not until
   not so long ago
I recognized
that saying thanks
   only with wordless deeds and gestures
may not be enough

we need to
   hear
GRATITUDE  
spoken out loudly
   in words

silent appraisal
   is not enough
   over time

so I speak out
in deep appreciation
   of your hard work
   to make us
   stay together
against tall centrifugal forces
the division of
   distance and time
   distress and separation
   barriers of the quotidian
   multiple obligations

I thank you
   for being with me

even at times
   when you are almost
beside yourself

I thank you
   for being with me
and being you

         * *

the white-haired patriarch
   beard and moustache    
    a bit colonial  
benignly smiles
   at the United Nations building
   at Times Square
   and at 8th Avenue
where hot-pantied women
   in buzzing crowds
date strangers
   to share their loneliness

humidity is high
    on muggy summer afternoons
at the core
   of the Big Apple

          * *

light
from the lit windows
   of the hurrying train
streams out
and instantly disappears
   into the darkening landscape
   through which I travel

I do now know
   where it goes
   what scene it may
   happen to illuminate

sometimes
when we stop at a station
   pass a town
   or a row of cars
   waiting at the crossing
we are receivers
   of the light of others

so we speed through the world
receiving some
and sending flickers of light
   into space
to unknown destinations

           * *

now and again
I tend my heart
leave facts and figures behind
and enter the realm of feeling
where
   like in a primal ocean
float beings about to become
   not easy to classify
   almost before words

somewhat like a school
   of amorphous translucent jellyfish
   good vibes float towards
   a loved one
predatory shapes speed by
   to attack unfriendlies
bright orange-blue flowers
shine in the wake
   of good food and company
a bright red coral reef
   hovers like a loving kiss
tumultuous slashing of the waves
   feels strong and overwhelming
   in blue-lit foamy white

I float back to the surface
    and
looking at the sky
   whose blue is as deceptive
   as that of the waters
I wait for my heart
to tell me
which one
to trust

       * *

there are too many hours of the day that I am awake for;
twenty-four is a number I have come to dread.
I hate that I'm rolling around for hours and hours,
watching the colours shift across the sky
from one agonising hour to the other
when I'm trapped in this body, this brain, this mind,
this me.

i hate the fact that an empty echoing house
is all that I have to come back to
and that my worst nightmares
are my every day realities;
just me, awake, all day, all night,
all alone in this ******* world.

i hate that the warm body and warmer soul I want to make love to
in whose arms I want to spend every night -
wants nothing but return to the comfort of his own bed,
leaving me to battle another ****** night
with the demons that devour my brain.

i hate that for every twenty seconds of sleep I sneakily ******,
i'm made to pay through weeks of wakefullness
that settles heavily into my muscles and my bones
leaving me aching and restless, making survival
a struggle and not a goal.
I hate this.
there are too many hours of the day that I am awake for -
**i want to be awake for none at all.

Migration as a Swallow


We are one at soliped
of love and bend,
  of low and sliver
In roar of distance,
knuckle lock existence
tears of a small proud child
a woman into womb
torn to open wound
remembering his eyes
his laugh, his soft song
longing of never land
goodbyes,
to swollen hot earth
  to the dry of my eyes
birds flying young
to make a Swallow
branch here
in the old songs
of the south.

I wish I could explain
The tide
Of pain,
That swept aside
The spark of youth
Burning bright
It dimmed the truth.
A darkness
Consuming hope and care
Leaving only hate,
Despair.
A splinter
Buried in my skin
Rotting all that's good
Within.
Now what remains
Is just a husk,
Emptiness
from dawn to dusk.
I wish I could explain
This fate
But even now
It's just too late.

She carried me aloft the firmament
To the Helix nebula;
Her wing's left trail's on earth of her beauty and elegance.



©Brandon nagley
©Earl jane Nagley dedication
©Lonesome poet's poetry