In honor of getting older,
wiser, sillier and bolder -
I have decided to take the shackles off.
They keep me safe, but curse me soft.
As my life has flashed before my eyes,
Suddenly, I have come to realize -
   I haven’t lived enough
      I haven’t loved enough
         I haven’t danced,
            nor laughed hard enough.

Yesterday
while walking my dog
At the park
I saw a tall drink of water
A Winsome man who put us at ease
He’s saying his music to the air in trees
A genuine cowboy
From head to toe,

A cowboy hat, boots,Wrangler jeans
a rodeo belt buckle
Gave me a chuckle he sat
in a chair under a yonder, shade tree,
I saw him before he saw me

I mention if he sat there long enough,
He just might see
Eagles, hawks and a vultures or two
His slow reply
“ all I’ve seen so far
is a dog I once knew”

Lean back in his chair,
relaxing there contemplating
the morning view 7:42 am
By the time we finish our walk,
he was gone his melody, his song
still linger from the tips of his fingers

Today, sitting on a picnic table
The cowboy young and able
guitar in hand singing his music, he took a stand
(sundown by Gordon Lightfoot 1974)
“Strumming my face with his fingers
Singing in my whole life with this song”
like he was part of a country band

The minute we got out of the car he stopped,
Pulled his guitar down
I smiled when I spoke half in a joke
I had hoped  for a serenader or two
He looked up
Tipped his hat with a gleam in his eye
You were were you
as we walked by

Halfway down the trail,
I can hear him
strumming his guitar had much to say
Not singing just playing away

The soothing country, music,
gracefully in the air
birds, squirrels,  deer
Far and near
animals big and small everywhere paused
Ears went up twitching animals in awe
for a moment
to take in the one man band
As more people arrived for their daily walkabout

Simply honest, not to deceive
The cowboy quietly got up to leave
A Solitary man


Inspired song

1)Solitary man  (April 1966)
By Neil Diamond

2)Killing me softly 1973
By Roberta Flack

BLT Webster’s Word of the day challenge
Winsome  8-8-25
Windsome describes people and things that are cheerful, pleasant, and appealing

the cracked mirror
splits my face down the center.

one eye opened wide.
the other eye heavy.

one shard shows me young,
the child with dreams
filled with wonder.

the other sharp edge, old,
etched like tree bark in winter

(cuts deeper than jagged mirror glass.)

waxing moon, waning moon,
ashes and the flower blooms.

one eye looks back.
the other eye forward.

morning light, midnight,
all in the blink of an eye.

the mirror---no lies here.

wherever I am with you it feels like
the edge of the world
my blood absorbes your voice and then
I cannot return to myself
you smile when you see how glasses slide on my nose when I read
you fall into your blood as into gravity
sometimes we speak with the same
silence

One day you will read these lines,
maybe under a tree,
or somewhere far as the sun shines.
You will notice in these words,
all the norms and values I once mentioned
about how the world works, and how it is shaped by intention.
My voice will play in your mind.
I hope you remember me as someone
strong, sincere and kind.

In our world are oranges, olives and birds, but the hard truth I must tell you is this:
the world holds space for broken systems.
The same ones you profit off still hold victims-
the lives of those deemed meaningless,
and easy to risk and rid.
For those you must amplify your voice,
keep them alive and on the grid.
Life does not matter, while it flies and spins,
if you do not try and give your all from within.
For those oppressed and forgotten -
we, who remember will rise,
the rest let be rotten.

Human beings trust
The sum of prejudices,
Blunt as rusty blades of limitation
Repeating the same mistakes,
Longing for infallibility,
Losing the last crumbs of trust.

They fell before
Yet wanted the absolute
Of the right version of events.
Sliding under a pile of tangled,
Broken wires,
Which were supposed
To build their impeccability
In judging other beings.

Water changes its state,
How easy to trudge
Further into the blurring
Instead of understanding,
They hurl accusations.

Dust of doubt,
On the empty road,
A rocky path
Perforated by frustration,
And rigid filters.

Drinking the last sip
Of wild screams,
They say goodbye
To gentle humanity,
Selling the heart
to detectors, fallible tools
Of elusive dreams.
Quo vadis domine?
In exitium.

Writing is my lighthouse when
I'm lost at sea in the
dark fog
among the sirens singing their
seductive songs.
It is my net
that catches fish to feed
me when I'm starving and afraid.
An albatross silently looms, while
waves swell and break against my
raft.

The kraken yawns and waits,
but the words and lines tow
me safely to shore.

A strange pattern for
writing has come
to me lately.
The skeletons of
poems form when I
lie down for a nap.
Sleep always calls,
and bones want to
dance and grow skin.
Lilacs bloom, and I feel
the inner thigh of
eternity, soft and wet.

I can't get any rest.
I have to jot down the
notes or they turn
to ashes and blow away,
or, they are buried deep in
mud and slumber,
impossible to dig up.

I sleep with a notebook and
pen, as I drift off,
I whisper to the tortured
bones,
don't cry and try not to worry.
I'll bring you to life.

I remember a day,
sun-scorched and breathless,
somewhere in the middle of summer
which summer it was, I can no longer say.
But the moment sits clean in my mind.

I had wandered into the mountains,
into a fold of stone and shade,
and there I found it
a quiet pool, fed by a waterfall,
that thundering giant that still grasped the moment gently,
its voice deep and eternal,
like breath drawn from the belly of the earth.

I often wondered
if this was how God spoke.

It was a place of stillness,
where questions could be asked
without the burden of reply
or the worry of judgment.

I was not the first to stand there,
nor would I be the last.

Birds skimmed the air like thoughts,
bees murmured over wildflowers,
and the scent—oh, the scent
was one I knew
but now find indescribable.

Creatures great and small kept their distance,
yet shared the silence with me.

I dipped my hand into the quiet pool
and picked up a water-smoothed stone,
still cool in my palm,
and held it tightly for a minute,
unafraid it would break
under the clutch of my tightening grip.

Then I closed my eyes and thought,
finding a place neither inside nor out
not in words,
but in that interior language
only silence understands.

For that moment, I disappeared
transported.

Only me and the stone,
echoing the tranquility
that lived in the air and light.

I lingered in my mind
and found my way back to reality.

With slow breath,
I opened my eyes
and cast the stone into the pool,
casting all that was
and had been there before me.

Ripples broke across the mirrored sky.
I searched the wavering reflection for something great
truth maybe, or just a shape I recognized.

I was young then.
Not yet old,
but aware that time had passed.

The long days taught me
that time doesn’t rush.
It moves like water,
swallowing the stone without judgment.

I left that quiet place
with answers to questions
I had not thought to ask.

Many years passed.
The path I walked
was filled with laughter
and with sorrow
with questions.

I returned, older, though not old,
to that same pool,
seeking again
what cannot be named.

And as before,
I threw a stone,
and watched the ripples spread.

“This,” I told myself,
“is life.”

The water keeps moving,
soft and steady
but time…
time just stands there, doesn’t it?
Watching, not lifting a finger.
Not even having fingers, maybe.

I’m standing here now,
somewhere between
all I remember
and what has been,
and whatever comes after.

And I look down
and there I am, looking up.

It’s strange, really
like we don’t quite believe in each other anymore.
Or maybe we never did.

And still I ask
quietly, maybe foolishly
what does any of this mean?
Why am I still looking for something
that probably doesn’t want to be found?

I stare into the stillness,
dragging up whatever I can from below.
Truth, maybe?
Or something shaped like it.

The stones down there
smooth, silent,
left by my hands,
and maybe by others too.

Isn’t that how it goes?
We leave our joys behind like artifacts,
and our choices settle like silt,
while time flows like water
slow and steady.

But is this what it costs
this need to see too much,
feel too deep?

Do we trade connection for introspection?
Is that all I’ve become?
Just a voice bouncing off the water,
off the trees,
off the empty air?

Then I ask myself again
what even is prayer?
Is it really just talking to yourself
and hoping someone else is listening?

Is it a mirror too?
Like looking at the reflection looking back at you.
Like a story that starts out foggy,
but if you keep reading,
you begin to see a face,
a presence
and it’s not quite yours,
but it knows you.

Maybe that’s what poetry is too
a place between the real and the maybe.
Not about what’s true or false,
but what flickers in-between.

And when it’s honest
really honest
maybe poetry is religion without the costume,
and maybe religion, at its best,
is poetry without the ego.

Right here, in this quiet,
they meet in a way
that doesn’t trick you,
and doesn’t try to impress.

They just… exist.
And I guess I do too.

Still here.
Still wondering.
Still being.
Throwing smooth stones
into quiet pools of life.

Living Poetry isn’t just the pulse
it’s the shiver in the silence,
the breath that bends ever so slightly between chaos and clarity,
It's where rhythm forgets the rules
and emotion takes its own path through the wreck-stained longing.
It’s the shape of every buried cry,
and the stillness after that scream.

It doesn’t wear banners or declare itself aloud,
but spills from the wound unbandaged,
seeping quietly as whispers, warm as breath,
born screaming from every sinew wound scar you swore you'd never show,
when your entire body trembles beneath beauty’s weight,
scars and longing, those thoughts
and still, you write.

Originality isn’t invention you know but return
to the place in you no one else has lived,
no one else has felt,
no one knows
it's the place
where memory blooms like orchids in May or roses in June,
and each word steps soft into its own quiet ruin.
The page is no mere sanctuary,
only a looking glass,
reflecting the you inside the you,
and even that with light’s refraction distorts under truth.

You follow a resonance, not linear, but alive,
it breathes
woven through old hurts and the flash of joy, love, or pain
a rhythm that forgets its tempo just to feel.
Sometimes it bleeds.
Sometimes it sings.
Sometimes it does both in the same breath,
sometimes it’s a storm in your chest
or a lullaby no one else can hear.

Here, in this space
the poem doesn’t ask to be liked,
doesn’t need to be loved,
it doesn't even need to be read
it just asks to be real,
to come from where it's real
no matter if it's filled with butterflies
or a wreckage-drenched kiss,
To stand unguarded in the room, alive in essence
to hum beneath the colossal static of the world,
the fluttering of black ravens and white dove,
and remind you: this is not just art
it’s the aftermath of being human.
It’s what binds you back to the raw nerve of now,
It’s the filament that flickers when no one is watching.

Sharp while caring, always real
Like every morning sun
and first star in the evening sky
that sings truth to the moon.