You were now in the past
and will now be in the future
and it too, as all things must,
shall come to pass.

Consequently,
life was now,
shaping the immediate and distant future,
viewed through the lens that is
the cumulative past.

Change now will have written a past,
one which will neither need nor want rewriting,
facilitating a fantastic future,
free from the need to be reshaped.

Do we need to label?
Our Love?
As
Pure-sinful
Attachment-Detachment
True-impermanent

Do we need to label?
Our life?
As
worthless-glorious
success-failure

Do we need to label ourselves?
As
brilliant-mediocre
skillful-simple
Saint-Sinner

Do­ we need more labels?
More boxes?
More theories and analysis?

Or
Do we need
this moment
A hand to hold
A song to sing
A bird to watch
A smile
A breath

Love in our life
Gratitude for all blessings
A knowing
That we are held
In the embrace of eternity

A child of sweetness
All is well
In the magical plan
Of the universe
In tender love

Then is Now.
Now was Then.
Now is Here

and will never be There,
for There will be another Now
and This Now will no longer be Here,

for it will have become Was
and what Was
can never again Be.

So, Be Then in the Now,
for it is the only Now you have
and the only Now you know,

the only Now that matters
before it too becomes a Now that Was
and will never again Be.

The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

He walks to the sink,
takes out his teeth,
rubs his gums.
He tries not to think.

In the mirror, on the mantle,
Time—the silver measure—
does not stare or blink,
but in a wrinkle flutters,
in a hand upon the brink
of a second, hovers.

Through a mousehole,
something scuttles
on restless incessant feet.
There is no link

between life and death
or from a fading past
to a more tenuous present
that a word uncovers
in the great wink.

The white foam lathers
at his thin pink
stretched neck
like a tightening noose.
He tries not to think.

Keywords/Tags: poet, time, clock, hands, life, death, past, present, thought, word, noose, wrinkle, wrinkles, sag, sagging

But like any other love story, our love did not last.
While earth took us in her arms in the past,
whilst earth lovingly caressed humans otherwise.
In the present, it has harassed us as if we were Pennywise.
The touch of life used to give me butterflies.
But for now, all I hear is earth's cries.

We were none the wiser, I shopped the stalls,
for bread, for father was treating us to a
                                                                ­­          luxury.

He'd been offered overtime, and we didn't have it
      very often. But he knew we were down, and hungry.

Feeling the earth move, the gods were either hungry,
                                       like our empty stomachs.
Or they were punishing us for not giving enough praise
                                             for there gestures of kindness..

We heard the rumbling of Vesuvius, like an empty belly
                                                       rumbling for worth.

Then we heard the screams, as the mountain spat its
anger towards us, we had no where to run.

To hide from the mountains anger was futile.
             We huddled together,

praying to our gods


for salvation..

But our plea's  were unheard,
   had we put our faith in the wrong god!!!


Hearing the dark snow fall like pebbles and then the
                      ash of concealment.

Suffocating in our prays, we huddled tighter than
             life's last breath... and then we
            were like statues
frozen in a moment of futility...

A once flourishing moment, buried in times
                   concealment.

We were found, shells of our former selves,
                  huddled in eternity a love.

Fossilised in a last moment,
           telling the future we died together,

a moment of love shown through the ages...

Sometimes, the meaning behind words
doesn't reveal itself to you
until it's already too late. You look
at a past version of yourself, unable to change
the words they're about to say,
that you said.
But it's okay. Because you can always say words.
newer, more perfect words,
today.