My dreams have always
been writer's dreams: colorful,
vivid, ironic,

visionary and
heavy with foreshadowing.
My early twenties

a sodden nightmare,
drinking away love, children,
family and home.

In dream of chaos,
Spirit I had not yet met
led me down the Way

I had been choosing;
brought me to its granite-cold
game-over ending.

Read my name, saw the
year of birth, but was taken
before I could read

the full final year.
But it began with nineteen.
Waking, shivering,

I could still feel the
achingly frigid tombstone
beneath trembling hands.

Despite the warning,
I carried on as I had,
fearing, ignoring

my destination.
Time was too short in my life
to be concerned with

anything except
living as I ****** well wanted.
Kept suffering deep

and often, wondered
about those friends who shook their heads
at me, and kept theirs.

Came the day when the
wonderful awareness awoke
the Spirit in me

to receive the love
the Universe had flooded,
floated, immersed me

in my entire life,
as I slaked my thirst other
ways. I drank my fill

of freshened water,
the first of many rebirths.
Pulled to solid ground,

slowly by slowly
I stood on my own again,
learning how to live

as the child I was,
adult in years, juvenile
in thought and action.

Sixteen years along
my journey brought me to a
terrifying day:

The thirty-first of 
December, modern era
nineteen ninety-nine.

I went home early,
away from Amateur Night
revelers driving,

and locked myself in,
calling friends and asking them
to call tomorrow.

I watched the ball drop
for the first time in many years...
and cried like a fool.

My Way is not yours,
and can never be.  My time
since is borrowed time;

I sign off on the
loan every morning I'm here.
Eastern spirit has

burnished my tarnished
soul, shining not removing
the dents and scratches

it's picked up during
the trip. Why Oriental
forms? You might have guessed.


Why write of Spirit
and of flesh?  Both are with me
as I carry on.

I must share borrowed
time for it to have meaning.
Blessed I am, having
found a place, a peaceful spot
and people with which to share.