The Silencing of a Single Thought

The universe is mute tonight
The silencing of a single thought spreads far and deep
An anti-pragmatic censor stepped in
The result long disapated before being recognized
An echo of elite status possibly at fault
Caught by surprise, no chance for reasoned or rational response
The emotions of the moment reigned
The final answer to all our remaining questions
A chain reaction was set in motion
Erroneous beliefs shaken and partially resolved
A century of built up karma violently released in various directions
Pausing in your fear inducing to inquire why
You revealed our seperate futures
Never explaining your ultimate agenda
Yet it slowly became obvious
The promise had eroded


October / November 2016

The Dream

A weathered house seen in a recurring dream
1930's era, two stories
A hidden room is the southeast corner
Inside that room an entrance to a long hallway
Curiosity overtakes hesitation
More rooms appear as I pass through that corridor
Four or five maybe more
Empty of inhabitants
A stack of aged newspapers
Spartan furniture, a corner table
A few antique items scattered about
Dimly lit, no windows or beds
Nothing is reset or revealed
A passageway to my history?
Corridor with no ending
An ongoing life?
A glimpse into the future?
Unsatisfied ghosts behind each door waiting to be friended?
Everything's abstract, swirling and lost in a maze of infinite questions


November 2016

An actual dream that I've experienced three or four times now where I'm in this house that I've never lived in but is somehow vaguely familiar .... except for this one room that leads to a dark corridor that I've yet to find an ending to. Unsure of what I'm going to find.

For Random Seekers

We awoke to revival
In the most obscure things
In every single incremental thought
In our emotional solitudes and ineptitudes
In late night musings assigned to the infinite sky
In past actions since buried in unmapped secret places
In a time turned upside down
By immoral and predetermined fears
We survived
Became examples for the random seekers
And you're still out there
Distant from the forgotten starting point
The path you chose remained a mystery
Though I still witness your ghost in occasional alleys, corners and shadows
Fulfilling your personal specified scripture

September 2016

Great Finds

Picked up three great books of poems tonight. The descriptions are not my words ....

• John Hodgen - Bread Without Sorrow .... "This winner of the Balcones Prize for Poetry contains poems of family, love, betrayal, belief, and profound speculation. It is a poetry of long, musical lines, astonishingly original metaphor, and clear and direct voice. This is a remarkably intimate and moving work."
• David Bottoms - We Almost Disappear .... "Rooted in the customs of Southern families and peopled with undertakers, bluegrass musicians, daughters practicing karate, and elderly parents, David Bottoms' poems are generous, insightful, and lean headlong into familial wisdom. Past and present interweave with grandmothers spitting tobacco juice, ponds "filled with construction runoff," and the boyhood home-site paved over for a KFC. This is Bottoms' most personal and heartbreaking book."
• Czeslaw Milosz - Facing the River

The Purpose

Though I never claimed to know anything about anything
Except maybe basketball or collecting vinyl records
And I've always felt mostly insignificant
There was a time when I influenced a young life or two
Though likely more accurately, they touched mine
Changed my world
In ways that one can only feel
Or sense
Not a visual impact that the world could see or define
But still something warm, tangible and genuine
And more importantly .... Vital!!!
Vital to a soul's health
An unchecked ecstasy, knifing through the soul
Knowing you made a difference
Knowing that you've gained an exclusive trust
Knowing at that moment, you are appreciated
You can not assign a worth to that
It can not be manufactured on demand
It can not be measured but once in motion, flows into a bottomless resevoir
Once experienced, there can never be too much
It stays with you forever, never fading or blurring
The glory we all seek! Ones purpose for living


July, 2016

Awaiting Doom

The remaining trees brought word of the oncoming storm
Fearful, anticipating its effects
Wary of advancing rumors of unrivaled fury
Further weakening shaken belief in their immortality
Roots grasping for earthen foundations
Seeking solace in past encounters
Awaiting doom in the revival
They assumed they had faced the extremes
Having barely survived last Summers fires
And Winter's extended freeze
Taunting a Nature now intent on revenge


July, 2016

Only Shadows Remain

She's gone
Left again without warning
Like that Autumn night thirty years ago
Her departure re-opening that massive wound .... for a day or two anyway
Filled for a few magic moments
A night drive through our past
Our young shadows remained in the avenues and trees
Time spent listening to old records
Reading faded love letters
Re-telling lost stories made hazy over time
Sprouting hopes this was real .... An alternate ending
Defining our lives
(While tentatively recalling history in each others eyes)
This time, not interested in knowing where she went
Not willing to invest more time off a life


July, 2016

An Abstract Moment

Symetrical hours (or seconds) chosen far in advance
Was it the precise moment?
Or the salvation of time?
We voiced our mounting concerns voiding established routines
Exchanged unrecognized security for desired brevity
As was once predicted
And in the end the moon still rose
The sky's still cried and lied
The rumoured shift only briefly applied its fears
Minus the revenge of assembled ghosts
An abnormal restraint of overdue karma
The wind still blew with muted rage
The weary earth shook but no one noticed
An ancient contract with history raptured in an infinite instant
Revealing a path to our sacrificial altars
Where we had volunteered our lives again and again
For sanity's sake and a burst of redemption
For a quiet existence lacking strife
We muttered creeds and beliefs
Hoping for a temporary respite
But too many sins were exposed to ever go back
In the heretical years that we failed on numerous occasions
To explain to the youth
How could they comprehend?


April/May 2016

Just a reaction to a wild abstract visual in my mind of black and blue and gray. Of fire and smoke. Of chaos and destruction!! All happening without warning or explanation and where nothing makes sense. Where I think that it's over but then it begins again! But in the end there was also survival and hope after a cleansing and purging of the whole mess.

Yeah I know that it's bizarre and that things don't go together. But it's like a dream that has various parts to it that are all unrelated. Where happenings and places from your past that are being hastily assembled and relived in the dream world in a random and incomplete format, would never fit with each other but there they are in the dream taking place. Where I find myself in one location at one moment and then an instant later in a completely seperate location or town. I don't know about others but I have these kinds of dreams.

To Live Again

It took blurred years to make friends with the lurking demons and frozen images
Never far away, just waiting the slightest spark to emerge
Slowly losing the remnants
Years off a life that can never be re-gained
Then one day, finally allowed to live again
The freedom to feel joy again
To speak your name without consequence
To realize nothing painful remains

Altered and Amended

Didn't want it to end but the end arrives tomorrow
A struggle with empty words and encroaching darkness
A triad lessened by two
Residual images rotate between mystic and dizzy
Long ago we chose differing paths
Made agreements with life .... or death
(Depends on one's outlook)
Sought our revival in the open sky
Not realizing the consequences
Eventually accepting our demise
All in yesterday's remote eyes
Forever once seemed plausable
But often empty promises interceded
Leaving little margin for the unexpected improvisation and opprotunities for improprities
We observed the fall in silence
Gazed on in dis-belief with our generic brand of arrogance
Wandering off in varying directions
Following visions determined a near lifetime ago
Altered and amended along the way

March, 2016

I don't know. It's all extremely murky these days. Having something to do with childhood friends going seprate ways upon entering adulthood. How sometimes your great plans don't always work out and you're left standing there alone in that moment. Also possibly a little to do with that initial realization that time is passing by too quickly.

Thoughts Upon Turning Sixty

Sixty always appeared as so improbable
Yet arrived in an instant
Previously viewed as aged
Sought ways to avoid the inevitable
But it materialized into silent existence
Upon timely arrival and splashdown, one is forced to reconsider life
Adjust attitudes, it's not so bleak
It's not the end
For a moment remember those who failed to make it
Seems there's been more than a few
Never allowed to know thirty ..... or forty ..... or fifty
Be grateful and humble for the chance
An epic accomplishment of major significance in the life of one, to embrace and celebrate
A fortunate occurrence when viewed in the mirrors of a lifetime

The best memories are still those of youth
Never far away
Old schoolmates all arriving one by one at sixty
Experiencing fear, denial and finally, gradually and begrudgingly acceptance
Why resist? Why struggle?
You're gaining increased appreciation (Right?)
Hopefully greater wisdom and agility in sidestepping the angst
Though there's suspicions to the contrary

February 20, 2016

Destiny Denied

It never happened
That failed attempt
Despite all our best efforts
No regard for all of our wildest dreams
But for that one free falling moment in that single hour of that lone given day
It seemed desireably possible
Remotely, but still possible
We believed in the karma to turn lives around
To merge conflicting directions
And of overdue fate
And hopeful in that instant we crept forward with caution
Aware and fragile
Grasping vainly for each others hand
Until suddenly the darkness and barriers resumed
And decades later, the surviving fading images
Leave us wondering if it was all the practical joke of shared ghosts
Or just imagination run amok
The ultimate harsh reality
This postponed destiny denied

February 13, 2016

Circumstances Of Destruction

We shuffle by while keeping our distance and ignorance
Silent in our haste to move away
A blind man sits on the cold pavement
Exposed to the relentless elements
Head bowed in shame ..... or exhaustion
His rusted voice stripped of its dignity
Crude sign pleads for hushed mercy
Nickels and dimes, his way of existence
This desperate life not always his anticipated destiny
Once holding lofty aspirations and dreams
Until eventually shattered
By circumstances of destruction
By the anger of the times
Was this fate ever avoidable or reversible

February 2016