Funny how it seemed to work.
I got up every day and did
Everything on my mental list.
I chugged and huffed along at it
’Til it was time to pull the plug
And see what sleep could offer.

I made new friends along the way
And lost a few for things
I did and did not do.
I had success and failures too
With mostly humdrum in between
But I managed to leave a trace of me.

Funny how I wound up here at last
Life happened unbeknownst to me
With things that came and went by me
Devouring hours and days and months
That blurred the seasons and my goals
And left me here unwinding it.

Would I go back and rearrange
The way I made my daily choices
If that was somehow possible?
Too much is unbeknownst to me
to chance losing all the good there was
To possIbly erase the bad.
I’ll let the past remain the past.
ljm

I long for cobbled stone roads
Dim lit stone stairs climbing with ivy
Up buildings built by Romans
adorned with flowers and intricacies
Details honed by Craftsman
Delicately drafting
the landscapes we live in
Unlike the concrete utilitarian steel and glass pillars and highways
Their plight on our journeys in life
To benefit the productivity
but detriment the soul
To capitalize no matter what the cost
Leaving me longing to nap
in a park with Parisians
For fresh baked baguettes on a bench with a bottle of burgundy
For mosaics made of glass in cathedrals built centuries ago
Over billboards and neon lights,
the flashing and screaming
products for purchase
Let me get my dinner after the people have had their naps.
Let it be an occasion
not a necessity to get by
Let's walk the city after 10
while the sky is still bright
Waiting for the dim street lights
to light our way back
To another day of walking
cobble ****** streets

I do not write of sunsets,
Those farewells of weary days.

I will not speak again of forests
Or golden sunlit glades.

I have said my piece on oceans.
Brokered peace among the flame.

I have walked many an idyllic garden
To find each flower's scent the same.

At times the grass appears the greener,
A feature of how light strikes the blade.

The sabre seems as great a teacher
In the sunshine as the shade.

So I shall write again no more of sunsets
Those farewells of weary days.

I lay down arms against the evening.

To the dreaming

I cast my gaze.