that I, in hubris’ guise,
Have opened doors of dark disguise?

The stars outside shone cold and clear,
As whispers filled his mind with fear.
Each constellation spoke his name,
In cryptic tones of doubt and shame.

He scanned his books, his ancient scrolls,
The dusty tomes that told of souls—
How each might rise or fall from grace,
In life’s vast, merciless embrace.

But somewhere in those pages creased,
In knowledge prized and wisdom leased,
He’d missed the part where man must bend,
And know that means don’t always end.

Yet still, a glimmer caught his eye,
A faint, frail spark that could not die.
He saw that maybe hope remained
To mend what heedless hands had stained.

He called upon the spirits past—
The voices of his mentors vast.
In visions bright, they met his mind,
Their words both stern and strangely kind.

“Seek not to erase your days of old,
But build a bridge from lessons cold.
In shadows born, true wisdom grows,
And from these truths, redemption flows.”

He pondered there by candle’s light,
What course to set to make things right.
With steady hand and solemn heart,
He vowed to make a braver start.

The moon looked down with silvery grace,
And in its glow, he found his place.
For there is no pure path, he knew,
But one we forge through errors, too.

He strode outside to greet the night,
With steps both hesitant and light.
In fields of stars, his voice did soar:
“I’ll be the keeper, not the door.”

“The Antichrist,” the sages say,
Is not a soul who’s gone astray.
It’s found in pride, in unchecked fire,
In minds that warp their own desire.”

The hills echoed back his cry of woe,
As morning’s light began to show.
The dawn spread wide, a golden sea,
A promise of redemption’s plea.

He’d change the path for those ahead,
He’d guide by light of truths unsaid.
And as the world awoke anew,
He knew what he must learn to do.

For no man’s fault defines his soul,
It’s what he does to seek the whole.
With humble steps, he’d show the way,
Through shadowed night and brightened day.

“The Antichrist!” they may yet call,
But I will stand, though I may fall.
For wisdom’s light is harsh and bright,
Yet guides us ever toward the right.”

And thus the sage did roam once more,
Not seeking fame, nor keeping score.
With open heart and clearer mind,
His ancient sins left far behind.

In every face, he saw the need
For love to conquer hate and greed.
And in his steps, a whisper grew:
“A soul reborn is pure and true.”

The people listened, old and young,
To every tale that crossed his tongue.
He showed them how to seek and find
The truest path within the mind.

He spoke of grace in shadows deep,
Of learning found where others sleep.
And as he taught, his spirit soared—
For he was both the bridge and sword.

“The Antichrist!” may still be near,
But I have cast away my fear.
In humbleness, I stand my ground—
For in love’s light, all truth is found.”

So goes the tale of wisdom’s call,
Of ancient pride, of rise and fall.
The sage went forth with head held high,
To teach that love will never die.

And in the twilight of his years,
He banished doubts, he calmed all fears.
For what he’d lost, he now reclaimed—
A life of worth, a heart unchained.

• Written 11/12/2024

---

To learn of past ages, from great sages,
To read old books all my days is
A great use of that all-devouring time,
To converse with divines of their wisdom,

Full of pregnant ideas on ancient problems.
Some, Plato himself could not have answered.
All new thoughts stemming from old origins,
Nothing new under the sun, for we reach

The end of our search, with new ideas needed.
For what more could minds so exalted teach,
When each cycle turns, old troubles revisited,
And the answers remain like leaves on the beach,

Washed by waves, reset by new tides,
Their meaning elusive, forever implied.
In scrolls and tomes bound by time’s careful thread,
Ancient voices speak out, though their bodies are dead.

In dark corners of libraries, where dust makes its home,
These words lie waiting for travelers who roam—
Through Aristotle’s logic, through Aquinas’s creed,
Through the mystic’s vision, and the stoic’s heed.

What wisdom lies buried in these ancient shells?
Do they harbor mere memories or magical spells?
For the truths we pursue, the questions we keep,
Are thoughts resurrected from history’s sleep.

For even now, the scholar bends low,
In pursuit of secrets the ancients know,
Searching for solace in their familiar themes,
Hoping for insight that ignites new dreams.

The poet of Greece, who weeps for Troy,
The moralist Roman, grave and coy,
The mystic who writes of celestial spheres—
They call us forward across the years.

Through crumbling pages and faded ink,
They whisper of wonders they once did think,
Ideas conceived in simpler days,
Guided by stars through life’s winding maze.

The modern mind stands in awe and dismay,
At answers once certain, now lost in the fray.
We long for that wisdom, once precious and bright,
A candle still flickering through centuries of night.

Here’s Aristotle with his measured tone,
And Confucius teaching from his honored throne,
With Laozi whispering, serene and still,
Of the quiet path that bends to the will.

Is this not enough? Or do we crave more?
More than mere echoes on history’s shore?
For as we read, new thoughts start to grow,
Germinating within, as old ideas sow.

“To learn of past ages,” you say, wise friend,
“Is a path without limits, a road without end.”
Yet some grow weary, some hearts grow faint—
For endless learning can feel like restraint.

But we press on, moved by that timeless need,
To let intellect blossom, to nourish the seed—
For the minds we revere, in ages long gone,
Are guiding us still, in words they passed on.

Beneath vaulted roofs where candles were lit,
Where scholars sat quietly, eager to sit
In the company of greatness, to hear and to learn,
To inhale the knowledge for which they yearn.

The ink is now faded, the pages grow frail,
But minds remain sharp, as we set to unveil
The layers of meaning that time wrapped in dust—
Finding wisdom where memory must.

How strange it is, to learn from the dead,
To share thoughts with minds whose bodies have fled—
Who pondered existence and all of its shapes,
In rhythms of logic or soaring escapes.

Oh, to read these books is to step through a door,
To realms where our souls have wandered before.
Through cycles of birth, of conflict and peace,
The echoes of life and its baffling lease.

So we gather these thoughts, and layer by layer,
We find the familiar, the strange, the rare—
And carry them forward, reshaped, reformed,
Through minds once bright, now silent and warmed.

For what is the self but a book of its own?
Filled with lessons from ages overthrown,
With dreams both shattered and ideals still chased,
In a world reshaped, but still encased—

In the search for purpose, for reason and rhyme,
For answers found beyond the devouring time.
In dialogue with ghosts of greatness past,
Through words in silence that forever last.

Yes, to learn of past ages, to savor each page,
Is to bridge the divide of time and age,
To walk with sages through corridors vast,
And feel the breath of wisdom’s blast.

For in this act, we meet ourselves—
Not bound by dust, nor locked on shelves.
We reach for the stars, through centuries gray,
And find we are still asking the same, day by day.

To learn of past ages, from minds long gone,
Is to light a spark from a fading dawn.
In books where old voices still speak true,
They give us the power to see the new.

• Written 11/13/2024

---

Every time at seven the sun shines through,
Revealing the dust that clamps to my blades.
I know not how to feel about this annoyance,
A strange reminder of time’s quiet raids.

The dawn drifts in on whispers of light,
Touching my room with pale, careless grace;
Dust drifts in spirals, ghostly and slight,
Lazily claiming its unhurried place.

This dust, this veil upon all I hold dear,
Seems like a shadow, creeping and sly—
How it gathers, year after year,
Soft as a memory passing by.

Is this a warning, gentle but stern?
A call to rise and break routine’s chain?
Or just a sign that we never learn,
That dust always settles back again?

I wipe the blades, let my fingers feel
The grit of hours and days now gone,
And wonder if life, in one long reel,
Simply leaves traces of time moved on.

What am I to do with this daily chore,
This ritual of clearing the past away?
Each morning at seven, a knock on my door—
The dust insists it’s here to stay.

And yet, as I sweep, there’s comfort too,
In knowing that life, like dust, clings close.
Perhaps in this clutter, something true,
Of moments cherished and old repose.

In tiny particles lies the proof,
Of laughter and tears that lived and died,
A memory’s whisper caught in the roof,
Stirred by the breeze, but never denied.

This dust is more than residue spent—
It’s fragments of days, love’s trace, life’s scar,
All settled here, without consent,
A quiet memento of who we are.

So I don’t know how to feel, if I should care,
If I should fight it, or simply embrace—
The dust is a part of the breath we share,
A mark on the clock, a slow, gentle trace.

Every time at seven, the dust appears,
And every time, it speaks to me,
Of ancient hopes, of vanished years,
Of a world as light as it is free.

I polish the blades, brush past and pain,
Let sunlight break on metal and wood,
Yet somehow it falls in vain,
For dust will return, as dust always would.

And isn’t that life, returning anew?
A gathering of all we’ve shed,
Old thoughts we hold and break in two,
The dust of dreams long left unsaid.

So at seven, I rise with dawn’s first light,
To greet this ghostly, golden friend—
For dust, like love, needs no invite,
And like all things, finds no true end.

The dust lingers still, but I’ve learned its ways,
The slow, soft dance in the morning glow;
It’s a part of the hours, the years, the days,
The silent companion we’ll never know.

Through beams of sun, it spins in grace,
A quiet hymn to what’s endured—
A thousand flecks in endless space,
What’s left behind, what’s never cured.

So now, each morning, I let it be,
This dust, this trace, this thing I’ve made;
A part of the life that’s come to me,
Gently resting upon my blades.

At seven, the sun makes its gentle rise,
Casting all in a golden sheen—
And I watch the dust as it softly flies,
Part of a world I’ve lived, unseen.

For who am I but dust and time,
A ghost that clings to earth’s embrace?
A whispered breath, a fleeting rhyme,
A particle bound in empty space.

So every day at seven, I find
In the morning’s light a quiet grace,
As dust dances, gentle and blind,
In the endless spaces we cannot trace.

A reminder, faint, that life proceeds,
Whether polished bright or left to lie,
In love, in dust, in silent deeds,
In dreams unseen, and days gone by.

The dust remains, the light moves through,
But somehow, this feels right, not wrong—
The dust and I, both born anew,
Bound in the world’s unceasing song.

At seven each morning, the sun shines in,
And life’s soft traces rise and play—
In dust, I see where all things begin,
In dust, I find the peace to stay.

A peace that speaks of all I’ve known,
Of laughter, loss, and breaths we take—
And the quiet truth that dust alone,
Is life’s sweet ache, and life’s sweet wake.

• Written 11/14/2024

---

With this sadness, the day seems to slow;
But at least I know what is my dole.
I have the feeling of getting more done,
Yet never seems enough to finish the run.

There is much to do, and slow time will not do.
Everywhere one looks but never seems to find
That long grapevine which stems from the sublime,
A misfortune both are; it is a great rue.

The hours drag on, clouds heavy and low,
And the heart beats slow, like a drum turned cold.
Tasks pile higher, mountains yet to climb,
While each step feels futile, lost to time.

The clock ticks away in a hollow tone,
Marking moments I’ve yet to own.
The world outside seems hushed, as though
It, too, feels the weight of hours that grow.

With each ticking hand, the moments escape,
Like sand through fingers that try to hold shape.
Yet the list grows long, and duty calls loud,
A burden that sits like an ominous shroud.

These fleeting hours, like leaves on the breeze,
Fall one by one with effortless ease.
They whisper a tale of all undone,
A challenge posed by the rising sun.

A strange loneliness fills this hall,
With silent tasks and shadows that fall.
Though I toil and push through the silent night,
The dawn seems far and the goal out of sight.

There are answers out there, hidden and bold,
But buried, it seems, in memories old.
Each step forward reveals a backward pull,
As if destiny’s thread is painfully dull.

A weighty sorrow hangs on each goal,
But I remind myself, this is my dole.
To struggle through with a weary soul,
Seeking wholeness in a fractured whole.

And yet, in stillness, a whisper speaks,
Of lessons buried in valleys and peaks.
Of silent beauty in every tear,
A strength uncovered through facing fear.

The fog thickens, but I push on still,
Drawn by some deep, mysterious will.
Though the end remains just out of reach,
I tread the path, and the shadows breach.

For in this toil there’s something pure,
A cleansing balm that helps endure.
Through sleepless nights and endless days,
The spirit hardens in subtle ways.

To find in sorrow a spark of grace,
And in endless tasks, a quiet place.
For there’s wisdom earned through paths unclear,
A simple truth held close, held dear.

That time itself can be both friend and foe,
And through every struggle, we come to know
The shape of strength in the face of strife,
And the depth of our own unfinished life.

So I carry on with weary might,
And work becomes its own strange light.
The goal may slip, but resolve stays true,
In every task, the spirit renews.

For each dark hour has lessons bestowed,
As we bear the weight of our humble load.
In this sorrow, I find my stride,
And with each step, feel strength inside.

Though endless lists may never cease,
There’s honor found in seeking peace.
To press on with grace, though tired and torn,
To rise anew with each day reborn.

A quiet resolve begins to grow,
In patience learned from time’s own flow.
The endless toil, the weary chase,
In each task, a whispered trace—

Of courage honed in hardship’s fire,
Of the soul drawn forward by unseen desire.
For while the work remains undone,
The soul finds peace in the rising sun.

So I greet each day with solemn cheer,
Knowing that the end draws near.
Yet in the work I find release,
A kind of restless, settled peace.

Though much remains as the hours fade,
In the striving is something made—
A joy to face what I must bear,
A quiet strength that’s always there.

And so with sadness, I still go on,
For though day slows, the night will dawn.
In each task a purpose is sown,
To build a life, though never known.

With each labor, I am renewed,
In struggle’s midst, with gratitude.
In striving, I find life’s truest core,
And press on, though weary, to seek once more.

So let the path wind long and steep,
And challenge me when strength runs deep.
For through each sorrow and endless chore,
I find myself—and something more.

Thus in the silence of labored breath,
I draw from sorrow life’s true depth.
And while the hours may never be enough,
I’ll bear my work, though times grow rough.

For in this dole, my purpose lies,
In endless toil, a soul refined.
With every step, though far from done,
I know my strength, till the setting sun.

• Written 11/15/2024

---

This leaky pipe is but wet vanity.
Great stress it causes and puts the bills on hold.
But it's enough that I keep sanity;
And that my future is my own to mold!

For life’s annoyances come as they may,
With rusted threads and dripping floors at night,
But I face the leaks, though cold and grey,
And patch with courage what water might blight.

Each drip a mockery, a steady taunt,
Of all my dreams, my aims, my hidden fear,
Yet I refuse to let its dampness daunt
The fires within that keep my purpose clear.

I have grown too wise to let small floods sway
This strong resolve that courses through my bones;
A worn-down pipe may plague me day by day,
But I have greater dreams in undertones.

I’ve learned to laugh at drips that break the peace,
To see each crack as proof of all I build;
For when I mend, my inner strength’s release
Drowns out the leak, my will with courage filled.

Though weary fingers twist the wrench in vain,
And water seeps despite each patch I make,
I learn from this relentless, mild pain—
Resolve is built each time these trials break.

Drip by drip, the drops fall, met with scorn,
My hands are tired, my patience almost spent,
Yet there, in water’s spite, my hopes are born;
The greatest beauty lives in what's unbent.

This pipe, though humble, tests my iron pride,
For while it mocks, it still sharpens my will;
To mend the leak, I find what lives inside—
A wellspring full of strength that will not still.

The past may rush like water through old drains,
And sometimes soak the dreams I hold so dear;
But I press on, beyond the past’s remains,
And forge a path where skies grow bright and clear.

Let others drown in water, waste, and fear;
I’ll swim above what tides would seek to drown,
For every leak that springs up year by year
Is nothing but a crack in Fortune’s frown.

There’s beauty in the small things that decay,
For they remind us that our time is brief;
And as the pipe leaks onward, day by day,
I find new courage beneath every grief.

The water, though it drips and pools with spite,
Cannot erode the strength of mind I hold;
It wears, it floods, but can’t subdue the light—
My dreams, my path, my fortune yet untold.

For every small repair, each silent hour,
I learn to live with patience, skill, and grace;
The leaky pipe—my teacher and my tower—
Builds in my heart a quiet, lasting place.

Through winter's freeze and autumn’s rainy cries,
I patch, I mend, I learn to take my time;
The pipe may leak, but in its trickle lies
A rhythm steady, soft, and near sublime.

I face each morning with a tender gaze,
Though drops may greet me from the ceiling bare;
I learn to turn my grief to grateful praise—
To mend with love, to breathe and to repair.

For though my fingers ache, my spirit grows,
Each effort brings new wisdom to my days;
The leaky pipe has taught me all it knows—
Through steady drip, my soul finds truer ways.

Each patch a testament to all I’ve borne,
The quiet labors that the world won’t see;
Yet through each leak, each flood, I am reborn,
In drops of fate that gently strengthen me.

Though I may tire, though patience meets its test,
The leaky pipe cannot defeat my heart;
For in my quiet labors, I find rest,
And even in the leaks, I find my art.

And when at last the pipe’s repair is done,
When all is dry, and peace returns once more,
I’ll face new trials, knowing I have won
A truer strength than I had known before.

This leaky pipe is but wet vanity,
Yet here, in humble work, my hopes unfold;
For while the world might see calamity,
I see a future, bright and self-controlled.

Each drip a step, each crack a lesson true,
With hands grown strong and spirit firm, I rise;
The leaky pipe has taught me all I knew—
And through it, I have found a new sunrise.

• Written 11/16/2024

---

I awake to the sound of sweet song birds,
The roosters crow while the sun is rising.
To think of the life, the hoards all heard,
The sky turns blue, and all plants are thriving.

The morning dew on fields does rest,
Each blade adorned in drops so fine.
A world reborn, its colors dressed,
In golden hues from sun’s bright line.

The mist withdraws, the earth awakes,
The trees stretch out as shadows fade.
With gentle breeze, the river breaks,
A sparkling path the night has made.

Above, a hawk begins to soar,
Its wings outstretched, serene and wide.
With nature’s rhythm, rich and pure,
It scans the land, its quiet pride.

From under leaves, a rabbit peers,
Soft fur aglow in morning's light.
It pricks its ears as daylight nears,
Alert to sounds of nature's flight.

The breeze stirs up a thousand scents—
Of pine and moss, of dampened earth.
In fragrant waves, the air presents
A gift to greet the morning's birth.

The mountains watch from heights afar,
Their peaks now kissed by dawn’s first blush.
Against the pale, receding stars,
They hold the sky in endless hush.

A gentle stream flows down the hill,
Reflecting all the colors bright.
Its waters hum, a tune so still,
It glistens in the warming light.

Through fields of grain, the wind does pass,
It bends each stalk with tender grace.
The meadow hums like polished glass,
Each blade in motion, keeping pace.

The farmer wakes to smell the air,
And knows the toil the day will bring.
With steady hands and patient care,
He plows the field, the earth’s own king.

The sun now climbs with steady pride,
Its warmth caressing all it sees.
No shadow left unswept aside,
It gilds the ground and tops the trees.

The sparrows dart from branch to branch,
In playful arcs, they dip and glide.
With chirps that fill the meadow’s trance,
They play where morning breezes ride.

The cattails by the lake stand tall,
Each one a wand in nature’s hand.
The lily pads drift one and all,
Their blossoms soft, serene, and grand.

Bees wake to find their flowers bright,
And hover close with wings abuzz.
They sip the nectar, pure delight,
A golden feast, their worthy cause.

In wooded realms, the foxes tread,
With nimble steps, they weave unseen.
Through secret paths they lightly tread,
Their eyes sharp, their instincts keen.

The forest holds its sacred peace,
Its secrets whispered, low and deep.
While gentle ferns with life increase,
And from the loam, green tendrils creep.

Above, the sky in vast expanse,
Now blue and wide as endless sea.
The sun begins its upward dance,
To bless this world in symmetry.

The insects stir, the ants parade,
Each one a part of life’s great scheme.
In lines they march, no plans delayed,
A purpose clear, a focused dream.

The ancient oaks their branches raise,
With leaves like banners, green and bold.
They stand as elders, wise and aged,
Their roots in depths of earth enfold.

The songbirds sing their morning hymn,
A chorus sweet, serene, and true.
Their voices lift from tree and limb,
A skyward call as fresh as dew.

The butterflies flit in and out,
Their wings like petals soft and fair.
They dance in air, no trace of doubt,
Just beauty born to linger there.

The squirrels leap from branch to branch,
Their tails a plume, their eyes alight.
With playful grins, they take their chance,
In morning’s calm, a pure delight.

The distant hills, now fully lit,
Stand clothed in green, a living cloak.
Each rise and ridge, each sunlit bit,
Reflects the glow as dawn awoke.

The meadow flowers lift their heads,
Bright daisies, poppies, clover sweet.
In colors rich, their fragrance spreads,
They sway and dance in sunlight’s heat.

The crows emerge, their caws resound,
A warning or a call to feast.
They circle ‘round, then dive to ground,
In search of food, to south and east.

With every breath, the world grows bright,
And every sound finds place in tune.
The woods, the fields, all filled with light,
And morning fully bloomed by noon.

And as the sun begins its climb,
I watch in awe, in peaceful cheer.
The pulse of life, the beat of time,
Is whispered softly in my ear.

To witness dawn in full display,
Its beauty set in hues so clear,
I stand and breathe the birth of day,
Enchanted by the world I hold dear.

• Written 11/17/2024

---

Ghosts of Home
I rode a bus with a friend by my side,
Down old familiar streets I used to abide.
Through curves and corners, past trees and light,
Into the shadows of a vanishing night.

Through the fogged glass, my childhood neared,
A place long gone, yet strangely revered.
Then there it was, in the pale morning gray—
My old house stood, in its ghostly display.

Boarded windows, blank and closed,
The door ajar, as if to impose.
A house once warm, alive, and bright,
Now wore the ruin of endless night.

Once there was laughter in those walls,
Echoes of footsteps in childhood halls.
Now silence wrapped each empty room,
As if the house had chosen its tomb.

I leaned to the window, felt my heart fall,
Yearning to hear that familiar call—
A mother's voice, a father's cheer,
The sounds of family I held dear.

What happened here? What went astray?
What ghostly hand had turned it gray?
The place where I learned to walk and speak,
Now seemed so fragile, hollow, weak.

Walls once painted in sunlight’s hue,
Were stripped to the bone, without a clue.
The swing in the yard, now rusted and bare,
Once held my joy, now left in disrepair.

I dreamed of summers on grassy hills,
And winters framed by windowsills.
The laughter of friends, the games we played—
The stories we made in sun and shade.

Yet here it stood, a memory’s end,
No warmth to give, no heart to lend.
This house, a relic, a shell of grace,
Held time’s cruel mark in every space.

Why must it fade, this sacred ground,
Where love and life and hope were found?
Who took the joy that filled this place,
And left it hollow, a ghostly face?

As the bus rolled on, my heart stayed back,
In that empty room, that heart turned black.
Where curtains once breathed with the breeze,
Now shadows clung like winter's freeze.

My friend beside me saw my gaze,
Felt the chill of those lost days.
But words fell silent in my mind,
As memories blurred and intertwined.

Could I have saved it, if I had stayed?
Held it together, delayed the decay?
Or was it doomed by time’s slow hand,
To rot alone in forgotten land?

I see the garden, overgrown,
The weeds entangled, the flowers gone.
The fence we painted bright and bold,
Now splintered, cracked, and weathered old.

How strange it is to see a dream
Of something lost in time’s cold stream.
A house, a memory, a past undone,
A final chapter, a setting sun.

Yet as I ponder this hollow shell,
A part of me feels its knell.
For in those walls, I left a part,
My childhood dreams, my tender heart.

And so I grieve for the life that’s passed,
For rooms once filled, now empty, vast.
For ghosts that linger in the dark,
In broken walls, without a spark.

I close my eyes and bid adieu,
To the house I loved, that I once knew.
To the laughter, the warmth, the endless light,
Now left to fade in the endless night.

And though it’s lost, its time now done,
It holds my heart—a setting sun.
For all I am was born in there,
In those boarded windows, in thinning air.

So let it stand, this house of mine,
A monument to fleeting time.
To memories that haunt my view,
Of the love that once, in those walls, grew.

The bus rolls on, the morning breaks,
And from the dream, my heart awakes.
Yet echoes linger, soft and low—
Of a place I loved, long, long ago.

• Written 11/18/2024

---

Tired, I bring myself upon my room.
My bed calls me; to rest my weary head.
Slumber quickly rests me like one dead—
A shocking nightmare portents my doom!

"What? What was that!" I said, afraid, alone,
As rain and wind in sinful fury moan.
Against the window, wild storms pound and claw,
Casting shadows of a beast I thought I saw.

I shiver at this phantom's cruel disguise,
And though I try, I dare not close my eyes.
The shadows seem to linger, thick and black,
As if they come to bind, and pull me back.

"What grievous acts have I committed so,
That in my sleep the darkness seems to grow?
Why do the winds howl out my very name,
Accusing me of crimes, and marking shame?"

Then, through the mist, a voice both soft and deep,
Echoes from where the sleepless shadows creep.
“Do you recall,” it whispers low, with pride,
“What sins you chose, and whom you cast aside?”

I try to answer, but my voice is stone;
Cold silence fills my mouth as though alone,
Yet with each breath the phantom grows more clear,
Taking form, and bringing deathly fear.

A figure draped in shadows, cloaked in night,
With hollow eyes that drain all hope and light,
Its bony hand extends, its fingers curled—
Like hooks to tear me from this waking world.

"What wrongs have I committed, tell me, beast!"
I cry, though terror grips me, to say the least.
The creature laughs, its voice like cracked glass,
“Recall the moments you chose to trespass.”

Then in my mind, a dreadful vision flares—
Lost friendships, broken promises, and cares
I cast aside for selfishness and pride,
The ones I wounded and left to slide.

A woman’s face appears in sorrow’s veil,
Her eyes accuse; I feel my spirit fail.
I left her in despair, so long ago—
Forgotten, while her heart was laid low.

Next comes a friend whom I deceived in jest,
Who gave me trust, yet I repaid him less.
Betrayed by words I promised were sincere,
Now he returns, his voice close and near.

And so the visions come, a dreadful stream—
Each haunting figure drawn from memory’s seam.
Their voices rise, condemning, loud and shrill,
As I lie frozen, under shadows’ will.

I close my eyes, yet still the images play,
Each face more vivid than the light of day.
"Have mercy, phantoms! Let me rest in peace!"
Yet their cries mount, their numbers only increase.

The creature’s bony hand now clutches tight,
Dragging me toward eternal, endless night.
My heart pounds wildly, beating fast and hard,
Against a fate for which I am ill-starred.

In desperation, I clutch at the air,
And plead to any who might be there,
To free me from this specter’s awful grip—
But no one comes, and hope begins to slip.

Then from the shadows comes a single ray,
A light that cuts the darkness clear away.
It shines upon the faces, cold and stark,
Revealing every wound, each tear and mark.

The sins I buried deep, long pushed aside,
Emerge before me, nowhere left to hide.
The light exposes all, my wrongs and fears,
In blinding truth that cuts like burning spears.

A voice within the light, both fierce and calm,
Speaks words of strength that act as soothing balm.
“You must confront the shadows of your past,
If peace and rest are what you seek at last.”

The phantom loosens, as I face the light,
Relinquishing its hold, drawn back from fright.
Yet in my heart, regret remains like lead,
For every wound I caused, each tear I shed.

"How do I make amends, now that I see?"
The voice responds, “Forgiveness is the key.
First forgive yourself, then seek the ones you harmed,
For in remorse, your soul shall be disarmed.”

With heavy heart, I bow my head and weep,
Embracing sorrows buried far and deep.
The ghostly faces watch me as I cry,
Then slowly fade beneath the breaking sky.

The figure, too, releases me from fear,
Its form dissolves, the darkness drawing near.
And soon, the rain and wind subside in tune,
As morning’s light begins to pierce the room.

I wake, my heart both humbled and relieved,
The lessons of the night now fully received.
Though haunted still, I find a path ahead,
To heal the wounds, to right the wrongs I bred.

Tired, I bring myself to start anew,
With purpose clear, and steady heart to view
The world, no longer shackled by the shame
That once had haunted me, a specter’s claim.

So as the dawn unfolds, I rise again—
To seek forgiveness, mend what I can,
And carry with me wisdom deep and rare,
The price of peace, and of a conscience fair.

• Written 11/19/2024

---

The Gathering
What have we here? Two fools and two learned men,
Gathered by chance, under moonlight again.
One with his books, thick with words of old,
The other in rags, shivering cold.

The first fool laughed, a glint in his eye,
Pointing to stars high up in the sky,
“Look at those candles, for burning they’re meant;
Heaven must hold a grand tournament.”

The learned man sighed, took hold of his pen,
Drafting a sketch of the skies and then—
With charts and figures, logic’s great maze—
Spoke of the planets, their winding ways.

The second fool clapped, his grin grew wide,
“For stars and flames, what else need we abide?
Why toil and study, why read and fret?
The stars don’t care what we haven’t learned yet!”

“True wisdom,” the second learned man spoke,
“Is more than mere jest, more than smoke.
It’s not in the stars nor the maps of the wise,
But found in the search, in the heart, in the eyes.”

The fools only laughed, their voices loud,
Mocking the scholars, their words like a shroud.
“What worth are your charts or your words, so grand?
Why bury the joy in knowledge so planned?”

Then one learned man, weary, old and grey,
Sighed and replied, “I know what you say.
Yet knowledge, though cold, is life’s torch so bright,
For wisdom can turn our darkest night.”

“But does it bring joy?” the first fool jeered,
“Or is all it yields caution and fear?”
The second fool grinned, with a wink and a jest,
“The wise hold the books, but we live the best.”

The two wise men pondered, and then one said,
“Life’s joy and sorrow walk close, thread by thread.
One without other may shine, then fade;
Light needs the shadow, truth needs the shade.”

The fools, unheeding, danced in the dark,
Spinning in circles, all laughter, all spark.
They laughed at the learned, so staid and prim,
Caught in their rules, their charts, their whim.

One fool called out, “Tell me, who’s the fool—
The man with his charts or the man with no rule?
The one lost in books, by shadows constrained,
Or he who finds joy wherever it’s feigned?”

The first learned man, with a faint, soft smile,
Watched the fools dance, their antics beguile.
He shrugged and said, “Perhaps you are right;
For wisdom and folly both dance in the night.”

“But in truth,” added his wiser peer,
“Between fool and sage, the line isn’t clear.
Sometimes knowledge brings sorrow, it’s true;
But so does folly, when morning breaks through.”

The second fool grinned, feeling bold and proud,
“Who needs all this wisdom, spoken so loud?
I live by the moment, my cup overflows;
The world’s finest pleasures, my heart only knows.”

“What, then, is the meaning?” asked the first sage,
“If nothing is learned, then what of age?
What of those hours and years that have passed?
Do they fade like mist or everlast?”

The fools went silent, their grins grew dim,
Lost in the shadows of questions grim.
Then the second wise man, soft and kind,
Said, “Knowledge is much, but it’s not all the mind.

For wisdom, like wine, should warm and delight,
Yet not bind the soul in perpetual night.
Let folly and wisdom together reside,
For both teach life’s meaning, side by side.”

The first fool mused, his laughter quelled,
A hint of thought in his spirit swelled.
“Perhaps,” he said, “there’s something you say;
Maybe wisdom can have its day.”

His fellow fool frowned but joined in the pause,
Each pondering life’s elusive cause.
The two wise men watched as wonder took hold,
Seeing wisdom in the fool’s mind unfold.

For in every fool, there’s spark yet unlit,
And in every sage, a shadow sits.
They all stood silent, each caught in thought,
In a quiet moment wisdom had brought.

Then one of the wise spoke softly again,
“What have we here? Two fools and two learned men.
But who is the wiser, who is the fool?
Each has a lesson, each brings a tool.”

The fools looked down, unsure and slow,
Sensing the wisdom in what they now know.
Perhaps, they thought, there’s more to see—
More in life’s riddle, more mystery.

The first learned man, with patience and grace,
Said, “Wisdom is found in a humble place.
Folly and knowledge both carve the path;
Neither alone holds life’s full math.”

The second fool laughed, not with scorn but with ease,
As if he had glimpsed some new, secret keys.
“Maybe in folly I’ve found what I seek,
Maybe wisdom’s not so bleak.”

The four of them laughed, a strange quartet,
Two fools, two scholars, with hearts all set.
They journeyed forth, together as friends,
In search of the truth, wherever it bends.

For what is a fool, and what is a sage?
Each plays their role on life’s vast stage.
And when both are joined in quest or debate,
They uncover wisdom, and folly’s fate.

What have we here? Four souls on the run,
In search of wisdom and life’s bright sun.
Two fools, two wise men, hand in hand,
United in purpose, across the land.

They learned from each other, folly and wit,
Each one finding truth where the other had lit.
And so they traveled, from night until dawn,
Together in wonder, together as one.

For in every fool and each wise soul’s quest,
There lies a truth they’ll always test.
What have we here? Just travelers four—
Seeking the answers on life’s distant shore.

• Written 11/20/2024

---

If within the warming world,
Showered fall and soften tide,
From the panes tomorrow fish,
Lips be the weary curbside sun,
Some? Time? Forgotten rhyme?

In twilight’s edge the oceans rise,
Swelling clouds drift low, grey skies;
Leaves fall faint as whispers sound,
Across the night, the earth unwound.

If from panes tomorrow fish,
Caught by glass in flickering wish,
Waters rise where streets have been,
While echoes stir from waves unseen.

What is there when silence grows,
When rivers drown in fiery flows?
Hands stretch far through shadowed halls,
As soft as sand the memory falls.

Lips be the weary curbside sun,
Pressed to streets, their warmth undone.
Fingers reach for light withdrawn,
Through ashen mist, from dusk to dawn.

Some say time has learned to hide,
Turning on its careful stride,
In spirals deep, in loops that sway,
Between the night and passing day.

When all the stars dissolve from view,
What of morning, soft and true?
What of the rain that hums so sweet,
As sun and sky and city meet?

If streets could speak, or stones reply,
Or rivers trace the open sky,
Their tale might tell of all that fades—
The bustling world in soft cascades.

If walls could breathe, or windows weep,
They'd murmur secrets rivers keep;
Of journeys far, from shore to shore,
The vanished names we’ll know no more.

Some? Time? In flickered glow,
By moonlight’s edge, we come to know
The voice of tides, the pull of earth,
To heed the weight of timeless worth.

Oh, those panes, where waters stand,
Frozen ghosts from some lost land,
A mirror to the world’s design,
Held captive in a single line.

And on that curbside, weary light,
A hint of morning turned to night—
The sidewalk's breath, a fleeting sign,
Of warmth, of touch, in slow decline.

If the sea could hold its plea,
In waves it folds eternally,
And murmur with a muted grace,
The touch of time it cannot chase.

For cities rise, and cities sink,
As surely as the ocean’s brink
Doth lap against the measured shore,
And show what soon will be no more.

For on this warming world we stand,
A restless and dissolving land,
Where rains fall soft, and whispers glide,
Where lips brush light as oceans rise.

Tomorrow’s fish will flicker near
In panes of glass, so strangely clear—
A dream within a broken day,
The city’s song now washed away.

What of the buildings that sink below,
And turn to dust where green vines grow?
What of the walls that we once held,
The songs we sang, the stories spelled?

Some ask if time has yet to be,
In eddies, currents, drifting free—
A silent pulse beneath our feet,
That holds the echo, keeps the beat.

Or is it gone, a breath, a sigh,
Lost as clouds press close, and sky
Fades deep to dusk, in muted tune,
A world forgotten under moon?

Yet in that warming world I stand,
With memories soft as slipping sand,
To watch the weary curbside sun,
Lips pressed still till day is done.

If there be a mark of time,
It’s there in waves, and heart’s last rhyme,
An endless arc, a circling sound,
Where shore and sea and sky are bound.

For from these panes, tomorrow's tale,
A world awash, adrift, so frail—
Our voices held in waters high,
A ghostly song, a lullaby.

Oh, warming world, your breath draws near,
To cradle time in whispered fear,
And gently wash the cities clean,
Till naught remains of what has been.

Would some be gone, or some remain,
While silent streams erase the stain
Of years, of lives, of loves, of lore—
In silken waves, forevermore?

If, within the warming world,
Some voice, some spark, remains unfurled,
Let lips of light and curbside sleep,
Keep close the whispers oceans keep.

So with the dawn, the tide will rise,
And bring the morning’s sweet surprise,
In shimmered panes, a world undone,
As weary lips meet weary sun.

Let waters fall, and time dissolve,
As all our mortal dreams evolve;
From ocean’s mouth to earth’s soft crust,
Our memories sink, our cities rust.

For in the warmth that time will bring,
Comes the faintest, timeless ring—
Of what we loved, and lost, and knew,
Softly washed in morning dew.

And in that weary curbside light,
Where lips meet stone and rise from night,
We leave our mark, in fading hue,
Of all we were, and all we knew.

• Written 11/21/2024

---

Free I am, to pursue this course of mine;
Free I am, to seek that source divine!
No worries or cares belabor my labor,
And in course of time I come through with favor.

The road ahead, both bright and wide,
Is shaped by my will, where dreams reside.
With every step, I rise and climb,
Untethered, unbound, by space or time.

The world spins on with ceaseless sound,
Yet in my heart, peace is found.
No shackles bind my wandering mind,
To the call of truth, I am aligned.

In days of trial, I feel no fear,
For in the storm, the path is clear.
Through toil and tears, my purpose grows,
Wherever it leads, that’s where I go.

Free I am, to reach for the sky,
To question the earth and to ask the why.
I seek the stars, the boundless sea,
In search of answers, vast and free.

No chains upon my spirit fall,
I answer the universe's call.
Each moment, fresh as morning dew,
A chance to seek, to think, to renew.

I build my future with hands of grace,
A journey marked by every place.
Not bound by rules, not shaped by fate,
I chart my course, and thus create.

Free I am, to chase my dreams,
To search for truths in all things it seems.
No boundary set by man or law,
I stand undaunted, I stand in awe.

My heart, a vessel of quiet might,
Guides me through the darkest night.
In solitude, my thoughts take flight,
And from my soul, new worlds ignite.

Though some may falter, bound by doubt,
My spirit soars, it flies about.
Through valleys deep, o’er peaks so high,
I climb the mountain, touch the sky.

Free I am, to live, to grow,
To follow where the rivers flow.
To wander paths both old and new,
Where truth is found in every view.

In every turn, I find my place,
A step, a leap, a steady pace.
The world's vastness, it calls my name,
And I, unchained, embrace the flame.

Free I am, to face each day,
With courage, joy, and no dismay.
To walk my path, however long,
And in my heart, I carry song.

For in this life, no man is free,
Who does not trust in what he sees.
But I, free as the wind’s own flight,
Will walk my journey through the night.

Free I am, to live this way,
To follow dreams, to go astray.
Each step I take, in search of truth,
With eyes wide open, and heart of youth.

• Written 11/22/2024

---

I know not what will become of my rhymes,
Will they echo through the valleys of time?
Will they lie dormant in forgotten books,
Or find their way through unnoticed nooks?

The ink I spill, a humble stream,
Flowing like a distant dream.
What end awaits this simple verse?
A blessing, curse, or quiet purse?

Perhaps my words will fade away,
Like morning fog at break of day.
Or maybe, in some distant land,
They’ll find their way to heart or hand.

I know not where my words will fly,
Will they soar or fall from the sky?
Yet in their flight, I do believe,
They’ll find a place where hearts receive.

For each line crafted in the dark,
Is like a flicker, a tiny spark.
It could ignite the dormant soul,
And make the broken pieces whole.

My rhymes may wander, lost, unseen,
A fleeting moment, a whispered dream.
But still, I write them with the hope,
That they might help some souls to cope.

Perhaps they'll sit on dusty shelves,
Or travel far to someone else.
Will they be laughed at, or revered,
Touched by those who once have feared?

The fate of rhymes is out of sight,
But still, I write with all my might.
For in this craft, I seek no fame,
But simply to share the truth I claim.

I know not what will come to pass,
But still, I write—my words will last.
Whether they bloom or fade away,
They’ll live in hearts, come what may.

And should my rhymes be lost to time,
Still, in this world, I will have climbed.
For every word I’ve dared to speak,
Has made me braver, strong, not weak.

Will they inspire or fall to dust?
I leave that answer to their trust.
For every poet, dreamer, bard,
Knows that the journey is the hard.

In shadows cast or sunlight gleamed,
I write my rhymes, unbowed, unredeemed.
They may not change the course of kings,
But in their way, they spread their wings.

I know not where they’ll go or why,
But I will send them to the sky.
If they are heard, then I am blessed,
If not, I’ll write with heart still pressed.

For rhymes are whispers in the night,
Echoes that seek their guiding light.
And whether soft or bold they sound,
They live, they breathe, and they are found.

I know not what will become of my rhymes,
But in their making, I find the times.
The art of words, the soul's release,
Brings inner strength, and brings me peace.

• Written 11/23/2024

---

Life is more than this cruel rat-race it seems!
A chase through shadows, pursuing fleeting dreams.
Each step a measure of toil and strife,
In a world that trades the soul for life.

We sprint in circles, caught in the flow,
Racing to places where we can't even know
What joy awaits beyond the curve,
When all we do is serve and serve.

The finish line moves just out of sight,
A mirage that beckons in the dead of night.
We strive, we strain, but all we gain
Is weariness, confusion, and endless pain.

Yet there’s a whisper, soft and true,
That speaks of paths beyond the view,
Of a life not bound by the chase or race,
But found in moments of love and grace.

There’s more to life than what we see,
Beyond the grind, beyond the plea.
A song of peace, a laugh, a smile,
To pause and breathe and rest a while.

We’re more than labor, more than gold,
More than a story that must be told.
We are the wind, the earth, the sky,
The stars that twinkle, the birds that fly.

But how do we break from this cycle of fear,
When every moment feels insincere?
How do we trust in what lies ahead,
When our hearts are weary and filled with dread?

We must learn to listen, deep inside,
To the voice that whispers, to the tide.
It calls us softly, calls us near,
To the life that’s full of joy and cheer.

It’s in the moments we stop and feel,
In the touch of hands, the joy that’s real.
Not in the chase, not in the race,
But in the stillness of time, in a quiet space.

Life is more than just this grind,
More than the pressures that bind the mind.
It’s in the fleeting joy, the soft embrace,
The quiet moments we tend to erase.

We forget that life is fleeting, true,
But in our hearts, we know what to do.
We must step back, take a breath, and see,
That life is more than just misery.

The rat-race will never satisfy the soul,
It is love and peace that make us whole.
So let us pause, let us reflect,
And live in ways that we’ll not regret.

The world may call us to keep the pace,
But we can find joy at a gentler space.
For life is not a contest to win,
But a journey to begin and begin again.

So let us cherish the quiet days,
The simple joys in myriad ways.
For life is more, more than this race,
A treasure to find in every embrace.

Let’s stop and listen to the world around,
The birds, the trees, the love profound.
The race may call, but we shall wait,
For life is too precious to chase with hate.

Let us choose the path of grace and peace,
And in doing so, let the rat-race cease.

• Written 11/24/2024

---

My belly is empty but satisfied,
A strange and peaceful truth inside.
Derive what is that comfort from hunger,
When all that’s left is what we ponder.

The gnawing ache, the hollow void,
Brings forth a calm that can’t be destroyed.
In the absence of a meal, we find
A quiet contentment in our mind.

For hunger teaches a simple grace,
To see beyond this fleeting race.
When filled with want, we come to know
The wealth of patience and the ebbing flow.

It’s in this silence, deep and pure,
Where the soul learns to endure.
Not through abundance, but restraint,
A balance achieved without complaint.

Empty hands that once did crave,
Now find solace in the wave
Of hunger's absence, quiet as night,
And the mind, unburdened, finds its light.

We are taught to seek and take,
Yet sometimes to want is to forsake
The need for more, the want for less,
And to embrace our inner emptiness.

In fasting, in quiet, we become whole,
Deriving strength from an empty bowl.
Not from the feasts, nor from the meal,
But from the peace that hunger can heal.

The body is empty, yet the spirit’s full,
From absence comes presence, the heart grows full.
A lesson found in every pang,
In hunger's silence, the soul does hang.

How strange it is, this paradox,
That hunger frees us from the locks
Of daily wants, of cravings blind,
And brings us closer to our mind.

To feel the void, yet not despair,
Is to see the world from a clearer air.
For in every absence, there is space
For reflection, growth, and inner grace.

So let the hunger teach the heart,
That in its absence, we find the start
Of something deeper, something grand—
The quiet strength of the human hand.

In empty bellies, full hearts lie,
In hunger’s grasp, we learn to fly.
We soar above the need for food,
And find our lives are rich with mood.

For there is comfort in the bare,
In knowing less can still repair
The soul, the mind, the heart’s own thirst,
In hunger, the world is at its worst.

Yet in this worst, we find our best,
And in our hunger, we are blessed.
For the mind, uncluttered, sees with ease,
The beauty found in moments free.

So let the belly be hollow and light,
In this space, we take our flight.
For in absence, we’re made whole,
In hunger’s grasp, we find our soul.

• Written 11/25/2024

---

Like the end of a round that begins anew,
The circle returns, though the path is through.
As seasons drift, as tides are drawn,
The dance repeats from dusk to dawn.

Each chapter closed, yet opens wide,
The turning wheel we cannot bide.
Though hours fade and daylight dies,
The sun revives in morning skies.

A fading breath, a paused refrain,
Reborn again like gentle rain.
In cycles bound, our lives renew,
Like the end of a round that begins anew.

With each descent, ascent will rise,
As darkness yields to brighter skies.
For every dream that’s set aside,
Another grows where hopes reside.

In echoes soft, in shadows deep,
Through silent hours while others sleep,
Life stirs in roots beneath the snow,
And whispers secrets yet to grow.

For time’s no line, but circles round,
A spiral path on sacred ground;
An arc of stars, a turning sphere,
Our days return, and draw us near.

We walk through doors we’ve walked before,
Find treasures lost, and lose them more.
The moon will wane, the moon will swell,
Its tale no ending dares to tell.

With every fall, a lifting breeze,
With every wound, a hope to ease.
Our sorrows pass, our joys refine,
The threads of fate in strange design.

In the hands of time we place our trust,
To turn again, to rise from dust.
In earth and ash, in root and stone,
Life’s pulse endures, though seeds are sown.

As summer burns and winter chills,
The cycle bends to nature’s will.
Though we may mourn what’s come and gone,
Each dusk begets another dawn.

Like the end of a round that begins anew,
Life’s rhythm beats both old and true.
Through loss and gain, the ebb and flow,
We find a path we thought we’d know.

And thus we turn, a wheel in spin,
On journeys long, without, within.
The roads we’ve walked, the paths we’ve crossed,
All seem so new though once were lost.

The sapling grows, the leaves will fall,
The forest waits to heed the call.
In rings of trees and ocean’s pull,
The story loops, forever full.

And should you think the tale has closed,
Look close, for life has only posed
A brief illusion, paused and still,
Before the world resumes its will.

Like tides that surge and soon retreat,
Our hearts, like waves, in pulses beat.
With every crest, a trough awaits,
With every turn, our breath abates.

Yet there lies beauty in the round,
In moving on, in coming down,
In knowing that each end’s a part
Of something vast, a living heart.

Like the end of a round that begins anew,
We learn, we break, we build, we true.
Each cycle binds, each circle frees,
In rhythms deep, like roots of trees.

For we are bound by nature’s hand,
As grains of time upon the sand.
Though storms may break and winds may tear,
We rise to skies and meet the air.

And in this round, this ceaseless ring,
What joy and sorrow seasons bring.
In buds that bloom, in leaves that fade,
We find the path that time has laid.

In cycles vast, the stars incline,
To mark the shape of life’s design.
With every fall, a rise appears,
With every joy, a trace of tears.

The wheel spins on, it cannot pause,
A turning tale without a cause.
We journey back, we push ahead,
In circles full, by life we’re led.

Like the end of a round that begins anew,
A timeless truth, a circle’s view.
What’s lost returns, what’s new grows old,
In endless tales that time has told.

And if we tire, or seek an end,
The circle bends, our souls to mend.
For every close brings forth a start,
The ceaseless dance, the beating heart.

The seasons blend, the hours flow,
As tides arise and fall below.
The stars revolve, the moon ascends,
Each round’s anew, yet never ends.

So with each dawn and twilight’s hue,
We step within the old made new.
A journey’s close, a dream begun,
And so it moves, till all is one.

In spirals grand and cycles small,
Life gathers us, and guides us all.
For through each end, a birth we see,
And by its grace, at last we’re free.

And thus we spin, as time permits,
Through endless rounds, and endless fits.
Like the end of a round that begins anew,
The circle’s form—the tried, the true.

• Written 11/26/2024

---

One must always have a sense of inspiration about them,
A spark that stirs, a light that cannot dim.
In stillness or in strife, it fuels their days,
A quiet fire, a subtle, steady blaze.

To look upon the world with open eyes,
To see the vastness held beneath the skies.
In simplest things—the morning's silent air,
The rustling leaves, the stars' persistent glare.

A sense of wonder, woven deep and tight,
A balm against the shadows of the night.
For when the heart grows weary, cold, or sore,
This inspiration lights a hidden door.

A bridge to places yet unseen, unknown,
It whispers, "Rise, for you are not alone."
When all feels lost, it stirs a hopeful breeze,
And lifts the spirit, bending at its knees.

To live with such a sense is rare and grand,
A breath of life cupped gently in the hand.
For those who walk with dreams intact, alive,
They nurture what will help them grow and thrive.

One need not seek it on some distant shore,
For inspiration lives within the core.
In every heart, it beats, a soft refrain,
A muse that dances even through the pain.

It’s found in faces passing on the street,
In strangers’ laughter, in a child's heartbeat.
The shifting clouds, the scent of autumn rain,
The quiet strength we gather from our pain.

It lives in words we speak or dare not say,
In letters written, hidden, put away.
In memories that linger, bittersweet,
In stories old and dreams we have yet to meet.

Each morning brings a spark, a brand new chance,
An open sky, a daylight’s first expanse.
Though trials come, as surely they will do,
The heart holds fast and whispers, “This is true.”

One must have faith that beauty still remains,
That life contains both mystery and gains.
For even in the dark, beneath the stars,
The smallest spark can heal the deepest scars.

And when we stumble, doubting we can stand,
The world itself extends a guiding hand.
Through art, through song, through love's eternal grace,
We find again our sure and sacred place.

In ancient wisdom passed from age to age,
In every poet’s truth upon the page,
In every painting brushed with tender care,
In those who dare to dream, though unaware.

For even in the endless, mundane days,
Where duties seem to blur in misty haze,
A whisper says, “Look closer, you will find,
The beauty here, the treasures of the mind.”

And so we walk with wonder at our side,
Through every ebbing sea, through every tide.
For those who see the world with eyes anew,
Will find a thousand hues in every view.

One must always have a spark within,
A compass close to guide through thick and thin.
For life is winding, filled with twists and turns,
Yet inspiration ever brightly burns.

When others tire, or cease to carry on,
When hope seems just a thread, so nearly gone,
It’s then that inspiration makes its way,
Through shadows long, and carries us to day.

The artist with their brush, their pen, their song,
The hands that shape, the voices clear and strong.
For every story that the world has known,
Began with hearts that carried light alone.

One must have faith in all the good unseen,
To cherish dreams, and hold them in esteem.
For dreams are seeds that grow from hearts inspired,
To lift the world, to spark what is desired.

And so we step in wonder, bold and bright,
With hope as steady as the stars at night.
For those who carry wonder deep inside,
Will find that life itself is magnified.

For even in the trials, one finds grace,
In simple things that time cannot erase.
The beauty of the quiet and the small,
The kindness passed, unnoted, in the hall.

To walk with such a sense, a gift indeed,
A well that feeds the soul in times of need.
For we are given each a single life,
To mold and make from moments of delight.

And let it be, should shadows someday fall,
That we hold fast and cherish through it all.
For when the world grows dim and faith is thin,
It’s inspiration that will pull us in.

A hand unseen that guides us as we roam,
A whisper soft that calls our spirits home.
For in the spark that glows, though faint and slight,
There lies the hope that keeps us through the night.

To breathe in wonder, let it fill our veins,
To walk as though life’s mysteries remain.
For those who dare to see with eyes unbound,
Will find that inspiration all around.

One must always have a sense of grace,
A spark that never time nor place can chase.
For as the journey stretches, wild and wide,
It’s inspiration there that will abide.

And so with open hearts and lifted eyes,
We meet the dawn and watch the new sun rise.
For in the world, there’s always something new—
One must always have a sense of wonder, true.

• Written 11/27/2024

---

@rumi
I met this beautiful girl in my dreams,
In a world woven softly by moonlit beams.
She wore stardust like lace in her hair,
And drifted toward me with a light, quiet air.

Her eyes were vast as the night sky's span,
Holding the secrets of worlds unplanned.
I reached for her hand, though she seemed so far,
As if she were molded from cloud and star.

We walked through landscapes of glimmer and shade,
Past mountains of silver, through forests that swayed.
The air was alive with a quiet, deep peace,
Each breath I took felt like sweet release.

Around us, the sky was both dark and bright,
Lit by stars that danced in the cloak of night.
A silent music played from unseen streams,
As we wandered the valleys of my woven dreams.

She whispered of places I’d never been,
Of realms I could reach if I looked within.
Her voice was soft, like a distant song,
Guiding me gently where I belonged.

We drifted by rivers of glistening mist,
She held my gaze, our fingers entwist.
And as we moved, the world seemed to blend,
With her presence there, I feared no end.

She spoke of courage, of hearts reborn,
Of finding light where the spirit’s torn.
Of journeys embarked with the dawn’s first glow,
And secrets hidden in valleys below.

Her laughter sparkled like drops of rain,
Dancing on petals, falling again.
I felt like a child, with each word she’d say,
Guided by stars in a sky turned gray.

Through fields of dreams that felt so real,
She shared her world with gentle zeal.
A timeless place where sorrow ceased,
A land of quiet, of endless peace.

I marveled then at her gentle grace,
The mystery held in her timeless face.
She spoke of the paths that we’d yet to tread,
Of memories waiting, of lives ahead.

Each moment with her was a treasure deep,
A memory bound in the folds of sleep.
I feared that I’d wake and she would be gone,
The girl I’d met in my dreams’ dawn.

We wandered on, hand in hand,
Across dreamscapes, a shifting land.
Her presence calmed my hidden fears,
Her voice like music through unseen tears.

And when we passed a mirror’s face,
She showed me a glimpse of my own grace.
Reflected back, I saw the truth,
A heart reborn, a soul in youth.

The stars above began to fade,
As morning’s light the night betrayed.
Her form grew faint, a shadowed gleam,
And I awoke from that endless dream.

Yet as I rose, a trace remained,
Of stardust in my soul ingrained.
For though the dream had reached its close,
The memory lingered, soft as prose.

I looked to the dawn, and there I knew,
A bond had formed, gentle and true.
The girl from dreams, her spirit bright,
Guiding me onward, toward morning light.

Through waking hours, I hold her near,
Her laughter soft, her wisdom clear.
Though only a dream, she’s real to me,
A muse in the night, wild and free.

And so each night, as sleep descends,
I seek her out where the dreamscape bends.
Through clouds of thought and skies unseen,
I hope to meet my dreamland queen.

For in that realm where our souls align,
I am hers, and she is mine.
Together we’ll wander, night by night,
Hand in hand through starlit light.

In waking life, she fades away,
But in dreams, her spirit stays.
So I close my eyes, and there she’ll be,
The beautiful girl I’ll always see.

When stars emerge and the world grows dim,
I drift once more to the edge, to the rim.
And there in silence, she’ll come to me,
A vision soft, an endless sea.

I met this beautiful girl in my dreams,
A being woven of moonlight beams.
Though daylight calls me back to shore,
In dreams, I find her forevermore.

With every dusk, I’ll seek her there,
In shadows cast by midnight’s glare.
A love unspoken, vast and deep,
The girl who walks the paths of sleep.

And so it seems, in realms unseen,
We’ll meet again where the stars convene.
For love is timeless in dreams' embrace,
In that endless, ever-changing space.

• Written 11/28/2024

---

This great day still remains, hanging on thread;
Time, moving faster, has already said,
"Your end is nigh, and soon will bring the night;"
But in due time, so brings about the light.

The hours pass as whispers in the breeze,
Soft shadows stretch beneath the autumn trees.
What once was morning now begins to fade,
Yet still the world in golden light is bathed.

We chase the hours, slipping from our hands,
Like grains of sand in vast, uncharted lands.
We cling to moments, woven fine and frail,
Each one a part of some forgotten tale.

A gentle warmth still lingers in the air,
Though evening’s coolness hints it will not spare.
The sun dips lower, casting hues of red,
As day retreats and night moves in instead.

O fickle time, both friend and fearsome foe,
In you, all that we cherish fades and grows.
Each breath a step along the unknown way,
Guiding us forward toward another day.

The flowers bloom, then gently start to die,
Just as the day succumbs to darkened sky.
Yet in the cycle, there is something pure,
A promise wrapped in beauty, to endure.

With every sunset lies a quiet trust,
That dawn will rise and warm the morning dust.
The stars will come, a cold but shining band,
While night extends its soft, unfeeling hand.

And so we live in moments split by change,
In patterns shifting yet somehow the same.
This great day holds, though fragile as it seems,
A fleeting wisp within our waking dreams.

What life unfolds between the dusk and dawn—
The hopes we hold, the fears we rest upon—
They whisper truths, and weave the night’s embrace,
As starlight carves its path through boundless space.

The moon ascends, a quiet, watchful queen,
Her silver light soft-washing all unseen.
And in her glow, our shadows stretch and play,
Echoes of all that passed within the day.

Though time may hasten with its quiet tread,
And sweep away the dreams our hearts have bred,
Yet every moment has a song to sing,
And every season whispers of the spring.

We dance on threads spun fine as morning mist,
One moment held, the next by darkness kissed.
And in that space, so fragile and so brief,
We find a truth as sharp as any grief.

For life is woven, tangled, torn, and sewn,
Each thread a story we can call our own.
Though time may claim the beauty and the pain,
Its march makes way for light to come again.

The darkness gathers, steady in its pace,
Yet stars appear, bright jewels in velvet space.
They watch above as though they understand,
While shadows slowly overtake the land.

The world grows still as silence cloaks the field,
Yet somehow, in that quiet, wounds are healed.
For night is not an end but pause and rest,
Preparing all to rise and face the test.

So do not mourn the closing of the day;
Embrace the night, let dreams be swept away.
For in the dark, the seeds of morning grow,
And through the stars, our spirits find their flow.

This great day still remains, though faint it seems,
A fragile thought that dances in our dreams.
And though time pulls us toward the unknown light,
It bids us rise again to greet the night.

The morning waits, a whisper in the wings,
With hope that only new beginnings bring.
And as the dawn breaks o’er the distant hill,
We find ourselves and cherish life’s sweet thrill.

So let time press with neither fear nor flight,
For in each passing, there is yet new sight.
The world keeps turning, just as hearts must mend,
And in each dusk, a light around the bend.

Though hours fade and moments fall like rain,
Each breath reminds us life begins again.
Our days will pass, yet memories will hold,
Their threads a tapestry both brave and bold.

The sky grows dark, but look—a single star,
A guiding light no distance can mar.
It winks and whispers, "There’s more yet to see;
The dawn will come, and time will set you free."

This day remains, though close it draws to rest,
A chapter closed, yet of the whole, a test.
And in each pause, each silence filled with grace,
We leave a trace, a gentle, lasting place.

The clock ticks on, yet hearts remain awake,
With strength to face what every dawn may stake.
For in each ending, life begins anew—
And in each dusk, a promise bright and true.

So let time move, relentless as it may,
And carry forth the passing of the day.
For though it slips beyond our mortal sight,
Its endless wheel brings forth the morning light.

This great day still remains, though it will fade;
Its memory, in timeless threads arrayed.
With every second, fleeting, sharp, and sweet,
It guides us onward, steady in its beat.

• Written 11/29/2024

---

We are all new upon this ancient land,
Unfolding stories, guided hand in hand.
With every step we walk where others trod,
Yet our own path lies open, raw, unshod.

The earth beneath, though worn by countless feet,
Feels fresh again, a rhythm strange and sweet.
In fields once worked by hands now turned to dust,
We sow our seeds, then watch and wait in trust.

Each breath we take, a borrowed gift of air,
Once touched by voices old, yet clear and rare.
From whispered prayers to songs in firelight,
We echo past lives, hidden out of sight.

The rivers flow as they have always done,
Reflecting starlight, silver from the sun.
They carry secrets, myths that rise and gleam,
And hold our fleeting faces in their stream.

The forests deep, with roots as old as time,
Still stand in shadowed majesty, sublime.
New leaves may grow where ancient branches fell,
Yet their old silence we cannot dispel.

We carve our names upon the stones and trees,
Unfurling dreams like sails upon the seas.
We walk with boldness, young in flesh and bone,
Yet every road is paved by lives unknown.

The mountains rise, untouched by age or pain,
Their faces marked by wind and steady rain.
In them we sense a power, calm and still,
That speaks to strength beyond our fleeting will.

Through fields of gold and valleys wrapped in green,
We seek to claim what others might have seen.
And as we plow, build homes, and shape the soil,
We join the rhythm of their ancient toil.

The stones bear witness, silent yet alive,
They feel each generation’s rush to thrive.
They watch, unmoved, as centuries go by,
And wait for questions, wondering not why.

In each small town, the whispers of the past
Are woven through the bricks and mortar cast.
The stories echo through the cracks and walls,
Filling the air with ancient lovers’ calls.

The stars we see, a timeless, steady guide,
Once lit the journeys of those long denied.
We chart our courses by their glowing fire,
Igniting dreams, filling hearts with desire.

Each dawn brings light to lands both old and new,
To greet fresh eyes with skies of endless blue.
Yet though it shines as bright as years before,
Each sunrise feels like it could offer more.

We sing new songs to mountains, rivers, trees,
And weave our voices with the ancient breeze.
Though we may walk where older souls have stood,
Our lives bloom fresh as wildflowers would.

With wonder pure, we lift our heads and see
The same wide sky, both fierce and endlessly free.
In awe, we tread upon this storied earth,
Newcomers still, yet blessed by ancient worth.

The fields will grow, and one day we’ll be gone,
Yet life continues, dusk gives way to dawn.
And though our time is brief as morning dew,
Our steps join those who felt this life anew.

The sands of time slip swiftly from our hands,
Yet here we live, upon these sacred lands.
Where countless souls have lived, and laughed, and cried,
We play our part, though tides may ebb and slide.

In laughter loud or whispers soft and low,
We honor those we may not even know.
We dance and dream beneath the selfsame moon,
With hearts as full as those who left too soon.

Our stories join the vast, unending stream,
In which all lives and histories convene.
Each moment glows, a spark against the night,
A fleeting ember, soft yet burning bright.

So though we’re new upon this hallowed ground,
Our lives and tales in ancient ties are bound.
We walk this world with reverence, side by side,
Aware of all the ages that abide.

The rocks may crumble, rivers change their course,
But in our hearts remains the silent force.
A call to live, to love, to understand—
For we are all new upon this ancient land.

From elders’ wisdom and the young’s first cries,
From hands that built to those who touch the skies,
We bridge the span of ages yet unseen,
The living pulse of what has always been.

Our journey brief, yet still we shape the clay,
A fleeting mark, then night absorbs the day.
But here we stand, and here we find our place,
With echoes of the past in every trace.

Through sands of deserts and the icy seas,
Through roaring storms and silent autumn trees,
We leave our whispers, footsteps light and bare,
And fill the spaces with the lives we share.

Our voices join the choir of wind and rain,
And bring new life to earth, through joy and pain.
And though time moves as rivers swiftly flow,
The stories thrive as seeds we plant and sow.

We bring to life what older hearts once dreamed,
Renew the fire where ancient embers gleamed.
We breathe, we laugh, we make our brief amends,
While earth itself, eternal, never bends.

And when at last our echoes fade away,
Our hearts at peace, our words in soft decay,
The land will wait, as countless ages pass,
For new lives, new voices, to grow and amass.

We are but notes in one unending song,
A verse that fades, yet always marches on.
Each step we take, a fresh yet ancient beat,
As past and future endlessly repeat.

So tread we lightly, knowing as we go,
This world will hold our footprints, soft and slow.
And though we’re young upon this storied sand,
We honor all who walked this ancient land.

• Written 11/30/2024

---

I miss the days when those were my problems,
When worries were light as the falling leaves.
No deadlines loomed, no debts, no solemn oaths,
Just restless dreams and endless fields to roam.

The troubles I had were simpler things—
Like tangled hair and the bee that stings,
Or how to climb the tallest tree,
To feel like a bird, wild and free.

The hardest choices were games to play,
The freest hours were spent each day.
Back then, the shadows meant hide-and-seek,
And all I wanted was to be unique.

I miss the days when school was the chore,
And homework piled behind my door.
The rush to finish before the bell,
In scribbled notes, I tried to tell.

The thrill of a secret, a passing glance,
The crush that made my heartbeat dance.
I miss those days of hushed delight,
The world unfolding, fresh and bright.

I miss the days of late-night calls,
Where whispered words filled quiet halls.
Each shared laugh and hopeful dare
Were bonds of friendship, light as air.

I miss the problems that faded fast,
The fleeting worries that didn’t last.
A broken toy, a scraped-up knee,
Nothing too big to worry me.

The heaviest load was a scuffed-up shoe,
The most pressing fear, a test or two.
I miss the warmth of a mother’s hug,
The comfort found in a favorite mug.

Now, days are bound by tasks and plans,
A steady race of demands and spans.
Problems loom like storms that rage,
And innocence lies locked in age.

I miss the days of childhood dreams,
Where future days were distant schemes.
Back then, I thought that growing older
Would make me stronger, braver, bolder.

But here I am with grown-up strife,
And missing the simple trials of life.
For back then, worries seemed so small—
I had no idea that they were all.

I miss the days when rain was fun,
And storms were races I used to run.
I miss the way that winters came
With snow to chase and breath like flame.

The greatest tasks were forts to build,
Where only dreams were ever killed.
I miss the thrill of unplanned days,
And making life a game to play.

I miss the questions without an end,
The silly fights I’d make amends.
Where “I’m sorry” could fix the worst,
Where tears dried quick and hearts were first.

Now the problems are harder to mend,
With losses that time can’t easily tend.
Each friendship lost, a scar that stays,
A shadow cast on brighter days.

I miss the days when fears were tame,
Just ghosts and shadows without a name.
But now I face a different kind,
The fears that dwell within the mind.

The doubts that linger, quiet and cold,
The ticking clock, the tales untold.
I miss the days when dreams were bold,
Untouched by what the future holds.

Each sunrise brought a brand new start,
A world unknown, a hopeful heart.
I miss the faith in all that’s near,
Untouched by failure, loss, or fear.

The dreams were vast, the hope alive,
The freedom of that youthful drive.
Now problems come like waves that break,
They pull me down, the shore to take.

I miss the days when joy was near,
And laughter was my only cheer.
No need to plan or compromise,
Just endless summers, endless skies.

If I could go back just for a day,
I’d let my spirit drift away,
To days when sunshine filled my view,
And worries melted like morning dew.

I miss the days when I could sleep,
Without the weight of promises to keep.
When every night held dreams anew,
And every dawn a sky of blue.

But life moves on, as rivers flow,
And those lost days seem long ago.
The problems change, the faces fade,
As memories dance in a hazy parade.

Still, I carry those days inside,
A place of warmth where I can hide.
When present storms feel far too strong,
I close my eyes, and I belong—

To a time of laughter, free and wild,
Where I lived as nothing but a child.
And though I walk on grown-up ground,
In heart and memory, youth is found.

For even as the years rush past,
And life insists on moving fast,
I’ll always keep that gentle spark,
Of days untroubled, pure, and stark.

So here I stand, with trials to face,
And adult life’s relentless pace.
But I carry the light of simpler times,
In every line, in every rhyme.

• Written 12/1/2024

---

@rumi
A friend, if that’s what you can call me,
Bound by choice, but barely free.
We drift like leaves on autumn’s breath,
Drawn close by fate, yet kept by theft.

I stand by your side in silence deep,
A watchful guard, a secret keep.
I know your fears, your shadows too,
But tell me, friend, what’s mine to you?

Is friendship mere convenience here,
A mask of smiles, the hidden tear?
Do we confide, or play pretend,
In the roles we share that never bend?

I’ve walked with you through day and night,
The keeper of your fading light.
Yet wonder still, if in your mind,
I’m but a fixture left behind.

I’ve seen you stumble, felt you sway,
Held you up when skies turned gray.
Yet distance grows with every stride,
As secrets form and truths divide.

Through whispered doubts and silent fears,
I’ve stayed beside you all these years.
Yet words unspoken lie between,
In shadows dark, yet barely seen.

If I am friend, then call me so,
Not just in times of joy and glow.
For when the storm has claimed the shore,
I’ll still be here, as I was before.

And as the seasons cycle round,
In laughter, peace, or mournful sound,
I’ll wait, though quietly I stand,
And reach for you with open hand.

But friendship’s more than borrowed time,
More than comfort in a rhyme.
It's not a word that fades or dies,
Not built on ease, nor propped by lies.

You’ve shared your pain, I’ve shared my own,
But rarely do we cast a stone.
Are we both actors in this scene,
Our scripts rehearsed, our lines routine?

The heart craves more than fragile trust,
More than moments brushed by dust.
A friend, you say, yet why the walls
That rise when deeper feeling calls?

True friends don’t hide behind a smile,
Or keep affection locked in file.
They live the scars, they heal the wounds,
Through desert nights and hazy noons.

So tell me now, just who am I—
A name to call, a passerby?
Or am I here in depths you guard,
A cherished soul or fleeting shard?

The weight of words we never say,
Builds mountains high along the way.
But friends must climb, or else confess,
The burdened heart, the need to press.

If I am friend, then say it true,
In darker shades, in skies of blue.
And let the veil that shrouds us fall,
So I can know I’m friend at all.

When laughter fades and faces pale,
When stories end and strength grows frail,
I'll still be here, if that’s my role,
To tend the fire, to stoke the coal.

But friendship’s worth must match the cost,
Not bought by fears, nor values lost.
It’s in the trust we freely give,
In knowing why we choose to live.

If friends we are, then friends we’ll be,
In open heart, and honesty.
For walls don’t serve a friendship’s call,
They only build the rise and fall.

So here I am, my question plain—
Are we but friends in joy and gain?
Or is this bond we both defend
Worth all the weight of foe and friend?

For in the end, it’s up to you
To see what’s real, and what is true.
A friend, if that’s what you call me still,
Then take my hand with iron will.

We'll walk the path, come joy or strife,
And test the edges of this life.
For friendship’s more than fleeting cheer,
It’s there in loss, and doubt, and fear.

Let’s tear the veil that shadows cast,
And pledge to make this friendship last.
If we are friends, then let it be—
An open heart, a shared decree.

A friend I am, or not at all,
Through rise and rest, through pride and fall.
The choice is yours, in word or deed,
In empty want or genuine need.

If by my side you dare to stay,
Then call me friend, come what may.
For friendship’s thread can fray or mend,
It’s not a role; it’s what we lend.

A friend I am, and always true,
The choice is mine, but so are you.
I’ll keep my pledge, as all friends must—
Not held by fear, but bound in trust.

• Written 12/2/2024

---

The poor poet, stuck within his garret,
Beneath the beams and sky so far set,
He toils alone, with ink-stained hand,
Spinning worlds from grains of sand.

A single candle’s flickering light
Keeps his shadows company at night,
Where verses fall like autumn leaves,
As he mourns the beauty he believes.

The cold wind slips through cracks and panes,
Yet still he writes through aches and strains.
His breath a mist in winter's chill,
But on he scribes with fragile will.

With tattered coat and weathered boots,
He pens his rhymes and digs his roots
Into the walls of memory’s hold,
Drawing warmth from tales retold.

Each line a spark, a fleeting grace,
Worn proudly on his weary face.
He writes of love, of pain and sorrow,
Of fleeting joy, and dread tomorrow.

His words are woven like a prayer,
Tossed to the world with muted care—
Yet echoes linger, soft and near,
Though no one else is there to hear.

He dreams of fame, a crowd’s applause,
Of lines adored, of whispered “bravos.”
Yet knows full well, and feels the sting,
That dreams are but an idle thing.

The poet’s hunger isn’t bread;
It’s visions dancing in his head.
He craves a world that he can build
From words that leave his spirit thrilled.

He’s lost in thoughts too deep to tell,
In fleeting scenes, in tolling bells,
In souls and stories yet unshown,
In realms he wanders all alone.

Through solitude, he finds his muse,
A phantom he can never lose.
She comes to him in whispered rhyme,
In measured beats, in endless time.

She speaks of hope, of love, of fear,
Of moments lost, of voices near—
Each line a pulse, a truth unfurled,
A heartbeat in his quiet world.

With every scratch upon the page,
He frees himself from silent rage,
Pouring heart and soul, undone,
Into the words his pen has spun.

And when the morning sun creeps in,
Casting gold across his skin,
The poet sighs, his work now done,
Another battle lost or won.

No crowd will cheer, no coins will fall,
Yet still he rises to the call.
For in his garret, poor and gray,
He lives to write another day.

No fame nor wealth will he obtain,
Yet finds his solace in the strain.
He’s bound to words, by fate or chance,
And to the timeless poet’s dance.

He writes of joy he’ll never feel,
Of wounds that only time can heal,
Of laughter caught in fleeting sun,
Of battles lost and wars not won.

Though no one knocks upon his door,
And praise escapes him evermore,
The poor poet, within his cell,
Creates his paradise, his hell.

And so he sits, his candle dim,
The world outside unknown to him.
Each verse a window, small and bright,
That cuts through his perpetual night.

The seasons pass, the years unfold,
But stories never do grow old.
They cling to life with each new phrase,
The poet’s truth, his lover’s gaze.

The poor poet, alone yet free,
Crafts his own immortality.
And in the quiet, without sound,
He writes of worlds where love is found.

Though no one reads, he still will write,
Long past the breaking of the night.
For he’s a captive to his art,
Bound forever, word and heart.

The garret walls grow thick with dust,
His paper browns, his ink will rust.
But still his spirit clings to hope,
With every fragile line he wrote.

Each line a spark, a glimpse, a dream,
Caught in that dim and endless beam,
That faint and flickering light he tends,
In lines that loop, in verses that bend.

He knows, deep down, that he’ll remain
Unknown to most, with little gain.
But fame is not the prize he seeks—
It’s truth he finds within the bleak.

He writes for souls he'll never meet,
For passersby on crowded streets,
For silent hearts in need of sound,
For voices lost, for souls unbound.

And when he fades into the past,
His words alone will hold him fast.
The poor poet, his story told,
Becomes the voice that never grows old.

For as the garret grows dim and still,
His words live on, his spirit’s will.
In every line, a spark remains,
A fleeting light, a mark, a name.

So when you find his words someday,
Remember how he toiled away,
In garret cold and candlelight,
To bring the hidden truths to sight.

For poets toil without a claim,
In shadowed rooms, unknown by name.
Yet through their verses, lost and bold,
They weave their truths in threads of gold.

• Written 12/3/2024

---

And trembling with the consciousness of
His own poetic powers, he stood there,
Wondering, like Newton under the tree,
How could something so beautiful be brought
To thee?

How could these thoughts, like stars that break the night,
Descend from silent depths to rest in him?
He felt the pulsing tremor of their weight,
A stream that flowed from timeless wells unknown.
Here was the spark, the source, the secret fire
Of everything he’d yearned to voice in verse—
Not spoken yet, but formed in silent depths,
Alive with endless promise, yet unmet.

The air around him hummed, alive with force,
Invisible, yet pressing on his skin,
As if the very world drew breath with him.
What miracle of mind, what inner art,
Had stirred these words from dark, unspoken wells?
This power, coursing like a river's rush,
Seized in a moment of divine intent—
A gift both fragile and immense, unnamed.

For every poet bears a silent trust,
A duty bound to truth in things unseen,
To render life as clearly as the stars
That burn in quiet skies but speak no words.
And in his chest, he felt that steady beat,
The pulse of life’s great voice inside his own,
As if the world, through him, would find a song
To echo down the canyoned halls of time.

He felt himself like Moses by the sea,
Unsure if he could part the waves or sink,
Or like Prometheus, fire in his hand,
Uncertain if his gift would harm or heal.
He trembled, conscious of his art’s great task,
To gather life in syllables and sounds,
To frame the fleeting instant as it soared,
And capture beauty, brief as morning mist.

Could language hold this beauty as it passed,
Or would it slip like sand through open palms?
He wondered, standing under silent boughs,
If truth itself could ever bear a form
So pure that all who saw would see it whole.
And yet he stood, resolved to touch the light,
To reach for what he could not understand,
And bring it forth, however pale and dim.

The vision burned within, a restless urge
To stitch together fragments into song,
To find within the quiet sounds of life
The melody that waits beneath the noise.
He thought of Newton, gazing at the tree,
Seeing in a simple fall the laws
That bound the earth and stars to one vast scheme—
And he, a poet, sought to do the same.

He looked at life with wonder, sought its core,
To strip away the clutter and the dust,
To see beneath the mask of the mundane
The face of truth, unblemished and revealed.
It seemed to him a holy, hallowed task,
As ancient as the first dawn-touched refrain,
As sacred as the whispers of the leaves,
As timeless as the moon's unchanging glow.

He was not born for idle dreams alone,
Nor crafted simply to observe and sigh,
But rather as a vessel, deep and wide,
To hold the spirit's longings as they came.
For every poet walks a haunted path,
With ghosts of beauty dancing through his thoughts,
And wonders, as the stars shine down in peace,
If he will ever match their quiet grace.

And yet he knew the burdens of his art,
The weight of expectation borne alone,
The solitude of thoughts that must be tamed,
And fears that haunt the soul at quiet dusk.
For words are feeble vessels, frail and thin,
And beauty, fierce and burning as the sun,
May scorch the lips that try to hold its form
And fade like mist at morning’s early call.

But still he stood, the evening thick with dreams,
And in the darkness found a spark to light.
He whispered words to see if they would stay,
And felt them slip like shadows from his lips.
Yet still he spoke, as if the night itself
Would hold his musings close within its depths,
And bear them forth like seeds upon the breeze
To grow in lands beyond his sight or touch.

What is it, then, that drives the poet’s hand
To write in spite of silence and the void?
Is it the simple longing to be heard,
Or something greater, woven in the flesh?
He felt himself an instrument of life,
A conduit for whispers from the stars,
And though his words might vanish like the dawn,
He knew the light within them held its worth.

For every line was but a humble bridge
Between the known and vast, uncharted seas,
A journey that could never be complete,
Yet one he could not bear to leave behind.
He felt a kinship with the shifting tides,
With mountains bathed in fog, with fields of dusk,
For in their beauty lay a mystery
He yearned to weave in threads of fragile verse.

And so he stood, beneath the ancient trees,
Resolved to turn his musings into song,
To carve from silence meanings rich and true,
And let the world, through him, a moment speak.
He trembled, yes, but in that trembling found
The courage to embrace his fated task.
For though his words might vanish like the wind,
Their beauty lay in trying, not in end.

With dawn upon the horizon’s edge,
He knew his purpose clear, though veiled in shade—
To paint the world in hues of boundless hope,
To mirror life in all its tender grace.
And as he turned to greet the coming day,
The light within him burned with quiet fire.
He’d found his voice, and thus he’d dare to sing,
A poet’s truth in humble offerings.

• Written 12/4/2024

---

I still am that man you once knew.
Do not be confused at my sight;
For I know time does things to few:
But rarely strikes at its height.

Does my appearance deceive you?
I thought my age would bereave you!
Never once had I hoped upon this,
But years pass on with greatest bliss.

Annoyed, pissed, this has been my fate.
Life’s cruel hand hurls me to date,
Wondering if this could have gone better,
Written in a clearer letter.

The roads I took, both rough and long,
I thought they’d make me wise and strong,
But time wears down the firmest stone—
To find one’s self yet still alone.

Though youthful spark may dim and wane,
I carry all that I remain.
Old dreams, like ghosts, they haunt my mind,
Yet bound to me, they stay confined.

I search in mirrors, hoping still
For signs that match my iron will.
Lines may tell of battles fought,
But youthful zeal has not been caught.

You see me now—a stranger's face—
Yet, in my heart, there lies a trace
Of who I was, who I could be,
Untouched by time’s swift cruelty.

I am that man, with hopeful eyes
That reach beyond the sullen skies.
Though storms have passed and winds have chilled,
The fire within has not been stilled.

Do you recall those fervent days
Of endless light and careless plays?
Do you remember laughter's call,
And nights where stars would softly fall?

I hold them close, these precious seeds,
Watered by both dreams and needs.
Though years may carve their lasting toll,
They have not stripped me of my soul.

And yet you stare as though I’m lost,
A ghost in flesh, by seasons tossed.
Am I not here, the same as then?
Beneath this mask, I am your friend.

You look upon my weathered skin,
The fragile husk that holds me in,
And judge, perhaps, with saddened thought
That life has left me here distraught.

But know, my friend, this aged disguise
Is but a cloak, a thin reprise.
Inside, I dance with reckless grace,
And bear no scars upon my face.

Each line etched deep upon my brow
Tells tales of all I’ve conquered now.
And though the journey’s left its mark,
I carry forward, through the dark.

A youthful fire, unquenched, remains,
Through joy and love, through loss and pains.
The world may see a man worn thin,
But I, myself, dwell deep within.

I walk the roads I once embraced,
But now I find them weather-laced.
Each footfall sounds with ghosts of past,
Yet with each step, I hold them fast.

Let not my greying hair deceive;
There’s life yet left for me to weave.
The world’s fierce hand may slow my pace,
But not the dreams I long to chase.

For though the years may dim my sight,
I still seek wonder, still seek light.
In every dusk, there lies a dawn,
A newer path to tread upon.

You knew me once in youth’s full bloom,
Before the weight of life’s cold loom.
But know me now, with spirit bold,
Though weathered, yet not wholly old.

Through twilight’s veil, I wander far,
Still guided by that early star.
I may have stumbled, may have bled,
But life and I are far from dead.

So if you see a stranger’s face,
Know this: within lies boundless space.
I am that man you once adored,
With heart and soul still richly stored.

Judge me not by scars I bear,
For life’s fierce touch, though harsh and rare,
Has shaped me strong and set me free—
Behold, the man I’ve come to be.

In shadows cast by fading sun,
I still pursue, the race not run.
And though I’ve changed, as we all do,
I am, and shall remain, me—true.

• Written 12/5/2024

---

I am from the future, a past not seen,
A shadow cast on what might have been,
With echoes of worlds that never were,
In moments lost, a distant blur.

I walk in paths where footsteps fade,
In lands of light and mist and shade.
Through winding roads and mirrored halls,
Where time’s illusion breaks and falls.

The past, I see, through veils of light,
Where morning bends into the night.
A whisper here, a shimmer there—
Histories hidden, laid bare.

I am from ages yet to come,
A song unsung, a silent drum.
I carry tales the ancients spoke,
In words and worlds the future woke.

To you, my life’s a mystery;
A thread unseen in history.
For I am bound in time’s vast loop,
Both seed and branch, both vine and root.

I’ve seen the fall of silver spires,
The loss of fires, the end of choirs.
Yet here I stand, a fading dream,
A ripple in a timeless stream.

Your yesterdays are clear to me,
But futures yet are wild and free.
I know the paths you dare not tread,
Where spirits linger, long since dead.

I hold in hand the sands of fate,
A clock unwound, an open gate.
Through visions blurred and thoughts undone,
I glimpse the days both lost and won.

With knowledge deep and sorrow fraught,
I live with what tomorrow brought.
In past not yet, I lay my claim,
And forge a life without a name.

I speak of things not yet believed,
Of gifts unsought, of dreams conceived.
A voice, it calls across the years,
To paint the world with joy and tears.

You ask what future I have seen,
What truth awaits in fields of green.
But answers dim as daylight fades,
In twilight’s quiet, endless shades.

For time’s a river, wild and fast,
Its waters bend and shift and cast.
The truths I hold, they blur and sway,
Like dawn’s first light, like end of day.

I am the past you’ve yet to know,
The fields unplowed, the seeds unsewn.
I wander realms both near and far,
Between the dust, beneath the stars.

I see your choices yet to make,
The roads that turn, the ones that break.
I see the fires you have to tend,
The loves you lose, the wounds that mend.

And though I know, I cannot say,
For futures twist in light and sway.
One step, one choice, one breath anew
Could weave a fate unknown to you.

I am from the dawn and dusk combined,
An echo of your quiet mind.
The part of you that wonders why,
That yearns to live, yet fears to die.

I am from futures cast in stone,
From secrets known to me alone.
For every life that ever breathes,
I am the song that never leaves.

In time’s embrace, I turn and spin,
I am, and was, and will have been.
From what once was to what may be,
I hold the key, though none can see.

And now I stand, a silent ghost,
Upon the shores that haunt me most.
Between the tides of past and now,
I make my peace, I take my vow.

I’ll walk these roads until they end,
Through fire and storm, through foe and friend.
For I am from the dream unseen,
The shadow cast, the light between.

I’ll tell you not what lies ahead,
But walk beside you in its stead.
The days will come, the years will go,
Yet what I see, you’ll never know.

I am from places out of reach,
Beyond what time and man can teach.
I tread where past and future meet,
Where life and memory repeat.

With steps that echo silent song,
I’ll walk these roads, both wide and long.
I am from then, and now, and soon—
A ghost beneath the waning moon.

For futures pass as quick as breath,
Between the birth and edge of death.
I am from that which cannot stay,
The fleeting light, the breaking day.

And if you sense a whispered tune,
A song unheard, a lost monsoon,
Know that it’s me, unseen, unknown—
The future’s child, the past’s own stone.

For in your dreams, and in your fears,
I walk beside through all the years.
And though we part when dawn is near,
I’ll leave a trace, a memory clear.

A glimpse of worlds not yet begun,
Of days to come, and songs unsung.
For I am from the echo’s call,
The light that fades, the shadow’s fall.

• Written 12/6/2024

---

I have lost my sight, but what is this to me!
For vision’s gift was never truly free.
The things I thought I once could see, now gone—
Yet in this darkness, life still carries on.

The world fades out, its colors dim and gray,
But in my heart, the colors softly play.
Though light and shadow vanish from my view,
The inner landscape blooms, a world anew.

I walk by touch, by sound, by breath and scent,
And find new paths my former senses sent.
The air now speaks of secrets, sounds unheard,
The rustle of the leaves, each whispered word.

In blindness, I am born to finer art;
Each sound a brushstroke, vivid in my heart.
I hear the hush of morning’s quiet rise,
And feel the dawn unseen by open eyes.

The breeze that once I felt but scarcely knew
Now tells its stories, old yet ever new.
It brings me whispers from the distant sea,
And songs of stars that no one else can see.

The rain, it falls like notes upon my skin,
A symphony of life that pulls me in.
It taps a melody against my face,
And leaves me bathed in beauty and in grace.

The voices of my loved ones ring like bells,
Each tone a warmth, a comfort that compels.
No longer do I need to search and find—
For love itself has made my heart less blind.

I’ve lost my sight, but gained a softer knowing,
A sense that finds the world forever growing.
For all things held in vision's grasp once tight
Are here, though changed within the veil of night.

Each memory is brighter in my mind,
Though sight has gone, I leave that loss behind.
And from the depths within, I see them clear:
The golden sun, the stars that once were near.

No glint of light, no blazing hue remains,
Yet in my chest, the pulse of life sustains.
I feel each step, each breath, each heartbeat’s call—
As life, though sightless, fills me still with all.

No need for sorrow, none for loss of cheer;
For every sense alive has drawn me near.
The world’s vast weight, the light and dark I bore,
They’ve drifted off, their burdens felt no more.

The world of sight was just a fleeting guide,
Yet now I walk with grace from deep inside.
Each movement is a dance I’ve come to know,
And where my feet will lead, there I shall go.

The sky unseen, the stars’ lost silver beams,
Have woven into tapestries of dreams.
I carry these within, and there they grow,
A galaxy that only I can know.

I touch the bark of trees, the tender leaves,
And feel each story nature still believes.
I sense the rivers flowing strong and free—
These gifts of sound and scent now live in me.

Where others see, I breathe, and touch, and feel;
In this unseen, a life just as real.
And where I stumble, yet I walk with grace,
Unfazed by what my eyes could not embrace.

The faces of my friends, their laughter bright,
Their voices guide me softly through the night.
And though I cannot see their light-filled eyes,
I feel their warmth, the love that never dies.

I walk the path of those who’ve come before,
A history of blindness to explore.
For many eyes have closed, and hearts have learned
To navigate a world where sight has turned.

I find in blindness strength, a courage deep,
A quiet peace that wakes me from my sleep.
And though the world is shrouded, soft, and still,
My soul remains, unshaken in its will.

The stars may fade from sight, but not from mind—
For I have learned to see where I am blind.
Each breath, each sound, each heartbeat is a guide,
Through darkness vast, I walk with steady stride.

The absence of the light reveals the more;
The treasures that I never saw before.
Each step becomes a chapter in my tale,
And with each beat, my heart’s strong, silent sail.

For what is sight but one sense of the soul?
A single way in which we make things whole.
And though I’ve lost that thread of earthly grace,
I find new sights within this shadowed space.

So let me walk in peace, in dark delight,
For what I see has gone beyond mere sight.
I feel the world, its beating, tender heart,
And through the shadows, see each secret part.

I have lost my sight, but what is this to me?
A loss that brings me closer to the free.
For in this darkness, I have come to find
A deeper sight within my open mind.

The mountains, rivers, endless fields unseen,
Are painted now in colors sharp and keen.
Each pulse of life, each gentle breath I take
Reveals the world no eye could ever wake.

My spirit soars in landscapes vast and true,
A sightless flight, yet clear as morning dew.
I walk with purpose, grace, and joy anew,
And let the unseen guide me where it drew.

For though I walk without a sighted way,
I see in darkness as I could in day.
With heart wide open, senses at their height,
I live a world reborn in endless night.

In blindness, I have found my light once more,
A quiet strength I never knew before.
And so I walk, both fearless and alive—
With every step, my spirit will survive.

I am reborn within this starless night,
For I have found my way without my sight.
And all the world now speaks to me in song,
A world unseen, yet where I still belong.

I have lost my sight, but gained anew,
A path that leads me strong, and sure, and true.

• Written 12/7/2024

---

Free, free, free at last from these wretched chains,
From shackles forged in fear and rooted pains,
The heavy iron links that held me tight,
Have shattered now beneath the morning light.

Once bound to walls by shadows of despair,
I found my strength to breathe the open air.
The grip of sorrow loosens, fades away,
And leaves me whole, reborn within the day.

The cage that once enclosed my heart and mind,
Fell down in rust, its chains left far behind.
I walk at last in fields of softest green,
A world anew, unbound, as yet unseen.

No more shall fears entangle my poor soul,
Nor whisper lies that try to keep me whole.
I’ve shed the weight, the burden and the scar,
And travel light, like dreams across the stars.

The path ahead, now free of fear and blame,
Is mine to walk, a fire without shame.
Through forests deep and over hills I climb,
A journey forward, boundless, without time.

Each step I take feels foreign yet my own,
The world around me, vast and overgrown,
With life and light and joy I’ve yet to meet—
An endless world beneath my wandering feet.

The chains were lies that once had kept me low,
Tales of weakness I refused to know.
Now, like the eagle soaring through the skies,
I ride the wind with open, fearless eyes.

Each gust of air, a friend to lift me high,
The earth below, the ever-widening sky.
Free, free at last, I know my truest name,
And cast aside those burdens born of shame.

No longer will I kneel to phantom fear,
Or let the voices cloud what once was clear.
For now I stand upon this blessed earth,
And know the weight and measure of my worth.

The rivers call, their silver currents bright,
And sing to me of strength within the night.
The mountains rise with peaks I long to scale,
The endless world is mine to blaze a trail.

The dust of past regrets is swept away,
Replaced by joy and courage come what may.
For all the sorrows I have yet to face
Are softened now by love’s redeeming grace.

I cast my gaze upon the open sea,
And hear its waves, a song to welcome me.
It speaks of journeys brave, of tempests wild,
Of trials borne with strength that’s unbeguiled.

My heart, unshackled, beats a steady drum,
In tune with life, where freedom’s pulse has come.
The chains of yesterday have turned to sand,
Blown far by winds that cross this waking land.

Oh, freedom, sweet as morning’s gentle breath,
You lead me far from fear and thoughts of death.
No longer bound by sorrow’s darkened guise,
I spread my wings, unburdened, toward the skies.

I hear the call of laughter on the breeze,
A symphony of joy within the trees.
The world alive, a canvas wild and bright,
Invites me forth to dance within its light.

Free, free, free at last from chains of old,
I stand as one who dared to break the mold.
For every step I take is now my own,
Each choice a seed of strength already grown.

I feel the earth beneath me, strong and true,
And sense the skies have turned a deeper blue.
I walk with courage in the warm embrace
Of freedom’s light, unbound by time or place.

The doubts, like phantoms, haunt me now no more,
They’re shadows cast upon a distant shore.
And though the road ahead may twist and wind,
I move with faith in what I’ve left behind.

I’ll climb the peaks, I’ll cross the plains of sand,
I’ll wander through this vast, enchanted land.
No walls to bind, no fears to cloud my view,
Just endless worlds and skies of boundless blue.

For freedom’s gift is not without its weight,
It bears the marks of struggles long and great.
But still, I walk, as one who’s come to know
The worth of freedom’s ever-burning glow.

The stars above, like candles in the dark,
Remind me of the journey I embark.
Their light, a map of all I’ve yet to see,
A boundless road to endless mystery.

And if the night should call with trials fierce,
If sorrow’s claws attempt my heart to pierce,
I’ll meet them not with shackled soul or mind,
But with the peace that freedom leaves behind.

So here I stand, my spirit born anew,
With skies of dawn and sunlit fields in view.
No more a captive to the world’s demands,
But free to live as only freedom can.

I’ll walk the earth with wonder as my guide,
Embracing all the beauty deep and wide.
For every step is filled with life’s pure grace,
A path through freedom’s ever-sacred space.

I stand unchained, a soul reborn to be
A part of life, as vast as any sea.
And though the journey’s end is yet unknown,
I carry freedom’s fire as my own.

So let the world bring all it has in store,
I walk its breadth, unshackled evermore.
For in my heart, the chains have lost their hold—
I stand as one, fierce, fearless, free and bold.

Free, free, free at last from chains unseen,
I walk the path, awake to all I dream.
And in the light of dawn’s eternal glow,
The soul of freedom sets my spirit’s flow.

• Written 12/8/2024

---

Weep, weep no more: O common shepherd. For
The fields still stretch as wide as they did before.
The stars above still pierce the quiet night,
And morning dew still holds the world in light.

The hills you tread are green with softened moss,
And through the fields the streams still run across.
Each path you’ve walked, beneath both sun and rain,
Still waits for you to come and tread again.

The sheep you tend, they know your gentle voice,
They gather close, as if they have no choice.
For in your hands, their world is calm and whole,
And in your care, they find their wayward soul.

Weep, weep no more: O keeper of the land,
For all you’ve built was never built on sand.
The quiet hours, the labor and the care,
Have left their mark on earth and open air.

See how the trees bend gently to the breeze,
And feel the peace beneath the ancient trees.
Though seasons pass, and winter’s chill may bite,
Spring’s warmth will come, and all will be made right.

The songbirds sing, their voices rise and fall,
An anthem soft that echoes through it all.
Though storms may come and skies turn dark and gray,
The light endures and will not fade away.

Weep, weep no more, for sorrow wastes the hours,
And blinds the eye to all the blooming flowers.
Your path, though humble, holds a noble grace,
With every step a story in its place.

For in the work, there lies a quiet pride,
A truth in labor that the years can’t hide.
The common ground beneath your weary feet
Is sacred still, both strong and bittersweet.

And know this, shepherd, as the daylight fades,
That you are loved in all the roles you've played.
Each day you tend the flock with hand and heart,
And in each act, you play a timeless part.

Weep, weep no more, for life is brief and grand,
And all your work has shaped this gentle land.
The echoes of your voice, the songs you sing,
Will carry on like timeless notes of spring.

The valleys you have roamed, the hills you’ve climbed,
The open fields with memories entwined,
They hold within their soil the tales of you,
A faithful soul who kept their promise true.

So let the night grow calm, let evening fall,
And find your peace within the earth’s soft call.
For every blade of grass beneath your hand
Is proof you loved and labored in this land.

The sheep will rest, the stars will rise once more,
The moon will cast her silver on the shore.
The world, in stillness, waits to share its grace,
And you, dear shepherd, have a place, a place.

Weep, weep no more: O humble, steadfast one,
For all your days were marked beneath the sun.
And when the final twilight calls your name,
The earth will hold you gently, just the same.

With every morning that the light appears,
With every evening veiled in misted tears,
The skies will sing their hymn as stars awake,
And all you gave, the world will not forsake.

So rest, rest easy, lay your burdens down,
Release the weight, the cloak, the shepherd’s crown.
For in each heartbeat, and in every breath,
You’ve known life well, and triumphed over death.

The meadow grass will softly sway and bend,
And bid you peace, O faithful, gentle friend.
Your spirit, woven through this land so wide,
Will walk these hills with every changing tide.

Weep, weep no more, for all you sought is near,
The peace you crave now fills the evening air.
Your legacy in simple things will stay—
The sheep, the fields, the slowly breaking day.

For in the quiet strength of those who care,
The beauty of this world is laid bare.
And so, dear shepherd, know your worth is deep,
And let this land be where your spirit sleeps.

• Written 12/9/2024

---

@rumi
Oh, fair maiden, taken before your time,
The world feels colder, dimmed by loss of light.
For in your absence, silence echoes loud,
A hollow space where laughter used to dwell.

The sun itself seems shy to rise each day,
As if aware its light could never match
The warmth your presence brought to those you loved.
The morning dew clings longer to the grass,
As if in mourning too, refusing dawn.

Oh, gentle soul, how quickly you were drawn
From mortal ground to skies beyond our reach;
A star, extinguished, though it shone so bright.
The rivers miss the way your fingers brushed
Their surface calm, as if to soothe the earth,
And every flower seems to bow its head,
To mourn the passing of its closest friend.

The trees, once proud beneath your graceful gaze,
Now stand like statues, stripped of all their joy.
The wind itself seems softer as it moves,
As if it too feels burdened by your loss,
And whispers to the earth in saddened tones.

I think of you, oh maiden, every day,
In every quiet place your absence fills.
Each bird that sings reminds me of your voice,
Each breeze that stirs recalls your gentle touch.
You left your mark on all this life surrounds,
A beauty that no winter chill could steal.

I walk among the paths we used to tread,
Through fields and forests colored by your laugh.
The footprints that we left are fading fast,
Erased by time, yet held within my mind.
And there, beneath the solemn, ageless trees,
I hear your voice within the rustling leaves,
A melody that lingers, soft and pure.

What thoughts you held, what dreams you softly wove
Now float like whispers, distant on the air.
I try to catch them, hold them close to heart,
But they evade, like shadows in the dusk.
Oh, fair maiden, what heights would you have scaled,
What mountains climbed, what worlds within you held?

The future that you might have crafted still
Hangs softly like a thread we cannot see,
Its path now hidden, swallowed by the dark.
Each moment that we shared seems brighter now,
As if the light of all your years untold
Burns fiercer in the memories I keep.

The laughter shared, the stories whispered low,
The glances quick, the moments understood—
All held in stillness, sacred in their frame,
An echo from a life both brief and true.

And yet, within this sorrow, beauty lies,
For even though your time was swiftly spent,
You left a world more gentle than you found.
You sowed compassion, kindness, grace in all,
A tender warmth that none could soon forget.

The child who met your gaze saw more than love;
They saw the strength that few could understand,
A soul as deep as oceans, fierce as storms,
Yet soft enough to cradle all in care.

Oh, maiden fair, taken before your time,
The stars tonight seem brighter for your loss.
They shimmer like the dreams you left behind,
And each one holds a piece of what you were.
They cast their light upon this grieving world,
Reminding us of beauty found and lost,
Of fleeting grace that passed yet lingers still.

If I could bend the very threads of fate,
I’d weave again the fabric of your days,
Extend your time, restore what has been torn,
And place you back among the living fields,
Where flowers bloom and rivers ever flow.

But such is life, a tale we do not write;
Its course unknown, its pages quickly turned.
And here we stand, the keepers of your flame,
To guard it fiercely, lest it should grow dim.
For though your life was brief as morning mist,
Its essence lingers, woven through us all.

In every act of kindness you remain,
In every gentle word and selfless deed.
And when we gaze upon the stars above,
We see your spirit, endless and untamed.
Your laughter in the wind, your light in stars,
Your strength in roots that hold the earth below.

The seasons change, the years will drift along,
Yet time itself cannot erase your name.
For you are more than memory or loss,
You are the light that never will go out.
And though the night may darken with our grief,
We find you in the dawn that breaks again.

Oh, fair maiden, taken before your time,
May peace enfold you in its boundless grace.
And as we walk the paths you used to tread,
We carry you within our heart’s embrace.

• Written 12/10/2024

---

Oh, sacred melody I've fallen for thee,
A tune that lingers deep within my soul,
Resonant, like rivers through silent woods,
Or waves that press upon the waiting shore.

Your chords encircle me, a gentle spell,
Each note a thread that binds my wandering heart,
A whisper soft, a sigh between the stars,
In tones that spark the air, yet hang unseen.

Oh, how I ache for every silver line,
Each rise and fall, each breath between the chords,
As if you knew my thoughts before they came,
And turned them into sound so beautiful,
I’d weep for joy and sorrow just the same.

I’ve chased your song from dawn to evening’s close,
Through crowded streets and empty, quiet hills,
Where echoes fade, yet linger on the breeze,
A music hidden, like a lover’s kiss,
Half-spoken in the space that words can't reach.

What strange and secret language do you speak?
You move through silence like a fleeting ghost,
A hymn of stars, of earth and rolling sea,
Unbound by thought, unchained by mortal form,
Yet bound to me, as though by fate’s design.

I hear you in the turning of the leaves,
In winter’s chill and spring’s triumphant thaw,
In summer winds that stir the heavy air,
And autumn rains that tap on window panes.
Your sound slips softly into every scene,
As though it were the voice of time itself.

Oh, sacred melody, unseen yet heard,
You pull me closer with each passing note,
A siren song not meant to lead astray,
But bring me back to places left behind—
To memories half-buried in the dust,
To dreams that vanished with the morning sun.

I see them now, those ghosts of younger days,
Alive once more, their laughter clear and bright.
Your music summons life to shadowed rooms,
To corners I believed long lost to time,
And breathes them full of color once again.

With every note, I find another path,
A hidden way through realms unknown before.
Your melody reveals the world anew,
As if the veil had lifted from my eyes,
And what was dull now dazzles, rich and pure.

In you, I feel the heart of all that’s passed,
The ancient voices long before my own,
The solemn hum of ages wrapped in sound,
A timeless bond that breaks all lines of time,
So we, who are but passing guests of life,
Might touch the depths that lie beyond our reach.

Each night, I play the symphonies you bring,
A concert just for stars, for air, for trees.
Their branches sway and join in with your tune,
And even shadows cast upon the ground
Seem lighter for the notes that fill the air.

What art is this, that sways both root and stone?
What spell so powerful to lift the heart,
And make the spirit soar beyond its chains?
I hear in you the echo of my hopes,
A memory of courage left behind,
A promise whispered faintly in my ear.

I listen, lost, as if to be consumed,
To let your sound unmake what I have been,
And build anew from melody and dream,
An image shaped from all I have yet dreamed.

Oh, sacred melody, you lift me high,
Until I feel no weight upon the ground,
As if the earth itself has lost its pull,
And left me free to wander as I will—
To drift on clouds that float across the dawn,
And touch the golden rays that morning brings.

And when your final notes begin to fade,
A silence settles deep within my soul,
A peace that words and worlds could never give,
A quiet joy that nothing can dispel.

For though your song may leave, it lingers still,
A whisper woven through the fabric fine,
The very fiber of my living breath,
So long as there is life to bear the tune.

Oh, sacred melody, I carry you,
A symphony unseen within my heart,
For even when the world grows cold and dark,
You light my path and hold my spirit strong.

Each time you rise, I fall in love once more,
And let your beauty fill me to the brim,
To drown in sound, in spirit, and in joy,
And be reborn in every note you sing.

Though words may fail, your music ever speaks,
A truth beyond the grasp of reason’s rule,
A purity untouched by mortal hands,
A hymn that winds through life, a force divine.

Oh, sacred melody, my heart is yours,
And every day I live, I fall anew—
For even in the silence, I still hear
The quiet echo of your ageless song,
A tune that binds me, guides me, leads me on.

Forevermore, I’ll seek your hidden sound,
And in your notes, my spirit shall be found.

• Written 12/11/2024

---

I sit there pondering upon the song,
Listening, intently, all enthralled,
As notes unfold like petals in the dawn,
Soft chords unfurling into silent space.
The tune, it floats, a feather on the air,
Each phrase a river winding through my mind,
Its melody a whisper from beyond,
A voice of mystery that pulls me close.

The room is still, my breath alone is felt,
And every note falls like a gentle rain,
Soft fingers drumming on my quiet soul.
I lose myself in rhythms old and deep,
As though they carry echoes of the past—
The distant murmurs of forgotten time,
Old memories entombed in chords and scales,
Recalled to life in fragments rich and strange.

In minor keys, I hear a mournful tale,
Of voices lost and lovers swept away,
Of promises that falter, fade, and fail,
Yet linger still within the haunting tune.
The song becomes a mirror, showing all,
Reflecting hopes I’ve held and lost again,
The ghostly forms of dreams I once held near,
Now shimmering within the music’s light.

And yet, amid the sorrow, joy resounds,
A trembling hope beneath the mournful chords.
For in each strain, a glimmer of resolve
Emerges from the somber melody,
A quiet strength, as soft as falling snow,
Yet certain as the dawn that ends the night.
In that faint glimmer, something speaks to me,
A voice within the song that feels my heart.

The melody, both stranger and a friend,
Speaks truths that words can never hope to tell—
Of love that bends yet never fully breaks,
Of scars that sing the beauty of their pain.
In lilting tones, it draws me close to life,
And every sorrow hides a soft refrain,
A hint of warmth, of light behind the veil,
A whisper that tomorrow still will come.

I close my eyes, surrendering my mind,
Entrusting every thought to music's will.
The present fades, replaced by endless scenes,
By faces faintly glimpsed in shadows cast,
The music fills me with its quiet might,
It holds me captive, set me drifting far,
On waves of sound that bear me past myself,
To shores I’ve never touched or dared to see.

The world beyond dissolves; I know no fear,
For in this spell, I’ve found a fleeting peace.
A kind of grace in pure, resounding tones,
A solace deep, like oceans in the night.
The harmony descends like falling leaves,
Each note a trace of autumn's golden hues,
And as they touch the ground, they disappear,
Yet linger still in memory’s gentle hold.

I wonder at the power of the tune,
Its way of weaving calm from tangled thoughts,
Of drawing beauty from the simplest sound,
And giving meaning where no meaning lies.
In simple notes, I hear the world anew,
A universe contained within a chord,
An endless sky compressed in simple time,
Where stars arise and vanish as they please.

Then comes the end, the last note fades away,
A breath, a pause, an echo left behind.
And in that silence, something stirs and grows,
An understanding, soft as morning’s light.
The music’s gone, yet still it fills my heart,
A ghostly trace of harmony and peace,
A melody that whispers in the dark,
To comfort me until I hear it next.

I sit there pondering upon the song,
Its meaning slipping through my weary grasp,
And in that silence, filled with sound and grace,
I find myself reborn, as if anew,
Awake to beauty, wonder, love, and light,
For music leaves a mark that cannot fade,
A memory that blossoms in the soul,
And guides me forward, even as it ends.

And so I rise, renewed by what I’ve heard,
A single soul, yet changed by something vast,
A song that spans the ages, ever new,
That stirs the heart and lets it feel again,
A timeless call that lives within each note,
A symphony that sings within us all.

• Written 12/12/2024

---

Rome has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.
The temples fall, the columns crumble,
Under dust, the marble humbles.
The proud and gilded domes decay,
Time’s relentless hand makes way.

Ancient stones once told a story
Of triumph, empire, fleeting glory.
Chiseled gods have lost their features,
Sculpted forms turned twisted creatures.
Empty eyes of statues stare,
Witnesses of past despair.

Gone the legions, fierce and bold,
Their victories now tales retold,
By murmuring winds through broken halls,
And shadows long on shattered walls.
Where Caesar trod, the grasses creep,
Where lions roared, there’s silent sleep.

In palace courts, where power swayed,
Where emperors and madmen played,
Nothing stirs but falling dust,
Iron rust and earth-bound must.
No voice remains to tell the tale,
Save Nature's whisper, strong and pale.

For Nature watches, silent, sure,
Unmoved by war, her laws endure.
While man may build and man may fall,
Her rhythms outlast empires all.
Green creeps o'er the stone and gate,
Where once was fear, now blooms fate.

The triumphs of Rome, once loud and bright,
Fade beneath the stars of night,
While mountains rise and rivers flow,
Cicadas sing, wildflowers grow.
Time’s indifferent breeze sweeps clean
The traces of what once had been.

Oh, Nature waits, her patience vast,
For man’s great monuments can’t last.
Marble melts to soil again,
The earth reclaims the pride of men.
Each tower built, each triumph known,
All turns back to root and stone.

The sun returns, the moon renews,
Seas swell up, then they recuse,
And Nature’s face, forever young,
Mocks cities from the songs they sung.
Rome may boast, and fall, and die,
Yet forests wave, and rivers sigh.

In time the ivy veils the throne,
The eagle’s nest now overgrown,
Upon the heights where banners flew,
The hawk surveys its endless view.
Silent now, the Senate stands,
Cloaked in time’s unfeeling hands.

Through Rome’s lost streets, the grasses wind,
In each crevice roots unwind.
The aqueducts once carried life,
But Nature heals their wounds and strife.
The Colosseum, once grand, now waits
While poppies bloom within its gates.

Nature laughs at the works of man,
Her endless rivers, rocks, and sand.
While marble gods are prone to dust,
She rolls on, unmarked by rust.
The marble falls, the world reclaims,
Rome forgotten, lost to names.

Beneath these arches, lost and gray,
Ferns and mosses make their way,
And each small vine that stretches wide
Mocks monuments to human pride.
For Nature knows what man forgets—
Each empire fades, each sun will set.

Rome has fallen, ages old,
Once clothed in silk, now shrouded cold.
Its glory turned to myth and dream,
Its banners pale as moonlight's gleam.
The Capitol, the gods, the streets,
Faded echoes, dust beneath feet.

Yet Nature carries on her tune,
To rivers' tides and sun and moon.
While man may build and man may reign,
He yields to dust, returns to rain.
The mountains rise, the valleys fall,
Unmoved by empire, king, or thrall.

Oh, Rome has fallen; in the soil
Its palaces return to toil.
But Nature lives, unscarred, unmarred,
She holds the ground, she guards the stars.
From ocean's depths to mountain's crest,
She weathers all, she takes her rest.

One day, new cities too shall fall,
Caught in Nature's age-old thrall,
While earth reclaims her space anew,
The flowers bloom where columns grew.
And all that was once proud and bright
Dissolves into the waiting night.

Oh Nature, ancient, steadfast friend,
You outlast all; you know no end.
Where men may fight and empires rise,
You spread beneath the open skies.
Eternal seas, eternal trees,
Unmoved by all man’s victories.

The forests breathe, the deserts sigh,
Mountains whisper to the sky,
The rivers run, the oceans weep—
Through Nature's grasp, all secrets keep.
Rome’s faded light, the ages show,
Nature remains, her quiet glow.

Rome has fallen, ye see it lying,
Heaped in undistinguished ruin,
Nature is alone undying.

• Written 12/13/2024

---

I hear the sound of raindrops loud,
They roar along with endless force,
Constantly dropping upon the dewy Earth.
Where one splash lands, so too does another,
Where wetness rises, so too does it dry.

But for now, while we have this great, holy rain,
Let us bask in all its naked glory.
Where water moves, so does life—
We are all conscious beings, striving and seeking.

I hear the sound of my dryer,
Round and round does it make the clothes go,
Round and round, just like my emotions so,
Round and round, just like the Earth all around.
Round and round, like the top,
And spin, and wind, and unwind, and shine—
Shine in the greatness that is the sun,
Blotted out by the weariness of the clouds.

Slowly moving round the sky,
It gently catches our ego,
Amazed by the beauty that is truly within.
That one most high can create something so nigh impossible to apprehend.
We do not resent so beautiful a gift;
It catches us all in wonder and amazement.

Wonder and amazement is all we see,
Nothing is greater than all it could be.
Be true to you,
Be who you are,
Become your star.

Manifest, not dream;
There is more to you than seems—
The labor of a single man,
Of the slaves of old,
Of the animals older still,
Of the great bulls and oxen, of the dog and fox,
Of the pigeons and cats, of birds and bats,
Of rocks and stars, of the trees and sand,
Of the grapevine and land.

What of those old poets still,
Those men and women,
Those second Solomons,
Those uplifters of life,
Those who are never trite,
Those that spurn the heart to work all night—
And even in the day like some nocturnal creature?

The ALL comes to greet you.
You see them not, but they see you.
The art of song that brings all along,
Where Orpheus strung his lyre’s string.
Did not all of animal kind suddenly become attentive
When he let loose his passion’s fire?

No warning, just a meandering stalling,
Letting them all get close until...

“Ring!”
A slight tone is just made.

“Ring!” “Ring!”
Two more in rapid succession made.

Now the fear and trembling fade.

“Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!”
And at once, all is calm and serene.
There is no hate in the heart.
The skunk does not smell,
The lion does not roar,
The tiger does not pounce,
The bird does not chirp,
The dog does not bark,
And even the angels themselves do not hark.

One more time does thrice-great Orpheus sing:
“Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!”

Alas, like before, but now more so,
All is still, and thus, with attention grabbed,
Orpheus sings his sultry fad.

“All of mankind and those of the Earth, I do sing: one for all and all for one.”

“I sing of hope, that this life is not all we are, but that we shall reign in the world beyond, long after.”

“We know it in our bones.”
“We feel it in our tones.”
“When we sing of Earth and heaven.”
“There is always more than there seems.”

“When we walk through the market,
Feel the breath of every life course through you.”

“When you stare at the trees,
You could faintly hear them sing to thee.”

“When you find the path,
That road seemingly less taken by the mass.”

“When you find your eye meeting another,
This may be the potential brush of love so fervently yearned for.”

“I sing of death.”

“I bring the oldest news, already long known:
The time be short, and art is long.
And revenge, while painful in the dawn, makes life in the comfort of the long.”

“When dreary days oppress your heart,
Remember, dears, that all is naught
So long as you have hope.”

“I sing of joy,
That strong spirit which possesses all.”

“There is no consoling the dead but through joy:
A joy of the long-feted wake,
A joy of having been remembered at all,
A joy of having been born,
Of having that great privilege for life itself.”

“To make truly great this one time we know we have,
We would think it our only duty to perform that which makes us enjoy it.
And yet, how few do!”

“To bring into other people’s lives a sense of joy,
To have them understand appreciation for the world,
To let them hold dear all that is near,
And to have them come at once into their own person.”

“I sing of action:
The motive force, that active principle, that driver of all.”

“Like wills which yearn for power, enacting themselves onto every shadow.
To be found wanting, and to wish only for more—
For more this and that, and that or this.
To make not a pause in pursuit, but to only chase it till it has been captured.”

“Not that so strong a passion or desire is to be all-encompassing,
Rather, let it be benevolently dictated—controlled but uncontrollable forever.”

“The fires of passion make themselves all too manifest,
But such is life, ah yes, that glorious thing.”

“I sing of life.
What that is—if that even be the right question—none may know.”

“We may only fervently desire to see it flourish—in only the best possible conditions.
To praise the unknowable, to do the work of worship.”

“To praise a god: could we ourselves not become like it?
To know what it is like to be begotten out of nothing.
To know all things, to feel, to have no end, to make right all things—
Surely, this is not to be comprehended by anyone that has an honest mind.”

“And yet, despite all that makes it unlikely nonsense,
We are still good enough, humble enough, to make our lamentations heard:
To cry aloud for all near to hear,
To know that life is within us; and what be within us, there is god.”

“This world knows itself and all its hardships—too many that seem unthinkable.”

“Yet we live on in joyous hope, knowing death,
That all is bearable, that all is okay in the world,
That our actions today shall leave fruit for all of tomorrow.

To know that action itself leaves a mark on the world,
That all we do is not for its own sake, but for those higher goals,
That our passions do not control us, but rather we them.

To, alas, find that all-encompassing—that prophet of old, of all time, for all time.
There has never been one made flesh to have moved the rock,
To have found the temple, to be given the keys of paradise and hell,
And to have at once mended the spirit of men.

Shudder not at such a worthy thought.
To find each and every ode in its name, in its praises,
Far beyond any deep conviction or faith.

To be at one, in whole, with all there is, has been, and ever will be.
To write in scrolls or manuscripts the story of all stories.
To know what and what not there be in life.
To shun evil, praise good, indulge not in it, but enjoy it fully when it may come.

Is this not extraordinary for human nature?
Nay, is it not for all creatures?
Are we not all children of the same god? Do we not become alike in that?
Do we not all bear the same toil and fall for the same foibles?

Those things are sweet to us—savory, like salt to a good meal.
This is the stuff of life, like dreams are made of; what rocks may conjure up in their silent stupor.

When all is said and done, there may never have been a great psalm of life,
Of death, of action and drive, of passion most high.
And it is found within the realization of ourselves:
Born out of our own image, to become like him, for we are him.
He is not separate from us, for we made him thus: like us!

The world has never seen a more important message;
It has not, and has never been without god,
Yet the one and true savior of us all.

I do the work of him, so long as I live,
For I am with him, like him, love him, cherish him, forever and ever.
For not only me, but you, and you, and you too.
Nay, us all—we are one with him, for he pervades everything that has been or will be.

Is he not that all-powerful, that all-loving, that surest song of everything and nothing?
Like the bird singing its heart out for love;
Where we drop all, fall to our knees, clasp our hands, and alas—
Good lord, Christ almighty, I am that I say I am.

I become at once the first and the last;
I become like a name, remembered through the sands of time—
Never to be forgotten like some lost memory or past event.

I say all this, dear animal and man, not for my sake, but for all time’s sake.
I speak not of trite, but of life and death—the alpha and omega—
The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end.”

“I shall forever perpetually sing, so long as my lyre string can keep up; so long as my voice does not give sway, so long as the fire is within my mind; that the face of the beautiful, loving, joyous, all-giving, all-sustaining master of us all shall reside forever within me.”

“I shall go on like one preacher, one wanderer, one lover of nature.

My pilgrimage is for my future self, wherever my passions may take me,
So long as I hold myself in high regard—that I am a child of god—that you and me together are one;
That I break the fourth wall with my every song;
That I call to you up there—to you who reads these words of Orpheus:
That I beseech you, lords, to be merciful to a broken reed;
For it is my mind, my hand, and my heart—that I take those actions here today on behalf of all of mankind.

That they may know the divine; that they may know their spiritual selves;
That they taste not death but eternal life;
That they know of good and evil, and that they transcend themselves in it;
Not only that they choose the good, but that they perform the necessary evils.

To know truly, at last, themselves.

This life was not meant for demons or angels only.
Where the good is, the bad shall arise—and where there is evil, good shall always shine forth.
That suffering is not but temporary, but eternal, and thus do we have to harden ourselves from all its pricks of malevolence.
That it is something which we must all face; that is something which—MOST IMPORTANTLY—we must overcome.

I say, dear creatures, for how long have we let such accursed things oppose us?
For how long must they? Shall they? In what way? And why?
All questions worthy of answer, but unworthy of ignorance.

Life is of two kinds: the wretched and the blessed.

The wretched are those who perform what is counter to themselves: to lie to themselves—noble Plato’s lie—all for the sake of their security, or for their standing amongst the judgments of others, or for a life they think they desire, but really don’t.
They prefer rather the road already traveled, long since made smooth by the feet of other travelers—that so-called journey was made not by them, but for them, from the pressures of society and their upbringing.
That is no true life; I call it wretched for that very reason.”

“While the truly great, noble, BLESSED, are those for whom life is a continuous game of felicity;
The sky shall not be the limit—there be footsteps on the moon—and every day do their actions justify their happiness and greatness.

The Blessed are those who understand the rules to such a game—the decisions we make within a long-since fallen world;
Where the sun fails to shine, where the clouds do not part, where there be continuous distraction and unalterable, unrelenting, even unfathomable misery.
The world we reside in is such, and yet do we endure such a thing—as wretched a thing as ourselves!

We know not how the time to depart shall be;
But blessed is he who worries not about such things.
Ask not questions which have no real answer;
Ask not questions that we fail to understand.”

“Only shall the blessed man or woman do this: know thyself, follow thy goals and passions, and love others as you love thyself. Such is the essence of the blessed life.”

“And so, dear animals, and all of mankind, I have thus sung, played, and told of the whole of earthly duties; I have just left a part of me with every one of you—and now you may call yourself enlightened!”

“Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!” “Ring!”

And thus did all the animals depart from Orpheus, now filled with the words of wisdom, the psalms of life, the lectures of genius, and the whole of earthly delight.

And now I return back to myself on so gentle a contemplation.

As the rain then trickles into my windowsill,
I hear the gentle splash of that liquid.
Languish not, forever in that spot, tarnished by dust, by hair, by dirty stuff.

My tidy self now made black and wretched by these continuous thoughts,
The whole charade of life which we play,
All but an exercise in futility and decay.

If I say anything at all worthy of remembrance,
Let it first be said here that all was acquired by me through my own passion.
I had fought my way into the world of intellectuals;
I had beautified myself in the long-past plumage of other men,
Plundered I did for their insights,
And blundered I did my own wretched life.

None but only the worthiest of sacrifices,
This dream of a young lad, a dunciad,
I had always strived to become.
To overcome all such troubles and hardships,
Bring not wet eyes to my altar or casket, dear.

Those gentle flutterings of the river showers
Fall like boulders from on high and smash the ground—
A carnage upon the earth of some wicked kind.
A crow in the distance finds but the follies of war
And takes his fill at the flesh of the helpless victim.

Thus seems to be a worthy analogy of my life:
One big raindrop, which shall splash, make a hit, and evaporate,
Forever to disappear, not even the slightest trace.

The whole world shall go up in flames by my will,
And not a single star-gazed eye shall break its train or joy.
None shall recognize me.
I will become like air,
Breathed in and out, but not thought about.

My power feels strong, fiery, alive,
But this is but a mask which I cannot consistently keep up.
Heap up—Not! I shall forever remain false.

I wish to be a Byron, a Manfred, or a Faust,
A Wilmot, a Milton, or a Gauss.
But none of these things am I.
No! Just a silly little idler—scribbling these works of art.
Or so I think they are, but really, they are trite.

I wish to try something new, to do something else,
To experience a new kind of sensation which shall allow my art to flourish.
That is all I think these days—flourishing and cultivation,
Contemplating with tearful eyes the deeds and debts that men have played.

All these frivolities which women have sowed,
All this continuation of culture;
All which mankind cherishes and loves,
Such things which make even the iron gods cry and bring Mephisto to pity.

The work, the strive, the ride or die, the all or nothing, the shameful eye,
The weary mind, the empty stomach, the hollow mind, the upstart dead,
The death of our loved ones—ALL!

These are the calamities of life, all such worthies of odes and lamentations,
Of the remembrance, of the love within.

Where we, artists and appreciators of all this,
How we ourselves are sacrificed in its image.
To love the past for what it represents: Alas!

Alas, we say, Eureka! it is found—
A foppish dog and a muddy hound,
The true bringers of world peace,
Although they be the pit and the pendulum.

Working out, harming their sickly backs,
We poets and writers, with our tired hands and rounded shoulders,
The things we do for love, for our passions!

Are these things not our life?
Is it not all surely a sick game,
That we may be tame, but that life shall swallow us up and show but little remorse?
That we may recall the misery day,

When the rain was firm, the shades were drawn back,
The branch had hung near, and the crow was quoting King Lear.
That he shall be the terror of the earth, although he does not know in what way.
That he is determined to be a villain, though his heart knows not evil.

These are the thoughts I conjure up in such thought,
That what I write now is but the paltry attempt at poetical display.
A rather mocking way—the old brain picks me,
A youth of hope, filled with much sorrow, to mope about, in deep leisure—
Held up by kindness; and which, if it was to fall away,
Will without question end this little charade (this foolish game).

You see, I am inspired right now—which is why I write.
Advice to the youngling: don’t go sulking about.
Mess not around with life, lest you are willing for the outcomes—
To be spent and cooked, drowned in debt, life forsook.

A joyous burden for all of modern humanity.
Shall not modernity be justly called a quack little world?

From Eve’s bite to Abel’s sin,
From the flood’s deaths to the burning of infants,
Rested upon the altar of Baal—where Lady Babylon laughs—
And at once the full depths of earthly misery are felt.

Dear lord and savior, Jesus Christ—blessed one, holy Mary,
We do bequeath you highest love and praise.
We do beseech you forgiveness and days—
Days of long life, happy mirth, and non-dreadful strife.

I know not what else to say but to keep right.
The path of the noble world worries me—for I know not what I am capable of.
I doubt myself every second of life.

I have accomplished nothing of note or repute.
I was so inspired by the deeds of the past, I worshipped at their feet—
Of worthy men, of beautiful women.
I gave myself over not to pleasure but understanding (how I wish otherwise at times).

I was set upon this world not to pass by it, but to be felt.
I do not play the bard’s bravado hymn here.

I truly mean what I say when I say what I mean,
And I mean to say what it is I say.

I shall stay, perhaps not too long, on Earth.
I shall drink of life from the grapevine,
To carpe diem sung, not strung from the harp’s lung,
Rather manifested in action and pursuit—
To venerate the narrow mind.
Not always seeking the divine,
Not always striving to become a shell, a husk.

Rush headlong mankind does—big time rush.
We leave not what is ourselves in the world, but rather accumulate and denigrate ourselves,
To which we fools so fervently acquiesce.

Not I—I shall become like Byron and Zarathustra,
A man of wicked thought—all of which be fuel for my funeral pyre;
From which I shall burn on, endlessly, forever and ever,
And to which my ashes shall be scattered across the land.

By the four winds I shall be made,
Spread not division and strife—a world’s end—like Revelations,
But rather a benevolence, a benignity of spirit—the muses, Apollo, Dionysus, and the world soul at large.

You see, I write these free verse lines—Whitman sublime—
With the hopes of being heard and felt,
To be a voice for a lost generation, FOR I MYSELF AM LOST,
To leave for the future of mankind a kind of record that shall be viewed by those of old,
To have related to those of distant ages,
To hear them say: “He speaks to us, for he is just like us.”

And it be remembered that this whole piece started as a joke,
A funny little thing I did with the exercise of the mind.
I was trying to tap into inspiration itself,
That long-lost hope of Pandora’s—regained again,
To have, at last, it grasped in my hand, like the whole world,
Where that wizard Bacon’s Brazen Head said, “Time is, Time was, Time is past.”

I shall remain like the utterance of that phrase,
Where the consistency shall never be turned off.
No, dearest muse, never shall it die off,
For I would rather sooner depart from you than you from me.
For you make me whole, and should not lose that hope you placed in me,
Where my mind shall ever burn with
The deep desire to know all,
To take the whole of every encyclopedia and place them in my head.

To appreciate all of culture is said an impossible task,
But I was never one to have my fires quenched without fight or panache.

And thus shall I contrive on, either rambling in verse or prose,
Always hankering for KNOWLEDGE thence,
Becoming the beacon of hope—the voice of an entire age—never stopping, for there is always more that must be said.

And all was inspired by a little noise near my nightly bed!

• Written 12/17/2024

---

I look outside my window upon the dark,
And force my mind to think those scary thoughts.
Is it not like some new world or far dimension,
To find ourselves trapped in these wretched plains?

To think what lies beyond the outstretched arm,
To conjure up grave images in the far,
Where voices are heard singing and dancing,
Much merriment and mirth to be found in these here visitations.

But so too are they coupled with images of dread and horror,
Where the darkness once again overturns,
And one quickly finds themselves subsumed,
Unable to break from these here dreads,
And take at once to smashing their own heads.

For the visitations do not cease,
And so they bathe in these horrid feasts,
Where kings in poets’ courts do reign,
And find the stories told to bring on shame.

But so it is with these stories, that they are true,
And though they be not new,
They still strike terror into youths.

But I return once to my wretched view,
Where I gaze out upon my windowsill,
Met with a darkness unlike others,
Where no light be seen, not even from the moon.

For it be true the night is young,
The moon is youthful sprung,
Found in a place called ‘new,’
Where it be seen not from mortal eyes,
And where no light from sun shall reflect to thine.

Whose rays impress not upon our visage,
Forever leaving dark our mortal eyes,
Which see not near autumn’s end.

Yet, perchance, speak of coming seasons then?
Ay, yes, indeed—for it is a winter’s tale they speak,
A time in which the wind shall chill our bones,
And which shall make us yearn for earthly warm.

To cuddle ourselves close with haughty breath,
To warm our spirits bright with life’s extent,
To know the warmth of human exhale bent,
And sue for peace in times when we may freeze.

When animal skins and pelts shall not be,
The release we seek from cold’s embrace,
We only pray upon that moment,
That we may find in dreadful tears,
A warmth that breaks us into cheer.

So fear not that dreaded darkness that you see,
For in it you may find hope enough and life for thee.

• Written 12/18/2024

---

I dreamt a dream, and yet it was no dream,
For all was swallowed in eternal Night.
The sun, extinguish’d, left the heavens dim;
No ray from starry throngs could pierce the gloom,
But wandered, lost, through voids of endless dark.
The earth, an icy orb, blind, black, and mute,
Turn’d soundlessly through air bereft of moons.
Morn’s golden chariot never came to ride;
Its steeds lay slain upon the fields of space.
Men’s hearts, once kindled bright with love, grew cold,
Each soul a trembling prayer for simple light.

Upon the plain, vast pyres began to glow,
Their lurid flames consuming kings’ proud thrones
And paupers’ humble hovels side by side.
The cities, lit by funeral conflagrations,
Burnt high, their towers cracking toward the void,
While men drew close, to gaze in terror’s glass
At faces wrought with famine’s ghastly hand.
Ah, happier those who dwelt where fire’s bold tongues
Erupted from volcanic mounts, and cast
Their grim, unwinking torches o’er the land.

Yet forests too were offered to the blaze,
Their oaken hearts reduced to ash by hours,
And all was blackened—silent save for snaps
Of dying embers crumbling into dust.
Men’s faces, flick’ring in despairing light,
Wore masks unearthly, gaunt with spectral grief.
Some hid their eyes and wept; some sat as stone,
Their chins upon clenched hands; others did toil
To feed the flames with fuel—boughs or bones—
And hurled their curses to the muted sky,
Where clouds like funeral shrouds hung thick and low.

The beasts of field and air grew tame with dread;
The serpent coiled without its venom’d sting,
The raven ceased its cry, and men were torn
By famish’d dogs once loyal—save but one,
Who kept his vigil by his master’s corpse,
Licking the lifeless hand with mournful wail
Until his hollow frame, too, met the dust.

And war, that cruel phantom, stalked again,
Devouring what the famine had not claimed.
Each man, alone, sat gorging in the gloom,
Bereft of love, while Death became the world’s
Sole lord, enthroned in frost and hopeless want.
The rivers ceased their courses, lakes stood still,
The oceans, glassy tombs, bore rotting ships
Whose masts fell piece by piece to stagnant graves.
The winds lay silent, folded in their tombs,
While moonless skies weighed heavy on the soul.

And Darkness, like a queen who needs no crown,
Spread her unchallenged mantle o’er the void,
For she alone did reign—she was the All.

• Written 12/18/2024

---

Where night consumes, the moon is sure to follow,
And with that, the sun shall fall. Beneath
This somber sky, the stars burn faint and hollow,
Their distant winks now drowned by dark’s cold breath.

The rivers whisper, sullen in their course,
Their silver veils now stolen by the shade.
The forests sigh, as if some unseen force
Had drawn their life away, their spirits frayed.

No hymn of birds, no rustling of the leaves,
Only the stillness of a breathless earth.
The winds are hushed, as if the world bereaves
Some ancient loss too deep for mortal mirth.

And yet, the heart does not abandon yearning,
For deep within its chambers glows a spark,
A stubborn ember, quietly still burning,
Defiant in the all-encompassing dark.

Oh moon, pale guardian of the dreaming sea,
Your face is veiled, and shadows take your place.
What hand has torn your silver symmetry
And left behind this void of endless space?

Above, where once the heavens sang with light,
Now chaos reigns, a realm of mute despair.
The firmament, bereft of day and night,
Hangs heavy as a mourner’s leaden stare.

Yet in this black abyss, some visions bloom,
For darkness brings the muse, unbidden guest.
It weaves its threads upon the cosmic loom
And pulls forth dreams from depths of mind’s unrest.

Behold, within the shadow’s vast expanse,
A ghostly glow, a faint, eternal gleam.
It stirs the weary soul into a trance,
And fills the air with whispers of a dream.

For night may claim the moon, and stars may wane,
And sun may fall into the gulf of time,
But light endures, a constant in the vein
Of life itself, a pulse, a steady chime.

Though empires crumble, though the years decay,
Though worlds may shatter and the heavens freeze,
Still light persists, a beacon in the gray,
A thread of gold within the timeless seas.

And so we wait, though waiting seems in vain,
For shadows lie too thick upon the heart.
Yet still we yearn, for yearning soothes the pain,
And hope can weave where darkness rends apart.

The dawn will come, though distant be its breath;
Its crimson hues shall chase the night away.
The sun, reborn, shall cast aside its death,
And flood the world with everlasting day.

But until then, where night consumes the moon,
And shadows spread like ink across the ground,
We turn to stars, to find within their tune
A trace of light, a fragment still profound.

Oh, sing to me, you distant spheres of fire!
Though faint your voices, still they reach my ear.
They echo all the hopes that hearts require,
To guide the lost, to calm the shivering fear.

For what is man but dust and dreaming breath?
What fuels his steps if not the thought of more?
He journeys through the labyrinth of death,
Yet sees beyond its gate another door.

So let the night consume the moon, and let
The sun fall into darkness for a while.
This fleeting doom is not the final debt;
The wheel shall turn, and light shall yet beguile.

Where night consumes, the moon is sure to follow,
And with that, the sun shall fall—but wait:
From depths of shadow springs a seed, a hollow
Shell that bursts to bring forth brighter fate.

For every dusk bears whispers of a dawn,
And every fall, the promise of ascent.
The endless cycle turns, and on, and on,
The world persists, renewed by what is spent.

So in the shadow’s arms, do not despair;
The darkness folds the earth, a velvet shroud.
But from its folds shall rise a radiance rare,
A sun to pierce the heaviest of clouds.

Though night may swallow stars, and moons may wane,
The dawn shall come to kiss the earth again.

• Written 12/18/2024

---

Poetry is the art which calls me so,
When midnight looms, and time begins to slow.
The final seconds tick—a year must die,
Its fleeting breath a whisper in the sky.
Around, the revelers clamor, cheer, and weep,
Yet in my quiet heart, reflections seep.

A year of joy, of sorrow, and of strain,
Of morning sun and evening's sweet refrain.
Now comes the hour when silence reigns supreme,
And every thought aligns within a dream.
For poetry, my faithful guide and friend,
Awaits the year to close and then transcend.

I sit before the clock, its steady face,
A sentinel of life, of time, and grace.
Its hand, relentless, marches to the line
Where one year ends, and hope begins to shine.
With pen in hand, I mark this fleeting hour,
And words, like seeds, begin their blooming flower.

O poetry, you art of sacred flame,
You draw me forth, though never seek acclaim.
Your whispers weave through life’s chaotic din,
And beckon me to find the truth within.
You teach me how to see through veils of night,
And catch the glimmers of eternal light.

The clock strikes ten, and nearer comes the crest
Of time reborn, of weary spirits’ rest.
A blank page yawns before my trembling hand,
A canvas vast, a sea of shifting sand.
Each line I write becomes a fleeting trace,
A bridge between the years, a sacred space.

The crowd outside erupts in wild delight,
They toast the dying year, embrace the night.
But here I sit, untouched by time’s loud play,
Entranced by thoughts that words alone convey.
What is a year but fleeting breath, I muse,
A fragile thread the Fates may quick unloose?

O art of poetry, how rich thy charms,
You cradle time itself within your arms.
The sorrows of the past, the joys to be,
Are etched in verse, eternal, wild, and free.
Each couplet holds the weight of memory’s gold,
Each stanza breathes of futures yet untold.

The final minute strikes, the moment near,
The threshold stands—the turning of the year.
A trembling hush falls soft upon the crowd,
As time’s great wheel prepares to shift its shroud.
Five minutes left, and in this fleeting space,
The universe aligns in perfect grace.

"Poetry is the art which calls me so,"
I write, as stars above begin to glow.
The pen now dances, ink becomes a tide,
An endless stream where past and present glide.
What voice compels me now to seek this rhyme?
What force commands my pen to challenge time?

The seconds pass, a drumbeat in my chest,
Each moment urging words to coalesce.
"To all who hear," I scrawl, "this gift I send—
The whispered truths that neither break nor bend.
To love, to dream, to rise, to boldly strive,
To find in fleeting years the will to thrive."

The crowd begins its fervent, roaring chant,
The air electric, filled with wild enchant.
“Ten!” they exclaim, and then “Nine! Eight! and Seven!”
Their voices rise like hymns to heaven.
And yet, within, I pause to contemplate,
The beauty of this fragile twist of fate.

“Six! Five! Four!” the world begins to quake,
As hopes anew within their hearts awake.
Yet I, still bound to verse’s timeless stream,
Compose the last of this poetic dream.
“Three! Two! One!” the final line appears,
A gift to mark the passage of the years:

“Each fleeting moment, cherished in its flight,
Becomes the poetry that shapes our night.”

The bell tolls loud, the year at last reborn,
A newborn day, a shining, gilded morn.
The revelry erupts, but I remain,
To write, to dream, to capture joy and pain.
O poetry, you art of fire and air,
You fill the void with meaning rich and rare.

The minutes after midnight softly glide,
And still I write, with poetry my guide.
The crowd outside dissolves, their joy complete,
While here, my heart continues its heartbeat.
For poetry, the calling I must heed,
Will plant within my soul its fertile seed.

So as the year begins, and time does flow,
I vow to keep the art which calls me so.
Through days of trial, nights of restless thought,
I’ll seek the truths that poetry has brought.
For life itself, though fleeting, will unfold,
In words eternal, precious, pure, and bold.

• Written 12/19/2024

---

I muse on melancholia with lust,
A mingling of despair and fervent trust.
In shadows deep, I find her somber guise,
A veiled enchantress, soft with midnight sighs.
Her voice, a hymn to sorrow’s dulcet tune,
A siren’s call beneath the weeping moon.

She whispers soft of worlds both lost and bare,
Of fleeting dreams dissolved into the air.
I chase her through the halls of memory’s keep,
Through waking hours and the depths of sleep.
She offers me her hand, both cold and sweet,
A paradox of fire and ice complete.

O melancholy, cruel yet kind thou art,
You tear asunder yet rebuild my heart.
Your touch, a ghostly kiss upon my brow,
A lover’s promise, fierce yet fleeting vow.
In longing, I embrace your shadowed grace,
And see desire reflected in your face.

Your laughter rings where solemn stillness lies,
Your gaze ignites the depths of tearful eyes.
You dance on ruins, building beauty there,
And paint the night with stars beyond compare.
O sacred pain, O melancholy muse,
What beauty in your aching truths I choose.

Through faded light, where sorrow drapes the land,
I walk with you, hand clasped in trembling hand.
You show me fields where lovers carved their names,
Where passion burned and left behind its flames.
Through whispers soft, you tell of life undone,
A fleeting shadow of the setting sun.

The skies are drenched with hues of red and grey,
Each cloud a canvas for the heart’s decay.
Yet in the storm, I feel a raging fire,
A flame that feeds on grief and fierce desire.
I muse on melancholia, soft and grim,
And find within her depths a sacred hymn.

Her form is cast in robes of twilight’s weave,
A cloak of dusk, the stars caught in her sleeve.
She beckons me to tread where shadows grow,
Where pain and passion intermingle, flow.
And there I wander, lost yet not alone,
For in her grasp, I’ve found a world my own.

Her footsteps leave imprints upon the soul,
Each mark a scar, but also something whole.
She bids me sit beside a crumbling stream,
To trace the edges of a fractured dream.
"Is not," she asks, "this sorrow but a guise
For yearning’s depth, for truth beneath the skies?"

I answer not, for words are weak and vain,
Compared to her, the queen of blissful pain.
In silence, I absorb her every move,
Her subtle dance, her mournful, graceful groove.
The air around us thickens with her scent,
A perfume of despair and sweet lament.

Each tear she sheds becomes a gleaming gem,
A treasure spun from sorrow’s diadem.
And in her eyes, I see eternity,
A realm where love and loss entwine, run free.
Her laughter mingles with the cries of doves,
A symphony of grief that sings of loves.

I muse on melancholia with delight,
For in her arms, I find the endless night.
She offers not the joy of sunlit days,
But moonlit paths and twilight’s shadowed haze.
She is the muse of longing, ever near,
A phantom formed of hope and trembling fear.

Her hands are stained with ink of poets past,
Each word she weaves a spell that ever lasts.
She bids me write, to carve her visage clear,
To etch her voice for those who dare to hear.
Her beauty haunts each stanza, line, and phrase,
A wraith of wonder wandering through the maze.

She stands where rivers bend and mountains meet,
Where wild winds rage and tear the earth’s retreat.
She moves through forests draped in silent mist,
Each step a sorrow, each glance a lover’s tryst.
I follow her where all else turns to dust,
For I muse on melancholia with lust.

Her song becomes the marrow in my bone,
Her voice a solace when I’m most alone.
In her embrace, I find a solace strange,
A fleeting peace that shifts yet doesn’t change.
Her lips, a chalice filled with bitter wine,
And in their taste, I feel the world divine.

What lover, save she, dwells in realms so deep,
Where joy and woe as one together sleep?
She is the shadow cast by light’s own grace,
The fleeting smile on tragedy’s own face.
She is the mirror where my heart’s laid bare,
The broken song that lingers in the air.

O melancholy, wrap me in your arms,
Entwine me with your dark and gentle charms.
For in your sorrow, I find my own flame,
A fire that burns yet never calls my name.
I muse on you with lust that knows no bounds,
Where joy and grief make intertwining sounds.

The midnight strikes, the year begins anew,
Yet still, I stand beneath your watchful view.
For though the seasons turn, the tides may shift,
Your presence lingers, constant as a gift.
O muse of melancholy, bittersweet,
Your haunting song remains my soul’s heartbeat.

• Written 12/20/2024

---

I, cosmos crass, a world unkind,
Where dissonance and discord bind.
A masquerade of hollow souls,
Whose twisted games exact their tolls.

In labyrinths of self-deceit,
The shadows dance, where falsehoods meet.
A captive mind, a spirit chained,
By ignorance and malice stained.

A futile plea, a desperate cry,
To pierce the veil where hopes must die.
Faint echoes rise, then fall to naught,
As fragile dreams are overwrought.

The futile hope, a wasted breath,
As darkness claims a mortal's death.
And yet the ember faintly glows,
Defying all, despite its throes.

Beneath the weight of sorrow's shade,
In mortal hearts, a choice is made.
To seek the stars, or curse the night,
To forge anew, or shun the light.

A spark, a flame, an untamed roar,
The human spirit dares explore.
Though fettered tight by fate's decree,
It strains and claws for liberty.

The heavens jeer; the void laughs loud,
Yet rise we do, beneath the shroud.
For in the chaos, truth is born,
As night gives way to crimson morn.

Through tangled paths, in shadows deep,
Where wisdom wakes and folly sleeps,
A light unseen begins to grow,
A steadfast flame, a quiet glow.

Oh cosmos vast, you cruel design,
Will not the stars at last align?
To lead the weary, lost, and blind,
Toward the truths they long to find.

Yet still the dance of discord rings,
A melody on broken strings.
Each fleeting note, a cry, a plea,
To shape a kinder destiny.

Through hollow halls of doubt we wade,
Where fleeting hopes and fears cascade.
Yet still we stand, through tear and ache,
For bonds unbroken, hearts unshaked.

In storms of anguish, pain, and wrath,
We carve anew our destined path.
And though the end is ever nigh,
The will persists, the dream won't die.

So cosmos cruel, unyielding foe,
The human heart will overthrow.
No shroud of dark, no chains of fate,
Can quell the fire we cultivate.

Let dissonance and discord sound,
For in the clash, resolve is found.
A harmony to one day rise,
From fractured earth to endless skies.

• Written 12/21/2024

---

The Libertine
He charmed the tenderest virgins with delight,
Their trembling lips like petals, soft and white.
A whisper woven with silk and flame,
And none who heard him left the same.

For words like his could sway the stars,
Breaching the gates of the heart’s tight bars.
A glance, a grin, a tilt of his face,
And virtue dissolved in his magnetic embrace.

He moved with a grace both coy and profound,
His laughter a melody that wrapped around.
Each syllable he spoke, a siren’s plea,
Unraveling the threads of propriety.

Yet he did not stop where soft hearts beat,
But turned to those with a mind replete.
And with his style did fiercest blockheads fright,
Reducing their pomp with effortless might.

The dogmatist blustered, the scholar turned pale,
As his wit, sharp as daggers, pierced through their veil.
"Speak your truths, O learned and wise,
But know your truths are often lies."

He wore no mask but bore his scars,
A man forged raw beneath the stars.
Every word and every glance,
A testament to life’s feral dance.

He danced where bodies found their peak,
A language primal, flesh to speak.
Hands that roamed like rivers untamed,
And moans that rose, unbound, unclaimed.

The virgins whispered in clandestine glee,
How they had soared with wild ecstasy.
Yet in his arms, no shame could linger,
For he was truth’s most loyal singer.

And even the blockheads, in secret thought,
Knew he had shown them the truths they sought.
His fire had melted their gilded chains,
Revealing the folly of their refrains.

He was not cruel, though power he held,
But wielded it gently, where passions swelled.
His art was the art of the human spark,
The light of day, the thrill of dark.

In chambers where sighs and shadows played,
In courts where intellect’s gauntlets were laid,
He was a force no one could deny,
A comet streaking through earth and sky.

His touch was warmth, his words a flame,
And none who met him left the same.
For he charmed the tenderest virgins with delight,
And with his style did fiercest blockheads fright.

Let this rogue be remembered, this king of vice,
Who turned each sin into paradise.
In his world, pleasure and wisdom entwined,
The body and soul, no longer confined.

Let prudence falter and judgment rest,
For he lived life in its fullest zest.
With his daring heart and artful might,
He burned too brightly for this dimmed night.

• Written 12/22/2024

---

a rake's idle musings

The Prologue of The Rake

That is it.
That is my prologue.
No flourish, no gilded tongue to beguile.
No verses bent on honeyed praise,
Nor rhyme to mask the jagged truth.

No protestations of modesty,
For I have none to offer.
I wear myself as I am—raw, unvarnished,
A man who spits at pretense and gilded lies.

You were not expecting that, I hope.
No sonnet to cradle your sensibilities,
No sweetened cup to dull the bitterness.
I am no bard to coddle your whims.

I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester,
And I do not want you to like me.
To like me would be to misunderstand,
To mistake the man for the mask he burns.

I am the howl in the dark,
The sneer that cuts the velvet night.
I do not pander to the noble stage,
Nor bow before the throne's gilded farce.

Let others grovel in gilded halls,
Their words as polished as their lies.
I walk the edge, the shadowed lane,
Where truth is fierce and hearts are bare.

Do not applaud, for I despise it.
Do not pity, for I reject it.
You may hate me, and that is fine,
For hatred is truer than faint acclaim.

I am the embers of a fire long scorched,
The ash of revelry, the scent of sin.
I lived in the wild abandon of flesh,
Drank deeply of the vine's cruel gift.

No modesty in my prologue,
For my life is no modest tale.
It is a blaze, a tempest, a scar,
Etched deep into the marrow of time.

You look to poets for moral respite,
For lofty visions to soothe the soul.
But I am no balm, no salve for the weak.
I am the thorn, the bite, the truth.

I mock the frail constructions of virtue,
The fragile walls that guard the tame.
For life is not a quiet stream—
It is the sea, untamed and vast.

I did not walk upon the shore,
Content to watch its gentle waves.
I plunged headlong into its depths,
To drown, to rise, to feel, to know.

And this, my prologue, speaks not in rhyme,
For rhyme would cage what must run free.
Do not seek rhythm in my words,
Seek the jagged pulse of a man alive.

Yes, I am John Wilmot,
A name you may spit or whisper in shame.
But know that I did not crawl through life;
I tore through it with teeth bared wide.

I scorned the robes of dignity,
The laurels placed on tempered brows.
For what is dignity but a gilded cage?
And what are laurels but leaves to burn?

My life is the flame that devours,
The heat that melts the iron chains.
I am not here to be liked,
But to be known, to be felt, to be.

So, take my prologue as it stands,
No rhymes, no pleas, no trembling bows.
I am the Earl of Rochester,
And I do not want your love or grace.

What I want is this: to speak, to shout,
To carve my mark into your soul.
For like me or hate me, I do not care—
But forget me? You will not dare.

A Rake's Declaration

Ladies, an announcement:
Attend, for truth deserves its due.
I am up for it all the time.
That is no boast, no fleeting whim,
But bone-hard, cold, and medical fact,
A fire that burns unquenched within my veins.

I put it round, you know,
Like a comet streaking through the night,
And you will watch me putting it round,
Your sighs trailing soft as whispers on the wind.
But don’t.
Don’t sigh, don’t yearn, don’t ache for the flame—
It is a deal of trouble for you.

Better, far better, to watch,
To draw your conclusions from a safe remove.
For should I get my tarse up your petticoats,
What then? What ruin might we weave?
The thrill, the heat, the fleeting bliss—
And then the ash, the bitter taste of it.

This is no tender sonnet sung to love,
No ode to hearts entwined in sacred trust.
This is flesh, raw and aching,
A force unbound, a tempest that devours.
Ladies, you’d do well to let it pass,
A gale best witnessed, not withstood.

For I am no gentle suitor,
No knight with vows of courtly grace.
I am the rake, the rogue, the libertine,
A creature of appetite and reckless desire.
What I take, I take with fervor,
But what I leave—ah, there’s the rub.

Your petticoats may billow with the thrill,
But what lies beneath will bear the scars.
And still, I see you linger,
Eyes bright with danger’s lure.
Oh, the hearts that yearn for ruin!
Oh, the souls that dance too near the edge!

Do you think me cruel, then?
Do you brand me beast or brute?
No, I am but honest in my fashion,
A mirror held to nature’s wildest truth.
For in the chase, the flame, the fleeting rapture,
We see ourselves most clearly, raw and real.

Ladies, an announcement:
I am no savior, no deliverer of dreams.
I am the storm that leaves the fields in ruin,
The spark that lights the pyre.
If you seek peace, then flee,
For my path is not the way to quietude.

Yet if you seek the dance,
The mad, unholy waltz of flesh and fire,
Then step forth—
But know the cost,
And weigh it well before you dare.

For I put it round, you know,
A truth as sharp as winter’s frost.
And while you watch, while you sigh and wonder,
Remember this:
The tempest offers no return.

So don’t.
Let the yearning stay its course,
A dream unspoken, a hunger unmet.
For the heart that burns too close to mine
Is left with nothing but embers and ash.

This is my gift and curse,
To stoke the fire, to fan the flame,
And leave the world in smoldering ruin.
Yet still, I am what I am,
Bone-hard, unyielding, and free.

Ladies, an announcement:
I am up for it all the time.
Not as boast, nor jest, nor idle whim,
But as the unvarnished truth of who I am.
Take it, leave it, or simply watch,
For that is all I have to give.

And when the sighs fade into silence,
When the distance holds its quiet truths,
Remember this:
It is better to have watched and learned
Than to have danced and fallen,
For the fire burns,
And the scars remain.

So here I stand, the libertine,
Unrepentant, raw, and whole.
Ladies, draw near or stay afar—
The choice is yours, but heed the warning well:
To touch the flame is to be consumed,
And the blaze does not forgive.

A Rake's Command

Gentlemen, do not despair—
Your moment comes, as surely as the tide.
I am up for that as well,
And the same warning applies.

Still your cheesy erections, if you can,
Till I’ve had my say, and mark it well.
For words have power beyond the flesh,
And you will need both wit and vigor yet.

Later, when you shag—and later, you will shag—
I shall expect it of you, every sinew, every nerve.
Do not falter, do not stumble;
For I will know if you have let me down.

This is not idle jest nor boastful dare,
But the creed of men who dare to live,
To burn, to break, to bear the weight
Of their desires without flinching.

What use are words if not to pierce the veil,
To strip the pomp and lay bare the truth?
I speak to you not as a king,
But as a man unbound by throne or rule.

Gentlemen, let us not cower in shadow,
Nor hide behind the trappings of restraint.
The body speaks its own relentless language,
And we are its messengers, its devoted scribes.

Yet heed me well:
There is no triumph in conquest alone,
No glory in the thrust without the thought.
It is not enough to take;
One must give, one must know, one must feel.

Later, when you shag—and yes, you shall—
Do not let it be a hollow act.
Let it be a hymn to the flesh,
A sermon in the temple of your longing.

Do not falter, do not flee,
For the weight of expectation is upon you.
I shall know if you have fallen short,
If the fire dimmed before it could consume.

Gentlemen, this is not a jest.
This is a call to arms, a rallying cry.
To live, to love, to lust without regret—
These are the marks of men who truly breathe.

For what is life but the moments we seize,
The laughter we carve from the stone of silence?
What is life but the dance of bodies in the dark,
The fleeting spark that sets the world ablaze?

Do not disappoint me.
When you go forth, when you take your leave,
When the shadows fall and the night is yours,
Do not falter. Do not hold back.

For I will know if you have let me down.
I will know if the fire did not burn,
If the pulse did not quicken,
If the moment passed, wasted and pale.

Gentlemen, let us not be pale shadows,
Faint echoes of what might have been.
Let us be the flame, the tempest, the storm,
The living proof of what it means to feel.

Still your urges for now, if you can,
And hear the truth that echoes in this hall.
Later, when the world is yours to claim,
When the night wraps itself around you,
Do not forget my words.

For the world does not wait,
The clock does not falter,
And the body demands its due.

So, gentlemen, do not despair.
Your moment comes, as surely as the dawn.
And when it does,
When you find yourselves in the throes of life,
Remember me, and remember this:

I shall expect it of you.
And I will know.

The Rake's Riddle

I wish you to shag with my homuncular image,
Rattling like a specter in your gonads’ grasp.
Feel how it was for me, how it is for me,
This trembling truth that coils in marrow deep.

When the flesh collides, ignites, and writhes,
When the world dissolves to pulse and cry,
Ponder this: Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed?
Did I touch the edge of what he knew?

Or is there a chasm none can cross,
A wall of wretchedness we batter with our heads,
Each stroke a plea to shatter what divides,
Each cry an echo of the unbroken stone?

In that shining, live-long moment,
When the soul’s walls quake and crack,
Do you dare to think you’ve breached it—
The thing beyond the thing we crave?

For I, who wore my appetites as armor,
Who charged at life with reckless grin,
Found even in the fiercest clutch of ecstasy
A whisper of the void, an empty hymn.

I tell you not to mock, but to reveal,
The hunger that gnaws, unquenched, unseen.
Each conquest, each embrace, a step
Not toward the light, but through the dark.

Feel it now, in the shudder and the gasp,
The burning truth that scorches tender hands.
What do we seek, we who leap from pleasure’s cliff,
But the bottomless pit we hope to fill?

Was that quiver the same quiver I knew?
The one that laced my spine with fire,
Yet left me cold, abandoned on the shore
Of my own relentless yearning?

Or is it all the same—a truth we share,
Bound by the limits of the human cage?
A fleeting spark, a desperate reach,
A scream against the echoing abyss?

I wish you to shag with this thought in your veins,
To let my shadow linger on your brow.
Not as a curse, but as a gift,
A question to haunt your fevered nights.

What is the thing we hope to find,
In the thrash of limbs, the mingling heat?
Is it joy, or something more profound?
Or just a moment’s shield against despair?

For I, who drank deep from life’s tempestuous cup,
Who scaled the heights of lust’s grand peaks,
Found only the same hollow wind,
The same ache that bids the restless seek.

Yet still I sought, and still I seek,
For even now, I cannot rest.
The shudder calls, the cry resounds,
And I batter the wall, unyielding, unblessed.

So, shag with this in your heart and mind,
My homuncular image rattling loud.
Feel it rise, that trembling quake,
And ask yourself if you are awake.

Was that spark the same I felt?
That fleeting jolt that seared the night?
Did you glimpse the edge of something vast,
Or just the shadow of your own delight?

There is no answer I can give,
For every lover shapes their path.
But I wish you to ponder, to sense, to dream,
To see the wall and question its grasp.

We batter with our heads, our hands, our hearts,
At that shining, live-long, blinding veil.
And in the shudder, in the groan,
We dare to hope for something whole.

Feel how it was for me, how it is for me,
And know that we are bound by this:
The hunger that drives, the flame that burns,
The wall we strike, yet cannot miss.

So go, with my shadow lingering near,
A ghost in the heat of your wildest spree.
And as you shudder, and as you sigh,
Wonder if you’ve glimpsed the truth—or me.

The Warning

Young man, you will die of this company.
Do not laugh. I’m serious.
These faces, these voices—soaked in jest,
Will weigh upon you like a leaden cloak,
Their mirth a dagger cloaked in velvet.

You think the air is ripe with joy,
But listen closer—there’s rot beneath.
Each toast a burial, each jest a dirge,
A song for the souls that squandered time.

This company is a feast for the damned,
A table where the wine flows thick,
Yet its sweetness conceals the poison,
Its laughter drowns the quiet gasp.

Do not laugh. I see your smirk,
That half-curved lip that mocks the warning.
You think me old, a relic spent,
A prophet of doom to sour your night.

But I, too, once sat at this fire,
Drank from the cup, and sang the song.
I danced with abandon, my steps so sure,
Unknowing the floor was edged with flame.

Each reveler here wears a mask of mirth,
But look closer, young man, and see.
Their eyes are wells, dark and deep,
Where sorrow hides beneath the glint.

You will die of this company,
Not with a sword, but with a sigh.
The slow decay of something pure,
The drowning of light in a sea of vice.

Do not laugh, for I am not jesting.
The path you tread feels soft, inviting,
But its end is sharp as a viper’s fang,
Its toll the weight of your untold years.

I see you glance at the brightest ones,
Their laughter loud, their gestures bold.
But youth is fleeting, a candle’s wick,
Burning bright just before the snuff.

You think the drink will drown your fears,
The flesh will soothe your aching soul.
But the drink turns bitter, the flesh goes cold,
And you’re left with shadows, vast and whole.

Do not laugh, for I speak from truth.
My bones ache with the weight of revels past,
My heart bears scars from joy turned sour,
My tongue has tasted the bitter ash.

You will die of this company,
If not in body, then in spirit.
A slow unraveling, a fraying thread,
Till all that’s left is a husk, a wisp.

So step back, young man, while there’s still time.
The fire is warm, but its heat consumes.
The wine is sweet, but its dregs are cruel.
The laughter beckons, but it hides the fall.

Do not laugh. I am serious.
This company is a siren’s call,
A promise of bliss that ends in woe.
Its song will hollow you, piece by piece.

Turn away while your soul still sings,
Before the notes are drowned in din.
Find a path where joy is steady,
Not this fleeting, burning, cruel delight.

For I, too, once thought the warning false,
A jest from lips too old to know.
And now I sit, a man undone,
By the very company I once adored.

Young man, you will die of this company.
Do not laugh. I’m serious.

The Cost of Experiment

You do not draw the moral of the incident,
The truth that writhes beneath the surface—
A pale worm in the fruit of your delight,
Whispering of costs yet uncounted.
Mark it well.

That any experiment of interest in life
Will be carried out at your own expense,
This is the immutable law, the unspoken rule,
The price for tasting the forbidden sweet.
Mark it well.

You think the world a canvas for your art,
Each brushstroke bold, each color new,
But the paint is your blood, the frame your bones,
And the masterpiece—your undoing.
Mark it well.

You flirt with danger, a coy, teasing glance,
Unknowing it courts you in return.
Each risk, a coin dropped in the abyss,
Each thrill, a pebble in the avalanche.
Mark it well.

The alchemist seeks gold from base,
But you are the base, and the fire is fierce.
Your experiments burn, each trial a blaze,
And the ashes left? Your heart’s remains.
Mark it well.

Do you think the cost will wait?
A ledger balanced in some distant year?
No, it tallies with each breath you take,
Each step, each choice, each heedless grin.
Mark it well.

The poet who loves burns words to fuel,
The lover who touches scorches their skin.
The philosopher drowns in a sea of thought,
Each seeking, each paying the same heavy toll.
Mark it well.

You chase the unknown, the untamed thrill,
And call it life, call it freedom’s name.
But life has teeth, sharp and unyielding,
And freedom demands the sacrifice of chains.
Mark it well.

You do not draw the moral of the incident,
The aching price of a fleeting desire.
To taste, to know, to claim the fire,
Is to watch your soul consumed in flames.
Mark it well.

What you call passion, what you name delight,
Is the chisel that carves your epitaph.
Each indulgence a line etched deep,
Each experiment a stroke of finality.
Mark it well.

But do not halt, do not retreat,
For what is life but the art of falling?
Each misstep, each wound, each price you pay,
Is the sum of the story you leave behind.
Mark it well.

Do not fear the cost, but hold it close,
A whispered truth, a lover’s kiss.
Know that the world takes as it gives,
And the balance is all we ever own.
Mark it well.

You do not draw the moral of the incident—
It is yours to live, to learn, to feel.
Each experiment will break you, rebuild you,
Carve your name upon the heart of existence.
Mark it well.

And when the day comes, as it surely will,
When you stand before the final silence,
Know this: you paid your price, you spent your life,
And the moral is yours alone to claim.
Mark it well.

A Monarch of Desire

This you’d believe, had I the time to tell
The labored story of sweet, sweat-bound Nelly,
Who toiled with hands, with fingers deft and sure,
With mouth that whispered heat to trembling flesh,
And thighs that wove the cradle of delight.
Such is the cost to wake the slumbering flame,
To coax the ember till it fiercely burns—
A task as human as it is divine.

Oh, how the hours passed, their weight unseen,
While pleasure’s altar bore her ardent craft!
Each motion, a prayer of lust fulfilled,
Each sigh, a hymn that climbed the vaulted skies.
Yet toil she must, for joy is seldom free—
Its ransom paid in aching limbs and breath.

All monarchs I despise, and the thrones they claim,
The gilded seats where power breeds decay.
From the hector of France with his powdered airs,
To the cully of Britain, a fool’s vacant stare—
Their crowns, no more than gilded snares of pride,
Their rule, a stain upon the human tide.

What worth is sovereignty when hearts are bound,
Chained not by justice, but by whim of kings?
They strut and preen, their riches piled high,
While laboring Nelly tends the flame of life.
Her sweat a nobler coin than all their gold,
Her sighs more regal than their hollow boasts.

The flesh rebels against the yoke of power,
For in its primal throes, all men are free.
No crown can tether what the body craves,
No law can bind the spirit’s fierce demand.
To Nelly’s toil I raise my voice in song,
For hers is the kingdom built on burning need.

How sweet the labor, though it wrings the brow,
To draw from embers fire’s full-throated roar.
Her fingers speak the language kings forgot,
Her thighs a throne no tyrant dares to claim.
Each moan a declaration of the self,
Each gasp a revolution in the flesh.

Oh, Nelly, queen of sweat-streaked artistry,
Your empire spans the lands where bodies meet.
Your work outlasts the pomp of transient kings,
For lust endures where power fades to dust.
Let monarchs prattle of their royal schemes,
While you, unbowed, ignite the fire of dreams.

This you’d believe, had I but time to show
The cost, the gift, the glory of her toil.
A kingdom forged not by decree or sword,
But by the ancient rites of human want.
All monarchs I abhor, and thrones they sit on,
For none command the truth of Nelly’s art—
The sacred fire that burns within us all.

What is a crown beside a lover’s kiss?
What is a throne beside a trembling hand?
The hector of France may preen and pose,
The cully of Britain may drink and doze,
But neither knows the labor of delight,
The price of pleasure paid in moans and might.

From hands to heart, from lips to heated core,
The work of love demands the spirit’s all.
And so she gives, and so she sweats and strives,
Till ember leaps to flame, and flame consumes.
A monarch’s life is built on borrowed time,
While Nelly’s reign endures in every touch.

Let kings wear crowns and sit in gilded halls—
Their thrones are cold, their courts but empty shells.
The real is here, in bodies bound and freed,
In Nelly’s labor, fierce, unbridled, raw.
And when the embers flare to roaring life,
The world bows not to kings, but to the flesh.

This you’d believe, had I but time to say
How monarchs fade, while passion burns for aye.

A Toast to Wits and Fools

Give us a stanza, and we'll laugh in the king's place,
For laughter is the crown no monarch may steal.
Let them strut in silks and dine on air,
Their thrones mere gilded cages for their pride.
We, the free of tongue and boundless wit,
Will carve a kingdom from the marrow of life.

To Etherege, I drink a pledge,
His name a spark in a weary world.
His life has run the gamut of delight,
Each jest a blade, each quip a duel.
He's penned naught good since She Would If She Could,
But that one line could fill a hundred courts.

He would if he could, but he cannot—
Oh, such a truth for us who breathe!
The world is wrought of dreams half-built,
Of songs unfinished and fleeting notes.
Still, we sing, still we craft and toil,
For what else is there in this mortal coil?

The king may summon poets to his throne,
May bind their tongues with gold and gentle threats,
But we who laugh, who drink, who jest—
We owe no homage but to the spark of joy.
Give us a stanza, and we’ll crown ourselves,
The monarchs of the tavern’s smoky halls.

What is a court but pretense wrapped in pearls?
What is a crown but a lie made of gold?
Etherege knew, with his feathered quill,
That freedom lies in words untamed,
In laughter that bites and stirs the heart,
In mocking the rules that bind the world.

He would if he could, but he cannot—
And so he spins his truths in jest.
The playhouse echoes with his subtle fire,
A truth disguised as merriment and mirth.
She would if she could, but does she dare?
The question lingers, a thorn in silken ease.

Drink deep, my friends, to Etherege’s name!
To every jest that pricks the pompous air,
To every quip that lays a tyrant bare.
For kings may rule, but poets reign,
Their words outlasting marble thrones,
Their rhymes more potent than a monarch’s edict.

Give us a stanza, and we’ll build a world,
A world where laughter binds no man,
Where wit cuts sharper than a sword,
And wine flows freer than a king’s decree.
We drink to Etherege, to every word,
To every truth he wrapped in bawdy jest.

He would if he could, but he cannot—
Oh, what a jest to haunt the weary soul!
For who among us does all they dream?
Who among us conquers every foe?
Still, we strive, still, we laugh and leap,
For life is brief, and glory lies in the attempt.

The king’s place is cold, his halls are grim,
No laughter echoes, no song is sung.
But here, where the fire warms the ale,
Where jests are currency and wit is king,
We reign supreme, unbound, alive,
With Etherege’s ghost to guide our hand.

So raise a cup to the man who dared,
To the playwright who spun gold from air.
She would if she could, but she cannot—
And yet, in trying, she is free.
We, too, are bound by what we lack,
Yet in that bond, we find our wings.

Give us a stanza, and we’ll laugh in the king’s place,
For laughter is a power no crown can command.
To Etherege, to jesters, to all who dare,
To every word that stings and sings.
We drink, we laugh, we live unbowed,
And build our thrones in the dust of kings.

The Withered Flower

Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
This body, once a tempest fierce and free,
Now crumbles into frail mortality.

Where once the spark of life burned bold and bright,
Now shadows loom, and passion flees the night.
This dart of love, whose piercing point so keen,
Drew cries of rapture where it once had been,

Now lies in languor, in this cruel hour,
Shrunk up and sapless, like a withered flower.
Its triumphs faded, its conquests turned to ash,
Its sharpened edge dulled by time’s unyielding lash.

O piercing dart, once vibrant in its prime,
Thy triumphs sang through unrelenting time.
Whose point, oft tried, drew virgin blood anew,
In beds of silken red, in passion's hue.

Ten thousand maids, their breaths held tight,
Fell captive to thy fierce and urgent flight.
But now, thou art a relic, frail and worn,
A ghost of fire, by icy winds forlorn.

Was it the weight of years that drew thee down?
The endless cycle of thy fleeting crown?
Was it the thirst, unquenched by what it sought,
That turned thy triumphs into fleeting thought?

The body remembers what the mind forgets,
Each whisper, each touch, each fevered sweat.
And yet, it wanes, this once-bold flame,
The hunger lingers, but the strength is tame.

O love’s cruel dart, thy legend lies in pain,
For every victory bears its weight of shame.
Each conquest fleeting, each triumph brief,
Each ecstasy shadowed by its thief.

The flower withers, petals curl to dust,
What once was glory fades into disgust.
The trembling thrill, the gasp, the cry,
Now echoes faint, a hollow lullaby.

Yet still, the heart remembers what was true,
The fevered nights, the skies turned crimson hue.
The dart of love, that once did pierce so deep,
Now lies forgotten in its quiet sleep.

But in that slumber, does it dream of more?
Of passion’s tides and love’s unyielding shore?
Or does it languish, steeped in sorrow’s stream,
A fading echo of a fevered dream?

Trembling, confused, despairing, weak,
The words of love no longer shall I speak.
For what is love but a fleeting flame,
A spark that burns and leaves a name?

The withered flower tells a tale of truth,
Of fleeting passion and the fire of youth.
But every fire must burn itself away,
And leave but embers at the break of day.

O dart of love, thy legacy is clear,
Thy triumphs sung, thy failures held dear.
For though thou shrinkest, though thou art dry,
Thy legend lingers where the bold hearts lie.

Trembling, confused, despairing, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
Yet in this stillness, wisdom finds its place—
For love is fleeting, but leaves its trace.

The Spirit's Snare

When a gent sees the spirit and not the eyes or the cunt,
Then a gent is in trouble, his defenses undone.
For what is the spirit but a ghost in disguise,
A veil of illusion that blinds and belies?

The eyes are a mirror, the flesh is the gate,
The cunt is a tempest that twists love and hate.
But the spirit, ah, the spirit! A thing less defined,
A shadow that lingers in the heart and the mind.

It whispers of meaning, of bonds yet untied,
Of truths that escape where the passions reside.
And when he sees it—this ethereal spark—
He steps from the flesh and falls into the dark.

For no touch can claim it, no kiss can contain,
This specter of longing, this measureless pain.
The gent who pursues it is lost from the start,
A captive of ghosts that inhabit the heart.

What fool seeks the spirit when the eyes are so near,
When the cunt, like a chalice, spills joy without fear?
What need for such phantoms, such cruel, fleeting grace,
When the body’s own truth is as warm as embrace?

Yet there is a pull, a haunting allure,
A desire to know what the flesh can’t endure.
The spirit, intangible, mocks and beguiles,
Promising truths through its shadowed smiles.

It whispers of love that transcends all the rest,
Of passions not written on the curve of the breast.
It weaves its enchantment in silence, in sighs,
It drowns the poor gent who looks past the eyes.

When the spirit is seen, the gent falls apart,
His pleasures grow hollow, his lust lacks its heart.
For what once was simple, a joy fierce and wild,
Becomes tangled in thoughts both tender and vile.

He wonders, he questions, he doubts and he dreams,
Each answer elusive, each touch torn by seams.
The body still calls, but its voice is now faint,
Overshadowed by whispers of a spectral taint.

Oh, the cunt is an anchor, the eyes are a flame,
But the spirit’s a riddle, a shadowed game.
And the gent who pursues it will find, to his cost,
That in chasing the spirit, the flesh may be lost.

Yet there is beauty in folly, a glory in sin,
In seeking the spirit that trembles within.
For though it may wound him, may break him apart,
It also awakens the depth of his heart.

To see not just beauty, not hunger, not fire,
But something that lingers beyond mere desire.
To feel not just pleasure, not comfort, not lust,
But a yearning for truths more enduring than dust.

Yes, the gent is in trouble, his path overthrown,
But the trouble itself is a gift of its own.
For in seeing the spirit, he glimpses a light,
A flicker of meaning in the shadows of night.

So let him be troubled, let him be lost,
Let him pay for his vision whatever the cost.
For the spirit, though fleeting, is worth all the pain,
A glimpse of the eternal in life’s brief refrain.

And when he sees it—this shimmering shade—
He steps from the carnal to the truths we evade.
The gent who sees the spirit finds sorrow and bliss,
For the price of such knowledge is steep as a kiss.

When a gent sees the spirit and not the eyes or the cunt,
He stands at the edge of the hunt’s final hunt.
No longer a creature of flesh and of bone,
He becomes a seeker of what’s never known.

And though he may stumble, and though he may fall,
The spirit, once glimpsed, is worth losing it all.

The Mask of Mirth

"I'd call you a man who pretends to like life more than he does,"
A clever remark, a jest that cuts close,
For what is a man but the sum of his pose,
A shadow that dances while hiding his ghost?

You, with your laughter, so loud and unbowed,
Your smile like sunlight, yet veiled in a shroud.
Do you truly delight in the world that you see,
Or is it a mirror that mocks your esprit?

The taverns, the halls, the rooms filled with cheer,
Your voice rings bright, yet I wonder, my dear—
Is this love for life, or a desperate show,
A mask of mirth to cover the woe?

For I see the cracks in your jester’s disguise,
The weariness clouding the light in your eyes.
The way that you linger, apart from the throng,
Feigning contentment, but not for too long.

You speak of the pleasures, the wine, and the flesh,
The fleeting joys you pursue with a mesh.
But do they sustain you, or merely delay
The shadow that follows and haunts your foray?

The man who pretends to love life the most,
Often carries a secret too heavy to boast.
For life, in its beauty, is sharp as a blade,
Its ecstasy fleeting, its sorrows well-laid.

You jest at the gods, you scoff at the stars,
Yet your laughter betrays the weight of your scars.
For joy, when it’s true, needs no audience’s gaze,
It burns like a fire in solitude’s haze.

What do you fear, in the quiet of night?
What demons emerge when you turn out the light?
Does the world, in its stillness, reveal what you lack,
Or is it yourself that stares grimly back?

I’d call you a man who pretends to delight,
Who wrestles the day to fend off the night.
A man who, perhaps, knows too much of despair,
Yet cannot admit to the weight that you bear.

But who can blame you, this world so obscene,
Its pleasures so brief, its pain so routine?
To live is to struggle, to stumble, to feign,
To mask the absurdity, to soften the pain.

So wear your disguise, if it keeps you afloat,
If it cushions the blow, if it clears the throat.
For life is a stage, and we actors, in turn,
Each hiding our truths behind masks that we burn.

But know that your pretense, though charming and sly,
Cannot shield you forever from the “why.”
Why do you cling to this frantic charade,
This merry façade in which you’ve been swayed?

Perhaps in the end, you’ll cast off the pretense,
Embrace the raw life in its brilliance immense.
For to love it is not to escape from its sting,
But to revel in both the wound and the wing.

So laugh if you must, and jest as you will,
Drain the cup empty, your thirst to fulfill.
But let it not blind you to life’s truest part—
The grief and the glory that quicken the heart.

For the man who pretends, though he fools all the rest,
Cannot fool himself when put to the test.
And the truth, when it comes, is a blade swift and sure,
Cutting through pretense with a pain to endure.

So I call you not liar, nor coward, nor fool,
But a man of the world, who plays by its rule.
Pretend as you like, but remember this creed:
To live is to bleed, but to love is to heed.

Heed the pain, heed the joy, heed the fear, heed the loss,
Heed the moments when laughter feels heavy with dross.
For the man who sees life, not as jest, but as fire,
Is the man who, at last, transcends his own mire.

"I'd call you a man who pretends to like life more than he does,"
Yet even in pretense, a truth often glows.
For life, whether cherished, endured, or derided,
Is still the one gift in which all are united.

The Moll-Sack’s Lament

"I'm just a moll-sack. I don't do questions,"
The words fall heavy, an empty confession.
A shrug of shoulders, a turn of the head,
Avoiding the truths we all fear to have said.

What is a moll-sack but a vessel for wine,
A cup to be drained, a moment divine?
To carry the weight of a drinker’s delight,
Then cast to the corner, forgotten by night.

I see you there, with your careless pose,
Hiding the cracks no reveler shows.
But deep in your gaze, a shadow resides,
A whisper of questions that fester inside.

What is it to live, to breathe, to feel?
Are you just a vessel, or something more real?
Your laughter may charm, your swagger impress,
But beneath the façade lies a silent distress.

“I don’t do questions,” you claim with a grin,
Yet questions are woven in the fabric within.
Do you not wonder, as the bottle runs dry,
What fills the hollow when pleasures pass by?

The tavern’s cheer fades, the music grows still,
And silence encroaches, unbidden, unwill’d.
The moll-sack lies empty, discarded, alone,
Its purpose fulfilled, its meaning unknown.

For what is the worth of a life merely filled,
With transient pleasures and passions distilled?
Is there no fire, no spark, no desire,
That burns beyond drink, beyond flesh, beyond mire?

To be just a moll-sack is easy, no doubt,
To drown the questions, to silence the shout.
But ease is a master both cruel and unkind,
It binds the heart, it blinds the mind.

The moll-sack may carry, but it cannot consume,
It knows not the joys of the roses in bloom.
It bears no memory, it harbors no pain,
Yet for lack of both, its life is in vain.

And so I ask, though you shun what I seek,
Do you not long for a voice when you speak?
Do you not yearn for a place in the whole,
A purpose that lingers, a truth for the soul?

To be just a moll-sack is safe, I agree,
But safety is prison, not liberty.
A life without questions is a life without light,
A moll-sack discarded at the close of the night.

So take up your questions, though heavy they feel,
Let them cut deep, let them challenge, reveal.
For answers may wound, but they also bestow
A wisdom that softens the hardest of blows.

"I'm just a moll-sack," you say with a sneer,
But I see the tremor, the glint of a tear.
For even the vessel, so plain, so profane,
Holds the potential for joy and for pain.

Do you not wonder, as the stars start to fade,
If life is a gift, or a debt to be paid?
Do you not dream of a day when you’ll rise,
Unburdened by bottles, alight with surprise?

The moll-sack can empty, but it can refill,
It can carry the wine, or the water that stills.
It can bear the bitter, or cradle the sweet,
It can stumble through life, or dance on its feet.

So shrug off the name, the title, the guise,
See yourself clearer through unclouded eyes.
You are not just a moll-sack, though that’s what you say,
You are the question that dawns with each day.

For life, in its chaos, its beauty, its pain,
Is more than a vessel to empty again.
It’s a story, a song, a cry, and a laugh,
A journey unwritten, a wandering path.

"I don't do questions," but questions do you,
They carve out the hollows, they whisper the truth.
And though you may hide, they will find their way in,
For even a moll-sack holds room to begin.

The Three Falls of Man

They say men fall three times in life,
Each tumble sharper than the last,
Each moment carving, like a knife,
A tale of longing through the past.

The first is calf love, tender, raw,
A wild infatuation’s bloom.
It sees no flaw, it bends no law,
But fades too soon in youth’s perfume.

A fleeting gasp, a fervent kiss,
A name etched faint in fleeting haze.
You swore that love was more than this—
But youth is blind, and passion strays.

Then comes the second, steadier fall,
The one you choose, the bond you bind.
A vow before the world, and all
The hope a mortal heart can find.

You wed her with a trembling hand,
Her face a lantern in the storm.
Through years of toil, you understand
That love must change to keep its form.

Yet still, beneath the shared embrace,
A shadow lingers, dim but near—
A whisper of some unknown space,
A shroud of doubt, a seed of fear.

For love, though sweet, is not complete
When yoked to hearth and daily bread.
Its fire wanes, its warmth depletes,
And leaves a coldness in its stead.

The third fall waits, your deathbed bride,
A specter draped in veils of gray.
She bends to meet you where you lie,
Her breath as cold as winter’s day.

You sniff her scent; it clings, it cloys,
A perfume laced with dirt and time.
It mingles with your fading joys,
And mocks the summit you would climb.

For in her touch, you sniff your shroud,
The linen that will wrap your form.
She whispers soft but far too loud,
A hymn of rest within the storm.

Do you recall the first sweet fall,
When love was young and wild and bright?
Do you recall the second call,
The steady flame that warmed the night?

Or do you lie with only her,
This final bride, this specter pale?
She holds no promise, no demur,
No vows to break, no tale to tell.

The calf love fades, the wife grows cold,
And here, at last, you face the end.
No hands to hold, no dreams to mold,
Just silence waiting, dark, unpenned.

Yet in her eyes, a shadow gleams,
A truth that trembles, half-concealed.
For every fall, though dark, redeems
A fragment of the man revealed.

The calf love taught you how to yearn,
To ache, to hunger, to pursue.
The second taught you to discern
The steady hand, the love that’s true.

And now, your deathbed bride imparts
The final wisdom men may know:
That love lives longest in the heart,
Its embers warming even woe.

So sniff the shroud, embrace her tight,
This final bride, this fleeting flame.
She dances through the endless night,
And whispers softly your own name.

Three falls for man, three acts, one play—
A tender arc from youth to grave.
And though the shadows steal the day,
The love remains, the heart stays brave.

The Weight of Caring

Don’t make me care for you, I beg,
For caring’s a weight, a chain, a drag.
I’d rather you came your fetch and be gone,
Leave me the remnants, and then move on.

A lump of caring, warm and brief,
No more enduring than a thief
Who steals the heart but leaves no trace—
A fleeting shadow, a ghost’s embrace.

Caring’s a wound that never heals,
A tether of fire, a sword that steals
The freedom to revel, the space to breathe,
The solace of knowing I can leave.

For love, though gilded in sweet disguise,
Is naught but a tyrant dressed in lies.
Its laughter chains, its whispers bind,
Its tenderness enslaves the mind.

What is caring but a bitter jest,
A cruel demand from love’s cruel breast?
It bids you to hope, it makes you yearn,
And pays with ashes in return.

I have lived in the grasp of wanton bliss,
A thousand lips, a thousand kiss.
No caring tied me to their gaze,
No bond of love, no tethered haze.

For life is sharpest when it’s free,
Untamed, unburdened by love’s decree.
A fire that burns, a drink that stings—
The fleeting joy of untamed things.

But you, you tremble, you plead, you stay,
Your eyes demand, they will not stray.
And I, though hardened, feel the pull—
A thread that tightens, faint but full.

Don’t make me care, I cannot bear
The weight of knowing you are there.
For caring is not just light or air;
It’s a weight that roots, a grave affair.

I’d rather you left a fleeting trace,
A phantom’s laugh, a warm embrace.
A memory sharp, a moment’s taste—
Than leave me bound in love’s cruel haste.

A lump of caring—that I can hold,
A fleeting ember, not a mold.
No future etched, no vow implied,
Just the ghost of fire before it died.

But here you linger, with eyes that speak,
Your silence loud, your presence meek.
And I, the jest, the fool, the game,
Feel the stirrings of something I cannot name.

What is this lump, this ache, this weight?
It feels of freedom, yet whispers fate.
It burns like fire, yet soothes like rain—
A pleasure bound within its pain.

Do you not see, you dangerous thing,
The torment your tender gaze can bring?
You make me yearn, you make me fall,
You make me feel—against it all.

I’d rather the fleeting, the shallow, the base,
The touch of a hand, the thrill of a chase.
But here you are, unmoving, unsaid,
A lump of caring inside my head.

And so I beg, with trembling heart,
Do not compel me to take this part.
For love is not a game I play,
But a cruel demand I cannot obey.

Yet here you are, with eyes like stone,
Refusing to leave me all alone.
And I, though railing, though wild, though free,
Feel the weight of caring taking me.

It’s not a fire that burns to ash,
Nor a fleeting thrill that fades too fast.
It’s a weight that grounds, a chain that holds,
A quiet warmth that never grows cold.

So leave me now, or stay your course—
But know you’ve stirred a nameless force.
A lump of caring, tender, small,
And yet, perhaps, the greatest of all.

Saint James’s Shade

Much wine had passed, as hours wore thin,
With grave discourse of lust and sin—
Who fucked who, and who does worse,
Each tale a scandal, each word a curse.

I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Rose from the table’s reveling din,
And sought the night to cool my sin.

To Saint James’s Park I made my way,
Where shadows twist and secrets play.
Though consecrate by pious creed,
It serves another, darker need.

Beneath its boughs, a world takes form,
Of restless lust and passions warm.
A place where nature bends to vice,
Where virtue’s price is sacrificed.

There, by a most incestuous birth,
Strange woods spring from the teeming earth.
Twisted roots and branches high
Frame acts that make the angels cry.

For nightly, now, beneath their shade,
Buggeries, rapes, and incests made,
Unholy unions writhe and swell—
A shadowed Eden turned to hell.

The air is thick with cries and sighs,
A music born of tangled ties.
Each moan, each gasp, a fleeting hymn,
To bodies lost in acts of whim.

I wandered deeper, heart aflame,
Each step a pulse, each breath a claim.
Desire’s grip, both cruel and kind,
Laid siege to reason, seized my mind.

Beneath the moon’s indifferent gaze,
I saw the countless, fevered plays.
A lord with servant, thief with maid,
Each coupling in the darkness made.

The boughs above, a ceiling vast,
Held secrets of both first and last.
The primal urge, the mortal bind,
A theater of the human kind.

Yet as I stood, I felt the sting,
Of shame, of guilt, of everything.
For though the park was filled with fire,
Its embers bore not true desire.

What drove this nightly, frenzied tide?
A hollow need, a wounded pride.
Not love, not joy, but something base,
A desperate grasp at fleeting grace.

Saint James’s Park, where shadows play,
Tells truths the light would sweep away.
That man, for all his wit and art,
Is oft a slave to his own heart.

For even here, in sacred space,
Where prayers once sought divine embrace,
The flesh prevails, the spirit wanes,
And freedom bows to passion’s chains.

So there I stood, with cooling head,
And burning heart, by longing led.
Each act I watched, a mirror shown,
Reflecting truths I dared not own.

For in their cries, their fervent pleas,
I heard my own, in whispered keys.
A hymn to life, both raw and crude,
A prayer born not of love, but need.

Yet who am I to cast the stone,
When in my heart such fires are sown?
A man who seeks, but never finds,
A slave to flesh, yet cursed with mind.

And so I left, the shadows near,
Their echoes lingering in my ear.
Saint James’s Park, both sin and grace,
A world that haunts, a sacred space.

Much wine had passed, and still would flow,
As tales of lust and scandal grow.
For I, though seeking to depart,
Carried its shade within my heart.

The Wilderness of Men

Do you ever think on our Lord Jesus Christ?
The man cast out, the sacrifice.
He wandered lost in the wilderness wide,
Scorned and reviled, with none by his side.

I find him not in the polished pews,
Nor in the sermons the righteous use.
No gilded cross, no priestly rite,
Could speak of the man who bore the night.

He was cast, like me, into desolation,
A mirror of human degradation.
The wilderness, cruel and vast,
The space where shadows of men are cast.

Reviled he was, and so am I,
Though his cross soared to the sky.
Mine is low, a humbler wood,
Bound by nails misunderstood.

What is betrayal, but love undone?
A kiss from a friend, a blade that’s spun.
He was betrayed, as men betray still,
With a coin for the cost and a heart to kill.

Do you see him there, upon that hill,
Silent and breaking, steadfast and still?
Do you think his pain so far from ours,
As we fumble through days and count the hours?

No, the Christ I know walks the street,
Where the dirt of the world clings to his feet.
He feels the weight of our mortal strife,
The lash of love, the sting of life.

Betrayed by his followers, so am I,
As fickle friends let bonds untie.
But he bore it all with quiet grace,
A man of the earth, yet touched by space.

In the wilderness, there are no crowns,
No royal robes, no laurel renowns.
Just dust and hunger, thirst and heat,
And the beat of his heart, our hearts, that beat.

They scorned him, yes, for being plain,
For bearing the truth of joy and pain.
And I, too, feel that biting sneer,
The laughter close, the mockery near.

But what is it to stand alone,
To face the void, to hold your own?
It is the test of the human soul,
To break apart and still be whole.

The wilderness, the timeless space,
Where men confront their truest face.
Where God is silent, yet so near,
A whisper felt, a trembling fear.

Do you ever think on our Lord divine?
Who turned the water into wine.
Not for the righteous, but for the lost,
For those who paid the human cost.

He walked among the thieves and whores,
Through broken hearts and battered doors.
He saw the cracks in every wall,
And loved them still, he loved them all.

So here I stand, in this barren land,
A shattered heart, a trembling hand.
Like Christ, I wander, like Christ, I break,
But unlike him, I bend, I quake.

For his was a love that bore the weight,
Of nails and thorns, of man’s cruel fate.
Mine is a love that flinches, cowers,
That seeks the shelter of fleeting hours.

But still, I see him, a shadow faint,
A vision of sinner and of saint.
He bore it all with quiet grace,
And met the void with a steady face.

Do you think he was so unlike us?
His blood was red, his bones were dust.
He loved and lost, he felt the strain,
Of mortal joy and mortal pain.

And so, I wonder, as shadows fall,
If his wilderness was meant for all.
To teach us not to fear the night,
But walk through darkness towards the light.

Do you ever think on our Lord divine?
Who bore the weight of yours and mine.
He was cast, like me, into despair,
But found redemption waiting there.

For in the wilderness, love is born,
From jagged rock and thorny thorn.
It rises up, though beaten, torn,
A fragile flame in the endless morn.

So as I wander this barren way,
I think of Christ and how he’d stay.
Not in the temple, but in the wild,
Where every man is God’s lost child.

Nature and Art

I am nature, raw and unrefined,
Unbroken by rules or shackles of mind.
You, art, are polished, perfected, constrained,
A portrait framed but ever feigned.

Let us see how we compare,
How truth and pretense lay themselves bare.
Here we have him, your Restoration gent,
Clad in silk, his graces lent.

He’s not his pissed breeches today,
A marvel of manners, a sober display.
He walks a straight line, two hundred yards,
The drunkard’s redemption played in cards.

But peer closer—strip the guise,
Look past the powdered face and lies.
This picture, noble, poised, and grand,
Now set it beside the truth at hand.

Behold him unwashed, the filth of his flesh,
A stench that rises, raw and fresh.
He cannot walk, his legs betray,
A staggered stumble marks his way.

And his pintle, proud in boasts of yore,
Now lies limp, a tool no more.
Neither the price of his dinner nor virile spark,
Can rise in this shell, hollow and stark.

Nature is chaos, fierce and untamed,
Art is its mimic, its essence framed.
But what is art without the beast?
A painted feast where no one’s pleased.

For art would smooth the jagged edge,
Polish the stone, trim back the hedge.
But nature roars, its pulse alive,
In muck and mire, it dares to thrive.

Your Restoration gent is but a play,
A masquerade, a fleeting stay.
Beneath the satin, beneath the lace,
Lies the truth of his fall from grace.

I am nature, the wind’s wild cry,
The earth’s raw scent, the unbridled sky.
I do not falter, nor feign to be,
What art would craft in mimicry.

You are art, a gilded mask,
A fragile façade, an endless task.
To paint the truth, to tame the wild,
To dress the beast as art’s fair child.

But strip it down, remove the frame,
What is left but the primal flame?
The gent you honor, his grace admired,
Is but the beast, bruised and tired.

For here he stands, a man undone,
A drunken shadow beneath the sun.
His breeches stained, his pintle failed,
His steps unsure, his beauty paled.

Art may judge, and art may scorn,
But it owes its birth to nature’s thorn.
For every flourish, every stroke,
Finds its root in the raw, the broke.

So let us see how we compare,
Strip the stage, the canvas bare.
For I am nature, brutal, true,
And you, sweet art, owe all to me and you.

When the gent falls, as all men do,
Nature reclaims what art once knew.
The polished face, the practiced grace,
Dissolve into earth’s rough embrace.

For what is man but flesh and bone?
A beast adorned, a creature alone.
No lace, no silk, no powdered air,
Can hide the truth we both must share.

I am nature, fierce and free,
Unbound by the chains of propriety.
You are art, a fleeting jest,
A crafted mask on nature’s breast.

Let us see how we compare,
For truth resides where we both dare.
In the gent who falls, who stumbles, who breaks,
Lie the echoes of all art makes.

The Trickle of Time

This is what I envy in you stage people:
The urgent now, the lifted steeple,
Of moments marked, of acts divine,
Where time aligns, a sacred shrine.

"I must change my clothes now!" you cry,
As if a purpose beats in the sky.
"I must make my entrance now!" you declare,
And fill the void with crafted flair.

But life, cruel life, does not comply,
With bold pronouncements or timely reply.
It slithers slow, a listless stream,
A haze of doubt, a distant dream.

It’s not a clock’s commanding chime,
But the soft erosion of unmarked time.
Not urgent nows, but “why should I’s,”
A murmured question, a muted sigh.

Why should I rise? Why should I dress?
Why should I speak, or strive, or confess?
Each tick a droplet, small and weak,
Erasing days we fear to seek.

You, on your stage, you seize the night,
Transform the dull with painted light.
A script to follow, a role to play,
Where moments matter and truth holds sway.

But here I am, no stage to tread,
No lines rehearsed, no vision ahead.
Just the trickle of hours, the hollow refrain,
Of days that pass without mark or gain.

I envy your urgency, your fleeting despair,
The way your craft makes time seem rare.
For in my world, it drifts, it fades,
A shadow lost in twilight’s shades.

The listless trickle mocks the grand,
The epic arc, the bold command.
For what is life but an endless spread,
Of “why should I’s” until we’re dead?

Yet still, I watch your urgent now,
The furrowed brow, the sacred vow.
To make this moment, this fleeting breath,
A triumph wrested from looming death.

Perhaps you’re right, your nows hold power,
To sharpen the edge of each dull hour.
To frame the chaos, to bind the flow,
To mark the seconds before they go.

But what of us who live outside,
Who cannot summon time’s great tide?
We drift, we linger, we hesitate,
Caught in the mire of time’s cruel weight.

No stage to stand, no crowd to cheer,
No purpose pressed, no future clear.
Just the trickle of moments undefined,
A blur of whispers within the mind.

Yet envy burns, for I still see,
The gift your urgency grants to thee.
A meaning forged, a shape imposed,
A fleeting truth in acts enclosed.

So teach me this, O stage-born soul,
To grasp the now, to claim the whole.
To cast aside the “why should I’s,”
And light a fire beneath the skies.

For life, though listless, bears a spark,
A glimmer faint within the dark.
And perhaps the nows we let slip away,
Are the only truths that time will convey.

I envy your stage, your sense of fate,
Your power to render the fleeting great.
But here I sit, as time drips dry,
A prisoner bound by my own “why.”

Still, I watch, and still I yearn,
For the urgency I cannot earn.
Perhaps one day, I’ll seize it too,
And find my “now” amid the blue.

Until that day, I drift, I fade,
A shadow cast in twilight’s shade.
Envying you, with your urgent care,
Who make the fleeting seem so rare.

Lessons in the Flesh and Soul

Your lesson to me was my livelihood,
The art of passion, the understood.
You taught me to barter with wit and skin,
To wear my hunger like a second grin.

Mine to you was life itself,
A mirror placed upon your shelf.
Where you saw not the mask, the jest, the art,
But the beating chaos of my heart.

You, with your clever and cutting tongue,
Showed me the world where songs are sung.
Where love is a trade, and pleasure the coin,
A stage of bodies where souls conjoin.

And I, unguarded, gave to you,
The raw, unvarnished, trembling view.
The marrow of life, the pulse beneath,
The truths that linger, sharp as teeth.

You taught me the dance, the lie, the game,
To cloak desire in veils of flame.
To play the fool, the rake, the cheat,
And master the art of discreet deceit.

But I showed you the world unmasked,
Where moments are fleeting, and time is tasked.
To leave its mark on flesh and bone,
And remind us all we die alone.

Your lesson to me was a gilded cage,
A world of freedom staged on a page.
But mine to you was a boundless sky,
The aching truth that all must die.

Together we wove a twisted thread,
Of lives we lived and words we said.
Of glances stolen, of nights laid bare,
Of laughter mingled with whispered despair.

You made me a merchant of fleeting bliss,
A scholar of longing sealed with a kiss.
I made you a wanderer lost in the haze,
Of the mortal truth that burns and decays.

Each stroke of your lesson carved my pride,
Each word of mine stripped yours aside.
Together we stood, two mirrors aligned,
Reflecting the truths we sought to blind.

For what is life but a fleeting grace,
A masquerade played on a fragile face?
And what is love but a savage art,
A lesson etched on a brittle heart?

Your livelihood was the play you taught,
The careful craft of being caught.
My life to you was the untamed fire,
The smoldering ash of unchecked desire.

We were teacher and student both at once,
The jester, the lover, the cunning dunce.
Each giving what we could not keep,
Each sowing seeds we feared to reap.

And so we parted, as all must do,
With lessons learned but nothing new.
For what I gave was what you sought,
And what you gave was dearly bought.

Now I stand, with your voice in my ear,
A ghostly echo sharp and clear.
"Your lesson to me was my livelihood,"
And mine to you was life, misunderstood.

Did you learn of joy, of sorrow’s song?
Or did you wander the world too long?
I hope you found in my burning truth,
The fleeting beauty of wasted youth.

For I carry your lesson still, my friend,
A shadow that trails me to the end.
And in the quiet, I hear it plain,
The words that bind us, joy and pain.

"Your lesson to me was my livelihood,
And mine to you was life itself."

Never in Your Debt

For the rest, I hope I shall always be
In your heart, like a shadow on the sea,
An outline fleeting, carved by the tide,
A whisper that lingers but will not abide.

Sometimes in your thoughts, a passing flame,
A spark that lights and forgets my name.
Not constant, nor clinging, no shackle or chain,
But a fleeting echo of joy and pain.

I ask for no monument, no wreath, no song,
No stage where my memory lingers too long.
For love that demands is a love ill-spent,
A weight that bends what should never be bent.

Do not dwell on my laughter or tears,
Nor measure my worth by the sum of our years.
Let me haunt you in glimpses, in sighs, in dreams,
In the spaces where silence is louder than screams.

I do not seek your pity, your praise,
Nor a pedestal built in the heat of the blaze.
I am no savior, no demon, no saint,
But a canvas of flaws in imperfect paint.

Remember me not as a perfect whole,
But as fragments of fire that seared your soul.
The crackling flame, the dying ember,
The moments too brief for us to remember.

Keep me in your heart, a secret you hold,
A treasure unspoken, a story untold.
Not as a weight to tether your flight,
But as a star that fades in the night.

And if I should stray to your thoughts, let it be,
As a fleeting note in life's melody.
A thread in the fabric, a stitch in the seam,
A flicker of light in the shadow of a dream.

But never, my dear, shall I be in your debt,
For debts are chains that no love should beget.
Love that is owed is a coin untrue,
A bargain struck that love cannot renew.

What I gave, I gave freely, unbound, unasked,
Not a toll to be paid, nor a favor amassed.
And what you gave, I accepted as grace,
A gift of the moment, not bound by a trace.

For love is no ledger, no tally, no score,
But a wind that sweeps us from shore to shore.
It is not a contract, a bond, or a tie,
But the breath of a life that cannot deny.

So let us part with no weight on the scale,
No burden of debt to tell our tale.
For the rest, I hope I shall always remain,
A whisper of pleasure, a trace of pain.

In your heart, let me dwell, if only in part,
As a shadow that dances across your heart.
Sometimes in your thoughts, like a leaf on the breeze,
A memory that stirs but never deceives.

Never in your debt, for that is the key,
To love as the ocean loves the sea.
Boundless, unmeasured, a force uncontrolled,
A story of longing forever retold.

For debts are a burden that weigh and confine,
And love is a freedom, a spark divine.
So keep me as I am, no more, no less,
A ghost in your heart, a fleeting caress.

For the rest, I ask nothing, I claim no prize,
No monuments raised, no tears in your eyes.
Only this: that the life we shared,
Was a fire we lit, not a debt we declared.

And if, by some grace, you carry my name,
Let it not be a burden, a mark of shame.
But a quiet echo, a gentle refrain,
Of a love that burned without refrain.

So take my gift, as I take yours,
No accounts to settle, no open sores.
For the rest, I hope I shall always be,
In your heart, unbound, as love must be.

• Written 12/23/2024

---

a transfiguration of life

My Demon

I see a planet, distant and gray,
A haunting reflection of a lost day.
A fraction of light, broken, misaligned,
It pierces the void and unsettles my mind.

Its noise is unbearable as I stare,
A hum of despair fills the frigid air.
The silence shouts louder than any word,
A symphony of emptiness, endlessly heard.

Any demon that breathes is in me,
A shadowed presence, aching, unfree.
Or is it the dead I carry around?
A ghostly weight that drags me down.

As my dreams flow dead, unbound by time,
They weave no meaning, no rhythm, no rhyme.
The cracking of hearts is something I can’t hear,
Even though destruction hovers near.

I fade from one day to the other,
A faceless figure, a nameless brother.
Everything flows, it envelops me whole,
This place, this void, devours my soul.

Here there is no heart, no metal, no stone,
Only an absence I call my own.
An empty space that feels so full,
Of sweat, of tears, of something cruel.

I see this planet not through a glass,
But the window of my eyes where shadows pass.
It stares back, cold, relentless, and bare,
A reflection of torment I cannot repair.

This is my demon, my frozen plight,
The specter that lingers in every night.
Its coldness crawls through marrow and bone,
Leaving me lost, stranded, alone.

The sweat drips like blood from a wound unseen,
The tears fall like rivers that cannot convene.
This space is a paradox, empty yet tight,
A cradle of despair in eternal night.

The light, though fractured, still dares to gleam,
A cruel reminder of some forgotten dream.
But the demon whispers, its voice a snare,
"Dreams are dead, and hope is rare."

I reach for the stars, but they shrink away,
Mocking my grasp, they refuse to stay.
The cold encroaches, it binds, it maims,
And I am left to shoulder the flames.

The planet turns, indifferent and vast,
Its orbit endless, its silence steadfast.
It spins like the clock that measures my pain,
A cycle of loss, again and again.

The demon laughs, or perhaps it weeps,
Its soundless sorrow cuts deep, so deep.
It grows as I shrink, it feeds as I die,
Yet I cannot abandon its shadowed sky.

For this demon is mine, my burden, my own,
Its weight familiar, its presence known.
Is it alive, or is it decay?
Does it breathe, or does it fray?

Perhaps it is me, my fractured design,
A mirror reflecting what I decline.
The planet is cold, and so am I,
Its orbit endless, as is my cry.

But even here, in this desolate sphere,
A whisper of resistance begins to appear.
The light may be broken, the heart undone,
But battles are fought where wars are won.

So I stare at the planet, this demon of mine,
Its coldness a challenge, a jagged line.
Through the window of my eyes, I see its guise,
And though it consumes, I will still rise.

The Trial

Follow my shadow into the depth of light,
Where the dark meets the bright in endless fight.
Wander amongst my dreams, fill them with might,
For they falter, trembling, on the edge of night.

God is waiting too, silent and still,
Watching the void where courage bends to will.
Mask me, hide me, from the love you left here,
A love gone stale, wrapped in echoes of fear.

So stale, this room echoes nothing, just dread,
Memories cower where words were once said.
Look on, and look past the mask that you hold,
A veil of questions, unanswered and cold.

What did you ever say, when truth was near?
The secrets you keep are wrapped in unclear.
Yet you guard them fiercely, though you do not know,
That they are hollow, shadows that cannot grow.

They all have gone away, those fragile threads,
Faded to whispers in the land of the dead.
Speak your speech, let the silence be done,
But know that to speak is often just to shun.

Words are knives, carving paths of despair,
And the weight of them lingers heavy in the air.
My life will hang, suspended, in despise,
A monument to pain that even time denies.

And memory of all of you, etched in stone,
Marks the places where the seeds of loss were sown.
Trample on, live without eyes to see,
Blind to the truths that once set you free.

Now God is waiting too, patient and grim,
A judge of the silence, a listener to sin.
His gaze is unyielding, a mirror of all,
Reflecting the heights from which we fall.

The room, so stale, is a tomb of regret,
Filled with the things we cannot forget.
The mask you hold, what lies beneath?
A face of sorrow, or the blade of a sheath?

Your secrets unravel, like threads in the rain,
They fall apart, and yet leave no pain.
They all have gone away, scattered like dust,
Fleeting whispers of the love we mistrust.

To speak now is futile, a shadow of shame,
A hollow act that carries no name.
And yet, here we stand, beneath the weight,
Of the choices we made, and the hand of fate.

Trample on, live without eyes to see,
The wounds of the world, or the truth in me.
For my life hangs, despised and torn,
A tapestry frayed, a soul forlorn.

Yet God is waiting too, in silent repose,
An arbiter of the paths we chose.
His presence looms, a shadow, a guide,
Through the labyrinth of what we hide.

So follow my shadow, into the depth of light,
And wander with me, through the endless night.
Mask me, hide me, let love remain near,
Or let it dissolve into echoes of fear.

For in the trial of hearts, we face the divide,
Between the truths we seek and those we hide.
And God, still waiting, will weigh what is due,
As we walk toward the light, where shadows ensue.

Sorrows of a Dying Man

Lay your hand upon my brow,
Feel the weight of my life somehow.
What have I dreamed? What have I sought?
Broken hearts are all I’ve wrought.

Embedded now, these fears take root,
A silent scream, their bitter fruit.
Gentle after, lay me down,
Strip away this thorny crown.

No speeches left, no words to preach,
Only death within my reach.
Force my hand to grasp it tight,
The only truth in the endless night.

Nothing gathered, nothing frail,
My story ends on a weary trail.
A water cross, a timber’s stain,
A truth angels mock and fools disdain.

But let you not think ill of me,
As I lay here, cloaked in destiny.
For alas! I shall be foolish free,
Alas! This end shall set me free.

Each breath grows faint, each moment slow,
And yet, there’s more you’ll never know.
The dreams I held, the fears I fought,
Are scattered ashes, all for naught.

Once I sought the stars above,
Their distant glimmer spoke of love.
But now they fade, their light erased,
By the shadows my soul embraced.

The crown I bore, of thorns and shame,
Was not of glory, not of fame.
Its weight was grief, its jewels despair,
It pressed upon me, unaware.

The truth I carried, sharp and cruel,
Made me both the sage and fool.
What value had my words, my cries,
When none could see through their disguise?

Yet do not let your judgment fall,
As death comes forth to claim it all.
For who among us stands so pure,
That they would not fear this obscure?

I see now faces I once knew,
They fade, then brighten, in shifting hues.
The loves I lost, the words unsaid,
Circle now around my bed.

The hand that lays upon my brow,
Holds a comfort I don’t allow.
For what is solace in this end?
What can it mend? What can it send?

A water cross to mark my way,
To timbers where my body lays.
And though angels scoff, and demons cheer,
I meet them both without a tear.

The shadows deepen; the silence grows,
What waits beyond, no man yet knows.
But even in this fleeting breath,
There’s something more than life or death.

Perhaps a spark, perhaps a flame,
Perhaps an end without a name.
Whatever waits, I shall embrace,
For nothing lingers in this place.

The crown slips from my weary hand,
Its weight dissolves like grains of sand.
And with it, all the burdens borne,
The joys forgotten, the dreams forlorn.

Let not your gaze fall harsh on me,
For I have lived imperfectly.
But what is life, if not a trial,
Of fleeting moments and denial?

Now lay me down, where stillness reigns,
Beyond the world of joys and pains.
A shadow among the stars to glide,
A whisper on the eternal tide.

So place your hand upon my brow,
And speak no words, for none know how
To capture in their fleeting sound,
The echoes of what lies unbound.

Let the winds carry what I leave,
To hearts that mourn, to souls that grieve.
For though I go, I leave behind,
A fragment of this weary mind.

It’s not in gold, nor deeds, nor name,
Nor any hollow, fleeting claim.
It’s in the breath, the pulse, the sigh,
Of those who dream, of those who try.

So let not sorrow weigh your heart,
For in this end, I merely start.
Beyond the veil, where shadows play,
I find my peace, my truth, my way.

And if you think of me at all,
When darkness creeps, when shadows fall,
Let it be with neither dread nor blame,
For all of us return the same.

Lay your hand upon my brow,
Feel the stillness, here and now.
No speeches, no sermons, no grand charade,
Just a man, and the path he’s made.

Embedded fears and broken dreams,
Are now as distant as they seem.
For I have found the space to rest,
A final sigh, a peaceful quest.

Nothing frail, and nothing gained,
No battles fought, no glories claimed.
Just a soul, both raw and true,
Fading now from view of you.

So let me go, and let me be,
A whisper lost upon the sea.
For alas! I shall be foolish free,
Alas! I shall be finally free.

• Written 12/24/2024

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On Bravely Through the Sunshine or the Showers

On bravely through the sunshine or the showers,
Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
In waking light, in shadowed hours, we stand,
Bound by the course of time’s relentless hand.

We are but dust that time doth shape and bend,
The fleeting moments we cannot defend.
Yet through this world of shifting tides we tread,
Both to be raised and by the tempest led.

When dawn arrives with golden hues of grace,
We chase the sun and mark each fleeting space.
Yet even as we dream beneath its beams,
The passing hour steals at least one dream.

For every joy, a shadow shall appear,
A cloud of sorrow whispering our fear.
The bright and bold must weather winds of change,
And on the tempest, find themselves estranged.

The fields of spring grow lush, then turn to fall,
And autumn’s leaves, like memories, shall call.
We march through seasons, with a steady pace,
Not knowing which will end, nor which we face.

Time calls to us with whispers soft and dire,
His steady breath, a river with no mire.
And yet, within that endless stream of fate,
We choose our steps, but never know the gate.

For destiny, with hands both cold and warm,
Will twist and turn the lives of men and form
A path that rises like the wind-borne flower,
A brief ascent before the final hour.

On bravely through the sunshine or the showers,
Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
Yet what is ours, if time be not our guide?
If we do not with courage walk beside?

In moments brief, we are both young and old,
The stories lived are stories yet untold.
And all we have is what we choose to live,
The hope to hold, the love we choose to give.

The storm shall pass, the clouds will make their way,
Yet how we face the storm shall mark our stay.
Shall we stand firm beneath its furious roar,
Or falter, shaken, searching for the shore?

We cannot halt the march of endless years,
We cannot hold back tides or check the tears.
But in the storm, our hearts shall find the fight,
And bravely face the darkness of the night.

Time doth its work, and we, in turn, must toil,
Until our hands are stained with sweat and soil.
Yet in that toil, the soul is ever free,
Bound to the earth, yet soaring wild and free.

Through days of work, through nights of ceaseless strife,
We carve our place within this fleeting life.
And when the hour comes to lay it down,
We find our peace in time's eternal crown.

In moments sweet, in fleeting thoughts of joy,
We taste the life that none can e'er destroy.
And though the sands of time may fall away,
The heart remains, and will not fade to gray.

Let us not falter in the wake of doubt,
For time, relentless, moves both in and out.
But we, with courage, face the day ahead,
Not fearing shadows, not dreading what’s said.

We rise each morn with hope anew and bright,
To face the world, with every step alight.
For though the storms may come, and clouds may rise,
We face them boldly, gazing at the skies.

In each fleeting moment, a choice is made,
To walk the path, or falter in the shade.
The storms may strike, the sun may scorch the land,
Yet we will stand, unbroken, hand in hand.

Through every trial, through every tear that falls,
Through life’s deep calls, through death’s relentless thralls,
We walk, we work, we live, we laugh, we cry,
Knowing that time itself will pass us by.

For in the end, when time has done its work,
When all is still, and silence is no quirk,
We shall have known the fullness of the day,
And leave no doubt, no shadow in our way.

On bravely through the sunshine or the showers,
Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
And in the doing, we shall find the grace
To walk through life and time, in this brief space.

For though we walk through fleeting days and years,
We are the sum of laughter, pain, and fears.
And though the storm shall pass, and life may wane,
We leave behind the memory, the gain.

Time calls us forward, to the world unknown,
Where winds will blow and seeds of life are sown.
And though we know not where the path shall lead,
We walk in faith, with strength, with love, with speed.

So let us stand, though time may ebb away,
And with each step, let us live for today.
For though the storm may rage, and clouds may sweep,
In the end, the promise of life we'll keep.

On bravely through the sunshine or the showers,
Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
And when the final hour comes to call,
We’ll stand unbroken, through it all, through all.

• Written 12/25/2024

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In Presence of Absence

In presence of absence, time becomes a fickle friend,
Each fleeting moment bends, where memory has no end.
In remains of a memory, distance is but a ruin,
Shadows weave the tapestry of what was left undone.

In embrace of a gentle affection, forever seems a slip,
A quiet echo lingers from lips that once did grip.
So,
Stay—

Stay as the light that pierces through the veil of night,
A steady beacon, shining bright, defying fleeting plight.
Stay as the warmth that lingers on a winter's frozen air,
A promise held in whispers, tender moments shared.

In the ticking clock, we find eternity concealed,
A paradox of seconds, where futures are revealed.
Yet absence carves its cavern deep within the soul,
Turning every fleeting joy into an endless toll.

Stay as the song that lulls the weary heart to rest,
A melody unbroken, a rhythm manifest.
Stay as the tide that kisses the unyielding shore,
A dance of eternal promise, of less and evermore.

Time sways, a pendulum caught in tender debate,
Between love's sweet arrival and the final twist of fate.
Memories crumble like parchment touched by flame,
Yet the essence of your presence never wanes.

Stay as the sun, resilient, chasing after rain,
A golden thread of light that mends the deepest pain.
Stay as the moon, a sentinel in endless skies,
A comfort for the weary, a solace for tired eyes.

Absence shouts its silence, a thunderclap within,
Yet in its emptiness, your whispers still begin.
Distance may stretch like rivers wide and oceans vast,
But the present holds the echo of every sacred past.

In presence of absence, love defies its fragile frame,
Breaking every boundary, igniting tender flames.
Stay as the truth that blossoms in a broken heart,
A puzzle incomplete, with every piece a start.

Time dances, a waltz between the fleeting and the still,
A maestro conducting the orchestra of will.
And in this symphony, I find you lingering near,
The harmony of absence, the song I always hear.

Stay as the ink that stains the writer’s trembling hand,
Carving out existence in the shifting sands.
Stay as the fire that warms the coldest night,
A beacon undiminished, a pure and steady light.

In presence of absence, time becomes a fickle friend,
But in the circle of this moment, love will never end.
For though the world may falter and crumble into dust,
In the timeless bond we share, our hearts forever trust.

• Written 12/27/2024

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Cruel Sadness of Parting

Parting is such a sweet sorrow,
So I shall say good night till it be morrow.
The velvet dusk wraps us tight,
Yet whispers pull us through the night.

A thousand times good night, I cry,
Beneath a moonlit, endless sky.
The stars above reflect your gaze,
Their light a map through love's long maze.

But night, that thief of fleeting time,
Doth steal the hours, one chime by chime.
Each tick a step that leads from thee,
Yet chains my soul in sweet agony.

The breeze, it whispers thy sweet name,
Yet leaves behind a hollow flame.
For love, though vast, doth feel so small,
When distance builds an unseen wall.

The night, it stretches, cold and deep,
Yet in its arms, my dreams shall keep.
For every whisper, every sigh,
Brings echoes of your sweet goodbye.

The world may spin, the stars may fall,
Yet in my heart, I hear your call.
A song that lingers, soft and true,
A melody of me and you.

Through shadows dark, I tread alone,
Yet feel your warmth, your presence shown.
In every step, in every breeze,
Your love, my balm, my heart appease.

Oh, cruel clock, thy hands delay,
Each moment drags the night’s ballet.
Yet in its waltz, I find your face,
A beacon in this lonesome space.

The moon, it waxes, wanes with grace,
Yet pales beside your radiant face.
Its silver glow, a phantom light,
Guides me through the endless night.

A thousand stars, a thousand dreams,
Yet none compare to what love deems.
For even when the night is long,
You are my heart, my morning song.

Each shadow whispers tales untold,
Of passion fierce and courage bold.
For love, though parted, still will thrive,
Its ember’s flame will keep alive.

Let time march on, its ceaseless pace,
Yet none shall dim your lighted grace.
For in my soul, your mark is set,
A love no tide nor time forgets.

So, till the morn shall break the spell,
I bid thee peace, I bid thee well.
Yet know, dear heart, this parting ache,
Shall only sweet reunion make.

Oh, lover’s night, oh, lover’s morn,
From sorrow's seed, a joy is born.
For every end, a new start springs,
And love renews with angel wings.

Stay, O night, a moment more,
Delay the dawn, its golden door.
For in this shadowed, fleeting time,
I hold thee close, your soul to mine.

Yet even as the dark recedes,
And morning light takes hold of mead,
I’ll keep thee near, in heart and mind,
Our bond, eternal, undefined.

Thus, parting is a sweet refrain,
A hymn of love, both joy and pain.
And though the dawn must call us nigh,
We’ll meet again, ‘neath love’s vast sky.

• Written 12/28/2024

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