Poetry lives, sleeps, deep, deep within,
The words, waiting, waiting, waiting,
Nurtured, soothed, lovingly cajoled,
Given form and purpose, till they rise,
Coming to life, unbidden, bursting free.

They echo around the globe, touching,
Slipping silkily into hearts and minds,
Subtly connecting with new-born ideas,
Mingling, coalescing, waiting, waiting,
That’s where poetry come from, (yes),
Poetry lives, sleeps, deep, deep within.

©Paul M Chafer 2016

They say the good die young
But is that really so?

More so sometimes
It seems we're left to suffer.

Enduring the torment and scrutiny of every eye in the world.

It seems we're everyone's best friend
Until everyone forgets about us.

In the end I guess we might as well be dead.

Everyone's already forgot about us.

(Heaven and Earth)

June has gone on ahead of me
Looking down with a smile today.
She has been renewed forever
I am getting older by the day.

My body has many cracks,
Crevices and creases.
"chugging along", missing June -
For Love, it never ceases

Resting on a swaying foundation
God has been good to me
I'm "chugging along" waiting my turn
My Glorious June to see.

I've got Memories by the dozen,
Reminiscences by the score…
The day I stop remembering…
is the day I'll close this door.

My World will have ended
Heaven bound I will be.
Where June is ever waiting...
For her Stan she will see.

My World will soon end
Temporary it has been.
God is calling me home
Where Eternity will begin.

runnerman from responsibility
over the seas swim undone,
walk on water pretend saint,
don't deny culpability,
no using can't, weighted, ain't,

but never say
words failed me

liar on fire, name names,
name yourself
before the board of inquiry
first among sinners,
ain't you weakly proud, yet,
don't deny responsibility,

but never say
words failed me

pathway thru the kingdom of men
to reach the ways of heaven,
looking for excuses, indifferent,
look for reasons, insufficient,
looking for travel guides
guaranteeing a good time had
bye, bye all

but never say
words failed me

your body may fly away,
or just deteriorate,
so many choices to
drown yourself in sin,
paper, rock, scissors,
or just a handy mirror

but never say
words failed me

words alone,
true words,
words only,
of others,
your own,
can save you

when you are about to
fail yourself

~for lovejunkie, who loved this poem best~

so many reasons,
so many stones
yet unturned,
for each poem
a season,
for every season,
a given reason

eyes, dimmer,
hearing, harder,
memories, ha,
disappear as fast as
footsteps upon
my island beach

this then
my log,
of places momentarily visited,
capturing the of,
of me,
the exactitude of
where, when and what
I felt

what felled me,
the long and lat,
of the attitudes
of breeze and currents,
the happenstance that carries
a desperate soul
eager and afraid
to remember

"how fragile we are"

so memorized records here,
for his storage and his places,
both filled and unfulfilled,

poems, nothing more,
flawed each,
product of a flawed man,
here, for all to see,
most of all,
for the man,
to see himself
when the eyes of his mind
at last be shuttered