Misopportunities, how they haunt the mind,
Those chances that we let slip through our grasp,
Regretful thoughts, a burden left behind,
Our hearts in sorrow, drowning in the past.

The roads untraveled, dreams left unfulfilled,
The words unspoken, love we did not show,
The chances missed, our fears left unchilled,
A life half-lived, with so much left to grow.

The clock ticks on, our time is not endless,
The future calls, a new day, a new chance,
To seize the day, and make it our own quest,
To rise above, and take the lead in the dance.

So let us not dwell on what might have been,
But seize the day, and start anew again.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
And in that dome did he behold
A maiden fair, of beauty untold

But though her visage shone so bright
'Twas not her outer form, in truth
That captured Khan's enraptured sight
And kept him spellbound from his youth

No, 'twas her inner beauty grand
A grace that radiated out
A heart so pure, a soul so grand
That all who knew her had no doubt

That she was rare, a gem so fine
A treasure not of earthly kind
For inner beauty, so divine
Is rarest thing that one can find

And though we're told that looks can charm
And beauty is a prized allure
It's in the heart that one must farm
The loveliness that will endure

For outer beauty fades with time
And what was once so fair to see
Will in the end, no longer shine
A mere reflection of what used to be

But inner beauty, that will last
A flame that never fades away
A light that guides us through the past
And leads us to a brighter day.

My stranger-
you inspire me to write,
the way you walk, talk and cry,
invading my mind- day and night,
dreaming about the poised comply.

Let me compare you to a caring bay
fearful, splendid, and tired,
a shy breeze ***** the daring
dancers of May,

Now I must go with a staring heart,
your bright words surounding me
shining through while we're apart.

With dutiful hair, lips and eyes-
filling all that I would say,
my love for you is left-
only in the memories...

For the first time in a very long time. I left the party early, I wasn’t even drunk, I had remained sober

I walked out into the night and looked to the sky. The moon was fuller than it had ever been to me and bright, piercing bright! So bright you would swear it was the sun if you didn’t know the hour.

Beyond the moon were the stars. shining shimmering twinkling each one of them appeared to me as though they were connected. A string of tremulous lights hung on some celestial Christmas tree.
They made me feel giddy like a child on Christmas morning

I breathed in the clean crisp fresh night air, it filled my lungs to capacity. One might say that it was exhilarating or invigorating. For me it was Intoxicating it made me drunk with clarity

Its intoxication caused a strong Epiphany.  In that moment I felt no fear, anguish or depression, that normally hangs over me like some dark and brooding cloud. Quite the opposite-

I was suddenly enlightened with what could only be described as an eternal wisdom that flushed over me in one grand,  magnificent swoop.

It was the revelation that my mind twisted by foreign agents I drank smoked and inhaled, made me believe I had super powers. Namely an impenetrable soul covered with emotional invisibility cloak.

All the while causing the opposite anxiety and depression. Leaving in its wake, like a pile of dead bodies. murdered relationships and wounded loved ones.

Now under this rash, stark intervention that my previously seared conscience was orchestrating I began weeping, crying, sobbing profusely I couldn’t catch my breath my heart was pounding it felt like it would pop out of my chest. Like I was having a heart attack .

I fell to my knees and I shook my fist up at the dark midnight sky. Crying out Oh God! Oh God what have I done? What has become of me now?

Then without warning a peace  flowed over me, it had an aroma and was liquid like a hot bath filled with lavender petals. It was golden, a field of marigolds by the side of a mountain in some distant land blowing under the warm breeze of summer’s sunshine.  It’s sound was that of the ocean’s waves gently caressing the sand of a long powder white shoreline of some tropical dream island one longs to visit.


It was most incredible feeling I ever experienced and I didn’t want it to stop. It was wrapping me in its love and I felt faint under its spell.  Then as quickly as it came it left me. But not untouched, it did not leave me empty or shallow.  Rather it left me with a steadiness a calm, best described as a hope, no a living hope.

This hope sat on me on my shoulders but not the way my depression previously had like a heavy armor of guilt punishing my very soul for every mistake I had ever made.

Not at all this feeling of hope was light and airy, ethereal. It allowed me to as a poet one said, “On gossamer wings, soar with flights of fancy into heavenly realms” it was whispering to me in gentle harmonic tones such as that of a lullaby. Whispering that there was still time to make amends that my life isn’t over and that there is still a chance for me.


And so it was that night the cataracts of my own selfish, emotional blindness fell off revealing myself - to myself

Though this new found  wisdom that I was enraptured with in that mysterious, miraculous moment is so simple that even a child could have revealed it to me. It knocked my life over like a feather.

why I chose not to indulge at that party, in that which I normally longed for-even before the end of the workday, I do not know.

This I do know -
I have Hope!

I paced back and forth across the
wooden floor, it didn’t  squeak like
it’s done before

Anxious, full of Xanax and alcohol
to calm my fear, not one creek
did I hear

As she lay in her bed dying that day,
I was a coward in the hallway

She wanted me by her bedside, I stood
out there drinking whiskey as tears filled
my eyes, feeling guilty, telling myself lies

She needed me in there, holding
her hand, kneeling by her bedside-

proclaiming “ I love you!  when you go
a part of me will die”

I never went in,

Now a nagging question
driving me insane,

Was the Cancer or my Weakness-
her greatest pain...

Beneath a gentle morning breeze,
splashes of purple play,
at the feet of trees,
Lilacs, in a forest of grey

delicate and sublime,
a purple ocean, a violet sea,
with the scent of lavander,
their aroma captivates me

Refrigerators are made
to keep things cold-
a job well done,
grapes in the bowl

Knew they were yours
tasted delicious-
this part’s not fun,
I beg your forgiveness