Deep in the velveteen dark,
Under the muffled and foggy highway
As the town slumbers in peace
I light another cigarette.
I should be wrapped up warm as well,
Dancing in dreams of my beloved city
Where once the night sang me her song
And I heard and felt her words,
But instead here I sit in the cold,
Head tilted to better listen
To music that comes to me no more.

She's Steady And She's Spry

Although I'm more than sixty one
Someone thinks that I am young
You know I live beside a woman
Who's a hundred and one

She's steady and she's spry
Has a sparkle in her eye
I see her nearly every day
And she can hear what I say

She can listen, she can laugh
And put a tear in your eye
When you're realize you're letting
Your days slip by

Sean Hunt  
Feb 23rd 2015

Often we have disagreed, but now I refuse to hold my tongue
and shall raise pen to meet pen, watch the words clash in the air,
for how could you grant such a way of living superiority?
When the sensual and the intellect can meet as one
in capturing a young man's beauty in such a way
that he leaps from the page,
causing the reader to sail away away too.

But even if we saw eye to eye, as shortsighted as each other,
lack of intellect be ******.
I could not wish to travel there
to a place devoid of him, of all that encompasses him,
devoid of green eyes and jet hair,
a space within which his voice does not resonate
and participate in such an unequal trade
as to exchange immortality for a life without him.

Revered as you are, I do not agree.
I shall champion the dearth of intellect,
revere in all things sensual, as this is all I am fit for in your eyes,
but I shall be in love
and it is this I choose
over an infinite rhapsody of lifetimes.

In my travels I recall this old and dusty wall.
I gazed upon it in wonder for months, wasted my younger years away...
I stood up at it, asking questions, "who could have made such a masterpiece? What did it take to put each brick into place?"
This wall mocked me.
I dare not climb it, for it was too tall, what if i fall?
I looked for a way in, but no door nor window, to get inside.
to dig under surely ment suicide..
So as I camped out side the wall I began to go crazy, hearing whispers telling me to leave, go home, and turn back, for there was nothing for me here.
I scratched at the wall, carved my name in stone.
A traveler walked by and told me what I had become, a sick man spreading sadness... For my wall that I found was a mirror, and I was tortured by the sight of it, the whispers telling me to leave were my own voices trying to help...

We can never completely wipe the slate. There will always be things that are left to fester and stagnate.

All we can do is turn to the next page while waiting for our memories to degrade as we inevitably progress further into old age.

Axe handles
hew wood
to a seasoning stack.

Yet a hunting horn
still chases me relentlessly.

How old
- how cold I got
so quickly.

I'm tired of waiting,
Just ******* die.
Too harsh?
Perhaps a delicate massage
Before I snap your neck,
Like wringing out a mouse
The cat dragged in,
Its poor beggar body
Broken in the cat's sin.
Perhaps a drink,
Spiked with hatred
Distilled in glass warning
Skulls and crossbones
Tucked behind the tray of biscuits
And endless chocolate ice cream cones.
Is it so hard to do?
Just stop breathing, shut it off,
Stop the heart.
Perhaps you can hold your breath,
Like the countless times I held mine
When I was forced to breathe in yours
While I swabbed your chin,
Dabbing up a dinner
That should have gone straight in.

Just die and get it over with.

I don't mean it.  Not really.

No I don't want you in a home;
They can't care for you like me.
Who will give you all the hugs
That you would give for free?
Its not that they won't care for you,
Or wipe your chin from drool,
Or even change your dress at night
After you had laid a stool.
It's just that they don't love you
And it's my curse to repay
All the love you gave to me
From birth through night and day.

Don't be mad at me,
I don't want you to go,
But I'm so tired of waiting;
No, I know that you don't know.

Even at my age,
I see mountainous lands in the sky,
Languishing among towering clouds,
A lofty empire, lost kingdoms,
Perhaps a strange magical realm,
Thriving with dwarves and giants,
Maidens in towers awaiting rescue,
Where lone horse warriors wander,
Maybe observing us, far below.

Must be a poetic creative thing,
Or simply the child deep within,
Viewing through the eyes of the man,
Dreaming ancient days of long ago,
When the child yearned to be grown,
To know all there is to know,
Never appreciating escapism,
The chance to drift within time,
Ponder upon distant, aerial, worlds.

Or maybe I’m just a dreamer,
That and nothing more, hmm,
Telling myself, I am a poet,
A procrastinating creative spirit,
In love with the trappings of art,
The child asleep within wisdom,
Languishing among towering clouds,
I see mountainous lands in the sky,
Even at my age.

©Paul M Chafer 2015

life's old force drags me
and I wake up from my dream
at four in the morning

shouting from outside
shakes the blue dark
in dampened mist

breaking the quiet
like the first footstep on morning snow
and rattling dew off the grass

silent against a sleepless night
I roll over again
eyes wide open

growing older feels
like a sleepless night
at four in the morning

There was a time when rabbits were lions,
when I was a child,
I had a rabbit called Lion.
I left the hutch open and went to bed,
off he flopped into the dark cold night.
I mean, you can't discover much from a hutch
but Lion took one turn too many,
Lion got lost,
he couldn't find his way back,
Lion lost his bearings as jumped through the unknown world.
I can empathise with Lion now,
I think I'm one turn away from not being able to get back.
Anyway, Lion never came home
and now rabbits are just rabbits
- not lions.