There are times I turn to the river,

when life roils and churns like the rapids,

and I remember what the river has always

known when it heaves and ebbs, and runs

swiftly by, carrying broken branches just

as abraded stones appear as polished gems

If there is a path
I will find it
No matter how hidden
I am not known to give up

I once read a story about an ant
who set his mind to move a mountain.
An insect, a millimeter from jaw to legtip,
laboring against a mass of stone and
soil quadrillions of times his size.
But he worked
and worked
and worked
moving the bedrock one dram at a time,
year after year, season after season,
each trip melding into the next in an
endless march of mindless labor, until
where the mountain once stood,
a peaceful valley sank down. All because
of the labor of one very determined insect.

At the end of the fable, the writer tells us
never to give up, for what we choose
to work and persevere towards
will surely happen if we truly try.
As I read the story, I knew he was right.
Never give up.
Even if it takes a quadrillion trips,
1,000,000,000,000,000 trials,
before the mountain bows to you.
Even if your small, insectoid mind
cracks like a candy-cane under a sandbag,
even if you collapse and die after 6 decades
of exhaustion, millions more left to go.
Never give up.
Even if your task is impossible, and it
destroys your life, everything you love,
everything that makes your little ant-soul tick.
Never give up.

Hello everyone,

  I'm so very sorry … I feel horrible doing this, but I have no choice. You see, I have published my first book on Amazon/Kindle! This piece (and many others) had to be taken down because they do not allow published material to be available online for free. (Go figure) I wanted to leave the shell of the posts because I felt compelled to leave all your helpful and loving comments. (Silly sentimental, I know), but I also didn't want to just have the pieces disappear without an explanation. I feel bad enough as it is!

  I owe ALL of you so, SO much for all of your reads, love, and support. It was YOU that gave me the gumption to FINALLY get off my **** and publish! Thank you all for the warm comments, camaraderie, and encouragement! I will still be here, reading, uploading and just being the Rascal that I am. How could I EVER leave you guys?

  The book is called “The Way I See It – FictionPhilosophySoul Food” and it will be FREE for the first few days on Kindle Select, so watch for it, if you are interested. I hope that you go and grab it. If you do, I would also hope that you find it worthy, you would leave me a good review. That will help me get in the public eye! Soon afterward (2-3 days or so), it will be available in paperback. I will be building my Author page tonight (12/21/2018) and my website finished first thing Monday!

Find the book(s) here: www.amazon.com/author/jeff.gaines

Or find the book(s), and all about me, here: www.JeffGaines.world

  Soon after, I also hope to have my first novel (a supernatural thriller), called “Wanderer” available as well!

  Wish me luck!
Big, Biggest Love,
        Jeff Gaines

‘’In retrospect all is better; fear not the future to come.’’

‘’Looking back it all seems like a bad joke. A joke, but still.’’

‘’The day is 1 December 1995, the day I wanted to die.’’

-2018-

This here in my hands is a small stone
That I will carry on my own
Building a mountain one by one
I won't stop until it's done

Striving forward my muscles ache
What I'm building is not fake
I'm building strength, true and free
What I am building is a better me

A Me that can weather storms and loss
towards optimistic progress at whatever the cost
A hammer and chisel in my hand
From this rock I emerge a self-made man

Not just a body but more a mind
One that is powerful and fiercely kind
Focused on spreading the mindset of its fashion
Expand happiness and spread compassion

In the brief day, or rather, the night
called Life,
dream how easily a speck may be distanced from itself;
and how hard also it is
to remove that same grain
from your proud eye.
Look at the lightning over the green corn
and learn the virile meaning of our lack of power
under the traveling stars.
Turn on the lights silver-electric
to see in what dark rooms you have dwelt,
yet tried to be happy.
Open and close your eyes
and feel the weird proximity of doll-like death.
Talk to the moth
and trot the eternal wheel of boredom,
tolerated by a life that cannot wait
to immolate itself on a fuel lighter
for love of the gamble.
Come near the heartbeat of an animal
and touch your own heart
to take the pulse of the planets
and experience the split-second hypocrisy of love.
Unwrinkle your bones with deep calm
and purest feeling, unfurling your reddish hair,
and you will bare your heart in all your poems.
Pity the mania of poetry
and the helplessness of its wisdom
to hope or heal or even to dare
to come down from its own shiny cross.
In spite of all,
extinguish any light at its source
and you will work in vain
to prevent its survival
in some remembering soul.

*******, words constricting
Woke up, wrong place to live in
Now I find myself hustling
But I can't keep from tossing in
My bed at night
Don't want to breathe and I've got to fight
With all my might crack the walls
And shed some light
On the wrong side of the long night persisting
Inspite of our Hollywood vinyls
And pop star idols
'cause at midnight they bite us
And drink our love.

Imagine work paid off  
And you're never laid off, rough appearance
Won't make them scoff
What if tough heights didn't last long
Or burn so strong, didn't scar your tongue,
And good fun wasn't modest
Like Bollywood's hottest
We'd live the lives loudest
That we could be proudest of.

We forget it all, they've set it small
Well we're all not tall, we just bend down
Let them move your limbs in any given position
Because life's only
A luxurious possession after all.

I missed you last night.
We slept in the same bed
but it didn't feel like together.
Nothing was said.
For a sleeping moment
I had my arm around you
and my face in your hair,
breathing memories of the passion we knew.
I try to focus on small things,
like how your skin gives way
to my pressing lips
or, how the Earth would sway
with our meeting hips.
Remembering the hunger
I would feel from your eyes
Lamenting these nights
while the passion subsides
My greatest flame
and only goddess,
how cruel
              slow
                     fate
has constantly fought us
Yet, never will I yield
and always shall I fight
to claim the dreams we've wanted,
to persevere through this night.
4/10/15 ~ 6.23a

There are
lines along the shadows that
trace every wall in my room,
cast from the sunny days we
spent together.

The gleam
lifting off of the paint
hazed our home with
peace, and uncertainty
in that order.

Our hands
grew laced in messy knots
as twisted sunflower stalks.
We basked in the neverending sun
and photo synthesized
love, the
love we shared
and the
love we swallowed.

We devoured rays of light
like emperors of the most
beautiful gardens, until the
masses had no more to give.
And I was made to suffer in
your eternal scorn for not
giving you more,

for

you believed you were the
very hand that fed us. You
told me you
rose in the east,
and set in the west
so we could be amassed in our riches.

I had nothing left to give you because I gave you everything I had and it was not enough.

I just want to be enough to share my days with someone I can feel at home with.

Now, I've found that same
silver-shine light in the eyes of
another who graces the presence
of my hands and fills my heart
with monarchs of old, with tiny
wings fluttering in the gentle
air. And I hope to be enough for
her.

I resent you for the way you used to
shut all of the lights off and leave me
in the empty rooms of your house
while your self centered devotion
ran circles around the driveway
and pushed me further into the street.

I have found someone that I would like to spend my time with. And while I no longer feel anything for you, the damage you have done to me will not fade.

I can apply new coats to make the walls shine less, but just knowing of the old paint is enough to make me sick. I can pull up all of the weeds you left among my flowers, but just knowing of the roots is enough to make it feel meaningless. Even if it's not.

But this home inside of me is still beautiful, and I will do what I can to restore it.