The crunch
Of the leaves that
Carpet the earth
Beneath me
Is not music to
My ears. Yet,
The still light
Of a demure sun on
The scattered shades of brown
On gold, and gold on the wilting
Crisp reminder of a season
Just gone, is a
Beauty that should leave one
Amused.

Yet on this day,
When the sky holds
No clouds, and the air,
with the chill of death itself,
Takes every breath and gives one the colour of the dead.
I can not help but think
Of what
One very tiny spark might do to all
This...
Perhaps
Anguish, fear, destruction and maybe even despair, and then
Again
It might not even burn too far.
But I know that if such a flame should tame the wind, the heritage it might leave for us;
ashes, soot, charred wood,
Though the first of things to come,
Will be in time, the least of our thoughts.

Many new days shall come,
With new joys, fears and sadness
In humble mix.
But on this very tranquil day
I only imagined what a small flame could do to the last vestiges
Of a season past.

No more lies the hope
That we will be witnesses
When your dreams unfold.

I'm dreaming in this nightmare,
It's a jungle out here,
The market's full of bulls and bears
Fighting for who gets the lion's share
No one cares,
The human soul is dear
No more.

Life's an unseen war,
We're at war with us,
Our kids grow in a world so vicious,
Everyone is the competition
They've got to outwit every competitor
If they don't want to be eaten,
So our little ones grow
To love only those in their pride.
Welcome to life's own roller-coaster ride
There's more terror than amusement.

Here for
The charms of many tomorrows
Today's splendour, And a
Blossoming before
We wilt with
The reminscence of yesterday's fading.

Returning,
To enrich
The times
For those beyond.

We shut our minds
from the reality of
that which there is,
then we delve deep
into unassumed perceptions, not
without thought but with
utmost self denial.

The truth becomes art painted
by our very hands,
which more often than not is
the abstract we do not comprehend, but yet
smile in appreciation of.

Not to be considered foolish,
we succumb to this....
pleasurable nonsense of being
one like all.

I look at us
and I smile
because I see
that
We are frail,
we are weak,
we are foolish,
we are human.

I am
what I
was not.

Yet to be
what I will.

I am,
so
I shall

This darkness
has always been,
and from
it he
comes, to
give us heaven.
This moment
short as it is
is the only salvation
he knows, for
he dies often
and resurrects
for moments
ephemeral.

Our cheers sedate
his anguish,
evoke his passion
and then
only then
can he reach
the depths of
his soul.

Here, he can
go on no
more.

Curtains are drawn,
Lights go off,
... and it is dark again.

Is the man the artist?
Or the artist the man?
Are the strokes the man's
and the works the artist's?

The man can paint
but so does the artist.

Does the work betray
the man in the artist?
Or the artist in the man?

The work we see
was done by who?

This short stint
beneath the sun
has seen me
stretching for the stars, for
nothing other than
knowing that before
the earth shades
what I must shed
I took a chance to
reach for what
seemed beyond me,
if not for
a thing at all
to savour the joy
of labouring to be
more than what
I might have
been.

You shall don no silk gloves, tailcoats
or even a tophat, all you'll
have is an assembly
of a scattered and
yet attentive audience,
and you, the performer.

Pleasantly it is not fear
that will make you nearly
light-headed, it is the demand
that you must perform.
a few breaths in, and a smirk on your
face, and voila....

Your act, miserably enchanting
as it has been, is amazing to
those only simpler than yourself.
Much in the same way
as you are taken by something
more grand.

Few tricks here, few tricks
there, is all the magic
we have to get us
by.

Headed home
Wrestling thoughts
At the end
Of the sort of day
One hopes not to see again,
I caught the dancing reflection
Of a moon left to itself,
Shine on the ripples
Beneath the bridge
That stretches home.

The darkness within
And around welcomed
The joyful radiance
Of a beauty
Hardly ever seen,
Yet giving me cause to think:
Elsewhere nature
Paints a scene
That has no audience.

Look up to
The heavens,
Full
And empty
As it is
And with spent
Patience, joy
Might descend.

Thoughts above,
Feet aground.

There in the clouds,
Are no angels,
But the men
Who make them.