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GGA May 2016
I understood I would never marry,
buy a house, have kids,
mow the lawn on Saturday,
wash cars, clean the pool.

I had an atypical plan,
thinking back, for my life:
a wanderer, adventurer or pilgrim
without want of firm roots.

Each destination a chance happening,
an introduction to the unexamined.
Sidewalks, cafes, alleyways, and life
being lived, journaled for remembrance.

The North Country, New York;
Watertown, Carthage, Clayton and Ogdensburg,
strolling their streets dripping
history and memoirs never told.

Lassoing thoughts from wild conversation
with caffeinated coffee shop poets,
struggling with Calvinistic thought streams
and priests in moments of doubt.

My theories in marble.
Gently chiseled with each interaction,
chipped, thoughts evolve
leaving inference among spilt beans.

All memories and dreams mingle.
l hold them gently.
As midnight creeps I’m untethered,
drifting from the shoal once more.


Suddenly I sense wonder:
The Appalachian Trail at Katahdin,
Continental divide at Loveland Pass,
Mount Hood from Pacific Crest.

Have you ever witnessed
views of Mojave’s Kelso Dunes?
Felt the Great Basin’s rainshadow chill,
or contemplated Joshua Trees in prayer?

Often the life of could have been
is more lucid than I am,
kneeling gnarled,
pulling obstinate weeds.

Shallow breath’d and gazing… scanning
my cut grass, clear pool,
a loving wife, adoring children,
my home…

This man,
mind wandering,
acquiesces,
to clarity of thought.

I would have… could have
been that man, that other life,
a Walter Mitty dreaming
a life; mine.
Thinking back on if I'd, wish I'd and wondering
Saksham Garg Oct 2014
The stars come out slowly at night and tell me about a girl,
With eyes like the azure skies and hair like the grapevine twirl;
The flowing breeze avers the story of a woman with skin milky pure,
She smiles a saccharine smile it says, with an aura of tease and allure;
The clouds spill a secret on me; they rain their coolest waters,
You must find her they insist; she is one of God’s most beautiful daughters;

The chirping of the birds in the trees attracts me as if a message they are trying to send:
She lives in an Elysian palace beyond the horizon; is it there that my search will end;
In the cadence of the tides, I can vaguely hear a persistent, earnest request,
You must seek the flower of the flowers; you must seek the treasure chest;

She walks like falling leaves on a spring afternoon, when there's no summer zephyr,
Every step forward is an august swirl, her every grace is a tempting desire,
The bees dance to an inaudible tune, her they forever try to define,
The queen bee gives up thinking she must be an exquisite calligraphy, so very divine;
The Gulmohar tree grins, jealous of her flawless figure, unable to castigate her, he speaks:
She shines ivory white in a darkened cavern, as if formed by joining stalactite and stalagmite peaks’;
Stepping out of the shower of falling stars, dripping wet in a blinding light, her silhouette the night tries to disclose,
She looks like a freshly picked rose bud each time, lined with droplets of dew, her callow figure, half open half closed;

The Pyramids of Egypt narrate to me the day when God was in the mood to paint,
Cleopatra died of envy that day they say, and Aphrodite lost all her pride and became a saint;
It was the day when she was created, when God became an artisan without a cause,
Creating her, he lost his ardor; working on the astral canvass he removed all her flaws;
He gave her the candor of a little child when handed for the first time in the arms of its mother,
He gave her the eloquence of speech a nightingale has and the sensation like a tranquil pigeon feather;
She got the canter of the reindeers; she got the touch like spreading wildfire,
She got the brightest aureole; she got the love hidden in God’s deepest mire;

The rivers made me swear, this arcane knowledge to myself I must keep,
The mountains made me avow, that till I find her there is no food, no water, and no sleep;
The nature cajoled me into looking for this apocryphal woman and to this day I search,
I have capitulated my heart to her and she teases at me from her heavenly perch;
Looking askance at me, she calls, find me o' lover she says,
I know she’s worth it, that’s why I still roam in winding ways….
I know she’s worth it, that’s why I still roam in winding ways….

— The End —