Reconciliation in life happens when thoughts are in place and intentions are clear
Expectations are raised to higher level when success is gained from the efforts made since prior.
Strange are the ways of life,
strange seems life,
but then that’s life and life continues with the same,
reconciliation and expectations
Last but not least, life is all about hits and misses.

I watched you sow
Seeds of resentment
Before my very eyes

I couldn't move
To dig them up
I was needed in the skies

Years gone by
Forgetful I
Did not remember about seeds

Our forest suffered
All this time
I catered other needs

And now your tree of hate stands tall
Thorned vines I could not tame

And it bears a poison fruit
Venom, nectar
All the same

Why does it keep on growing?
I told sun not to shine

And cloud who watered it so proudly
Did not pass by this time

I took an ax to trunk
But bark was made of tempered steel

I took a torch to branches dry
But flame it would not feel

Roots gripped earth
Vines entwined
As it saw I found
The rivet line

I pulled the thread
Straight through the seams
And released the nightmare
From our dreams

Our forest is now happy
And it's creatures feel the same

But are you gone?
Should I be worried
The next time skies call out my name?

What’s the statute of limitations
        on my obligations
                as a son
        on my victimhood as a
                semi-orphan
        on my blamefulness as a
                father
When does it end—these yet-to-be-seen effects of the mundane
        I make now?
When do I not carry them
        the strings
        of the yarn map tracing
my endless encounters and tacking
        not into cork but
        into my soul stretched pulled
in four dimensions.
Length times width times depth times time. I coexist
         in every manifestation of
myself simultaneously.
        All time all me, all tacked,
        All pulled, all stretched by
more hands than my own.  Vibrating
        into my marrow reminding
of the inescapability of the
        contracts I didn’t sign.  Most of them.

Each day the threads move.
They swirl and choke or puncture
        taut and pull. pull. pull
        me back, back to them.
        To early morning and late nights
        every day
        That old house of repressed
memories and façade bonds
        of newspaper-wrapped electric
circuits waiting for the
spark
        to finally incense the
        old aged kindling of other
        string maps of
        other pasts of
        more and more disappointment.

My heart is a prism. a rock.
        set in the stone of my
chest compressed
by pressure into endlessly
        juxtaposed edges of glass.
        An edge: a time a place a person a me. Surrounded
        onyx black
but yet
        Reflecting.  It’s deep
        yes
        but shine deep enough
        yes, go
        and it will reflect
        go on, go on
        fluoresce
        yes yes yes go
        myriad colors of spectrums
                of me
torn out of the mine of
my own construction of
        the muscle memories of
        the past pains of
        the unceasing variations of
the crude black **** I’ve
made before.

        How long
                        will I be responsible for
                                                     her?
For you?
Was I ever?
Am I at all?

If scientists were scientific
they would at first
repair the damage they have done
in making whiteness
some kind of ethnicity or race
before indulging in anything else

Is it just listening to an old song with a friend
Is it writing a new one about a love that will never end
It’s hard to know what you’re thinking
You want me to play the music first
When it’s over the message will be in the next verse

Being with you is the choice between walking
Or a car not understanding what it is your saying
A sidewalk is easy on the eyes
Once we open the door it’s never the same
Where we go next is never the way we came

You think it’s going to be different
But that’s no reason to try again
We are what we are
But what you want to forget
Is not the feeling when we first met

Give me the time of day when I ask
Tell me the weather is important to talk about
I wonder if normal is better
We broke all the glasses long ago
I know you’re thirsty but your heart won’t say so

You think it’s going to be the same
But that’s no reason not to try again
We are what we are
But what you can’t forget
Is the feeling when you finally left

It’s hard to intervene when people fight.
Recall being thumped for “bullying” a lad
Who’d harassed ME.
So hard to tell
Who’s right or wrong.
Who made the first jibe
Or struck the first blow?

The same with global conflicts too:
Irish Catholic or Protestant?
Israel or Palestine?
Communist Country or Capitalist?
The list goes on…

Best keep out of it if you can.
Do not make judgement,
Just mediate as best you can.
Preach fairness and conciliation:
Do your best to facilitate
Peace.

Paul Butters

I don't know how it came to be
To have so many holes in me
But here I cry
By and by
Bleeding from the heart
Where so many rivers start.

I cannot explain
This inexorable pain
As I cross this river Styx
Wondering how I'd come to this
But here I am
****** and Dammed
Crying cold tears
Wondering what fate nears.

I remain here with the ferryman
Wondering how I was ever a merry man.
Crying my tears of blood
Just as any man would.
Touched so high in grace
****** for all my race.
So burning is this torment
Yet cold, silent, and dormant.

But I am no betrayer.         No, Not yet
No sin increases my fare

Charon does not bring me to that gate
But rather back home to finish my fate.
For I am not dead
And it is not living that I dread.
I have only been shown this torture
So I may avoid it in future.
I have no place in that weeping forest
Just as Dante, I was but a tourist.
But so my sorrow deep and cold
Should not permeate into my old
But rather it shall remain
a past pain.

O I shall remember
these such foul members
But it is that which makes me
Not breaks me.
These are that which become me
For I shall not succumb to these.
And so these folds shall make me
stronger
Till I feels these holes,
These rivers in my heart,
These tears of blood,
This passing of the laurel,
These faults within my ore,
No longer.

I want to know
what it feels like
for reconciliation
to wash over
my fault lines.
Take my cracks
and paint them
with gold.
Let me glimmer,
                   gleam,
                           and glow
redemption.
Illuminate my mistakes
and let my skeleton
frame out a museum
of triumph

011816

Kinausap ko ang Langit
Na buksan ang malaking pintuan
Nang pumagitna Siya sa'ting dal'wa.
Sinalo Niya ang bawat butil ng luha
At ako'y nagkusang mamahinga sa Kanyang piling.

Hinarap ko ang pagkakamali noon,
Nang minsang sadyain kong bitiwan ka rin
Pagkat biglaan din ang pagbitaw mo.
Inanod ako sa Kanyang bisig,
Doon nahilom ang puso't
Ngayong may panibagong katha.

Hindi ko inasahang
Iihipan ito ng Hangin at mapapadpad sayo.
Pero hindi ko magawang magwelga't magrebelde pa,
Pagkat hindi naman ako ganoon.

Siya na rin ang nagkusang tulakin ako
Pagkat kaya Niya sa buhay ko --
Nang tunay ngang lumaya ako.

Sa amin na lamang ng Langit
Ang huling pag-uusap;
Maging ang panggagamay ko
Sa karayom na sobrang sakit.

Panalangin ko pa ri'y ikaw,
Ikaw at ikaw, siyang anurin din ng Langit
Nang bulong Niya'y mapagnilay-nilayan mo.

Ganoon ang pag-ibig Niya..

you ever look at someone & just know she's the one for you? The smallest things she does make you fall for her all over again!  
Yet you have to contain everything you have to say, until she truly trusts you, but what if you want her to know you'll always protect her heart & keep her safe? That you'll always be there no matter time nor place! & every day you look forward to seeing her face.
Those big beautiful eyes, can make a foolish man wise, whenever I speak to her I feel so alive, who knew I'd find a woman so kind, with love in her eyes & such a beautiful mind.