Eyelids flicker, close again.
Then slowly part allowing focus.
The morning welcomes sleepy eyes
and a window beckons.
Light streams through
and the view is of Spring.

The sun up in the sky
brilliant and ablaze with life.
From one horizon to another
clear blue light hangs,
lazily draping the world
and not a vapour trail in sight.

Silence is no longer a pause
between bursts of open noise,
rather, noise is an intruder
hectoring the moments of peace.
Until the sleep dirt clears
and the chorus of birds singing
is in harmony with serenity,
complimenting the absence of sound.

Different light in hidden places
shine a hue of emerald green,
flecked with orange and yellow,
single rays of playful sunshine.
The streams of brilliance persist
like the radiance of a palette,
if the painter is Mother Nature
and the picture is crystal clear.

And sleep though only minutes gone
is a forgotten rest memory.
The dreams faded and passed on,
given free, as a gift to the night.


© Pagan Paul (25/03/20)

.
Watch the morning tide
wash them all aside,
my castles by the shore
are gone forever more.

A billion grains of golden sand,
the remnants of my dreams,
float suspended in the current
and I drift along with them.
They in their watery solution,
me in the spaces of my mind.
Drifting.
The grains of sand sink and fade,
replaced by neon chain linked stars
and the sense of being completely empty,
not at all devoid. Just .. empty.
Drifting.
The floatation tank of loss
clasps the dreams with frigid fingers,
shrieking to be given its toy,
threatening never to open again.
But the Suns call from faraway skies
heralding to opine freedom,
release the fragments to individual broadcasts,
reaching out, out, out to the deep.
An umbilical tether for a fragile boat
is slipped to play adrift in a storm.
Letting go. Letting go.
Watch the morning tide wash them all aside.
Letting go.

I cast a mind spell,
wish them all farewell,
my castles in the sea
are evermore set free.

And my mind though now it be thought less
has no need of castles, for it is a fortress.

© Pagan Paul (15/03/20)

.
A speck on the horizon grows,
dark grey, foreboding and cruel,
stunting the sun's warm rays,
eclipsing the sky's perfect jewel.

Roiling clouds gather their skirts,
spewing across the azure blue,
spreading threads of droplet rain,
morphing the light into different hue.

Static is just the anticipation,
the excitement before the wonder,
the throb as high overhead
peels a belly roll of thunder.


© Pagan Paul (17/03/20)

.
You stand alone in a crowd,
fully clad and yet naked,
open to the scrutiny of others,
a target for acceptable prejudice.
Do you look like them?
Do you act like them?
Do you think like them?
Does your conformity make you like them?
The group, the herd.
Is their outer vanity enough
for you not to care what they think?
The truth is that vanity
is not tangible.

The outward manifestation of thought,
thought that nibbles at the edges of reason,
invading and undermining confidence,
an acceptable target for prejudice.
Do they like me?
Am I of their kind?
What are they thinking?
Does my confusion make me like them?
Part of the crowd.
Is my inner vanity sufficient
for me to not care what they think?
The truth is that vanity
is transitory.


© Pagan Paul (29/02/20)

.
Last night
she said I was cold.
Unreachable.
Surrounded in a halo of frost.
It burnt her fingers
as she dared to touch,
but there was little there.
Just … frost-bite,
and the sense
that she was alone in the room.
In body I was there,
but the Boat of Millions of Years
was sailing through my eyes
to the intended destination,
my lost mind.
She called to me
but I was to far to hear.
Down her soft cheeks
the tears did stream,
as she screamed my name
over and over.
She screamed until
the screams turned to sobs,
as the slow realisation
that I no longer knew her,
knew me, knew anything,
hit her like a wave of grief,
freezing her emotions dead.
Last night
she said I was cold.
And I was cold
because I knew that it was
our Last Night.

© Pagan Paul (16/02/20)