You were always
the bit

where the map creased & tore
leaving us unsure

looking through a hole
at our own big toe.

You were always
the bit

where the map was folded in four
and had to be awkwardly unfolded

just to see
where you were.

You were always
the bit

that was just off this map

ending in mid air...

...see next map:

...the missing map!

You were always
the lost map.

You were often
the wrong map.

The map that there was...

. . .no map of!

In the garden she digs furrows
with her broken clock hands,
plants time in fallow fields.

On hands and knees,
the moist crumbling soil
spills through determined fingers.

With watchful gaze
they wind,
they spin.

She repackages her purpose into
tiny tin boxes,
folds the brittle paper of years ticking by,

molds origami shapes:
the thousand cranes,
one croaking frog,

and stuffs them there.

Of this, my heart so eagerly embraced
The plans of youth in dreams retraced
And in that song of once forgotten fire
A burning now of long quenched desire.

See the trees standing tall and austere?
The meadow grass with flowers appear.

Split rail fence
Winding path
Stone wall
Signs of a life,
Proof of it all

The poet seeks to recollect
Through phrases in earnest to reflect
But the pen, in solitude rejects

Through wasted years of hopeful dream
I've not set foot in a single stream

Of longing
Of bitterness
Of regret

These will be this poet's epitaph.

Then,
you try it one more time
look at the spiteful clock
make a promise that
you'll rise by nine.

The clock won't let you go
you know it can't forget,
it's rampant in its appetite,
bites you when you least expect
wrecks your plans
spoils your day,
the clock has everything its way, but
not today.

Today,
I shine.
Get out of bed at ten to nine.
Out the door at nine oh four
on the bus at quarter past,
fast so fast
I wonder can I last.

The clock does not forget and
the faster I go, the more of
a debt that I owe.

I owe a fortune for being too quick,
arriving too soon
I should have stayed in my room.
Spiteful time.

Each little death,
she breathes
life
into me.

Summer fields
yield up to me
their
unassuming
blooming
beauty.

Those blues and greens that I have seen, the eyes that look within the dream, makes me wonder,  what artist's muse could conjure up such greens or blues?.
In a universe beyond our own where paints are mixed, let's call it home from home, for we are all as one within the coated layers.
What prayers you make and to whom will not distract me from this room of a hundred thousand hues and more
and as the eyes look on I soar beyond into the metaphor,
this link of chain, this lions mane flows wild with glee and as sweet as any honey bee it colours me.
In the shade where light can fade the fullness of her lips are made a touch of ruby red, the blueness of her eyes more blue, in dreams that look within me, you become the muse I see,
the greens and blues
the muse becomes the artistry.

Lost my youth in a booth on the backstreets of beyond but my
word is a good as any man's bond
stick with me
come and see
that,

you cannot control a runaway, you
may as well try to pack up the day with
ribbons and lace and send it someplace where
the light never shines,
like under the stairs or
locked in the wardrobe
a keyhole, a light strobe and they say
that the world is a globe,
it isn't in here,
this is fear on the flat and that's my belief because
I still believe,
not in pixies or fairies or three blessed hail Mary's
but in the darkness and the heat when you
know that you're beaten but believe that you're not.
I believe in the spot of light through the keyhole and I
believe it's an angel that comes for my soul.

It's a long day for a runaway, but it comes to an end
and the spot of light fades, as the eyelids put shades
on the wandering eyes.