Mud cakes, sand castles, dress ups and... Make-believe;
Child-like curiosity, awe, wonder and...
Other-world conceive.
Silence, in a busy grownups world gives opportunity for playfulness you can retrieve,
Embrace these moments, seek them out, faith like a mustard seed, oak trees sprout.

Without you
Without me

tending to our garden
planting peonies and orchids
solemnly growing so florid

from generation to generation
our kids can frolic and play
symbolic of our love's stay

To play for so long
the world was wide and new,
with shoelace swords and capes from sheets,
and skies that shifted blue.

To play with pockets full of stones,
and dreams that didn’t end,
where every stick could be a sword,
and every foe a friend.

To play for so long
that bedtime felt unfair,
but whispered tales beneath the sheets
made magic fill the air.

I miss the dirt beneath my nails,
the suns that never set—
the years ran off without a sound,
and I’m not done just yet.

The shuttlecock, served,
Goes over the net.
I'll probably lose
The dollar I bet.

Over the net
It goes back and forth:
It goes north to south,
And it goes south to north.

The birdie in flight
Flits like a sparrow.
She hits it so hard
It darts like an arrow.

I smack it as hard
As I can possibly smack it,
And, wouldn't you know it,
It's stuck in my racquet.

Why I keep the fire alive, I don’t know.
It wasn’t particularly strong,
or explosive.
You couldn’t have used it to fight any wars,
or heat a city.
From the outside, it was nothing special.
Destined to flare, flicker, then fade.
But to me,
it was soft and warm.
Just enough to keep a hope alive.
But what if that hope burns brighter?
Brighter than I could dream?
Maybe it’s not a hearth, strangled in the crib,
but a wildfire, being nursed to devastating force.
I don’t know. I guess an arsonist
is more interested in the lick of the flame
than its bite.
It’s selfish then;
keeping these embers a glow.
…I’m fine with that

There's a Play
~
There's a play,
& you are the actor.
Sadly,
you don't know the script
or the story to follow.

You still perform
aware or unaware.
It’s an enigma.

Scene by scene,
sequence by sequence,
Drama
Suspense
Romance
Mystery
Tragedy
Thril­l
horror
Adventure
Action..... More's

a floor of diverse genres.

Each performed scene
Hints & Script to the next,
a prelude to another act.

~
Look ahead
what’s coming next?
Are you ready to act?
& remain unpaid?

And then, the intermission...

leading to unfathomable End.~

The End ~~

My Act//Scene of writing this is successfully ended !

The End finally ~~

some days I can't help wondering what would
Anna Karenina say to madame Bovary
let's say they exchange ruminations, decide the future of clouds,
wonder if memory works like the fossils trapped in sand beds
ask one another what lipstick colour is trendy this year in Paris, Milan or Madrid
argue over their genesis, who is the winner
mind heart bone tissue trapped together
no, not sure about their order in a female lineage
do they descend from the Great Mother or
were they born from the head of Zeus
talk about anything but love: moonless nights, Kafka,
the purpose of life, the fragility of leaves, Victorian women
Madame dreams of Freud, Anna knows Darwin
contrary to their inbuilt frame of reference they wait for a fresh dawn,
touch their bodies with female eagerness.
behind their eyes love's net is heavy with meaning

Someday someone will see the play of my life; my curse,
And she’ll find you, you - my favourite verse.
She’ll know how our eyes met and hear our voices dance,
But she'll never know what I felt, when I took the chance.
The gods smiled and quipped “Love is truly blind”,
“We live on borrowed time, love, and I don’t mind”.
What happened she’ll ask, just hold his hand,
But how could I ever tell her, she’ll never understand.

It wasn't just an epiphany, no, I knew it from the moment we met,
In the glances that lasted just a second less.
Over and over I asked myself, “Why must you stay then?”,
But heaven knew I didn't want to put down our pen.
I could still see us, somewhere in the bittersweet haze,
But your “I love you”s always meant that I was just a phase.
I didn't jump and rejoice “The stars have aligned”,
“We live on borrowed time, love, but I don't mind”.

You told me you loved me straight from the heart,
But your words and your heart were always miles apart.
I told myself “That’s it. It's over. You’ve had your time.”,
Maybe some loves aren't meant to be divine.
I knew we were no longer my beloved rhyme,
The show’s over, darling, we’re out of time.
When I look back, I doubt I’ll ever hit  rewind.
“We lived on borrowed time, love, but I didn't mind”.