awake,
i drift about.

the touch of moonlight
imbues all
with a haziness.

everything is dream-like.
it seems as though
to grasp for something
is to reach through it.
the world truly is ethereal,
what was seconds ago
may no longer be in a few moments.
do you know of those
who walked the same steps
that i now trace?

how loosely put together it all seemed.
looking back on it now,
to have been together
at the same place
was a chance of a lifetime.

i ponder,
how many more lives should i live
to meet them all again
in that same place.

i worry, the longer i live
the more of them i shall forget.
moments pressed out of memory
like the coming morning
erasing the night.

i spend more time
thinking of writing poems
than writing poetry.

it strikes me as rather odd,
as most things require only
the act of doing it for it to be done.
paradoxically,
when one thinks about what should be written,
one can no longer grasp
what it is they had even intended to write.

and so i pick small details;
that is all i can do.
and i layer them, one atop another.
perhaps among my many poems
is the one single poem
i had meant to write.

my favourite description of love
comes from a curt confession from bukowski:
"love is a dog from hell".

what more does one want to know?
if one has felt love,
and i mean,
really felt it;
suffered for it;
felt the brunt of despair;
known the sleepless nights;
the restless nights;
the doubt;
the belief;
the constant flip flop
between the two;
between heartbreak and happiness;
the will to endure all sadness;
the knowledge that such strength
will only bring about sadness;
the horror of seeing in real time
love end
from the eyes of another;
to have been crushed by a weight
which could leave you without air
for years
and yet oddly
still have the presence of mind
to look back on it with tenderness;
to know that lust and love
are entirely separate;
and one needs only a memory
to keep the embers alive.

then i believe
a dog from hell
sums it up rather nicely.

if men are divided
as either
sheep or wolves,
then i already know
what is to become of me.

when my time comes,
when the slaughter is nigh,
i will stick out my neck
and tell them,
do it properly.

i am too tired
to do otherwise.
i find it preferable
to end this farce;
life will go on,
with or without sheep;
with or without wolves.

how i have
wracked my brain
on how to write
a simple poem
about a tree
lit by the moon.

nature is writhe
with such gentle beauty.
and yet
i cannot even start to
entice its essence
to settle as
a line or two on paper.
where beauty begins,
i cannot say.

to write of beauty
is to remember a dream;
to recall a thought
only half way through.
i cannot describe in words
that which is before me.
all i know is
that it is beautiful.

i have written
hundreds of poems.
in reading them over,
i find that
i have written
only a little bit of
poetry.

the passing of time,
the seasons,
of scenery
and people,
have scarred me;
embittered me.
i am now a more rigid person.

i dismiss my older writing as
pretentious;
uninspired;
misguided.
i wonder if
i should suffer the same verdict
when i,
once more,
re-evaluate.

in light of such a thought,
i marvel at
how little poetry
can be squeezed from a single life.

The pale blue
that filters through
my closed curtains;
the sting of light
as it pries open
my eyelids,
one at a time;
today, i am alive.