These last few days
Until you are here
Happiness building
Anxiousness unending
Counting the minutes
Until you are home

Together by fate
United by destiny
Brought together by loved ones
A joyous reunion of
Two hearts and souls

Past lives remembered
In passion now kindled
A flame not extinguished
By time, space or years

Together forever
Eternity unending
As long as the universe
Is large no more fears

The decades will follow
Our love like a story
A fairy tale ending
A Princess in white

With miles yet to go now
And still time between us
We muddle through minutes
Until time awakened
And passion revealed

And moments forsaken
That kept us apart
Now and forever
Together one heart

These last days forgotten
Our true love remembered
And time standing still
As rivers do flow

Through mountains and valleys
With rainbows to guide us
Our destiny clear now
Our love-knot unbroken

These last days of waiting
Will soon disappear
To carry you over
The threshold of mem’ries
Soon be created
Our scrapbook of life

So now and forever
Remember the moments
That brought us together
A life-long repast

A triumph of fate now
Eternity has spoken
And ever forever
Our love-light will last

Here we are together
Holding on to each other
Intertwined
In the union of love
Sharing not only our bodies
But our hearts and souls
Inextricably mingled
Like a force of nature
Naked and yet clothed
In a garment
Woven in Heaven
Only available when
Two hearts equal one
Mathematics discounted
Only the reality
Of our joining as lovers
Fulfilled by our passion
Which can only be
Overwhelmed
By our love

Here we are together
Holding on to each other
Intertwined
In the union of love
Sharing not only our bodies
But our hearts and souls
Inextricably mingled
Like a force of nature
Naked and yet clothed
In a garment
Woven in Heaven
Only available when
Two hearts equal one
Mathematics discounted
Only the reality
Of our joining as lovers
Fulfilled by our passion
Which can only be
Overwhelmed
By our love

Time standing still
Suspended
Waiting
Held in the hand of fate

Looking for an outlet
Paradoxical
Ordinary
Searching over the promontory

Reflex actions
Uncalculated
Unchallenged
Illusionary

Momentary illusions
Categorized
Uncategorized
Passing through infinity

Wakefulness balanced by daylight
Playful
Joyous
Reacting to surroundings

Catalytic motions
Profound
Unexpected
Holding onto forever

4/28/19

The pathways of time
Blending hours
In a mixture of
Light and dark
Casting shadows
Into a homogenous
Stew

And yet time moves on
Like a river without end
Forging a course
Of its own making
Burning in limestone
Hard as granite
An eternity forsaking
All boundaries

Black holes notwithstanding
The empty void
******* time into a vacuum
Frozen in the universe
And still time finds a way
Penetrating reality
Bending light for its own purpose
Into the unknown

Never showing itself
Never enumerating
Its variations
On a theme of its
Own making
Hidden within the
Pathways of time

Good artists borrow
Great artists steal
A Picasso quote
I look in the mirror
I see myself
And yet I paint
With Picasso strokes
Picasso lines
Picasso designs
Am I possessed
By Picasso?
Do I have to dress
Like Picasso?
Evolution
Survival of the fittest
Am I only a part of the
Picasso food chain?
Does Picasso reach out,
A brush in hand,
Stroking a canvass
‘Til I understand?
Am I an emissary,
A foible for his art?
Do I face stagnation?
Do I play a part?
But no small parts
Only small actors
I retrace my steps
I look again in the mirror
I find my reality
Picasso is dead
And I live on

Upper East Side
The Hamptons
Aspen, Colorado
The plastic people
Follow each other
Moving in herds
Like cattle to the
Slaughter

Drifting
Floating
Shifting focus
From one charity event
To another
Whatever’s trendy
Whatever’s fashionable
Whatever’s happ’ning
Whatever’s the need
Tainted new artists
Society’s rejects
The film-maker who fits in with
The flavor of the month
The disease or the cause
That captures the moment
Stigmas overlooked
Deformities relieved
By one hyper exertion
By one pseudo good deed

Changing bedrooms
Changing partners
New alliances
Noblesse oblige

Mrs. Astor’s
Four hundred
Reinvented forever
Reinvented with fervor
On the edge
Of hypocrisy
Keeping up with the Jones’s
Maintaining the houses
Paris, Rome, Cote du Jura
Malibu, Palm Beach
Couture fashion
Madison, Rodeo
Worth avenues united
Avenues of the liege

Location, location, location
The right address unspoken
Dinner in the right places
Sporting events to be seen
Three martini luncheons
Halcion evenings
Business is business
Where money’s retrieved

Look to plastic people
For fashionable guidance
No matter the moment
No matter the need
Remember to catch them
While jetting to Santa Barbara
Saint Maarten, San Troupe
San Marco, warp speed
They live in their milieu
Can’t function outside it
Can’t follow a shadow
That others believe

It’s easy to find them
They leave behind footprints
But barely a mem’ry
Or singular creed
Other than finding
The latest in fashion
The latest persona
Or new plastic breed

Empty laughter
Often fading
Among the trees
Of the nether-fold
Nirvana forsaken
Amidst the storm
Of the infinite
Paradoxical anagrams
Representing the
Vortex of time
Leaving in isolation
The magnitude
Unfulfilled
By a destiny removed
Renamed yet unknown
As a symbol
A metaphor
Held in an ironic
Twist of fate
Longing for the impossible
Parodies etched in paradiddles
Refocused without rhyme
Now forsaken
Amid the Pine Barrens
Of time

12/12/18

Striations
Gradations
Filling the atmosphere
In stillness

Pink
Mixed with
White and gray
To almost holiness

Fallacy of fate
Languish
The unknowing
With helplessness

Testing the tide
Pressing forward
Through fear
Of loneliness

Watching the idle
Wither without them knowing
Through vacant
Wastefulness

As the nouveau riche
Luxuriate
In ostentatious
Lavishness

And society’s
Double meaning
The self-inflicted oxymoron
And the selfishness

Promulgates
The stagnation
The paucity
Which ends in emptiness

Summer heat
Lassitude permeating every pore
Wasted days
Too hot to even think
And moving takes more energy
Then it produces
With after-effects of permanence
In a single place
Unable to raise one’s body
Beyond a reclining chair
Heat rising
Steaming up from the pavement
In unending streams of perspiration
The only respite is recumbent
Drifting into a semi-comatose mixture
Of suffering and gloom
As days become nights
With no relief
But
Around May
To begin
Praying for a blizzard

7/31/19

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Pristine snow
Reflecting light
In pools of shadows
Radiating images
Of bygone times
Centuries old
Floating hemispheres
Suspended in time
Like cave paintings
And orange marmalade
Frozen by the cold
That melts like
Pristine snow

3/2/19

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Where I live
It’s so quiet
You can hear
Grasshoppers
Blow their nose

I walk the dog
I read
I watch the wind
Blow the branches
Of the trees
Under a gray sky
That threatens rain
The torrential rain
Here last night
Gone today
But for the threat
Of more
The day begins
Time passes
I watch
I wait
For rain
To cleanse the air
To shift the shadows
Of clouds
Darkened with water
Waiting
To empty their burden
Darkness pervades
Plans change
Empty hours
Of waiting
Umbrellas furled
Leaves drip
From the canopy
Of trees
Remnants of rain
Past
Droplets of water
No longer suspended
Like time
Bent
To conform
To the new
Reality
Holding the moment
With mist
That turns
To rain

Reading the blogs
Is a perpetual challenge
Wondering why something is there
Wondering if the author is scared

Are they writing to write?
Or writing for reason?
Or are they simply compelled
Just to put something up?

Fashioning fancy after
Reader’s approbation
Extending a handshake
To comments not meant

Reading the blogs
Of writers prolific
Joyous new wonders
A daily dose of cheer

Writers keep writing
And upload your treasures
The universe awaits you
To savour your gifts

6/2/19

Reality forsaken
For a chance at the golden ring
And though it’s only made of brass
A chance to grab it still could bring

Dreams of glory yet remain
Waiting on the shelf
For father time to come along
To turn them into wealth

And so our good friend harkens
And listens for the call
Remembering dreams of glory
Before a mighty fall

And time alone can put aside
The fears of remaining true
Refusing to abjure the dreams
Or asking where or who

Can take a chance again each day
Looking to the goal
For brass or gold it’s still a ring
A circle with a hole

Reality forsaken
For a chance at the golden ring
And though it’s only made of brass
A chance to grab it still could bring

Dreams of glory yet remain
Waiting on the shelf
For father time to come along
To turn them into wealth

And so our good friend harkens
And listens for the call
Remembering dreams of glory
Before a mighty fall

And time alone can put aside
The fears of remaining true
Refusing to abjure the dreams
Or asking where or who

Can take a chance again each day
Looking to the goal
For brass or gold it’s still a ring
A circle with a hole

Dedicated to those
Who believe their own hyperbole
Rounding the edges with sandpaper
Emery boards of diamond dust
Redefining borders
Ignoring innate apprehensions of history
For the sake of their own place
In the sand-drifts of destiny
As Armageddon draws a line
Encampments of the disenfranchised
Awaiting the proximity of fate
Riding on the hyperbole of others

5/21/19
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I stay,
go,
stand,
sit,
walk,
remain still,
sleep,
wake,
laugh,
cry,
speak,
remain silent.

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My hatred increases
In geometric progression
To my daily existence

11/29/18

Foraging through lists is a constant reminder
of the haphazard as well as the fulfilled.
The transitory reclaims reality in a circle of tenacity,
yet only the beginnings of momentum.
Life moves forward marking minutes in its path,
and days on the calendar revealing the prophecy;
written in hieroglyphics in the clouds, floating yet everlasting.
Destiny forever fixed in a sky filled with vapor,
like driftwood washed up on a beach to be resurrected,
recycled and reclaimed.
A sculpture created by the sea.
A mirror of the universe,
set in the sand, grafted together.
Intertwined with the proximity of the future;
contained in the lists;
perused and pursued forever.
An entity as one.

8/1/19


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Shadows of mountains
parade over valleys within.
Streams resemble arteries,
sustaining life,
as trout evading anglers
reveal cascading thoughts
of life and death
that society proclaims
meaningless in movies:
Hollywood’s refrain.

Cheaper by the dozen.
A cartoon fantasy
where bodies once dismembered
return in the next scene.

Children believing pictures;
a thousand words forgotten.

Time standing still
in a bas-relief of life
carved in plaster panels,
a faux façade
over doorways;
an entry in a fun house
at an arcade.

Paragons of virtue.
Derision enforced
with narcissistic selfies
taken on the precipice of mountains
at the edge of a cliff
overhanging the valley.
A swan-dive into the unknown.
A bungie-cord off a highway
or the bridge over the River Kwai.
The new reality forsaken
in a technological haze.

Passage through the looking glass;
Mushrooms in a bottle;
revealing the future of society
to those indoctrinated
and inculcated,
yet reduced to texting hyperbole
as syntax disappears
and the lexicon dismembers.
Devout believers in the new world order.
Refrains of disenchantment;
disenfranchising;
by groups of devotes
of the hyper-sensitive
who perceive only their own vision
in a world of their own making.

Questions never-ending.
A virtual canvass of destiny
held in a moment of tranquility,
yet unable to sustain.

6/24/19

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She floated on air
As if suspended
By hot-air balloons
A spectacular ride

Her spirit as free
As seagulls ascending
Or eagles go soaring
Through mountain top clouds

Her laughter as joyous
As chocolate fudge sundaes
And time everlasting
In perpetual spring

The days rushing forward
And weeks disappearing
Time standing still
Yet gone in a flash

Like spun sugar melting
And reindeer descending
On rooftops at Christmas
A Santa Claus laugh

Today and tomorrow
Forever remember
The time shared together
A favorite repast

6/5/19

Slaying the dragon
And opening the heart
Like wind-swept hair
Tousled by the hand of fate

Offering solace in a turbulent world
Remembering happy moments
Long ago and past
While dreaming of happy moments
Yet to come

8/19/18

An ordinary cold is a hateful thing
With sneezes and wheezes and coughing that bring
Tremulous moments while holding one’s breath
Trying to stave off once more a feeling of death.

The mornings of glory no longer abound
The nights filled with snoring, a ghastly old sound.
With days hard to get through and work gone askew
While others are playing or getting their due.

No more feeling happy, no more feeling sad
There’s only the feeling of just feeling bad
And hope of recov’ry that once seemed so near
Is lost like a mem’ry and moments of fear.

As days filled with sneezing and wheezing move on
And glimmers of hope that this cold will be gone
For sooner or later there must be a day
When the ordinary cold has outlived its stay.

The first snow
Early this year
The middle of November
Wiping away years
Of deprivation
Awakening the senses
Of cold refreshing renewal
As frozen water
Sprinkles down and
Melts against my face and clothes
Tiny sculptures
Crafted by nature
To enlighten the soul
A shower of fluff
A curtain of a
New reality
Carrying me away
As it coats the ground
With whiteness
And yet it engulfs me
Like a blanket
Of quiet and stillness
That only snow can bring
Settling my spirit
In a new state of repose
And a grandeur of
Quietude
Thank you snow

11/15/18

The first snow
Early this year
The middle of November
Wiping away years
Of deprivation
Awakening the senses
Of cold refreshing renewal
As frozen water
Sprinkles down and
Melts against my face and clothes
Tiny sculptures
Crafted by nature
To enlighten the soul
A shower of fluff
A curtain of a
New reality
Carrying me away
As it coats the ground
With whiteness
And yet it engulfs me
Like a blanket
Of quiet and stillness
That only snow can bring
Settling my spirit
In a new state of repose
And a grandeur of
Quietude
Thank you snow

It snood, it snowed, it’s snowing
The ground is covered in white
And even our dog’s footprints
Will certainly not last through the night

Children are outside playing
Choosing up sides left and right
Piling up mounds of the white stuff
In preparation for a snowball fight

Looking out through the window
Safe and warm inside
I cast a giant shadow
Happy where I can hide

And so I’ll leave the day to the snowplows
Who struggle along in their plight
Smoothing the roads and the sidewalks
And to all I wish a good night

3/2/19

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Spring songs appear like ghosts
Hovering over the horizon
Happy memories
Playing in fields of daffodils
Golden rainbows
Mixed with stripes of hyacinth blue
Amber shadows projecting skyward
Against the rays of the rising sun
Time stands still as trees blossom
And fauns scamper among daydreams
Everlasting solitude of rebirth
For the dawning of a new day
A new season
To be remembered through summer
And into fall
As ruminations linger
Filled with the memories of spring

4/22/19

Sultry days of summer
Warming the heart
As wheat fields sway in breezes
And flowers bloom triumphant

The rebirth of spring surrenders
To golden days of August
As July passes with leisure
And tranquil times remembered

Drifting over valleys
Like hot-air balloons
Japanese lanterns
Illuminate the sky

Festive times enhancing
Simple pleasures abound
Water games and hiking
Rejuvenate the soul

Yielding to simple pleasures
Rekindled by the sun
Basking in summer glories
And seasons yet to come

6/13/19

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Summer rites
Reinvented pastimes
Happy days of yellow
Fringed with sea-foam green

Mountains of tomorrow
Holding fast at sundown
Burgeoning beginnings
Awakening each day

Reflections in a shadow
Of mist forever rising
As dawn predicts a new day
With lazy afternoons

Forgetting stress of winter
Seasonal sensations
Dow Jones disembarking
To quieter retreats

The mantra of the summer
Mixed in pure reflection
Of happy ever after
Perfecting summer rites

6/28/19

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I was recently asked
If grasshoppers
Blow their nose
In winter
I immediately answered
No
They have to hold it
‘Til next summer
But in winter
Millipedes ski

Sunrise wakes the day

While dozing rejuvenates

The mind and the soul

Syrup drips over the tower of pancakes
The last vestiges of Log Cabin
Empties the bottle
Morning begins with a plethora of carbs
A joyous start to the new day

7/30/19

I weighed the options.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
That is the question:
I’ve done it so many times before
And been rebuffed each time.
The answer should be clear;
I should be firm,
But each time I hesitate
And then relent.
Should I, this time,
Risk it again?
Why not?
Why yes?
I’ve stated the obvious;
Repeatedly and redundantly
And still I consider doing it.
It costs nothing
And if the result is the same
I’ve lost nothing.
But why, this time,
Do I seem more resolved against it?
Yes!
I’ll click the button
And submit the story.

Every day’s an anniversary
But some days are more profound
Weeks go by so quickly
And monthly markers
Reflect a moment of joy

The day of meeting
One single moment
In time that never was
Opening new tomorrows
That Heaven etched with love

Then yearly dates remembered
Each one a sacred day
A chance for hearts entwining
Destiny fulfilled
Forever and a day

The twenty-third reminds us
Each month of love and joy
Twelve special days remembered
With happiness restored

For love alone can triumph
And love can fill the void
The twenty-third remembered
Each day of every year
And all the days between them
Are special because of you

6/23/19

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The 4th of July

Bruce Levine

(To be read in a G & S cadence)

Here’s to the 4th of July
Tra la
The Founding Fathers rejoice
Tra la
Though their work is done
There’s much more to come
So
Here’s to the 4th of July
Tra la

My life is a wire
Forced upon me
Not by choice
Not by desire
But by obsolescence
Of former technology
No longer viable
No longer available
And yet it too
Had its own lifespan
Before the next technological epiphany
Superseded it –
Out with the old – in with the new
Armageddon

And is my life better?
Categorically no!

Simple became complex
Reliable became subject
To the whims of technology
The internet’s slow today
The program’s out of date
The compatibility declined
The system’s down
Functionality at a standstill
Armageddon

Go wireless
Go Bluetooth
Go further down
The layers of Hell
The layers of the Inferno
The labyrinth
Of keeping up
With the newest of the new
Keeping up with the Joneses
No longer humans
Keeping up with Microsoft or Apple

Pre-order
Post-order
Out of order

Spending money
On the gift that keeps giving
In the name of technology
The rich get richer
And everyone else poorer
Waiting in line
Camping on the sidewalk
All for the gadgets
All for the glory
Of holding the latest update

As I suffer
Their hypocrisy
Their purported need
To make the world better
Faster
Easier
Save the trees
Repair climate change
More and more technology
Force it on us
Like the slaves
Forced on the ships
Out of Africa

No more human interaction
Text me…
No more time
Social media…
Games
Addiction to technology
Armageddon

The Renaissance
The Enlightenment
The Baroque
The Romanesque
The Classical
The Neo-classical
The Romantics
The Avant-Garde
The Dark Ages
The Middle Ages
The Federalists
The Philanthropists
The Modernists
The Cubists
The Minimalists
The Impressionists
The Imperialists
The Rationalists
The Surrealists
The Transcendentalists
The Gilded Age
The Industrial Age
The Golden Age
The Space Age
The Age of Reason
The Age of Mediocrity

Waves breaking against the rocky beach
Pebbles smoothed by millennia of tides
And driftwood surrenders to the waves
Seagulls watch as they glide across the expanse
Searching for food in the water below
And the tide transforms the beach
As it ebbs and flows
And another day enters into history

8/25/19

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Hyacinths and helium
And an orange colored sky
Melding into a pool
Filled with goldfish
Laughing like a crimson balloon

A lake of rainbow trout
And a parade of dinosaurs
Riding on the wind
And hanging from clouds
Taking care not to bump each other

An upside-down bicycle
Glued to a table
Handle bars of chrome
Turned westward
Riding in concentric circles

Happy days and happy times
Packed in a picnic basket
Sandwiches and tuna fish
Pared with slices of pickles
Filling an empty cup to the brim

Time remembers everything
In a perfect sphere of lightning bolts
Candy bars and calliopes
And merry-go-rounds galore
To bring joy forevermore

5/20/19


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A starfish crawls across the wreck of a ship
The hull opened like a tuna fish can
Plastic bottles filled with water
Awaken the hereafter

7/30/19

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The butterflies are back
To carry off my soul
Leaving only the shell
To walk the earth

The crooked tree stands alone
Reaching for the sun
Half remembered, half forgotten
Lonely in its isolation
With
Limbs extending in a-symmetry
Branches growing
Where no branches should grow
Twisted upward toward the light
Yet
Darkness shrouding the branches within
Struggling for a place
No one knowing, no one caring
The crooked tree remains

Grief prevents momentum
And sadness sustains limbo
Seconds become days
With relentless stagnation
Fate playing tricks
In ways unforeseen
As calendars remain
Fostering the season
Lessening reality
In intangible ways
That heightens the dogma
Of grief

The day drifted by
Or flew by
Hard to decipher
Work obliterates thought
In a stream of consciousness
Unconsciousness
Pursuing goals
As an end unto itself
Shapeless
Racing from one entity to another
Without connections other than themselves
Each one tied to the central theme
Yet independent
And drifting
Their own haphazard ideas
Played against the venues afforded each one
And seeking the end of their journey
In a new reality
Fulfilled by the drifting of time

8/19/19

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The end
Is the beginning
The next piece
The next moment
The next chapter

The end
Is movement
Moving forward
Moving backward
Moving wherever

The end
Is transitory
Tracing progress
Tracing moments
Tracing journeys

The end
Is a signal
Guiding airplanes
Guiding steamships
Guiding lifelines

The end
Is the ending
Holding loved ones
Holding mem’ries
Holding forever

(This was released on Leaves of Ink today)

Prisms of light
Scatter the sky
With bands of color
Emulating bands of truth

Fortunes resounding
In echoes of canyons
Carved with a chisel
Of serpentine greed

A rainbow reminder
Wrapped ‘round a finger
Promising forever
A holier time

As Pharaohs remind us
With iconographic splendor
And timeless emotions
Unravel and unwind

When fate reaches skyward
Unleashing its power
Breaking the rainbow
Into splinters of light

No longer a highway
That seemed like forever
The week we remember
Destroyed with a dream

4/3/19


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Love is the essence of being
The ultimate companion
The harbinger of life
Tracing patterns without shadows
Through the threshold of eternity
An elixir of time
Held in a dew-drop
Amid the molecules of the ocean
Suspended like crystalline rain
Fulfilled by cohesion like atoms
Rotating in unison
With breathtaking speed
And yet individual though indivisible
Patterns of a double helix
United forever in perpetual spring
Like a robin’s song
A glorious melody
Sung over and over again
The perfection of harmony
One perfect refrain

5/10/19

Wind blowing the trees –
Waiting

Rain pelting the roofs –
Waiting

Warnings – fear – panic –
Waiting

False alarms and near death situations –
Waiting

Tree limbs, branches and twigs
Scatter the lawn now
Tearing asunder
A long standing dream

Follow the plan – follow the leader
Running to safety or so they believe
Storing up water – storing up food-stuffs
Counting the days they’ll all do without

Fixing the time, it can’t last forever
Praying they’ll all see the very next dawn
Watching the wind – moments of calmness
Gusts overtaking those moments of ease

Clouds overhead as dark as the night now
Following shadows cast off on their own
Ev’ryday fears amplified grandly
Leaving all thought and reason behind

Lightning and thunder – power lines bursting
Freezing the time in a moment of light
Tracing the tempest with photograph mem’ry
Timelines projecting the hurricane path

Watching the day creeping by slowly
Hours of watching and waiting to come
Watching a squirrel scamper up tree limbs
Looking for shelter from the eye of the storm

A pretentious fraud
An aging hippy
Past his prime
Yet unaware
Of time he forgot
To remember

5/14/19