Your face is lined;
your brows are white.
You’re facing down
your long twilight.
Your tummy has a little bulge--
I see marks of what you
used to indulge.
Your teeth aren’t white;
your hair is thin,
but I believe that you’ve won
the struggle within.
There are bags
underneath your eyes,
but that gaze now is
so much more wise.
You don’t stir my blood--
the blood of youth--
but your words today
speak realms of  truth.
Love is left
when lust is gone,
and this love will last
‘til the world is done.

Our music doesn't age like us;
It ages with us.

Sometimes we slip through the cracks
fall down a hole or trip into the looking glass
and never manage to find our way back.

Innocence is betrayed as it is parlayed into
the whole growing up thing that
we don’t want to do.

Playmates fade away as we lose yesterday.
Their faces blur then just disintegrate,
along with the games and stories we made.

Time becomes the anchor that weighs us down
as we struggle and drown in deadlines.
Playful pixies dust fantasies are lost to these
important and emerging responsibilities.

Teddy Bear hugs and fairytale love
become the stuff of forgotten hopes,
and with each romantic advance rejected
the dreamer dejected retreats to
the safety of a stale and scheduled reality.

Till the mirror reflects the inner sadness.
Our shoulders slump, skin sags, and wrinkles,
as our eyes lose that sly Peter Pan twinkle.

-2023

I've been exposed.
Many have witnessed me,
And more have noticed it.
The ones I taught to use a spoon,
Tie a lace, ride a bike,
Arise from a fall.
Those whom I've instructed
On when to listen,
When to question.
They've acquiesed to the knowledge.

The colleagues I once cornered with
In serious situations;
When our decisions effected others' paths;
Those who recognized my signature.
They've acquiesed to the knowledge.

I meet less often with friends.
I ask for less favours, and return fewer.
I don't stand holding meaningful conversations,
Sipping strong drinks.
I wear a cap indoors sometimes  (I once condemned this).
But, here you have it.
They've acquiesed.

I'm on my own now,
Hoping my memories are real and are mine,
And my ideas are new and genuine
(I change my mind a lot).
I seldom check the weather;
I've cancelled my cable (and this is a milestone).

I've enroled in a new world order.
Ask anyone you can find around here.
I no longer run the world.

Like a line in a book, Foreshadowing, glimpsing beyond this chapter

The books pages are so thin,
And so exposed to the elements

I heard the chimes of my grandfather’s clock
And for a moment, took in my surroundings

Jeffers on salvation- the eventuality, winning by grace.
Meditation On Saviors
"
Love, the mad wine of good and evil, the saint's and murderer's,
the mote in the eye that makes its object
Shine the sun black; the trap in which it is better to catch the
inhuman God than the hunter's own image.
"
Little dare I care if I hold, comprehending,
holding center most attention, intending

to behold a beauty we all share below our cares,
cast away, worry of worthlessness being made known,
when I die, and you are not made aware I was ever there.

To all the unread poets,
a muse I used has gone to offer solace devoted
to silence.

life
distant
  and smudged by impurities

viewed thru aging window

I always wanted more for myself,
wanted to be memorable,
but now I barely remember most of my life.
Sometimes, I consider who I am,
study my reflection hard in the mirror
contemplate whether it's really me
and then ask if this is who I want to be.
What a responsibility it is
to carry this human flesh to the end
and to act in favor of this restless, desirous mind
for the entirety of a life.
Most of the time, I hardly register my life and world around me
and thus behave mindlessly,
and now I'm realizing that time is more than a concept
and that age will one day take me by the throat.
I've tried so hard to figure myself out,
but I suppose I should spend less time in my mind
and more time taking up space in this body.

I hope you will be there with me
In the long winter without spring:
Ever green, star bright, true north.

The pines bent under the weight of snow
Are glad of the long-awaited rest.
We will tuck beneath white sheets.
My roots tangle with yours -
Lean your limbs on me,
I will hold your hand.

I will love you as you cough,
I will love you as you fall,
I will love you in all sickness.

In our autumn we will gather harvest,
A wealth of sweet golden years well-ripened.
When the storms come
And night darkens our hearth,
I will keep a fire for you.
My black coal-heart burns slow.

Because you are mine.
Because I belong to you.
Because when we return to earth
And become good loam,
The flowers that grow on me
Will bloom for you.