PaulSN

I have been writing
   about you
almost since my
very first-ever   poem

It was your spirit  I
could feel--
   even  when I was  wholly
unable  to feel

You are  a b ra isi v e
in the most  t e n d e r e s t
  of ways
    my little scrapper

And I have  pulled you
  t o w a r d s   me
a  thousand  different  days

(yet, I have never touched you)

Little scrapper,  you are
  a d m i r e d
from afar
      by me--
the one who has been
    watching you--
all these years

Look up, beautiful-one
turn your face
      to  me
          and see that I am
                                     still here--
wanting just to  touch
the side of  yours
with *******

          just a touch

Yes,
silly spilly--
       yapper-lilly
I am right here..
   lookin   at you-  tenderly
                                              still--

              even after all this time

Selmhem Naise

Remember the movie
"Terminator"--
the first one?
Sarah was being hunted
and Kyle was sent back
in time
to protect her from
the machine-made Terminator

  whose only purpose in life was to end hers.

How was he to know that
when he entered into her world;
    he was going to fall so deeply?
And without his entrance
into her life--  he
would have no reason
to come across time for her--
the fruit of their love
would have never been born--

the very reason
for the very reason  of the killer's mission.

To try to figure out
and understand
where this perpetual cycle
of love began,  would
bog the mind--

      all that can be done
      is acceptance
      or rejection
           of that love.


      Yeah, but what a love it was--
      Kyle came across time for her.

How many times have I climbed this mountain?
How many times sat in the dry leaves at the end of day?
And how many more to come?
Uncountable to me...
There must be a definite number
but to me they are endless.
Endless in number and endless
each in its own day.

A few years ago, I was in junior high. Or at least it seems that
way. Then the next thing I knew, I just graduated from
college. Is that possible, to let time play games with you, and
the games seem like reality? Then I just watched Mariel Hem-
ingway in Woody Allen's "Manhattan." It seems like a few
weeks ago. I had a crush on her. In the movie, she is only 17.
Now she's 63. What the hell happened? What's going on? I
don't get it. I have dreams that are timeless, memories of beau-
tiful women I dated over a lifetime. I feel exactly how I felt
50 years ago. I remember exactly how each one smelled. A-
mazing! I remember reading in Spanish Jorge Luis Borges'
books. But life is an endless stream of recollections, or should
I say reinactments. Each night as I sleep, I make love with
Sharon, or maybe Linda, perhaps Nancy. Ah, Nancy, the
most beautiful girl in Topeka when we were both teenagers!
But after she was divorced, Nancy and I started dating and
making love. Ah, the plenitude, the pulchritude! And now I
watch movies. I'm not old, the movies are old, or so it seems.
Cinder was my first dog, my best friend growing up. There
were no leash laws in the '50s, so when my best human friend,
Bruce, and I were in grade school, we would ride our bikes all
the way downtown with Cinder keeping up with us all the way.
Could that have been 65 years ago/ Really? Are you sure?
I'm not.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

A photon has no time.
Here and there, instantly.
No distance too, when in the light.
All is one, one is all,
                                     eternally.

Forever is the moment
The bedside clock strikes midnight
As the insomniac cries,
“How long will I stay awake?!”

Forever is the moment
Staring at the dead of night
Seeing the most starlit skies,
As our lasting Heaven’s sake.

Forever is the moment
Lonesome poets start to write
Words to memorialize
Constant and persistent ache.

Forever is the moment
When finally things feel right
And hopefulness fills the eyes,
And no hearts are left to break.

Aesthetically pleasing spiderwebs
Dogs fitting perfectly into each dorway
Books over Books over Books over Books
being dead wood covered by dead wood inside of dead wood
surrounded by stone
it´s what I call home

In waking sleep we all expire,
remote organics built to tire –
searching lusts for something more
to fill our souls beyond our core

We lay awake inside a dream,
asleep within a constant stream,
alone, in part, to wander, lost,
with passing time our only cost

We play as shadows holding hands
with eyes wide closed and few demands,
our every moment briefly clashing;
fast forgotten memories flashing

Here, we count down from our birth
with time a thief upon this earth –
purpose teased at every corner,
Chinese Whispers our informer

But all will realise when we’re gone
that we were dreaming every song –
that death becomes another story;
a painless world of allegory

I fear we write this book forever
as single pages bound together
to lay inside our reader’s minds
in passing paragraphs of time

First light, and
a chill mist.
Low bird calls.
Small and quiet,
the eldest child
zips her way
out of the tent.

Gathering
wildflowers,
she sips a bit
of mountain
water.
Reaching
up, she  
offers
her flowers
into the
crook of
a plain tree,
bowing down.