What lines offer evenness
Amongst a passionate play?
Would not actors stand in line
Waiting to play in the heated Malay?
Roles cast of heart strings
Tied between lines whispered phrases.
What right has any character
To come alive whilst on stage?

One scripted part comes right on cue
As one mark meets the other
Right in the middle of the author’s view.
The background accompaniment
Playing softly to the screen test.
When suddenly one moves the other
While that one moves all the rest.

They stray from the script confusing all the stage.

At first tip toes lead into a scripted kiss
But then she falters losing her gauge.
Music continues its composure
While feet flounder in the demise.
She becoming the new composer
As he gets lost somewhere in her eyes.
They came to try out,
To play love in a play.
But what began to play out
Was a true love – some say.

For they could not hold back
And before all the audience,
Shoulders touch while hand in hand.
He breaks rank against the lines
While their lips cover each others
Engulfing love’s unscripted reach.

The music changing tempo
Giving more meaning to each.
Passions groping forward
Creating a brand new play.
She losing her shoes
As he shed his spats.
Non refrained skin opens and just
As this was about to become a part of that's,
The curtain swiftly closing as
The audience’s heads all tilt sideways.

Oh well - after all it was a passion’s play.
Maybe the author knew it wasn’t important what to say.
Once started, the lines conjure up
Loves unscripted intent.
Unprepared actors
Lose their marks
Lovingly spent.

(Prelude: This piece is a parable with the imagination of a female named Allison with a ghostly presence residing in a suit of Knight's armor).

“They are of a better order” said the armor,
“A better order of beings in heaven.”

“Have you been to heaven?”
Allison asked the armor and
Quickly upon his ancient, blank steel gaze
She instantly felt a civil triumph
Hidden within her inquiry.

“Strange,” he responded,
"Strange it is that it is so far away
And yet it is right here
Inside of us all along.”

She gave him the hint of a
Curious gaze before placing
Her hand on her chest while saying,
“Are you saying heaven is in here?”

He replies,
“You think about it for a while and
When you have sufficiently parodied
The thought we shall think
Upon it again for I give
Up the argument for now -
I must retire” - and so he went
Wherever a ghost goes to rest.
There he wandered around
In the infinity of his mind until
A knock on the steel helmet came.
He answers through the opening,
“Who is it?”
Knowing all the while whom it was.

He opened the visor,
Showing the emptiness within.
She looked in his visor and
Giggled a girlish giggle
Saying, “I would carry this picture
With me to my grave -
My self professed conscience standing
Here in the doorway of my life
Looking into a metal head as
Empty as a hollow balloon,”
She giggled some more.
She pushed the visor open wider and
Stuck a finger in without
Any further solicitation
Saying as she looked about the emptiness,
“Shall I set foot in your dominion?”
Then she turned to him placing her hand
On her chest again as before,
“Or shall you set foot in mine?”

McDermott peaked thru to answer
Allison to find her now sitting on the edge
Of the bed – skillfully untying and
Removing her shoes as
She looked about the room.

Before he could answer and
Just as skillfully
She changed the subject, “You have a
Fine room here, quite roomy,
I think it must be twice the size of mine.”

The sun was setting outside the doubled
Windows and through the curtains
The light that filled the room tinted the
Contents of the room a crimson red.

There they were, quite all alone,
Her sitting on the bed,
Him encased in his Knight’s suit of armor.
Each waiting for the other
To make some sort of move.
Turning away from her,
Not to avoid the inevitable but
To experience the possible –
McDermott says,
“But this is your room.”
Pointing to the room receipt
On the top of the dresser,
“See, it has your name on it.
I am merely a figment of your imagination,
Something you have conjured up.”

“I know, I know,
You have said all this before,”
Pounding her fists into the
Bed as she cries,
“Cannot you for once come
From inside that
Silly suit of armor so that I may see you?”

“Look at the receipt, what does it say?” McDermott answers.

“I told you, I know,
It has my name as the registered
Guest of the Knights Inn, so what?
Have I not been coming here
Every year for three years,
Every year for the week of All Saint’s Day,
Just so that I can be with you?
And every year it’s the same old thing –
You speak like you are
Somewhere in a barrel,
And I never see you, I just feel you.”

“It is not with your ears that you hear me,
It is with your heart,”
McDermott explains,
“You come here year after year
Looking for truth –
Can you accept that I am
Only here if you are here?”

Sprawling out backwards across the bed,
She replies with disgust,
“Truth – what truth is this –
That I have lost my mind?”

“One can only loose what one has
Not unlike one cannot
Have what one wants,
For having and wanting
Are diametrically opposed,” he explains.

“Stop with the philosophical
Mumbo jumbo,” she says as she
Turns to scream into the pillow.
“I’m so sick of it that I could die.”
At the moment of that last syllable spoken, Allison can feel another
Weight joining her on the bed.
Daring not to whisk the feeling away
She holds her breath, listening –
Feeling for more confirmation.

“You cannot love another until you learn
To love yourself,” McDermott whispers.

Jumping off the bed and to her feet,
“You’ve told me all this before,
But why am
I here if it is not to love you?
And if you are as you say you are,
Just another
Of my creations, then pray tell me,
Why can you not accept that fact and just
Simply be here with me?
Why else am I here?”

“You are here to find out who you are.
That’s why anyone comes here.
That truth is something that No ONE can
TEACH you.
It is something that you
Have to remember.”

Looking about the empty room
Allison once again turns and
Sits on the bed.
“OK, I give in –
YOU tell ME, WHO AM I?”

“Just lie down and get comfortable.
You need your rest.
We’ll talk in your sleep.
We have much territory to cover tonight.
Tomorrow is All Saint’s Day, your day.
But tonight we must explore
All the wonders of you,
For in the morning you
Shall awaken knowing
The real you – the one that you
Have been searching for.”

Slithering out of her dress and
Removing her bra
Allison turns her head to the empty
Pillow beside her,
“You promise?” she asks.

“I promise,” McDermott replies.

Drifting off into a shallow sleep,
Allison is listening as
McDermott recites poetry.
It’s an odd recital but somehow it seems
As if she has heard this verse before.

“Sand sifting through my fingers
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger.
To know the smell of the center
Of your hand,
To see into those deepest of eyes -
Oh, to feel those sighs.

Sometimes I don’t think I can wait
Not another day but then it’s too late.
How can I know that all this is real
When I’ve not even a finger to feel.
Thoughts, visions of heart –
Feelings of soul –
Up to now that is all that I know.
So if you find me lost in this moment,
Please release me from this sweet torment.
For inside the fire is burning
Hotter than hell and so full of yearning.

Maybe this is not the right place -
Maybe this is not the right time.

But I ask you, is it a crime
To watch the sand as it rhymes?
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger
And I have the you – lost in my fingers.”

“What is the title?” Allison asks in her sleep.

“Oh you know the title very well,” McDermott answers.
“Think about it and you will remember.”

Allison’s eyes move beneath the
REM sleep with closed eyelids,
Back and forth, back and forth,
Looking for the title to the poem.
Then she answers with a smile,
“Hourglass, the title of the poem is,
Hourglass.”

“Very good,” McDermott confirms.
“See you do remember.”

“But how do I remember –
Something tells me that
I am not supposed to remember.”

“Your mind tells you that you
Have no memory of the poem
But your heart tells you that you do.”

“Yes.” she answers.

“Could it be that just when
You find your dearest love
That you also meet your greatest fear?
Then too avoid the fear –
You try not to remember."

“Why do you say that?” she asks.

“Because those are the two sponsoring
Thoughts behind all human endeavors.
All of the human emotions stem from
Either love or from fear.”

In her sleep Allison turns
More toward the empty pillow,
“Who are you?”

“Have you not determined
To call me McDermott?
Why do you struggle to believe that
I cannot be unless I have a name?”

“I suppose it’s because everything
Has a name.” Allison responds.

“No, everything of this world
Has something that it is called,
That does not exactly mean that
It has a name or needs one.”

“Then who are you?”
She asks breathing in deeply.

“It matters not what you call me –
That has been one of the great
Mistakes of human nature,
What is more important is that you know
That I am, just like that
I know that you are.”

“Are you God?”
She asks shaking her head.

“See, there you go again,
Be careful of those labels,
Once you put a label
On me, then by that labeling
Do you place upon me your expectations.
And once something is expected
To do something in a certain way,
Then have you created boundaries,
In essence,
You have created walls around me,
Walls around your own thoughts -
To the degree that we can
No longer communicate.”

“How would you prefer that I think
Of you?” Allison asks.

“Do not “think” of me in terms of
Mere words,
For words fall far too short
Of explaining any of truth
Of who or what I am.
You should think of me as
You would think of yourself for
Are we not one in the same?
If I said that I am the great 'I am'
And if you were to believe that to be true,
Would not that make you the
Great 'I am' too?”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand,
Are you saying that you are me?
Am I talking to myself?” she questioned.

“You are asleep, when you awake,
Would you say that we are talking?”

“No, I would say that I was dreaming
And that you are like you said that you
Were before I went to sleep,
I would say that you are a
Figment of my imagination.”

“Does that explain how it is that you
Know the name of the poem?”
McDermott asks.

“I don’t know, I’m dreaming I suppose,
Dreams don’t have to make any sense.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Not really,” Allison answers.
Even though she is asleep
She can feel herself
Turning over and pushing away
Some of the bedding.
“Give me an incontrovertible way
Of knowing that you are real.”

“Oh Allison, the only way that
I could ever give you such proof
Is if I were
To physically touch you and to do that
I would need a physical form.
Yet I say to you,
I have no need of anything physical
For all of your physical reality
Is but a part of the grand illusion.”

“Grand illusion,
Are you saying that my life
Is just one big illusion?” Allison questions.

“In a sense, yes.
For it is you who does create
Your own reality.
And if what you create is
Not what you want,
Is that creation not what
The definition of “illusion” means?”

“But why would I create anything that
I do not want?” she asks.

“Good question, why don’t you tell me?”

“Who’s to say that I truly have not created you?”
Allison asks.

“Another good question, what do you think?”

“Why would you talk to me?” she asks.

“I talk to everyone all the time.
The question is not to with
Whom do I talk,
But who listens?”

“I’m listening.” Allison exclaims.

“Another good answer.
Maybe it would be easier if
We exchanged the word
“Talk” for the word communicate,
I think that’s a much
Better descriptive word.
If we try to simply just talk then we
Are restricted by the limitations of words.
I do not communicate by words alone,
In fact, I rarely do.
I usually communicate through
Feelings for feelings are
The language of the soul.
For this reason,
If you want to know
The truth about anything,
Look to how you are feeling about it.
Hidden in your deepest feelings
You’ll always find your higher truth.
I can communicate with thought
But don’t confuse thought with feelings.
When I communicate with thought
I often use images, sounds or pictures.
Are they not much more descriptive?
I also use experience to communicate with.
The fact that you remembered
The name of the poem
Is a communication by experience.
It is only when feelings,
Thought or experience
Fails that I use words.
However, words are the least effective
Communicator because words
Are too easily misinterpreted or confused.
Words are not a good way to get
To the truth for they are part
Of the illusion of trying
To convey the feelings,
The thoughts and the experiences.
The irony in this is that
So many place their feelings,
Thoughts and experience in the words
That they try to say and very little
On the experience of who they are.
The same is true of how
You define who you are.
You define yourself within
A set of words and
Lose all reality of who you really are.
Therefore you create
The illusion of yourself
Just as you have created
The illusion of me.”

Allison turns on her side into
The fetal position,
“You said that tonight
That I would discover who I am –
Does that mean that in order to discover
Who I am that I must learn
To know who you are?”

“You are not learning anything.
You are remembering who you are
For you always were and
You always will be.
You cannot learn what you already know.
You can only remember.”

“And what is that?” she asks intently.

“You are your creation,
I come from you so that you
Might know yourself.
That is why I exist,
So that you may experience yourself.”

As Allison drifts between the alpha of
REM sleep and the delta of REM
Into stage three of tonight’s slumber,
She carries with her into her deepest
Sleep the thoughts of herself
As one with all of God’s creation.
“God the father, God the son,
God the holy ghost,”
She whispers aloud.
“Are we all your sons and daughters?”
She asks.

“Yes you are,
The trinity would not be complete
Without you,
Not without every one of you.”

“So that is who I am?” she whispers.

“Welcome to who you are,
Who you have always been,
Who you ever shall be,
Today, it is All Saint’s Day,
What reality will you create today?

Always remember,
There are only two base emotions,
Love and fear.
You can choose to act out of love
Or you can choose to act out of fear.
The choice is as always –
The choice is yours.”

“Will you be with me today –
To help me to choose?”

“I am always with you.”

“Will I find love today?” Allison asks.

“You question is improper.
“You should be asking yourself,
Will I create love today?”

*“But wouldn’t that be another illusion?
Another figment of
My imagination?” she questions.

“Is there a difference?
And even if there was, does it matter?
All that matters is that
Through your own experience,
You remember who you are
And experience
What you really want to be.
That is the truth of creation.”

Drifting off into the deepest sleep
Of her life,
Allison listens to McDermott
Reciting his poetry again and again.

Heart raising a hollow mist to the heavens
In the cove this sultry spring’s morning.
Thoughts quicken to brightly colored sail boats
Sitting quietly in their moorings.
Bobbing about to and fro
With masts reaching tall into the fog.
Tethered to land and to each other –
They dance effortlessly in the waves.

Farther out into deeper waters larger vessels
Move slowly about the harbor.
Some anchored awaiting to unburden their bloated bellies
While others sit high in the water to take on new cargo.
Each with a scurry of movement about their decks
In preparation for the chores of today’s tasks.
The pier becoming the object of their labors.

My mind dissected by the peacefulness of the sailboats
And transgressed by the labors of the larger vessels.
A frightfully busy place is the harbor.
A tranquil loving place is the cove.
A visual blend of both seemingly distant worlds
Lie before me indulging my mind into each.

And I wonder…

Am I as this sailboat tethered safely to the shore
Or am I in the harbor scurrying about
To take on the next heavy load?
The mystery hidden somewhere in the blanketing fog.
Walking across the small dock
Feet capture the movement of my sailboat.

I release the chains that tether her to mother earth
And she, I in her belly, move away from her bindings.
No longer restrained sails slip us from the cove
And into the harbor as the sun rises a new day.
The veiling fog lifting to reveal the answered
Question of this mornings predawn endeavor.

The difference between the cove and the harbor
Lies not in the depth of the water.
That depth need not be frightening.
Looking back into the cove from the harbor
I find that it is what I have brought with me –

That is what makes all the difference…..

You by whose sweet nature does rule this text,
As surely as I spell your name, your thoughts it reflects.
My longings my darling are nothing less than your desires,
Our combined cloudy pillar floating on high by our inner fires.
My second dream is but a forethought of your mind’s first wand
Parting my words and showing me your promised hand.
Who’s to say, in some very far off distant age,
They will say that I have exercised some sacred prophet's rage?
An unpeopling prayer within our combined diviner's themes,
Like we were young filled with vision and the old people's dreams!
To thee, my Love’s Savior, to thee my vows’ confess,
I am never satisfied with the time the world gives us in bliss.
Swift do those times pass, bespoken each timely romp, thy hips do proclaim,
These words, a stammering thought teaching me how to whisper thy name.

Riding backwards on a train
Leaning my head into the window
Seeing my own reflection – Clackity
Clack – Clickity Clackity Clickety Clack,
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clack.

What I see in the passing frames
Bridges, houses, brown fields
And rough terrains.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clickety Clack.

There goes an old barn beside an Azores tree
There goes an Azores tree beside an old barn
My God there goes another one – that’s three
Clackity Clack, Clackity Clack, Clickity, Clickity
Don’t talk back, Clickity Clack.

Telephone poles all passing as one
Streets and warehouses, street signs
And red lights – green and now a nun
Clackity Clack, Clackity Clack
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clickity Clack.

Into the tunnel we clamber and scramble
Concrete walls all painted with daises
So close to the glass we go into this gamble.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack, Clackety Clickety
Are we coming back, Clackity Clack.

Deep under the bay we travel
As loud and deep as the devil.
All held back by nothing but gravel.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack
Please don’t crack, Clackity Clack

When all at once into the terminal we fly
We made it – me – myself and I
Slowing to almost a crawl - good-bye!
Clackity, Clackity, Clackity Clack
Next time I’ll check my Zodiac.

“Is this what you do?”
Sitting on a dock in Sausalito looking out over
One of the grandest scenes that I had ever seen, I replied,
“What do you mean?”
Moving her feet further away from mine she replied,
“Travel around the country to see women that you barely know?”
Leaning back I answer her half laughing,
“Nope, haven’t had a date in twenty five years.”
“Is that how long you were married?”
“Twenty- three,” I answered changing the subject I continued,
“Sorry, but this view, it is beautiful, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Ignoring my intended change she says,
“Well, I hope you know that just
Because you flew from Atlanta to San Francisco - that doesn’t
Mean that you are getting lucky tonight.”
Turning toward her, I responded, “Come on, just relax, can’t we
Just try and enjoy the evening?”

It was about an hour after sunset when we decided to walk back
Up the street to a two story restaurant to get something to eat.
We stopped at the door to look at the menu,
I could hear music from inside and that’s when I noticed the sign
That read:
“Open Mic Competition Tonight – $10 to Enter, $250 & CD to the Winner.”

We went in and were seated and soon we ordered our meals.
The ice was so chokingly thick between us that I was
Beginning to wonder why it was that I had come so far.

We talked little during the meal, mostly about her work and
About my son, who was ten and the fact that I had custody.
“I figure it’s hard for a man in Georgia to get custody of children?”
She said, clearly making a question within a statement.
“Oh, I suppose we are not as backward in the South as we are made out to be,”
I answered her listening to the entertainment coming from the upstairs bar.
I was watching through the windows of the restaurant as a
Huge barge moved across the glittering waters of San Francisco bay.
Off to one side I could make out the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Amazingly beautiful.
“It must be nice to be able to have views like this everyday,” I commented.
She hardly noticed that I’d said anything.

When we had finished eating, I paid and we got up to leave.
As we passed by the stairway leading up to the bar I said,
“Let’s go listen to some of the local talent.”
She nodded her approval and said that she needed to go to the ladies room.
With her gone I gave the man behind the booth $10 and filled out the papers.
When she returned we climbed the stairs and were seated
At a table just in front of the stage.
A woman was singing her rendition of
“The Tambourine Man.”
It was truly an eclectic crowd that somehow was still enthralled in the
Middle to late 1960’s, you know the type.
The Haight Ashbury district was sure alive and well here in Sausalito.

I watched my date, she wasn’t impressed, not in the least.
The bar had a house band that would play whatever music the
New entertainer wanted to be played.
We listened to several other hopeful stars.
Then they called my name.

I looked to my date and saw the surprise in her eyes as I said,
“Would you excuse me for a minute?”
I took to the stage asking the keyboard player to move over.
I turned around and winked at my date.
And then I began to sing and play…

'Sittin on the Dock of The Bay.'

Having sung my song, I returned to our table.
Did I break the ice?
The $250 prize was a nice little footnote,
As was the rest of the evening.
No more wasted time………*

(Click or cut and paste the link below to hear me on the CD)

When my time passes
And there’s no breath left in me,
Take my ashes to the oceans
And set my spirit free.
There I can rejoin my friends
There I will not be alone.
There I can make my amends
There I won’t be unknown.

Far too much blood spilled onto this planet
Makes its way to the sea.
The raining of blood by droplet
Rejoining there finally.

Don’t leave me in the cold, cold ground.
No – No imprisoned tomb for me.
Let the waves be my stone bound
An anxious tide, my cemetery.

There I can float on endless waves
A moving monument to see.
And if you leave a tear on my grave
I can float it away with me…

Insane, insane what follows old
This tragedy you're about to be told.
Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
It is love that we most of all bequeath.
Amongst green pastures grows a flowering field
One not tainted by what this life yields.
Somewhere in the withered forget-me-knots
It lives long enough to be what it ought.
A shining prince upon a silver steed
Riding home to find that which was decreed.
Nothing more than just a thought
Of something born here in Camelot.

Oh mastery of misery art thou my friend?
Do we have so much to gather or defend?
Send us upon this grievous plain
To battle for all that must be regained.
Oh ported soul of Arthur’s gallant lot
Send to us the dear Sir Lancelot.
He be the bravest of all hearts,
His bravery known right from the start.
He hast no legend braved in fear
Doing the right by his lady Guinevere.
Life deals us such a broken art
Of a finger painted love here in Camelot.

The quest be of ill fated charms
Where love survives the coat of arms.
To be so brave is to be a slave
Fighting for the thing we crave.
For no coat of arms can delay
Love’s onslaught once on display.
For to pour the grail back into the flask
Would be to hold love as a captured task.
For ‘tis love that captures all at last
And nothing loved can truly pass.
Though the lance laid silent Lover Lancelot
His secret survives him here in Camelot.

In a time where one and one was utterly confined
When nature itself was prompted and no law was defined.
In these non pious times before the religious craft did begin,
Long before current life filled the world we’re in.
Before earthly man was born or multiplied his kind,
In earths far away there were people already of mind.
Then when Semjasa traveled with Heaven's own heart,
Bringing his vigorous warmth to this earth to impart.
Partaking of life here he bore Adam by his own command,
Thus scattering his maker's image throughout the land.
Seth, born of such royal blood, the crown he did wear
A soul grateful to his father Adam’s care.
And so to the rest, many mothers bore
To King David, and the many sons and daughters before.
But since like slaves from his bed they did ascend,
Only the truest succession could their seed attend.
But of all this numerous progeny was none as fit to rule
So beautiful, so brave, as this star child, Jmmanuel.
Inspired by some other diviner’s gust,
His father Joseph got him without any lust.
Through his conscious destiny made he the weighed,
By other worldly fortitude - the imperials he swayed.
Earlier on the mount he won great renown,
Healing the sick while dispersing the crown.
With soft spoken peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
As it seemed as if he were only born to love.
Whatever he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone, 'twas his nature to please.
His emotions shared in his eyes with grace,
As if paradise itself was opened in his face.
With secret joy, indulgent people viewed
This youthful image in his ancient knowledge renewed.
To all that wished - nothing he denied,
In doing so he made the whole world his bride.
What faults he had for who from faults are free?
His father could not or he would not see.
Perhaps only the warmest excesses which the profits forbore,
Were construed by a youth purged - boiling over.
And Mary called him by a specious name,
She named him Jmmanuel - not the name of his fame.
Thus praised, and loved, the noble youth remained,
While Augustus, undisturbed, in Rome reigned.
From Rome his life could never be sincerely blest,
Nature punishes the bad, and approves only the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, a murmuring race
As ever tried the extent and patience of grace.
God's pampered saints whom, debauched with ease,
No King could ever govern nor could any God please.

Somewhere in the dawning of morning
In the moonlight far before noon
Lies the flickering stars of the evening
The sun shines on the moon.

A crippled man stands on the corner
Repeating his minded chant.
To no one is he a foreigner
Telling who he is, he both can and he can’t.

He rocks from side to side
Repeating the same wordy sighs.
I move closer trying to hide
There is only whiteness in his eyes.

I listen intently to what he has to say
For how can a ******* man without any eyes
Tell me any lies?
What he spoke of went something like this.

“In the beginning that which is was all there was and there was nothing else. Yet all that there was could not know itself because all that is was all there was and there was nothing else. So much so that all that is could not be. For in the absence of something else, all that is, is not. All that is knew it was all there was but this was not enough. For it could only know who it was conceptually and never know of its own touch. Yet for the experience of itself is what it yearned. For it wanted to know what it would be like if only it could know itself. But all that is could never know itself unless that which its not showed up. For in the absence of that which its not, that which is, is not. The one thing that all there is knew is that there was nothing else. So it could not nor would it ever know itself from a point outside itself because such a point did not exist. The is not wasn’t, just as the am not was. Still the all of everything wished to know itself. This pure, unseen, unheard, unobserved and therefore unknown energy chose to experience itself as it was, utterly magnificent. To do this it had to use a reference point from within. It thus divided itself into portions – each portion less than the whole and being now less than the whole it could look back on itself and see its magnificence. So in one glorious moment with all that was divided, itself becoming in one instant all that is this and all that which is that. For the first time, this and that could co-exist quite apart from each other. As did all that was neither. Thus three elements suddenly existed. That which is here and that which is there and that which is neither here nor there. But that which is neither here and neither there had to exist in order for that which is here and that which is there to exist. It is the nothing that holds the everything. It is the non-space which holds the space. It is in the everything that we find itself for it is he that divided itself into the here and the there and into the no where. Therefore itself is all there is as well as itself is all that is not. For in creating that which is here and that which is there, itself could experience itself from within and from without. From no-thing sprang everything which some choose to call “The Big Bang.” And with the possibility of here or there came the difference we know as time. For first it was here and then it was there and the period from here to there was measurable. As the parts of itself which were seen began to define themselves, so too did the parts unseen. Itself knew that for love to exist and to know itself as pure love its exact opposite had to exist as well. The great polarity of the great opposite of love is fear. But in the instant that fear existed, so too could love exist and be experienced. In order to know that all this is true – all you have to do is to follow your heart.”

I watched him as he stumbled along
With one leg turned oddly to one side.
I knew this man could do me no wrong
For he could not even see his crooked stride.

I stepped up beside him and took him by the arm,
“Sir, could I possibly give you a ride?”
“I guess that would do no harm.”
Soon we were side by side.

“Son,” he called me – turning those egg white eyes
To me, he asked – “Do I know you?”
“Yes sir, I’m just a part of all that is -
And a part of all that is not – just a part of your crew.”

Do you hear the music?
Does it give you ease?
Hold my hands and lean far back
Look up into the trees.
The answers there
That no one sees,
Imaginings to anyone who believes.
That magic
Can’t be deceived,
Open arms to be relieved.
Move with me
And be believed,
Cherished, loved
And well received.
Just dancing with the trees.

Sunlight flickering through a canopy of incandescent leaves
A gentle cool wind blowing to a background of confident blue.
All around me are the dancing trees.
Rejoicing it seems in their bright prancing hues.
Oak, hemlock, cottonwood, spruce and pine
All swaying together in perfect time.
I walk the path in awe of it all
Listening to the spreading news.
The earth it seems
Has reached the dawning of a new day
Reproducing itself along the way.
I wonder if that’s really true
A year – can it be just a day?
If it is then I’m a part and so are you.
As we pass through this earthly delight
Another day of romance is on the way.
All the trees are out dancing tonight
Having put on their Sunday best.
Tonight they too can find this life's zest.

(Now move your body with the rhythm of the wind blown trees)

Let’s dance with them just for a little while.
Listen to the music of the air.
You move right – I’ll follow with a smile.
Then move left – the movement in your hair.
Living life with but one care
Taking this time to be aware.
Open your heart – no fear to share
Should or shouldn’t we dare?
This wonderful evening we are there.
Move again, I’ll take your hand
To and fro we say – isn’t it grand?
Waltzing – can you feel the breeze
In with a troop of trees?
I bow straight to my knees,
You follow and begin to see
Life and love and harmony
Peace of mind be seized.
Now holding on tight – still on your knees
Still moving to and fro I ask you please
Do you hear the music – does it give you ease?
Hold my hands and lean far back
And look up into the trees.
The answers there that no one sees
Imaginings to anyone who believes
That magic can’t be deceived
Open arms to be relieved
Move with me and be believed,
Cherished, loved and well received

Just dancing with the trees.

Shrouded in mystery, confined to my head —
Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead.
In here the inhabitants haven’t enough room —
They quibble and quarrel and spread so much gloom.

Do any of them have more of the native right—
To occupy my mind, let alone my sight?
There are those, the chosen ones, who grow here more strong,
Their rightful cause at great length fighting the wrong.

And every thoughtless idea the others bare,
They are my enemies but they are every where.
Thus worn and weakened and filled with ill content,
Why must I submit me to this internal government?

Impoverished and deprived of all my command,
Their thoughts double as mine lose their stand.
What they are is not real - not flesh and blood,
They’re a disgrace to everything and burnt like the wood.

If I died would not these heathens go up in flame?
They are priests of all religions, are they not all the same?
Of whatsoever descent from their godhead be,
Just mud and stone or other worthless pedigree.

In my defense my thoughts are always bold,
As if they were written of the purest gold.
But these Rabbis are my worst of enemies,
They are not honest men and they are not at all wise.

For if it 'twas their duty and like the learned think,
They’d espouse my own thoughts of which they eat and they drink.
From hence began this plot of my demise as if I were cursed,
Their bad intensifies in me – am I representing their worst?

Find your abundance, your radiance, your nourishment,
For in you lives a God or a Goddess lying dormant.
Be reverenced – that is the key of life -
Dance on your grave in your own behalf.
Do not live in fear for fear is like death.
Fear will return you to the soil without a breath.
That death, a compost for the new generation.
We hold the key to eternity in our outstretched hand.
Be courageous and face yourself and be annihilated
By your own light – your love – and be not rested
For rest is a kind of death absent of your essence.
Whatever death can take it will take – so be salient
And find that which is unborn and undying.
Life will knock seven times at the door to your heart,
Searching for the indestructible part of you to impart.
We are the King and the Queen of our own desires.
Dancing together with the world as our Kingdom’s choirs.
Rejoice in the world for here we are - we have come.
Let laughter be the nature of our bodies’ home.
A home where laughter defies death and love defies reason –
There our consciousness sits broadened
By the dance we dance – forcing death to be dethroned.

To this acquaintance,
A rendezvous with midnight.
A gentle Déjà vu and in some sense
I wonder if an unspoken invite
Has played a part or two.
Does the past ever ensue?

Words do become an addiction.
Layer upon layer of repeated satisfaction
Interjected, felt and spewed.
Silken sheet’s confessions are
Best made in the ****.
These words, why are they so bizarre?

Oh let me write it right
Let me dream tonight
Upon this unarmored stage.
Let me free the fight
All through the night
Releasing it from its cage.

With a candlelit smile upon a face
The sheets do gently part.
What fills my heart
Is the gentle art
Of a finger painting slowly traced.
It has not been done by the ones
Lessening love absent of these notions.

What lies beneath must lie beside
As the past becomes renewed.
A gentle kiss a midst a torrents tide
The naked beach subdued.
Wet sand shaping dry demands

Déjà vu be wooed.

You paid me a most humble courtesy
Ingratiating my own imagination’s sensuality.
It ‘tis one of those quiet thinking moments
Where for a time – mere moments – one’s spirit bows
Down with the body telling the mind a beautiful story.
But the body does so much more than just tell it.
So as I remember it, your mind does replay it.
The pleasure – as if it were greater than an actual
Remembrance of any true physical event.

What does this mean? you ask.
My feelings – my dear – would not be worth a penny
If I had not given these memories along with it.
Within ecstasy's imagination you will always remember me.
Whatever comes of it will make you the better for it.
What is imagination but a prelude to creation?
With the creation of anything – its being reclaims the imagined.
Imagined – created – imagined – created –
It goes round – n – round making of itself
A flavored reality sprinkled with the sweetest of all that is.
The sprinkles you feel are the effect of the seventy five
Percent water that we all truly are.

What can you imagine would happen if our memory
Awakened with this capability while holding hands?
My love, I can see the innocence in us both.
Innocence does not mean that we have not known life.
Innocence means that we are not guilty of failing our love.
If you are affected by these words or by any of my others,
May all of them be received with an equaling retort.
Upon each turn, each ascent and descent – they all are but
Road signs marking out our journey.
The safety that I afford you is as real as my memories.

Let my memories wash you clean of the evil
That you endure daily – repairing all that is damaged.
Absorb my imagination in word, in song and visually
As you feel yourself evolve.
Isn’t it sweet to feel these sweet threads spun in love
Mixed with the colors of our affections?
You have never touched me before -
But you have haven’t you?

We have all by ourselves, with a liberating simplicity,
Coupled our minds which must prove that love
Can be out of our heads and for my part in it
I cannot help but have these convictions.
All I ask in return is that you wear this love
As if it were a coat of arms letting my
Imagination free you from any evil harm.
For my kiss caries within it an Apostle’s heart.
If evil should continue to stand in our way
I shall imagine that evil’s demise.
Casting out the demons with nothing more
Than the warmest of all kisses.

Can you not feel them cower now?
That is the power of the imagination my dear.
For what is imagination if it is not a wish?
And is not a wish a prayer?
And is not a prayer Divine Ecstasy?

Let this be our truth!

Oh Lord hear my plea, I imagine ….

In my most quiet of moments
I stir my heart.
The mixture it generates swells
Throughout my extremities coalescing
In this page, another finger painted start.
It contradicts that which is allways of mind.
It conjures up something yet defined.
Splattered words on the kettle’s crest
They fill the void with more or less.
Tinkering on a balance beam,
The right words jostle to be redeemed.

I could say they were me – my own gentle art -
But are they? Or are they just mine to take the part?
For they come from where I cannot see
And sometimes they go to where I cannot be.
They drive me around in an uncovered plea
Straight up to the heart of me.
Yet it is here in these pages that I belong
Found between the lines – how could I be wrong?
If I were to dismantle my heart here before your eyes
Would you understand its dissected replies?
I think I surely would if I thought that you could
Trace the lines inside of me – all the way to understood.

In this one place I take leave of myself
Pulling out everything from off the shelf.
Scattered on the floor – oh what is left?
With my hand I pick up another piece of myself.
Placing it here, covertly from right to left.
Could you ever know of such a scattered line?
If you could it would be the real me defined.
Yes, in my most quiet of moments
I stir my heart.
In the mix it regenerates me -
The real me -
**eeS oT uoY roF

The mistress of my hereafter stole me away,
As she so oft does,
To a few minutes of quiet conversation.
In her silenced voice I could read my own
Long since Christianed anguish,
So near it is - but so ****** far away.
If only in Faraway we had us a private cottage,
Maybe then we could retire to our dreams.

The dressing room there
Would always be yours.
For I make everything yours
And call it so beforehand.
Thus making you the mistress
Of my entire hereafter.
My alpha - my omega.

This “Hereafter” is but a melancholy term ‘lest
We find ourselves stole away whilst
Communicating through our spirits.
For in spirit we have already met and
Shall surely meet again.
Let the certainty of it
Brighten us with its forth coming.

Thou surely must be the author
Of the utmost of our faith.
Faith in that day of heaven’s thought where
In Faraway the cottage nestles between
Twin peaks in the sweetest valley
Ever laid at your feet while eyes
See every days' blue azure sky.

There we dine together by candlelight
In the middle of the day while we
Cater the meal toward happiness.
In Faraway, all around us lives
In a rapturous praise along with all that ever was.
And if you should ever find my wit oppressing to
Your kindness, then show your disdain and
I will surely take my leave.

As we look together through the candlelight
Let us see only the highest values in each other.
Let my eyes put your name on notice
That if I were so employed as to be a slave
In this land called Faraway, then my heart
Would be no less than the prophet accommodated
Somewhere within your walls.

There with a stool and a candlestick
I would sit patiently waiting for your unmaking.
There my soul could be at peace from this world.
I’d lean against your wall with the candle in my hand,
I’d look into your eyes as I blew out the light.
The cottage would then come to life
As would the hearth within us.

We’d breathe in each other fueling the fire.
For love is the fuel that burns here in Faraway,
Our sweet vapors rising high into the sky.
They are bless'ed fires that never end.
Come - blow out the candle once more and
Let's lose our disguises–
Later I'll relight the candle so we can
Blow it out and do it all over again.

I see an ancient moon
Passing through the soft
Branches entering my window.
Reaching into the illumination feeling
The fire - impalpable in my arms,
Shadowed by wrinkles with a remembrance
Touched by everything that always brought me home.
It is as if everything that exists, all light, all aromas,
All that I touch - they are all the sea upon which I float.
Funny how little by little I learned to love yet
Little by little I also seem to forget.
Somehow we forgot how to look for each other.
You left me at the shore holding my own heart,
Where my roots were exposed and ripped out
Floating away to seek new lands carrying
With me this silent, broken existence.
Destiny will undoubtedly land me wherever it will but
As the moon shines on me tonight I float off
To the heavens while nothing is extinguished.
For love feeds on love and as long as I live I
Shall forever be in your arms as surely as
This moonlight shines ever so softly in mine.

Your votes could have established dark powers over all control,
Such votes could have made the smallest part exceed the whole.
Only groundless clamoring’s do the protests approve,
Instead, now the power is ours to punish and to remove.
But now false gods and evil cast their wares and express,
Defending their own evil servants or their own rhetoric’s distress.
Oh that my powers of saving truth were not confined,
I’d show you how you are being forced to believe that evil is best for your mind,
Making an example out of every one of our kind.
Must I at length wield the sword of justice and then withdraw?
Ore the cursed effects of trying to confuse the law!
How ill our fates are by their blood thirsty scam.
Beware my people! Of the fury of a patient man.
The law is what patience requires, watch the law show her single face.
And don’t be content to depend purely on grace.
Oh yes, her words are always true with a glaring eye,
She can erase terror and she will never die.
By their own evil arts 'tis her righteousness decreed,
Those dire artificers of lies shall finally be the ones to bleed.
Against themselves their own witnesses will swear,
Till viper-like their sinister plot they themselves shall be ensnared.
For they **** from the nutrients of their own ****** gore
Which was always their principle of the evil long before.
With Belial and with Belzebub they themselves will fight,
Once comrades, now foes, even their foes shall do them right.
Do not doubt this event as felicitous mouths engage,
They tell lies and show only of their own brutal rage.
Then let them all take their own resisted course,
To Guantanamo to finally find their long deserved remorse.
But when they stand up all breathless late at night,
Let their guilt rise up in them with redoubled might.
For lawful is powerful and still is still superior all around.
Even when long driven back at length it must stand its ground.
They all took their oath and gave their solemn consent,
So there will be no appeals under this firmament.
Henceforth a series of new times shall begin,
Though many painful years in long procession has woefully ran.
Once more this nation will be restored,
And all other nations will know the law is our lord.

This is not going to be a poem. Please bear with me as I try to explain something important to me. I am getting responses (Hello Poetry email) from children. I want for the Hello Poetry community to pull together and find a solution. Some of these kids are expressing to me that they do not have anyone that cares about them.

Since my NDE I can tell you that this is not unusual for me. On my property I have all sorts of animals that regularly congregate in my yard. Many different species, sometimes animals who you would think are dangerous to one another can often be seen together on my property. I’ll leave it at that other than to say that many of these wild animals have become my friends. They innately trust me and I trust them. Everything from bears, coyotes, deer, turkeys, hawks, eagles, turtles, snakes, rabbits, lizards, squirrels, and raccoons can often be seen in my yard or on my porches. You are going to say that I feed them. I do not. My property is very small but it backs up to a property that is leased and protected by the Army Corp of Engineers. I only mention this because I do believe that humans are sometimes curious about me too. Maybe this is why these children are writing to me.

I respond to these kids and tell them that it is inappropriate for me to talk to them. As one user pointed out to me, a child has a completely different mindset than an adult has. A child is a precious thing and so impressionable.  Like some of the animals that appear in my life, sometimes I help them in some way. If their injured I either help them myself or get them medical attention. If something in their environment threatens anyone of these animals I try to mitigate the threat.  That’s not said to put a feather in my cap. It’s just how I view life now. So now we come to these kids. Just like my animal friends, I feel concern for these kids. I have seen some of the writing about there being a writer on this forum who is not being a good steward when it comes to the children on this site. In the hopes to promote a better stewardship and responsibility toward the children on this site I propose that we pool our resources together and make a concerted effort to provide a safe haven for these kids. What I would like to see is a few of you woman step forward and offer to mediate for us guys who receive email from a child. Someone that we can forward the info of the child to so that a motherly individual can take part in gently leading these children into a safe or safer mode of communication.  I’m sure that I am not the only one that they are emailing. It could be that a few are not even kids. I don’t know. But like the animals that sometimes are curious enough to come to my hand when I reach out to them, there’s just something in me that I cannot turn away or ignore these kids. I need help. Maybe you guys could organize a plan for communicating with some of these kids. It just is not safe for them to be writing to complete strangers.
Email me if you feel compelled to help or if this is happening to you as well. Here’s an example of one of the correspondences that I’ve had…

A….redacted  15h
Follow me on Instagram please ? || @..... redacted
***** Shakysphere  14h
Hi and thanks for the invite but I don’t chat with kids. Have a great day and please be careful talking to strangers.
A…redacted  14h
Okay ; sorry for disturbing. You
***** Shakysphere  13h
Not a problem. Just be careful on the web.
A….redacted  13h
Got you - thanks for looking out for me not many people care about me

The above is a 14 year old.  
They say it takes a community to raise a child. I’ve raised two mostly by myself.  Any suggestions or ideas on how we as a community can reach out to these kids and help them and protect them would be appreciated.

“I think I must be incapable in properly saying
That which honors the concern you show me.”
With that she placed her hand in his and in her
Best broken French she continued….
“Marcherez-vous avec moi avalez-vous mon chemin?”
(Will you walk with me my way?)
He replies, “Naturellement fe veux mon cher.”
(Naturally I will my dear.)

There is a time when a virtuous convention,
Once created betwixt a woman and a man,
Sanctifies even those most private of walks.
This walk being as it was – in the dusk of the evening
Had within it their roads laid out the same way.
Hand in hand in a shared silence both of them
Admiring the sky’s crimson closing.
With a small tribute to such as this toward virtue
He felt her cold fingers clutch together in his and
Just then she broke the daunting silence asking,
“La beauteu ciel est-elle suelement vue par ceux
qui choisissent de la partager?”
(Is the sky’s beauty only seen to those who choose to share it?)
His answer, “ Pas plus que l’amour, moncher. Pour garder
de lui est juste comme imutile. – Quel but est-il eoins
qui ‘il soit partage.”
(No more than love - for the keeping of it is just as useless.
Of what possible purpose is it unless it is shared?)

She seemed much affected with what he had said giving it a low sigh.
He was incapable of inquiring after the sigh so
He said nothing more ‘til they came to the corner of
Tomorrows' Road and Yesterdays' Pass.
That was where they were to part today.
Waiting for the path to clear he asked, “Est-ce
Que je dois vous server le reste de la mania?”
(Shall I attend you the rest of the way?)
She replied first with a look to his hand
And then to his eyes, “Pas du tout, monsieur.
Vous pouvez cependant me server toute la manua.”
(Not at all, sir. You may however attend me all the way.)

With this he seemed to loose his French verbs for a time
And it was not until they were steadfast alone in her
Bungalo that any French returned.
Yet the French that returned said not a single word.
She was most capable though the question
She answered was never asked.
If he had to have asked he would have asked,
“Cue ferai-je avec vous ?
Devrais-je vous aimer de tout mon cœur ?
Je crois que dans la route que nous prenons,
il cause l'intersection d'entre nous..”

Only the little French in her knows…..

“Let me tell you,” she said as she reached
For her glasses making her eyes to be
At least five times their original size.
“Let me tell you right now, you don’t know anything.
Hard times, these aren’t hard times, why I remember
A time during the great depression when all we had to eat
Were a few soda crackers everyday, I ate so many
Soda crackers I could wipe my backside with
A wisk broom – Now those were hard times.”

“I know Grandma; I know you’ve been through a lot,”
I said as I held her by the arm trying to get her into
My little compact Japanese gas saver car.
I held her from bumping her head on the top of the car
So that she could try to get one leg into the
Floor of the front passenger seat.
“Watch your head Grandma.”

“You look the other way, how in the name of heaven
Do they expect someone do get into these tiny little bugs?
I said for you to look the other way,
Can’t you see I’m in a dress?
Now your Grandpa, rest his poor soul,
That man - at least he knew how to pick a car.
Why, you could put four of these little
Mutant Ninja Turtles in that old Buick we had
And still get two more in the trunk.
Where is that old Buick anyway?”

“Remember Grandma, we sold it to pay
For your adjustable comfort bed,” I answered
As I - with my head turned - lifted her other leg
And eased it into the car.
“Let’s put on your seat belt, Grandma.”

She slapped my hand and stomped the floor saying,
“Stop it, stop it, don’t you put that noose around my head.
I’ve been riding in cars for Nye on sixty years
And I’ve never worn a seat belt and I ain’t about
To start a wearing one now.
Ted, it’s your responsibility not to hit anything -
And if you can’t drive good enough to keep from
Hitting anything in the five miles to Doctor Langston’s
Office then you can just go right back in the house and
Get that shoe horn of mine and come back out here
And wedge me back out of this torture box.”

Caught up in oblivion, shutting the car door carefully,
While shaking my head, I wondered what
Mortal sin I had committed that created these
Circumstances where I had to be subjected to the
Wrath of my Grandmother’s dominance.
Once underway I reminded her,
“I’m not Ted Grandma, I’m *****, remember me?
I’m Ted's son; *****: Ted had to work today so I’m taking
You to the doctor.” She looked at me through
Those thickened glasses and then tightened her grip
On the purse lying in her lap.
Then she turned her head looking out the side
Window as the trees and mailboxes passed by.

All three of the red lights on the way to the doctor’s office
Were green and we made it there it record time.
I pulled into a parking spot and looked towards her
And said, “Here we are safe and sound.”

She turned her head away from the side window and then
She looked oddly at her purse saying, “I have a confession
To make Ted, I mean *****.”
Like a small child caught with her hand in the cookie jar
She continued, “I really don’t have a doctor’s appointment today.”

“What do you mean Grandma?”

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes,” I just get so
Darned lonely sometimes, *****. So lonely that I think
That I’m going out of my mind.” Then she looked back
At her purse as a tear ran off the side of her cheek.

I felt her pain and I knew a little about loneliness.
I reached over with my right hand placing it on her left
And asked, “How would you like to go to the park
Today Grandma?”

She looked up saying, “Only if I can have a hot dog.”

Sand sifting gently through my fingers,
A dedicated time ‘til my body lingers.
Oh, to know the smell of the center of your hand,
To see into those eyes -
To feel those sighs.

Sometimes I don’t think I can wait
But then it’s too late.
How can all this be real
When I’ve not even a finger to feel?
Visions of heart – remembering soul –
Up to now that is all that I know.
I'm lost in this moment,
Chained to the sweet torment.
Inside a fire is burning
Hotter than hell – so full of yearning.

Maybe the wrong place -
Maybe the wrong time.

Is it a crime
To watch the sand as it falls?
Measuring time ‘til my body lingers
And I have you - lost in my fingers.

I dream awake and work while I’m sleeping.
I sit on the floor and stand on my couch.
I open the window to let out the air.
I pour out my drink because I’m thirsty.
I eat the apple peeling and throw out the apple.
I wait till something is rusty before I paint it.
I shut my mouth when asked what I think.
I close my eyes so I can see better.
I scratch my nose when my *** itches.
I don’t throw out the bath water or the baby either.
I put my foot up – not down - whenever I’m angry.
I cry myself silly and laugh myself a river.
I don’t dig ditches, I fill them.
I don’t get thirsty, I just get wet.
I am never early and I’m always late.
I sleep under the bed so I don’t have to make it.
I am not an eager ****** – I’m more of a Billy cat.
I do my homework at somebody else’s house.
I don’t pick my nose - I poke stuff in it.
I don’t punch a clock – I wear it on my ankle.
I don’t have a wedding ring – I have a wedding rung.
I cannot sing anymore because I forgot where I left my voice.
I am ugly as a picture and twice worse than nice.
I park on the parkway and drive on the driveway.
When I jump out of an airplane I yell ESKIMO.
I fly on a plane but I’d prefer to be in it.

But most of all

I wish I hadn’t started this silly poem cause now I'm out of periods

Is ever what is at one’s center
Not that which flies to the extremes?
But are we not victims of some injustice
Mounted in concentric rings
Flying up the stairs to meet?

The longer I look up the staircase
The stronger they do weave
Themselves into my brain.
Any other would run up the steps
Without the slightest solicitation.

But do I have the authority
To take each step forward while
Weighing the equaling step backwards?
For this is true of myself,
Each step forward was placed

There to slow my accent allowing
Me to gain a better perspective
As I climb.
But is the author ever out of rule
If his conjectures are not easily read?

But 'IS' the author ever out of rule
When the pen strikes the paper
Pounding out the movements in time
Within his heart’s blessed beat?
Present, past and future all intertwined.

Or is it the reader who passes on
The least insinuation which moves the pen
Toward the reader’s direction?
Taking another step upward - are not
Hearts undressed in a begging plea

That no garment could ever
Cover that which is weak about each?
I know not how to throw the garment on.
Tis a written account of the journey
Of the heart in pursuit of the affections

That rise out of Love.
The most perplexing thing in life
Being the effort of telling
Anyone who I am.
For it seems that only to myself
Can I give a fair account.
Simplicity being of great measure
One should be able to describe one’s
Own self with in a 'single' word.

If I measure myself with one word
With my heart in my pen
Explaining all the efforts engaged
While looking up to the next step
That one word has to be ... I am

Yours...

Was there ever anything in nature
So sweet or so exquisite that it must be
Resisted before it can come to fruition?
Within natures covering malice cannot blacken
One’s heart nor shall ignorance misrepresent it.
Even such as it is I must slave for nineteen
Hours out of twenty-four with the remaining
Time to be spent reckoning for the first nineteen.
There is nothing in the world that I loathe more
Than to be interrupted in the middle of a story
Except and unless the same interruption happens
While I am dreaming the end of a story
Before I have ever written the first verse.
This is not a distinction without a difference.

For Instance ...

If I had on my head a three-cornered hat
With one and a half brims turned up
And one and a half brims turned down
Would you say that I went off half cocked?
What if I had two brims turned up
And one brim turned down would you then
Say that I was two-thirds cocked?
If this is true then if I roll all three brims up
Then I suppose you’d say that I am fully cocked.
I tell you that I can be neither half cocked,
Two thirds cocked or fully cocked
As long as my hat is on my head.

For ‘tis only when my head is bare as a
Baby’s backside can I even begin to ponder
The gray matter uncovered by some old hat.
In any event it matters not a bean’s stalk
Whether the old hat is half cocked
Or if it’s a half cocked old hat.
The difference is in the definition of
An old hat as well as in the definition
Of what cocked really means.
And you’d best be careful how you mix the two
Otherwise if I laid my old hat on the bed
And cocked it just right somebody could
Get the wrong impression.

My bleeding here like this -
May it never stop until I have
Taken my very last breath.
And in that last breath may I
Somehow take up my pen
Thrusting it into my chest once again
To make way for the release of that last
Phrase which still anchors itself so
****** deep in my soul.

Oh, to feel it finally ooze from me
Leaving me void of its painful control.
Of which I both love it and I hate it too.
Its double edged influence like God
Himself on the one side giving me hope
While the devil is on the other,
The destroyer of all that I ever hoped.
Oh dear Lord - is not my pen like
A multi-cartridge-d vessel containing
More than just one color?

At times to be blue
When the pain of life draws out that color.
Spilling all my tears
To anyone within my reach.
At other times my pen writes a crimson red,
Letting go of all the love that is in me.
Then to click it yet again to find the black
Darkness that also lives somewhere in my soul.
But there is another color, isn’t there Lord?

Yes, one so silky white in color
That when I write in on this page
No one can ever see it.
That is, no one but you Lord.
So if I leave a white page
With my last dying breath
Perhaps you’ll understand that it’s
Just another note from me to you.

Pulling my pen from my bleeding heart
While taking the last breath I shall write to you:

With the tidings of my fate squarely in your hands oh Lord,
My bleeding has not quite yet stopped.
Here you are to come to administer
Whatever consolation of thy affection
That thy Love has for me.
Dear Lord, receiveth my parting breath
And close my eyes within your blessings.
And when I reawaken let me find myself
Somewhere in the midst of your framework.

Thou hast undoubtedly numbered all of my tears
And placed them in a bottle for safe keeping.
Dear God, thou has always been the framework
For all these words that I bleed upon these pages.
They were all my fancy embracing my feeble knees
Hoping to raise my eyes to bid me into your comfort.
They are all my own blessings like the child within my heart.
Never more so than when I am bleeding here like this
In these words – only then do I feel your principles
Ever present within me.

So take me Lord when my bleeding has stopped
And please don’t be alarmed if even then
My soul dips its finger into my own crimson jell
And one last time with that finger I write

In the name of Love……

What a huge span of adventures can be
Had in such a short span of one lifetime.
At least to he who takes interest in every thing he
Has the eye to see what time, chance and signs
Are perpetually holding out as he journeys
On his way. Missing nothing that he can
Fairly lay his hands upon, rather than

Creating an essay of human nature, or an experiment of the senses
Which always manages to put the blood to sleep.
I pity the man that can follow me around intensely
Only to argue and cry that all around us is barren as he weeps.
And by his own omission – so it is for him – he who may say
He will not cultivate the fruit that is all around him.
I get up clapping my hands declaring cheerily that this is MY day!

And some days I do find out how the day shall
Call out all of my affections -something I could never do alone.
Sunny or cloudy, rainy or snowy – it makes no difference at all -
I fasten on the day like a helmet and seek out something to bring home -
Is it here – Is it there? Is it me – Is it you?
So if I fail to get out of the rain once in while
Just say that I strapped on a wet, rainy day and a smile.

Stone | Water | Wine
You | Truth | Fire
Physical | Consciousness | Spirit

The good book if read properly focuses its allegory of
Symbols and signs saying one thing while meaning another.
The word stone always meaning - you or the physical.
The word water standing in for truth and consciousness.
The word wine meaning the fire or of the spirit.
The trinity thus is – stone, water and wine
In every biblical representation of each.

How do I know, what do you know and what does it matter?
Watch this…

In the ancient document we often find the use of the word Israel.
But what was Israel and where was it?
Was it a real place?
Israel is not a Jewish word.

Is | Ra | El
Egyptian | Egyptian | Egyptian
God | God | God
Isis | Ra | Within
Female | Male | Both Male and Female
****** Spirit | Mind | Ang-el (do you see the El)*

That’s why all the angels are named, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Rafael and
All the other El versions of the angelic allegorical texts.

The word Israel when spoken of in the gospel has nothing to do with
A race of people or a specific nationality of people.
It means that when the spirit and mind are together
They produce the power that is within.

So when someone asks you “Why is God prejudice – or why God
Has chosen people,” and they truly want to know what all this is about
You can now safely tell them that the Apostle Paul said that
A Jew is not a Jew outwardly but instead a Jew is one inwardly.

Now I am going to let you ponder on these teachings for a bit.
Go read your bible and when you see the word rock or stone
Think of it as a symbol for you or for the physical aspects of life.
When you see the word water see it as truth or the conscious aspect of truth.
When you see the word wine understand that it means fire and spirit.

The bible is not only transcribed by men of ancient times
But they had a knowledge that has become mired and confused
By time and by countless belief systems – these people had an
Advanced knowledge of the cosmos and the inner workings
Of everything.
Don’t believe me?

Jews are known in the bible as the children of light.
And what is God? The bible says that God is light.
Look it up. His name is what? His name is I am that I am.
God is not human – it is written. Look it up.
And in Numbers Chapter 2 and verse 9 we hear
That the number of the tribe of Judah was 186,400.

And what is that number, does it mean anything to you?
186,400 is the exact speed per second of light and here we have it
In the old testament referring to the Jews – the children of light.
How could they have possibly known that exact figure?
Oh we’ve just begun. The knowledge held within the pages of
This book is fascinating beyond belief – if we would just
Get through the false teachings that the Bible is literal
And learn to read the stories and their allegorical teachings
Through the lens of a pure heart and mind not jaded
By conviction or guilt or all the traditional ties.

Instead listen to Jacob tell you what is inside of you:

Genesis 32:30 - Jacob then named the place Peniel,
'For I have seen God face to face,' he said,
'And I have been delivered.'

On my evening walk about town
I passed by all the usual places.
Martini’s to my left, Betty’s cap and gown
Hap’s store on the right, the new salon called Faces.
Oh there are many more but turning the corner
Of Second and Elm I noticed an old goat following me.

He must have belonged to someone,
He seemed clean and well feed.
But no matter where I turned
He just kept following me.
Amused I was and solidly delighted.
So I led him back through town at a brisk pace
Hoping that somebody would claim him.

I came up to parson Bill and he said,
“Hey that’s a nice goat you have there.”
“Oh he’s not my goat,
It’s just my turn to walk him,” I explained
As we headed down Main Street.
Crossing a side street Officer Don was
Sitting in his patrol car, “Hey Will,
Where did you get the old goat?” he yelled.
“Oh he’s not mine, it’s the town goat -
Haven’t you heard, it’s just my turn to walk him.”

And so we went, me and this old goat bumping
Into just about everyone that was anyone.
As I made my way back across Elm Street,
My street, I met Hap, Betty, Don, Bill, Martini,
the new owner of Faces and 12 other people
All waiting for their turn.

Yep, he’s the town goat everyone now knows.
They walk him, they pet him, they feed him, they just love him -
You know
That sure is one **** smart old goat….

If you knew everything there is to know,
Then how could you ever learn anything or grow?

If you somehow knew all that will ever be
Could any decision that you decide upon ever make you free?

If your mind was everything and everything was in you
Could their ever be anything else for you to do?

And there you are – right in the middle of this inquisition,
A slave to your own reality – chained to your own constitution.

But it is you who has allowed yourself to be caught in this net
You came here not to remember anything but to forget.

You have forgotten who you are and in your own grand illusion find
A dream of freedom and free will which further confuses your mind.

For knowing everything is a girdle of limitless limitation,
But here we have a place of both the known and the unknown – called creation.

In this ignorance you have something to choose,
Freedom from perfection – there was no other way to lose.

So you see – only if you know yourself as that which is not true,
Only there could you be free to select whatever you want to.

Within a single mind, two hands and two eyes; you think, feel and see
These envisioned experiences – only now they can truly be.

Yes, free will also gave you the choice to forget from where you come,
Yet, the closer we return to that place – the happier we become.

I learned to control my awareness and thus I can oft return,
But the closer I get the less choice remains for me to learn.

Though I long for and receive more and more of the infinite’s touch,
The more I also long for the finite in me not to know so much.

One evening, while going to a small concert being held at Martini’s,
I was just entering the door of the establishment when a woman
Was coming out in a rush with tears in her eyes.
I moved as quickly to one side as I could - to give her free passage.
She did the same only to the same side as I and in a most compromising
Manner we solidly ran our two heads together with a thud.
She immediately jumped to the other side to get out of the door.
It seemed as if I were as unlucky as she for as she sprang to one side, so did I -
A second time, and a third – as if I were intentionally trying to block her way.
It was ridiculous and though she smiled through her tears I felt so unbelievably
Inadequate to move anywhere, so finally I just stood still so she could pass.
But the guilt of those tears beckoned me that this literal bumping into each other
Was not by mere chance, so much so that I now had not a reason to see the concert.
So I stepped back out of the doorway and followed her with my eye
As she made her way down the sidewalk.
She looked back at me twice looking like she was running away from me.
To anyone else who might have been watching it might have seemed
As if I were the transgressor and indeed one woman
Entering Martini’s gave me a look of scorn as if I
Were the reason for the woman’s tears.
I shook my head trying to say, “No, it isn’t me,” but it seemed
A futile plea to her as she had condemned me already.
But whether I was to blame or not mattered little
Because as a human being - did I not have the duty to reach out
To any creature who might be in distress?
I made a thought in my head that said that I should apologize
So I started out after her – no that’s not the correct translation –
I lit out after her, whoever she was, hoping that I could be of some assistance.

When I had caught up to her she was standing on the corner hailing a cab.
It was dark and she was dressed all in black and every cab that passed
Acted as if she were invisible.
It was beginning to rain and as I stepped up next to her I took off
My coat and wrapped it around her which at first startled her.
Then I begged her forgiveness for the earlier incident, trying to
Explain that I was merely trying to get out of her way.
She answered that she too was guided by the same intention
Towards me and she said that it was her fault and not mine.
So we reciprocally and sufficiently apologized and thanked
Each other until I saw a cab approaching from down the street.
I stepped out onto the street and whistled at the cabbie and
The driver quickly pulled up beside us.
I opened the back door to the cab and handed her in it
While she squirmed and removed my coat handing it back to me.
One of the buttons on my coat was steadfast hung in her black sweater
And as we both tried to free the button – our heads butted again.
We both laughed as I said that this was the fourth time that our heads
Had met each other tonight.
She put her lips to my ear and whispered,
“I wish to heaven that you would make me a fifth bumping.”
She moved over in the seat and I joined in beside her thinking
How life is too short to be long about the forms of it.

Having summoned an Uber I walked
Into the Remise to await for its arrival.
Unusual, the owners of this 1750’s building
Had refused to knock down the Remise
And as it was snowing and cold it sure was
A comforting place to wait out of the weather.

I imagined how it must of looked in its heyday
Full of fine coaches and horse tack.
For a moment I could smell a horse all bridled
And strapped with new leather – something which
Stirred up an agreeable sensation within me;
I could feel the churlish beast chomping at the bit.

Twiddling my thumbs as I waited I wondered if
There were anyone left to construct such an ancient
Horse drawn carriage or was there even anyone left
Who could ever think of using it.
But as oft I do I let my mind wander to
Those good old days, though not one of which I knew.

Closing my eyes, I swear that I could smell the oak fire
Of a blacksmith’s furnace and I could hear the
Gent solidly hammering out a new set of gaited horseshoes.
In my minds eye I could see the Remise all
Full of carriages, each hooked to a fine stead -
What a grand sight it must of truly been.

It was then that I felt a hand in mine and when I
Turned toward the hand – to my wandering eye -
I had a hold on the most intriguing creature that God
Had ever given a man to hold, I dared not open my eyes.
She looked into my soul and asked me,
“Sir, which carriage?”

At about 8 paces in front of us was what I suppose
Was the best equipped of the lot and as its driver
Stepped down and made his way toward me/us
I noticed the lady was as taken with it as myself.
So Monsieur De La Dessein – the driver – or at
Least that was how he introduced himself,

Then he asked me if we cared to take the Grand Tour.
He led us up to the door of the chaise and as he opened
The door I said, “This one will not do,
It is hardly big enough for one.”
The lady, without hesitation, pushed me toward the
Door whispering, “Get in.”

Upon her insistence I climbed aboard taking up
All but about 4 inches of the seat cushion
When the lady put her head and foot in the
Carriage saying, “Move over.”
With no place to move I tilted up on one cheek
With my legs – one atop of the other.

Now my lady was climbing in full bodied and all
To find that she too must sit on one cheek facing me
With our knees knocking against each other.
The driver shut the door as the lady said, “Abarth.”
The horse sprang to life as the “La Grand Tour” began.
Face to face, body to body this buggy ride was …

How should I say it ….

Wonderful….

And then I did the stupidest thing that I’d ever done.
I opened my eyes to find the Remise empty -
No carriages, no horses, no blacksmith and no ravishing beauty.
Just an empty place to get in out of the weather.
My heart sank lower than it had ever been before.
What mind is this that can wander so ****** far from reality?

A little tiny car whipped into the Remise and right in front of me
It turned a half moon pulling up to me.
I noticed the labeling on the front of the car – Fiat.
The back windows were all blacked out.
The driver got out coming toward me on the passenger side.
As he opened the back door I asked him what kind of car this was.

He said it was a Fiat Abarth and he hoped that
I didn’t mind sharing the ride.
As I bent over peering inside the driver said his name
“Monsieur De La Desein” and sitting on
One cheek in the back of this mutant automobile
Was – that intriguing creature that I had just dreamed about.

Carefully – more expertly this time – I crawled into
The back – on one cheek – face to face
As the Uber driver asked me, “Where to.”
In perfect unison – we in the back replied
“La Grand Tour please.”

God, please don't make me open my eyes...

This darkened - smoke filled room
Seems like a silly place for people to gather
In such a smelly sardine fashion.
The band on stage finishing up its last number
Of their best set of copy cat blues.
The neon bar sign flashes as if a short
While the bartender bellows out “Last Call.”

One fellow sitting at a table in front of me
Seems to find his nerve.
I suppose enough Jack Black was all that was needed
To make his first move.
A few words pass and then
He leads his new found princess
To the dance floor.
Many leaving, many preparing to leave
As these two begin to dance.

They move perfectly together
Without any sound
Except for the drummer who ends
The beat with a final clamber of sound.
The guitar man leans his weapon against the wall
While the keyboard player turns off his magic.

But the two just keep on dancing.

The bar tender begins swabbing the decks
While an old gray haired man
Sweeps the floors in front of him
Turning the chairs up as he goes.
Sweeping away the memories of this night -
The old man stops to pick up a lost yellow rose
Someone dropped carelessly on the floor.
The old man takes the rose over to the couple dancing
Taping the young man on the shoulder he asks,
“Did ya drop this?”
The fellow, still moving to the imaginary beat responds,
“No sir, but I think she did.”
Taking the rose, holding it in one hand, she doesn’t miss a beat,
Still dancing with her newfound partner.
Walking by my table the old man nods at me
While saying, “It’s time to go.”
Getting up I place my chair on the table
Still watching the couple dancing.
My ears still ringing from the sounds
Of the band as I finish off my water.
And I wonder,
I wonder if I was a drinking man,
One like the one on the dance floor
Tightly absorbed in the moment,
With his new found lady friend

Could that ever be me?

Maybe,
Maybe if I hadn’t dropped the rose….

Thy lively prose and sprightly words disclose
Within a sweetness of eyes as fixed as those.
The flavor of your smile extends
Often to reject, but with love, it never offends.
To a poet thine eyes strike
Like the sunshine, they are so alike.
With a graceful ease void of pride
It hides any fault - if in you - you ever had any fault to hide.
For if to thy being some poetic errors befall
One look into those words and I’d have surely forgotten them all.

Doest’ thou know the beauty that I find in a single verse?
Let alone the many where my mind becomes traversed?
In unequal sentences measured in a peck
They shine like gold covering ‘round your ivory neck.
In these labyrinths - I am but a slave detained –
A mighty heart held within your slender chains.
So much to ponder in your imperial snare.
When all I ever needed was to know you there.

Let me breathe the breath that raises the fire.
Till we all fall together, never let us transpire.
To obtain and possess for each of us this prize.
The one I see when I’m lost within these cries.
If the powers can grant me but half of this prayer,
Then all the rest can fly to the winds dispersed into empty air.

Come now, my poet friends, secure this vessel that glides,
Fill it once again like sunbeams trembling across the floating tides.
Melt away the distant music that stole away the sky,
A deafening sound along the unwritten reply.
Please feel the smooth flow of the waves in gentle play.
Give me another smile to share with the whole world today.

Oh my thoughts of you are so tightly compressed,
I see the love tread softly across all the rest.
Summoned straight from some denizen's despair,
A lucid mastery of mystery, let it sail in to repair.
Soft underneath this shroud of death,
Let me feel your whispered breath.
Words flowing of the love we all bequeath.
We are many fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Let us lose these garments erasing every mortals’ sight.
Our bodies given away freely in the words of a few,
Each of us lost in the other, the ones’ we always knew.
From every beam a transient color flings,
Given of life with our love on its wings.
Amidst the circle of life rides an ink filled gilded mast
With our hearts throbbing together within our task.
With purple pinions raised to the sun,
We raised our pens and shouted - we have just begun.

I have something within me that I cannot
Bear the burden of of its insinuation.
In the sport-ability of chit-chat I have
Often tried to conquer these thoughts
And with infinite pain I have hazarded
A thousand things hidden within myself.

“Excuse me,’’ I said upon seeing his face
Coming toward me while walking in Central Park.
“Are you who I think you are?’’ I asked.
“I suppose that depends on who you think I am,” he replied.
Not wanting to be made out a fool I asked
“OK, are you best known as JFK?”
“Well not exactly, he was my father,” he said with a smile.

I stuck out my hand like an idiot – but -
He offered his hand and shook mine like a man.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, “You really can
Bump into anyone in the big apple.”
He said that he had to be going, had to finish
His walk and get back to the office.

I asked him if I could tag along, just walk with him.
He said, “Sure.”
He kept a brisk pace, it was a cool day but comfortable.
The leaves were turned, mostly all fallen and
Then I realized that it was November 22nd.
“I’m real sorry about your dad,” I said,

“It broke my heart when I was a child.”
He nodded his head and sort of slowed his pace.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“I was 9”.
“I was 3”, he said looking at the ground.
“Yeah I know,” I said, “Everybody knew.”

He stopped and turned toward me,
Tilted his head to the left and point blank said,
“You know the story about my dad’s assassination
Is all BS don’t you?”
He caught me completely off guard but before I
Could say anything he turned back around and starting

Walking away from me like I had the plague.
I stood in my tracks but after he had gotten about 10 paces
He stopped and turned, “Well, do you want to walk or not?”
I half jogged to catch up with him and when I did
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Look I don’t know you and you don’t know me, “ he said
In a rough almost angry voice.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
Still half jogging to keep up with him I answered,
“Sounds like you need someone to talk to.”

He slowed a bit, “I just got confirmation on who killed my dad.”
OK, about this time I’m like you saying a few choice curse words
In my mind – like holy sh…. You know..
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Hell I don’t know,” he said, “It’s all circumstantial.”
Coming to a complete stop, “There’s got to be a way that I
Can tell people, let the whole world know that I know who did it.”

He turned to me, “What would you do if you knew who took your dad
Away from you when you were just a baby but if you told anyone about these
Murdering, slime ***** they would most likely **** you too?” he asked.
“I don’t know sir,” I said shrugging my shoulders.
“If I had your money I’d figure out a way though,” I continued.
With a questioning look he asked, “OK, if you had my money what would you do?”

“I don’t know, man,” I said - “Maybe name a building after them or a street
Or something that everyone knew you named.
You know, like a hint or a clue or something.”
His eyes got big, “That’s it,” he said, “By God that’s it.”
He shook my hand again and asked me my name.
And a few short years later he was gone too.

But the name – the name he named his business – there’s your clue

Silent Circles
Suspended in light
Spiraling eloquence
Reflecting the night

In a dance
One shadows
Then becomes shadowed
Circling each other
Within passions sight

Ruling sun rays
Lines them up
To each an audience
Rounding each other
As One

With haloed shoulders
We mask the solitude
‘Neath the starry valence
Of night
Oceans waving
Conjoined in balance
Of our ever enlightened might

Life is
As a grand eclipse
Fleeting moments
Waltzing
Around the sun

Once shadowed
We forever shadow
Dancing
Till morning’s dawn

To and fro we sway
Dancing with words
We say
Living eclipsed
As one

In times to come, will you believe me or believe my verse
When they come to place the words “Poet” on my tomb?
But if I write of the hidden beauty found in those eyes,
Or try to solidly account for all of your graces
Heaven itself would stop and say, "This poet lies,
Such heavenly features never left our heavenly places."
So should my letters become yellowed with age,
Or be ravaged by old women of less truth than tongue,
Sentencing my words to remain inside this poet's cage,
A simple wrinkle of some ancient love song.
Through your children that live in that futuristic time,
You will live twice, in them and in this rhyme.

Sitting outside an old country store somewhere between the real world and what used to be sat an old wrinkled man in a swing, straw hat on his head, tobacco chew in his lower lip with a tin coffee cup for the waste. He had his legs crossed sort of funny; I could tell that the age of his body made him feel uncomfortable. I could almost feel his back as it ached. As I got out of my car an old hound dog moved slowly to the old man’s side. Above the old man was on old tin Coca Cola sign mostly rusted away by time. I stopped for a moment and looked at the old store front. It must have been a vintage from somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century. As I passed by the old man on the bench, I nodded my head and the old man reached up for his old ***** straw hat and tipped the front of it slightly. He having greeted me in his way as I had greeted him with mine. I pushed on the old wooden screen door to hear its spring stretch and the hinges creak and after I entered I failed to catch the screen door and I shuttered as it slammed shut. Above me was an old silent ceiling fan whispering out a slow gyrating motion as it passed down the air around me. A peaceful majestic feeling came over me. Looking around the store I saw no glass fronted coolers, thirst was why I had stopped. “Do you have any soda’s?” I asked the lady behind the counter.
“Sho do,” she replied , “They’s over thare.” I looked to where she was pointing, it was like a big long flat freezer, painted red with several silver stainless doors on top of it and Coca-Cola embossed on it’s front. Arriving at the freezer I opened the lid and looked inside. “Jest’ put yer money in the box,” the feminine hillbilly voice continued.
On the front of the box and on each side of the box it had a hand written note which read, “Please Put .06 Cents Here.” ‘Six cents,” I thought – surely I must have gone back in time.” I asked, “How much are the sodas?”
To which she replied, “They be just six cents.” I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out my change, located six pennies and put them through the slot in the box. Then I looked back into the cooler to find that the only choice was Coca Cola inside. I took one and opened it up and took a big swig.
Walking back to the counter I asked the lady, “ How in the world can you afford to sell a soda for just six cents?”
She answered me with, “Well, did ya see Uncle Hap on the front porch?”
“The old man with the straw hat?” I asked.
“Yep, dat be Uncle Hap, go ask him how he can afford to sell a Coke for jest six cents.”
Interested, I walked back under the old ceiling fan and through the squeaking door. The old man had his hat pulled low on his eyes. “Sir,” I began, “I have a question to ask you.”
“Yes sir, sonny, and jest what be yer question?” he answered tilting his hat back high on his head.
“Well sir, just how do plan to make a living selling a coke for just six cents?”
The old man smiled and said, “That’s an easy one son, I ain’t a plannin to make any money offen them thar cokes.” I know I must have had a puzzled look on me but before I could inquire more he continued, “Has yer ever mined for gold?”
“No, I’m afraid not, sir,” I replied wondering what that had to do with the price of a coke.
The old man continued, “Well yer see Sonny, when yo be a minin, yer works real hard sometimes. You see, yer digs and digs and digs some more day after day – sometimes not seeing anything but more dirt but once in a while you be a finding jest a little bit a ore. Then ya comes back da next day and yer dig some more.” More confused than ever I sat down beside the old man in the swing taking another drink of my six cent Coke. He continues, “Trouble is yer see, you get hooked on that little taste a ore. It jest keeps ye a comin back fer more.”
Finally I had to ask, “But what does all this have to do with the price of coke?”
'Hold on sonny. I’m a gettin to that part but yer see yer got to hear da whole story.” I sat back in the swing deciding that maybe I’d just let the old man do his thing. “Now yer see, it was about 1920 I reckon when ever dis here young fellow come by dis here store a sellin this new fangled thing he called stock. Now he wanted me to buy some stock in dis here company he was a promotin. I was a minin at da time a-course and I’d just hit it a little lucky that week and I had some xtree money in me pocket. So fer five hunerd dollars, a whole lots a cash back den, I buyed a 1000 shares of that thar boys stock.” The old man then looked me in the eyes with a big smile on his face. “Yer see sonny, I works hard all my life a digging holes in the ground most times not seeing nuttin atall but I jest keeped on a diggin. I must say I always did believe that even if’n I fount no gold at all at least at the end of every day I could sit back and see whar I’d been. But yer jest never knows whar that real gold is. Sometimes yer find it in the strangest of places. Well sonny, I’z figures that 100 shares of stock musta split no less than 25 times since 1920. So yer see, I be one them whatcha might call million dollar aires. So don’t you fret that head o urin over’n what I charge fer that thare coke cola yer a drinkin. Matter of fact, if’n yer wants to, why don’t you go right back inside and buy yerself a whole **** case. Yer see, thar’s gold in them thare bottles. Yep, gold I tell ya. That 100 shares of Coca Cola stock sho was a golden God send. And wid me bein da onliest one a chargin just six cents a pop, well you can be one – o – da lucky ones to find soma dat gold. Who knows, the whole **** vein might be a sittin right side ya right now. You jest never knows. Just keep on a digging, Sonny. At least you can see whar ya been.”
The old man smiled as he turned to wave at a car as it passed by.
Me, I guess I’ll just keep on digging. But you know what? The old man was right. The gold is all around us. So if you ever find this place where soda’s are just six cents, well maybe it isn’t gold but believe me, the gold is all around you too.

Jest keep on a digging. At least yer can see whar ya been.

I could build you a fortress,
Drape you like the moon does the sea.
But without the real you to know,
We are just the color of an empty fantasy.

Something we think of?
Something we need?
Time knows all the answers,
Especially the present portrayed
In these shaded words of please.

It takes two hands to make a strong hold.
Inside the grasp the ink unfolds.
Two touches to erase the long winter’s night.
One lover’s moon ‘til
One morning’s light.

The pulse of love beats inside of me,
Relegated to never be released or made full use of.
My inner compass always pointing to a seal unbroken
Like undisturbed pillows on a display bed - always made.
Sheets fitted - made ready for the unmaking.
Then seized by some inner fear, affecting all that I ever dared,
Usurping you my love, the you without a name.
Yet, how easy it begins in these faceless rhymes,
They ensnare my heart with their private crimes.
How safe is love, how sacred still,
Where no one reads of my inner hidden will.
What good is it that I can wink when it goes unknown,
With nothing shared or to call my own?
Yet, my love deserves no enemy nor grudge,
Just the presence of my heart as the consummate judge.
In this court I sit chained and broken
With discerning eyes scouring me until I’m deemed a token.
Unbridled, unsought, a wretched mess,
Swift to dispatch me off to less and less of my own access.
Oh, had there been a covenant I could have served the crown,
With virtuous, heady and proper nouns
Or had I been given the pass of my big heart freed
I could write unoppressed with the noblest indeed
But my tuneful harp is forever unstrung,
While heaven waits for my loving sounds,  my songs are yet unsung.

My heart beats intermittently in this mad, mad world,
The pain of it makes it shutter so.
And as it quivers I would have you know
That many well minded people proclaim to defend
The madness hidden here within
Their deafening fog and their blinding snow.

Here where Tully stands
Amidst Horace and Homer’s hands,
And Plato watches as they go
So many years far below.
I was once with them an unlettered lad
Buried somehow now inside their fog and snow.

Is it possible to jinx this madness?
Attack the demons and spill their decadence?
Newspapers daily attacks on the sane
With words like hammers again and again.
Making a false museum out of this insanity’s row.
Falling all around within the cold fog of snow.

Are the insane the real artists?
The vandals the restorers?
The bombs - the ballast?
The lies – the words the authors’
Use to make this world less to know.
Sprinkling mysery about in the fog and snow.

Your own thoughts float down to the place where you are
Watching as another lie falls so far.
You watch it fly out the door into the misty night,
Sailing away to the dark tenements of right.
Wishing it to stay where the art is black and without a glow,
Burying yourself in the fog and snow.

Let sanity swing open in the cages of your heart
Like an eagle soaring with wings held wide apart.
Looking down with an illuminated eye.
Floating high above this mad quasi
Thinkers of thought, squelching out a reply.
No question lost in this worldly fresco -
Lost no more in the fog and snow.

If I could read you like a book
I’d read you from cover to cover.
What would I find as each leaf turned over
To find me more and more hooked?

Your expression the preface?
Your walk the reference?
Your thoughts - the appendix?
You should copyright all these.

Your table of contents
Your chapters and headings,
Short stories or pretense,
Or expression of longings.

Each page a blessing
Reader and writer forever conjoined.
Read/Writing without resting
No writer’s block or pages deformed.

One page flying into another
As the story of you unfolds.
Could I be a footnoted lover
With a love that remolds?
Or perhaps the main character,
One to gray and grow old?

Placing one hand on your spine
While the other opens the divine.
Oh if only I could read you like a book
I’d read you from cover to cover

Memorize every line.

All hail these small and sweet courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – each cut so deep like a knife.
They beg all these inclinations toward love at first sight.
Yes, ‘tis those courtesies which let the stranger in.
With tones and mannerisms - they do have such meaning.

Oh - ‘tis such a blessed thing,
One for which I could lose myself
To the honor of my aching.
I feel a heart which bears all to itself.
Oh yes, tis' open – ‘lest I shut it all out.
So I ask, “Are not my eyes the scout
For which my heart journeys?
That vision, is it not flowing through my arteries
Bringing my heartbeat’s rhythm in tune?
Oh, let that beat be mine none too soon.”

With that said, she laid out her arm in front of me.
Taking hold of her fingers in one hand, I aptly
Applied ******* of my other hand to her wrist -
Firmly - and begin counting each heart throb.
“One – two – three – four,” counting out aloud
Measuring each heartbeat as it happens –
Hoping to find the art of her fever.
I close my eyes as I continue to count – thinking –
There is no occupation in the world comparable
To feeling a woman’s pulse.
And when I had counted to twenty five
I looked up into her eyes and
At that instant I felt her pulse quicken.
She clutched my fingers tighter in the one hand
While pressing the wrist of her other hand
Harder into my account.

Is it possible for two to become one flesh and bone?
And if 'tis true, what is everything else to become?
Sometimes yours while at other times the other has it?
All the while to be generally on par tallying up the score
As we each permit the other to share in ourselves –
At least in as much as a man and a woman have the right to.
Like a bag full of pebbles which started out jagged
And rough, with very little gleam.
Only ‘tis after being years in the bag together
Do the stones, having had many amicable collisions
Wearing down their angles and edges, do they
Become well rounded and smooth with the brilliance
Of their combined luster.
Nothing to either could have been
Accomplished alone.

She looks back into my eyes as she presses her wrist into me
and asks,
“How does it beat with you?”
Placing her hand on my neck I say,
“Feel for yourself -
‘Tis an improvement –
‘Tis my evidence.”

Enter with me into the perfumed garden
And I shall share it with you to see.
The plants with their mating dance have already begun
Taking in the sun, the earth, the moon, the common bee,
The wind, the water – all apart of the garden’s flowering.
Every road, every footpath, every by-way does end
But they are all bordered with pinks, reds and wandering
Blues – waxed and un–waxed, tall and short with many a trend.
We are all a part of the flowering of the kingdom of Eden.
But this is my garden of truth.
A sharp swish of branch with no resin’s scent in this place.
No coarse weeds or taste of bark, only truth to sleuth
Out the fruit that lies under the covering of the human race.
Over there, do you not see the “pair” there?
Watch as they remember when they were placed on this earth.
In this garden, in those bodies, they move about here
Laughing, dancing, singing of their worth.
Their fruit undercover aching for the morning light.
Ripened pears wadded into clothing protected from frost,
Sweet melons, almost ripe, smothered in an airtight
Corsage, clinging to the fullest of crisscrossed stalks.
When the spring comes to this garden we see the perfection
Of balance between male and female qualities reflected
In the flowers’ blooms, a silhouetted combined reflection
Of male and female where the pears cling to the branch granted
Residence – Or the melon – sun bleached and **** to the taste.
For this is beauty, beauty without strength, the smallest of fingers
Reaching high into the sky, the pathway made of twigs,
Spiced heads, reddish pink stalks, with leaves like beggars
Straining to turn toward the lighted prigs.
Oh ye of little faith just look at the earth as the garden that it is.
Taste the fruit of nature’s wisdom and let spring come to your garden.
For it is we who renews the earth and all that we have to do to pass the quiz.
Use the earth’s resources wisely for we are the coachmen
Who drives the earth forward into the light.
We are like fruit clinging to a branch calling out our birthright –
This earth is our earth and we have only this chance to get it right.

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Music on the hillside
Piano in a villa over there
Violin below
Fireworks above
A beat – a beating heart
Someone begins to sing

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Is this place real
The ocean below
The red sky above
The music
Romance on the wind.
Sing with me

The wind plays with the leaves
The weather turns colder
But as long as we believe
Love doesn’t get older
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Only after one leaves
Does this place become real
A crown jewel midst a rocky cliff
A place so beautiful its
Memory etches itself into your soul
Food to die for
Drinks to fight for…

On a journey of the heart
There’s so much to see
When the sky is dark
You’ll be right here
Right here with me
Good morning I vow

These things that we masteringly cover
With layers of wrinkle free sheets -
Covering the warmness that never was.
A weighted depression left behind
In a never ending circle of hidden desire.
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed -
Soft coolness inviting remorse.
Spirit of lighted darkness awaits the unmaking,
From dawn to dusk dreams plunder
Molding obsessions into sleeping reality.
The comforter only slightly moves,
This place made up for now tonight becomes…

Haloed in darkness, dreaming real.
A breath resounds hidden
In the softness just before twilight.
Listening for a whisper
Calling out my name.
Dare I to open my eyes
In fear of loosing all again.
Through closed eyes I gaze
Upon the eyes’ crystal hue.
Hair vivid with no color
Inhaling tender features – thy very essence.
A dreaming splendor anew.
If reality can come but in a dream
Then in dreams I shall reside.
Ever mournful of the morning light while
Caressing dream’s eye covering
The warmness that never was.
Dream weighted impressions, asleep
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed.
Dreaming in splendor of …

I had never heard any remark by anyone in my life
Who stated anything good about such a necessary place.
Therein the stretched miles of eyes and smiles being much
Un-pre-processed on the grounds of an unaccountable nature.
But in the old folks home the goddess of good nature
Seems almost as merry as she is wise.

As I oft do I carried in with me a hand truck loaded down
With doughnuts of every kind – 14 dozen in all.
Oh the smiles that permeate from the long faces each
Time I travel down the long hall.
Bertha, Martha Sue, Betty and Clare to mention a few.
Old Tom, Billy, Bob and Jacob too.

Like the pied piper they follow me all smelling the air.
“Ummm they smell hot and fresh,” Jacob whispers to Clare.
Pushing the double doors all the way back to lock open
I place one box of 12 on each table with 6 chairs.
Each box marked with a table number as I know
Who ordered what, and where tis they sit where.

Bertha always gets powdered with strawberry crème,
Martha Sue is the true classic with her original glazed dreams.
Old Tom decided it was time for a change with cinnamon and sugar
While Billy, wild Bill ordered chocolate ice with crème filling.
Betty, Bob, Clare and Jacob said simply to make of them a surprise.
Eighty four people in all get two each as it's the golden rule.

Oh there’s many more people to talk about but
That’s not what I’m here to do.
What good is life is if you have nothing to measure it or do?
The old folks home can be melancholy with lonely walls.
All that’s needed is a smile and something to look forward to.
Especially when oft the size of a gift is so extremely small.

I watch the room as they eat, smile, laugh and talk.
Life’s more about the connection we make and not about much else.
Dark faces full of light, quick eyes smiling with delight.
Long noses turned up on the end.
Teeth no longer white now sugar coated with a childish grin.
Prominent jawbones chewing away remembering where happiness begins.

I wish I were only a half an inch tall
You’d look at me and say, “Is that all?”
I could ride a pine straw falling
Or surf a snow flake over the treetops calling.
I could sneak about without a trace
Even watch you make that silly face.

A piece of gum would be a feast
It would last me a month or two at least.
To a flea I would be a frightening beast
And I could hide away inside your crease.
I could wear your ear ring clip upon my head
But at night you could not take me to bed.

You'd have to be careful where you’d place me dear
At one half inch tall I could drown in a tear.
But I couldn’t give you a great big hug
All I could do is to give a hair a tug.
To move a pencil would take all night
This poem would take me years to write.

If I were only a half an inch tall
You could leave me anywhere at all.
You could hang me from a string
Or leave me on just about anything.
If I could just get myself out of the way
You'd have more space to sit or lay.

I contend that it is not my place to give testimony or
To tell what love is but that I must include love
Here now so that I can get on with my story
Intelligibly with the help of the word itself
Without any other ideas or explanation for it.

Dr. David Dosa, speaking on behalf of Oscar the cat,
Stated that Oscar was never wrong and that Oscar
Seemed to have some innate ability to know when a
Patient at the Steere House Nursing Home was going
To pass - going all the way back to when the cat was a kitten.

Dr. Dosa went on to say that the pernicious, anti-social cat
At the Rhode Island center would only cuddle up to those
Patients who were in their last 2 to 4 hours of life.
The talented Oscar has proven the medical staff wrong on
Several occasions when patients were close to death.

Dr. Rosa – when asked about Oscar’s accuracy stated
That Oscar was right 100% of the time and that to his
Knowledge or to his staff’s knowledge that Oscar had
Never gone in and cuddled up to any person who was
Not near death, something that he had to accept - that
The cat had better instincts than he – a doctor – possessed.

At present, I hope that I have sufficiently captured
The reader’s understanding that there are yet many
Things out there in the real physical world that neither
Science nor religion can understand but I know what
Oscar knows – what he knows is this thing called love.

Now that phrase is not at all to my liking.
For to say a man is fallen in love, -
Or that he is deeply in love, -
Or up to the ears in love and sometimes
Even head over heels in love carries
With it an idiomatic implication that love is

Somehow beneath the man (fallen) – something
Regurgitated in Plato’s opinion which with all his
Divinity ship – I for one hold that the thought of Love
Being beneath a man be damnable and heretical.
While Oscar the cat simply says – let love be what it will.

And possibly, just possibly - gentle reader -
Without any further current explanation, so do I now
Join ranks with Oscar as I write of a love that is
Alive and well – and if I do not come and cuddle
With you it is not because I do not love you.

Tis but my task to find those in greater need and
When I find them near death, afraid or lost
I, like Oscar, I know of their fear and of their
Desperation so with pen in hand
I purr next to them cajoling

Them onto their next great experience.