A raging silence escapes me
waiting for you to wake

Watching as the night
begins to spill across the sky

Still missing a part of me
Understanding this concept of love
Time will not pass me by
for I am aware

Your intoxicating vapor
fills my soul
as I exhale

when I was young
I had big eyes
full of truth
full of youth
full of dreams

brown like the soil a flower grows

eyes that saw the
infinite sky
stars swam inside
carried sunshine

Where's the love
Where's the color
Where's the vision

I've always listened

I can't see
what you're trying to show me

when I was young
I saw the world

now my eyes are small
I don't believe anymore

Why...
                                  I ask myself,
Why can't i be good enough?
       I'm either too quiet or too loud,
too energetic or too dull, lifeless...
        I'm too nice or too mean,
too dramatic or too emotionless, numb...
       I feel everything or i don't feel enough...
                     Why...
     Am i never good enough?
   I love myself yet i despise my existence...
                     Why...
Is it that the only person who thinks I'm
                                                                ­           enough,
    is the person who deserves the world,
                                                          ­           the world i can't provide...
  But maybe he can show me that for once,
                                                           ­                 I am good enough...

What
makes
A poet

Well
I think
Eventually

One will
just
know it

©  2019 Jim Davis

I see the boy's eyes
puckered
destroyed
he can't grasp
how is this
so?

on balance
tales and
lies do
for the spark of
a yarn's
pull?

or are the child's
ties torn
the parent's
solidity broken
his rock
in a world

shaken?

A thousand miles west of me
She lies in a nursing home bed,
Oxygen and medications
Prolonging the end of a well-lived life.

This night, the weariness settles around me,
A grim comfort promising sleep,
If only I may close my eyes in surrender....
As if my staying awake somehow sustains her.

Eldest of her sons,
Sometimes wise,
Sometimes wiseacre,
Sometimes a visioning prophet,
Sometimes a fumbler in the dark,
I am empty of words tonight.

What wisdom have I now
When wisdom's called for?
Decisions to be made, and naught to say:
I'd give my kingdom for the wisest way.

Oh, I have prayed,
Have pleaded with the skies....
I suffer in the silent darkness.
Knowing Mother's youth and strength are spent;
Time's inexorable turning pulls her in,
Body nearly gone, reason razor thin
Tell me her fight's a battle Time will win.

But now, while the hovering remains,
The wretched anguish overhangs my soul,
And memories of Mother, young and strong,
Tireless and loving, industrious, filled with song,
Make poignant my pre-mourning hours.