The stains from my coffee
dropped onto the paper
Then, randomly folded
into deliberate pleats
Revealed to me
the nature of it’s purpose
The place where the clouds
of imagination can meet

When there’s light
at the end of a tunnel
and the tour
of it’s darkness is done
May we never make
the careless mistake
of missing our time in the sun

The burden of rapture
all swollen in sadness
is love that’s a fever
that descends into madness
Yet, this perfect poison
is gladly taken
like a classic martini
Stirred but not shaken

Art
Music
Poetry
Sirens luring ships to the rocks?
Or beacons lighting the way
for mariners lost at sea?

Maybe in accepting
the pain in ourselves
we might see all
that it is offering
and maybe the resistance
not the pain itself
is causing most
of the suffering

I was just an observer
of a poor man’s death
I was there beside him
when he took his last breath
Shocked awake
and dripping wet
My body shivered
in a dead man’s sweat
“Be still my heart”
and may I perish the thought
of the terror in his face
and the horror it wrought
I may not be able
to sleep soundly again
If I cannot forget
where my dreams have been

To the fear of the future
from the regret of the past
flows the gift of the present
and all too fast
Adrift on a mighty river