Suddenly, unanticipated, here it was.
Far away from most of us who, by our very
Nature, simply drift and rummage about in
Our own narrow spaces. But now we were greeted
By a virus, that locked us in as spring was awakened.

Put on masks, stay away from others, stay home.
Seemingly everything shut down: stores, churches,Doctors offices.
Thousands upon thousands getting sick, many died, more will die.
It’s hard to take any social creature and slam the door on them.
But there’s nothing else that can be done.

******* an moaning against this intrusive assault
Many screamed “Fake News”…
But the numbers jumped everywhere and everyday.
The news was endless in its presence about this virus.
Days on end just brought more illness and death.

This is no simple flu.

© 2020 Philip Mason

12-3-16.


The road drifts north along an empty shore.  
Moving away from all that pressures
the broken souls and hearts of
those alone in this world.  
Headed no place certain,
just alone.

Endlessly mulling histories that never happened.  
Speaking and shouting into the empty places
and shattered emotions
That echo within the walls of their personal
prison.

Those that live within the spaces of another's life
spend theirs searching for any meaning
And affirmation for their own existence.
Only rarely finding that dream
within the dust, wind, and
Foreboding
that surrounds their very
existence.

Every morning, since you vanished into my memories,
I hear again from you;
it is meaningful, warm, and
It comforts me.

I yearn to hold you closer
than the words on this page
Will allow.
Will I ever see you again?
Will I ever hold you again?
Will our lips ever meet again?
Will I ever feel you next to me,
Breathing.

Slowly and painfully l
I am ripping this bandaid off my heart and soul.  
I'll survive, I've survived worse.
But you've  settled inside my being
in ways I would never have thought
possible.

How does this happen
when our few brief  moments
together
should never have come to pass?

25 January 2017


Spinning, circles in a hole,
relationships going nowhere.
Nothing  that could be done will fix these complications.
Except to leave, to get out of the hole,
escape moments, dreams and memories that
Never happened.

Climbing out is so not easy simply because
In those few brief memories passions were created
Left a fire in both of them.
The fire flamed and burned out in the complications.
Not the first time for either, but  the last time for him
There is nothing left to yearn for.

The winter season adding to despair;
short days, longer nights,
A metaphor for dreams never fulfilled.
Time has passed everything by
And only silence is left,
nothing more.

7 April 2017

Ice is everywhere in the river
Broken pieces, locked tight in frictions grip.
Under the ice the river moves,
Never ceasing its trace to the sea: much like relationships.  
They to often grow cold and freeze over,  
Though they too are moving
Constantly,
locked by the friction at their edges and their frozen centers.
Any movement of this ice is usually away from centers that once held
Innumerable dreams, prayers and hope.
At least that's what I think.  
Surfaces freeze,
But beneath that surface everything is moving.

Like the moving river water it's impossible to physically touch a
Moving emotion or memory,
all you can do is hope to
Remember that they were a part of your river.

In time the frozen surface of your river will melt, it always does.
The ice breaks, friction passes
And all becomes the moving water of
Your river of fading memories.
Moving quietly away,
and in time it is gone and lost,
Forever, somewhere else.

All this might all have been quite different.
Not so marred by the complications of this moment.
But there is no going back to what can not be
And never was.
Twenty years ago.

Slivers of time, in memories never seen.
Dreams alone, empty of any reality.
Talking and thinking of what might have been
Twenty years ago.

Unattached and unattainable
Simply because time often passes unseen.
And memories, unrecognized, today
Never happened.
Twenty years ago

4/24/17

Bye Bye Rocky

Sitting quietly sipping my coffee.
Gazing up there appears Rocky,
Slung
With an air of invincibility
Wrapped around my bird feeder.

Oh no you tick infected
Tree rat!
You are no allowed to feast upon
This gift to my avian neighbors.

I stand, walking quietly past the window through
Which I saw your uninvited depredations.
Our eyes meet, a mere two feet separated us.
I'm coming for you Rocky;
You may not visit my feeder.

I reach for the rifle, slung over the door,
And quietly open the back door.  
Again we are eye to eye.
You're still slung on the feeder with an air of profound
Indifference to my presence.

Only as the door opens do you sense it best to get down.
But you do so with an ill advised arrogance.
Bounding to the tree 20 ft away you've stopped to
Look, casually, back upon this looming hulk standing
On the deck.
I am that hulk
You've ****** up little grey tree rat.

You never heard the shot that struck your
Little rat like head.
Suddenly you twitch and curl around that
Bushy tail; stop then twist and twitch a bit more.
Stop again.

It's over, your day is done, you'll dine no longer
At my window.