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Travis Barefoot Aug 2011
I don't know what lies ahead
I can't see the end but
Lonely days
Rainy days
Sunshine and happiness
Low lying clouds of doubt and fear

I don't know who is here
I can't see a face but
Pretty eyes
Warm body
Love and understanding
Feeling safe from hurt and harm

I don’t know how I feel
I can’t hear my voice but
Loud cries
Quiet whispers
Bounding and rebounding
Echoing inside my head and heart

I don’t know who I am
I can’t see myself but
Joyous sights
Scary scenes
Memories and visions
Reminding me how to grow and be

I don’t know who you are
I can’t seem to recognize but
Holding tight
Letting go
Wanting and waiting
Telling me to hang on and see

I don’t know how
I can’t see a reason but
Keeping hope
Digging in
Wishing and praying
Seeing light in a tunnel of black

It’s ahead
I do know
I can
When I can't see what's ahead in my head, the past will shine on, showing a memory as what has been will be, or can be, or maybe it won't be. It is still ahead.
Travis Barefoot Aug 2011
Unblinking orbital eye.
Sometimes you smile.
The world leans your way
and you are none the wiser.
Do you know what you do?
Hide your face when you cry.
Shine in your realm behind clouds.
Glow not from within but in
mirrored reflection from afar.
Do you know who you are?
Lovers know your name and
long to touch your face.
In legend and lore you alter unnaturally.
Bards tribute love to your face.
I feel you when I can’t see you.
I know you’re there.
Will you show yourself tomorrow?
I’ll look for you in time.
Will you look for me?
Travis Barefoot Aug 2011
Does it exist?

I look down
The direction of sight, below the concrete rail
There’s grass and blankets, Frisbees and pups
And a vision of love gone right.

The hands intertwined are wrinkle lined
Worn out with age and aching
Rough from life’s work
Yet soft in the finger’s embrace.

Those hands have perhaps held a plow
A newborn aloft
A needle and thread in fine intricate work
A rifle in a foreign trench.

A pen pushing letters to form words
A gavel to hand down sentence
A mixing spoon and bowl
A handle of a coffin.

Maybe they’ve held an unopened letter
A glass raised in a toast
A wedding dress
A framed photo of someone lost.

Chalk in a classroom seminar
Hard packed snow ammunition
A nervous hand in a dark movie theater
Clean sheets of motel rooms.

They look up
Their direction of sight, above the girders
There are clouds and birds and me
Studying their hands holding on in lasting love.

They walk away
Hands still knotted
And it is my proof
Of a love like that.
Travis Barefoot Aug 2011
Water over stone speaks to me
Voices in my head or reality?
Bubbling, babbling, a fluid oration.
From liquid, an opus of reverberation.

Closer I get, speech becomes blurred.
A child, a crowd, an implicit word?
Retreat a step, lucid communique
Desire to immerse, ingest the parley.

Sit between banks in tears from on high
Hear her voice in the brook as I try
To understand, and follow the sentence at hand
A cacophony of silence sifted through sand.

Meaningless, mindless, numbing address
Just what’s so important she’s trying to stress?
Words from the distant, ghostlike, perchance
Wispy and passionate midsummer’s dance.

My ears reject resonance, but the mind draws it in
To decipher the past and perceive an old sin.
Apologetic, pleading, no mold to this play
Just babbling on, with no true thing to say.

Hands growing numb from water’s icy hold
Must leave this brook, for so I’ve been told
That mystery lives in the motion of hearing
Of water’s sweet journey beyond my heart’s clearing.
Flowing water sometimes speaks. The creek on the edge of my property is especially talkative...
Travis Barefoot Aug 2011
In a little muddled cloud, a bubble, a thought
Ideas float away unfettered of wings.
Catching them proves to be unfeasible
By any means possible it appears…

Careful when you pull from
My stack of Jenga dreams
Taken from what sustains and place on my crown
Begin tumbling, falling, scattering…game over.

Hold in your hands an image of love
Heavy, it seems, to the amateur captor
Light as air, supple, shaped…radiant
In the hands of the ancient, practiced devotee.

Halls and mirrors seek hazy confusion
Follow the seam and you’ll find the egress
Where Hope patiently waits, distant calliope, poised
To hold you and keep you, the spectacle of desire.

“Come home” breathes the slender sprite
Into ears unacquainted with compassion.
Lullaby swing, tree limb unbroken, come sing
The song in my dreams to make sweet.

— The End —