Small town sounds
Unlocked doors
Not that many cars.
Main Street grocery store
Nickel candy bars.
Church Street,
“Sunday shoes”,
Parents stood outside and smoked,
Kids caught with cigarettes
Would have allowances revoked.
Corn Growers
Push mowers
Friday football games.
Everybody, Everywhere,
Knew everybody’s name.
Summer shouts
Paper routes
Cub Scouts once a week
Boys and girls in sixth grade
Dancing cheek to cheek.
No shirts
Blue jeans
Walking through the beans
Witches, ghosts and scary things
Every Halloween
Greased pigs
Little League
Swimming lessons in the lake
Talking back to teachers
Was a BIG mistake!
Teachers had hard paddles that
They were not afraid to use
Parents told them,
“Go ahead.”
And they did not refuse.
Bicycles everywhere
Pocket knives
Truth or Dare
Water balloons,
Kids Cartoons
Fishing in the creek
Not it
Gravel pit
Games of Hide and Seek
Bible School
Golden Rule
Jesus Loved Me This I Know
Several generations
Watching children grow.
Laying on a blanket
Watching shooting stars
Teachers went two towns away
When they went to bars.
Home grown tomatoes
Juicy burgers nice and thick
Eating home-made ice cream
Until all of us were sick.
Nine o’clock bedtimes
The nights were very still
I still hear the small town sounds
I guess I always will.
PwL 5/5/15

I sat alone and aloof
A Book in hand
And words in mind,
Leaving my reality behind.

He came from nowhere,
Nowhere that I could see
And asked about the words I read;
But for all his words, my words were dead.

We spoke for a while,
Hot coffee warming our hands;
Smiles on our faces and hope in heart
We both played well the stranger's part.

With the hands of time in motion,
We spoke out our souls
Of our lives and our faces,
And our words and their paces.

Of the hours that hurt
And the words that burnt;
The sweet balm of love and care
And how life could, maybe, be a little fair.

He asked, at last, if my words were taken,
And I thought back to the boy
With whom my words belonged--
*I've given up my words far too long...

Tis not my mind
Nor my heart
Tis not my word
Nor my speech
These rhythmic impulses
Striking gently against my nerves
And dripping...
These droplets of harmony  
Absorbed; on the pages of time
This verse or perhaps a tune
This theme or perhaps a symphony
To be sung or perhaps unsung
To be heard or perhaps unheard
Yet splashed and imprinted
On the score of a lovers heart
I be the lover; Him be my beloved
As I looked up to the heavens
And drank the pouring rain
Cascaded down from my beloved's abode
To soak and fill the cracks of my imagination

And you my friend!
A passersby;
In quest of your beloved's song
But when your beloved sings not,
Return..
Within,
To hear your silver chimes
Hear once and hear again
How the tumult ends
Rewarded or unrewarded
Never you are empty handed
Hence leave your instrument of doubt hither
On your stage of tenet
But seek and return; again
And see with each return
How your orchestra rises, how it plays
How you hear and how you sway
For then, you'll be the lover
But only He will be your beloved

My niece asked about you yesterday,
she said she liked you.
I said, " I like him too, but we're just friends."
That was a lie, but sometimes it is okay to pretend,
when something is too complicated for a child to comprehend.
I do hope, however, I never have to lie like that again.
Because as the words left my lips
I remembered how achingly I missed
you, my best friend.

~~
Then, if ever, is the red color grows fade
The petals of red roses drop
If the birds don't sing any songs
And even a butterfly doesn't
Play on a purple flower

If the mistake happens in the rain
You 'll not cry
You can't be afraid of thunder
They will cleanse you

And when I am gone
Forgive me, but the melody in the air
You will come, playing in the garden,
Dance with the lost grasshoppers

Any yellow day when red flamboyant will be bloomed
Will have to take off your colorful sunglasses
At the very noon will be floated on the Cuckoo's love song
Again and Again it will prove your arrival,

O' Spring

You'll be the very white sky after rain
Will bloom red hibiscus
On that gilded day  
Red flamboyant 'll be loved with yellow flamboyant

Patched up with melody and words
Will be made new Songs,
New Poetry,
With the yellow flowers tune

Then again,
You 'll not  sing a song of despair,
Not even a song of hiatus,
Will sing the Songs of Joy,
Stir in the way of dreams,
Mating

Back to again and again
I 'll come back to you
Both 'll make a love  
For the creation of a new life
~~

When you hold me in your arms,
I weep,
Tears from what I can’t articulate
The illness of a dying earth,
The fight against the demons,
The out of tune voices,
Take their toll on me,
And build,
Like mud upon my clothes,
Rest and cry,
In the safety of your lap,
The only place,
Where I am clean.

I understand.
A long line of yesterdays
Lead you here.
So you compare,

And call upon
Rainy summers and fierce
Winters to stain
Today with the pain

Of last love lost.
Last fallen friend.
Pulling the fabric of hope apart
To fit your heart.

Place it among the new born
Lights of stars long since
Dead, instead. Learn
To shine, not burn.

The rays of sunrise
Are eight minutes old.
Arise. Be bright.
Give the morning its light.
All that awaits to glitter
Is gold.

Sugar sand beaches reach the horizon
Water so far it is naught but a glimmer in the distance
Sitting in the warmth of that powder-like earth
The sun seems to set over a desert
Purple and pink in smoking swirls of Heaven
Sopping up the beauty in open pores
Ready to receive all that is offered
Watching the sun begin to slumber
As Luna's light begins to shine in bulbous splendor
The glimmer seems to twinkle as brightly as the stars as they awaken
Multiplying by the moment
Mesmerizing, as the lights seem to grow
The air changes, a little cooler now
The sand turns to black glass glistening in the moonlight
Slowly taking over the horizon
Watching the twinkling onyx reflect the night sky
Almost hypnotized by the melodic whisper
The only evidence of life within the breezeless air
As black meets gray, the warmth of the water glides further
Swallowing the shore inch by inch
Blanketing all as it comes upon its farthest outstretched reach
Bathing in the warmth of black water,
Stippled with the most brilliant twinkling reflections
Wrapped in the heat of the night
Consumed by the darkness, by the stars, by the very heat of the earth
Slowly, deliberately, the water rises
Basking in the beauty of a sea that came to greet all who care to notice
As the ripples and waves wash over the footprints
Erasing the day and birthing it anew
The moon smiles its bright smile
The sand swims by unseen
And the stars shine like the brightest diamonds
in the light of the moon