Nestled closely to my dreams
  I build castles in air
Dancing on tops of clouds
  with my tiny feet bare
I carry on in a way of grace
  singing songs with rapture
Hands twirling in the sky
  rose petals I swiftly capture
I kiss each one
  blowing them back to the wind
My soul is too selfless
  to have harbored all of them
In the distance his eyes met mine
  with a gentle smile
My cheeks turning to a cranberry wine
  as he took my hand a while
Floating deep into the rising sun
  warm colors melt our souls
Poured into the open sea
  spiraling round and round on carousel
Until washed upon twinkling sands
  of greens and yellows
I awaken with empty hands
  and a heart that bellows.

I remember the days,
of drawing hearts in soft warm shifting sands,

As it is running through my fingertips,
as slips through aging hands,

I see the vision once,
& it's all so very grand.

Still,
a tiny speck,
is a tiny piece of very lovely land,
& to sail away,
a ship can't sail all alone,
off to go,
unmanned,

And a castle without a prince,
was not quite what I'd planned,

Sadly,
I now realize it was all just,
an illusion,
anyway.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

knees deep in holy work
grit under nails, sticky hands
every ounce of me
scoop, pile, every ounce of it
packed into cups and piled
my testament
proof of humanity
then, swept away
inevitability is salty and wet
and my sands of life
are gone too soon

You told me that you will see me in the evening
The evening has come but you have not turned up
Why you keep me in agony what is this love string
Why don't take me seriously, keep me in back up

Please do not play with me either take me or leave
But this way of ignoring will bring distance for ever
You have taken me to the middle of the road I believe
If you have taken some one else then look back never

But my sentiments and emotions do require my love
That I should hold you ,embrace you and hand in hand
You have to tell me what should I do when ,where,how
If this all is not possible then why to make castles of sand

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow

You could never picture me in the pockets of my West Coast.
I flew out of your story and into another, and then
Even into another, always the phoenix.

No longer yours, but his.
No longer his, but mine.
Perhaps I suffered these little deaths to forge a heaven with him.

A king, he’d follow me to the ends of the earth, thrice over.
His queen I’m still too shy to let shine through,
A star stubbornly obscured by cloud.

Though before I complained of rain,
On the Island it never bothered me.
Even in the dead of winter it kept the grass emerald-green.

An emerald city:
Ivy shrouded trees; moss fluorescent.
Our castles were those green giants.

Siamese blue to denim blue.
Betwixt the Spit & Seabroom.
It was all I dreamed and ever wanted.

The only thing missing was the garden, the garden,
Sheltered by walls made of cob.
Or a whole house, the air inside delectable.

Tendril of dream,
Is a cinder girl deserving of bees,
Turning honey into mead, of wild things?

No. Exiled to a foreign land,
A barren land; the ghetto forest.
Those halcyon years now only a memory.

Ridiculous to expect the bald
Rocks to yield to a surfer’s paradise, of
Blue-green ocean. Long hairs cannot thrive under puritans’ eyes.

Green things tremble for sun.
For all the rain, I remember the sun,
Filtering down through the forest canopy,

Upheld by the cathedral’s true pillars
Rather than these thrifty spindles. In reverence of true
Beauty, all is quiet & hushed.

The birth of a princess may bring us back.
Pioneers, we’re still in search of our happy ending,
To live lush in nature’s majesty.

I know the Pacific is still out there
Roaring somewhere,
Crashing itself onto stony beaches.

Mists wreath those mountains.
The drums beat.
That muted boom, my thud of heart.

He’s building castles in the sands
Making his way in my heart
He’s building words in the sky
Sprinkling me with love
He’s building towers out of paper cups
To anchor me from up above
He’s building my life before he sleeps
And I am nothing but his dream.

Rather than built on pillars of sand,
We were built on stone and asphalt,
Metal bars children swing from,
Their laughter fading into the night
As they face the pains of growing up.

Stitched from the bark of a Black Locust tree,
Using vines made from platinum and steel
As the thread.
And thorns grown from
Diamond
And pure carbon,
Lace up the side of a castle,
And around that castle
A moat filled with black water,
With a PH balance of nine.

And in that black water,
Small water dragons swim,
And in the forest lurks,
The largest (and most friendly)
Lynx's you'd ever meet.

And inside that castle
Of blue
You'll find
Halls decked with red and orange to the East and South wings,
And to the West and North,
Seafoam greens and blues,
And the walls are built from glass,
As to watch the animals from within the moat that like to defy physics,
Swim about and find prey to sustain themselves.

And in the reds and oranges you'll find
Cats and dogs of all kinds,
All creatures of Canis and Felidae and Panthera roaming the halls,
Bounding after vermin,
Or pouncing onto poultry.

And the silk drapes,
Cascading through the halls,
In colors reflecting the sights we've seen.

And on days our halls
Have black blood running through the
Pipes,
Allow for me
To find you some light.

I may have trouble,
Discovering the sun
On my own
For me,
But if I can find
That I do it for you,
Then finding light
Will never have been
So simple.

And the main foyer will change
With the feelings
That are being felt
Most prominently.

And no storm
Of my making
Will shatter the glass
Keeping dragons within their homes.

And no storm,
Whether it be of my making
Or another's
Could tear down our Castle's walls,
No matter how much wind or lightening.
No hurricanes nor tornadoes,
Nor flooding
Could destroy us,
Because we'll be just as strong,
If not stronger,
Than the storm.

And with all that courses through my veins,
I will fight for the passing of each storm,
And watch as the rain fizzles out,
And the storm forfeits this particular fight,
And in the distance buzzing of animals in the trees,
I will know our fight was worth it,
As we watch a hummingbird hover and buzz circles around a floating bluebird,
As they come home from their migratory patterns,
and nestle into a tree,
With a sodden nest,
But warmth is found
Within fluffed up feathers
And a storm rolling out.

However unstable my heart,
Our castle was built on stable ground,
On which I've found,
A reason to keep continuing my purpose,
Instead of living a life without one,
A life with none.

My goal is holding your hand,
Sixty years from now,
And our castle being just as bright
And filled with overwhelmingly loving light,
As the day we established it as
Ours,
And ours alone.

It was a hot summer night
Nearly ninety, I'd say
When out back of Giovannis
The Bluesman sat down to play

He pulled up his crate
Took a sip from his flask
"This here's my med-cin"
"In case someone happens to ask"

He started a story
That we'd never heard
We're the folks of the street
And we followed each word

It's a tale of James Withers
A man in need of a hand
But to us on the street
He was the Sand Castle Man

The bluesman strummed gently
He didn't want the words to be lost
For this was a story
That had a hell of a cost

You see, James the sand man
Lost a life to the sea
His grandson, young James
Drowned when he was just three

Each day James went down
With his grandson in tow
They'd make castles together
Some fast and some slow

One day the pair
Were  at the end of the pier
When a rogue wave hit hard
And took what James held most dear

His grandson...swept out
Lost at sea, never found
They searched for three weeks
But the poor boy was drowned

James kept a vigil
Every day on the beach
He'd look out on the water
His heart out of reach

He kept making sand castles
As he did with young James
With shells and old driftwood
And he gave them all names

He'd have non-existent armies
Fight non existent wars
In his hard packed sand castles
He carved windows and doors

There was make believe dragons
In pools by the sea
Guarding make believe princesses
Who no one could see

There were turrets and moats
And each day he'd build one
To be lost to the tide
As the days work was done

Each day a new castle
Each day a new war
But, nobody knew
What he was building them for

The tide would come in
And would sweep it away
All that hard work
Gone at the end of the day

But, each morning he'd come
Build one more for the tide
With invisible armies
To flow away for a ride

People would watch him
Make the castles of sand
With imaginary soldiers
In imaginary lands

The bluesman sang soft
Took a sip once again
From the flask on his hip
It's just medi-cin

The crowd didn't stir
We were like moths to the flame
As we heard the bluesman
finish his tale about James

I asked him one morning
If he ever would end
Building castles of sand
He said, Bluesman, my friend

I know that each castle
Will be washed out to see
And I hope that my grandson
Gets a message from me

I make each sand castle
Like we both used to do
I come back every day
And start another anew

It helps with the closure
I send my soul to the sea
And I hope that my grandson
Knows they're for him made by me

He finished and thanked us
And we went on our way
All of us changed some
From what the bluesman did play

Next time I'm out wandering
And see the castles of sand
I'll know what he's building
Now...that I understand

oh, the air is sweet
the sun is hot,and the waves come crashing in
on my sand castle

and the sky is blue,
and the gulls cry out
their grateful song

for a perfect day
for a time for building
castles in the sand

for a moment in time
for a memory

cj 2016