Why does time push us ever forward when we are the sum of all our yesterdays? Every tomorrow that once was and will be is destined to become yesterday? And what of yesterday when tomorrows are no more?

If it be that all the world is a stage and we are but players?
If its okay with the producer and director... can I just help paint the set!?
Someone else can have my role in the show.

Oft have I paused to think upon faith and what makes it strong.
The faith to be wise and to know right from wrong.
No not the faith that gives rise for Gods to be born.
But the strength and belief to fight when I am most torn.
I speak of the faith to believe of who I might be.
The faith to know with conviction its enough to be me.
A faith to be sure and a faith with no doubt.
No mumbles in meekness but a voice raised in shout.
So long since my faith was so raised up on high.
So little belief now that there is nought else but to cry.
What can be done to restore faith that is now lost.
With each thought and contemplation at additional cost.
So low now on faith... did I ever really believe?
Perhaps all along... not faith... but only... self deceive?
How can I live a life where all belief of self has faded away.
To what point, without my own faith, to greet the next day.

Of darkest obsidian like sharp shards the guilts upon my soul.
Deeply cut the wounds I carry that now make me less than whole.
By choice and deed I know who it is that I have hurt and wronged.
Through consequence of choice I made, my torture has belonged.
A price I paid and yet payment can never recompense.
As soul is tattered in self loathing and I am bereft of all defence.
There is no way to make amends or make a penance for my deeds.
My life has no more meaning and my soul eternally yet bleeds.
I cannot ask forgiveness and of salvation there is none.
For all the things I chose in selfishness, will never be undone.
Maybe priest or God will absolve me by the offering of some chant.
But despise my heart and soul, to forgive myself I cant.

I wake up to clear blue skies and the brightest sunny day
But despite it all my mood is tainted by the deepest sense of grey.

My eyes give rise to tears that are flowing from my inner core
Yet I have no clear reason of why my tears have need to pour.

Tears and darkest greyness at the beginning of my day
No reason see I for them but still the mood must have it's say.

Deep waves of souls dark despair as I wipe my tears away
I prepare my public face, to hide my heart, as I go out into the day.

My words seek ears, seek minds to know that I am real.
To touch the world, to leave some mark on where I passed.
I came, I saw, I was and to hope for nothing more than to know...
Someone noticed even just a moment of it all.

Ten thousand lights or more all strung upon the sky.
Have stood there every night as life has passed me by.
Never did they notice me as they stood their constant place.
Never with cause to note the lines that time drew upon my face.
Throughout my every year they have never changed at all.
Their radiant glow never faded upon night-times magic shawl.
They stand exactly where they were on the day I came to be.
And there too they will stand when time draws it's end to me.
My mind has often pondered why stars outlast us so.
And as the sand yet dwindles I wish it more to know.

When the voice of a seventeen year old girl holds more wisdom, sanity and truth than those who lead us.
When our leaders trade a prophet for a profit.
When there is easy money to be made from recovery rather than investment in change for the longer term.
When billionaires with vested interests set the policy.
Devastation and disaster, death and starvation have no political bias.
When will you add your voice and when will it be too late for you?
When eyes and ears give rise to voices that call out in fear for our very world will your apathy hold true?
Close your eyes.
Close your ears.
But even so your house will not be immune.

So, yet one more year is added to the pile.
Heavy laboured breath before going this next years mile.

Years put in my past that attest to battles I have fought.
Eyes that hold a sadness to reflect my deepest thought.

Years that blur as one I do endlessly compile.
With no pause or break to rest but just a while.

Never really finding what it was I sought.
Aged and withered visage from the lessons life has taught.

Untold years ahead lay hidden as I struggle upon this trial.
Trudging further on in a beaten, battered and weary style.

Days ahead giving rise to new reason to feelings so distraught.
Yet one more year, in the uselessness I find that I am caught.

Long forgotten days that once gave cause to smile.
Leaving ahead but sadness and mistakes to reconcile.

Man of greed and narrow thought whose power holds the lands.
By cash alone you compel us all to follow your commands.

And willingly for our own needs we see your world as true.
Bought blindness to dictate our days on a course that profits you.

We close our eyes to the carnage and the killing that you call right.
And we pray for something better than greed and a show of might.

In our hearts we know your motive and the wrongs that you do.
And hope that there is some way we will not need to follow you.

You do not pause to think that you could ever be in the wrong.
And through your reins of power you drag us right along.

I see the world rebelling as by fire nature strikes us back.
With those you opposed, in the news, telling of your foolish attack.

Fear of what you lose compels you to fight change at all cost.
And because we do no better we will all eventually be lost.

Many of us have forgotten the simple things that we were taught.
Such as trust, morality and right are things that can not be bought.

The world when it is sane will come to hate your very name.
But by lethargy and greed the next chosen, sure to be just the same.

I could smile then,
I knew joy and laughter,
I dreamt and hoped
Back when love knew me.

I woke with purpose,
I held no regret,
I sought wonder
Back when love knew me.

I joined in this world,
I faced its challenge,
I was resilient then
Back when love knew me.

I was confident,
I held no self doubts,
I had a value
Back when love knew me.

I could trust,
I could be tolerant,
I had patience
Back when love knew me.

I had time,
I had a future,
I had a contentment
Back when love knew me.

Back when love knew me.
I had you

When I was young life came at such a pace that choices were often ill-considered.
Now I am older the pace is easier but the important choices are all made and they can only be made to change by actions ill-considered.

You may not like it but...
You know more about the universe than it does about you.
Even if you know nothing.

Awake or asleep I do not remember my dreams.
Like you I once did dream.
Long since did my dreams abandon me.
Though I know I once dreamt.
I vaguely recall nightmares and I sense I have lived them.
I know the shadows they left and the darkness now, where once dream was possible.
Perhaps it was that I imagined dreams, for my memories recall once believing I was happy.
Or perhaps that is just my dreams reminding me of their death.
I ponder if my dreams... like my memories... are all of my past.
Are they still dreams and is it still dreaming if they are but memories?

I look upon shards of dreams
all shattered once taken in a blur.
Leaving me now only the reality
of something they never were.

I have held onto the tatters
of the promises the dream had made.
The memories and the fondness
and the wishing they had stayed.

At the time they held the warmth
and a true purpose to my days.
To give me fulfilment,
until dream and I went our separate ways.

To know the touch, to know the kiss
and the face of a true dream.
Only for it to fade and for loves embrace,
to not be as it would seem.

I cannot hide the hurt
and I wont trust love again.
I live each day in memory
where the scars of dreams remain.

How then can I hear the advice
such as you may give.
For without trust in hope and dream
is how I am now come to live.

Every year ends in darkness and starts in darkness.
Why does that seem like a revelation?

Which is the sadder life to lead?
To remember that I loved and was loved and it has passed.
Or to forget I loved and was loved as though it never was?

How do you recall the one you loved and forget that they have gone?

So many days spent wishing to be somewhere, with someone.
Endlessly needing to feel that someone somewhere needs me.
So tired of feeling and being empty. So empty from feeling tired.
So tired of just being.

Moving from nothing to nowhere and back again. Some days just too tired and empty to even deal with nothing and nowhere. Never changing, never varied and oh so never ending.
So tired of just being.

Repetition that drains, that saps, that devours and consumes.
Eating away just a little more of who I was, who I can be.
Eroding piece by piece who I was and how I see myself.
So tired of just being.

Pointless, aimless, redundant so totally without purpose.
Devoid of reasons to wake and no rest though I sleep.
So much time wasted, abused, misused, cursed and loathed.
So tired of just being.

Why is it that I can still not look forward when those who left me have never even glanced back?

To take a thought or some emotion,
and to convert it to the written word.
To have a voice unspoken,
and to know it yet may be heard.

To place before the audience
some learning or to simply share a view.
To tell of things, of love or pain,
and to give a glimpse of you.

To remove an outer layer,
or remove a mental crutch.
To open up your soul,
and expose it to their touch.

To etch into the mind,
of someone never met.
A hope a dream or some idea,
that they will not forget.

Each and every poet,
writes of what they have lived and feel.
And from their own experience and dreams,
they paint for us unseen worlds to real.

Through conveyance by the written word,
that great poets have oft expressed in rhyme.
Casting forward thoughts of love and wisdom,
to become unforgotten and to be heard for all of time.

How fragile built a world,
where each thought and chosen attitude,
Lies safe, secure and constant,
on foundations built upon some platitude.

How to deal with life,
to face its tumultuous ride.
To see every obstructive hurdle,
as if from some brighter side.

To see not what life holds,
but some glass measure of its fill.
To somehow look beyond the quality,
to let quantity somehow shape your will.

To heed not the dark storm clouds,
when horizons fade to black.
To see only silver linings,
somewhere beyond fates latest attack.

How glorious it must be,
to hold onto some distant hope.
To blind yourself just enough,
to enable strength enough to cope.

My world seems no more stronger,
though on platitudes I cant rely.
For as life has shaped and taught me,
forever so, to be the pessimist am I.

Cant you see the world is dying as we bake it with our waste?
The only world we have and it can never be replaced.
The forests that are still standing are burning to the ground.
We all stand by and watch it and don't even make a sound.
The oceans choked with plastic, that are chemically changed.
But we just go about our business which surely is deranged.
So many forms of life that no longer roam the lands.
Once fertile soils frying, turned to sunburned desert sands.
Rivers that no longer flow out into the plastic seas.
Unheeded were warnings sung by frog and disappearing bees.
Through greed and lies our politicians plead an economic case.
Will they hang up the closed sign when we come to shut the place?
They pictured it would be yet generations before the price was due.
But we already see the early terror greed has made for me and you.
Yet still they burn the fuels without regard for the planets health.
And sell to you that its okay because you prosper in the wealth.
When you draw your last breath or watch your children die.
Choke on every dollar that you took from turning your blind eye.

I feel the turning once again of this world on which I stand.
I feel the steady cosmic motions and ponder if it is planned.

Do you stop to think, as I am on occasion inclined to do.
To speculate if plans and turning are meant for me and you?

So short the time we witness the revolving of the world.
Seemingly too short a time to see purpose in any plans unfurled.

Do you know a faith that assures you of what tomorrow brings?
Or have you come to question any meaning in religious things?

No one has ever truly known if it was made to turn for me or you.
I know the world keeps turning endlessly no matter what I do.

The flow of time and its expanse argue against a mortal plan.
At least in terms of one centred upon the species we know as man.

Why so big and why so long and why be here at all?
Why believe ourselves important when we so obviously are small?

So short the time we play our piece in what a plan might be.
And so far the plans horizons... too far for our small minds to see.

And yet my mind is caught in the fact that we are small...
Why something seemingly insignificant witnesses or thinks at all?

Old Macdonald's farm used to contain many happy animals...
New Macdonald's farm used to be called the Amazon and only contains beef cattle now.

So lonely now the road I travel so far from what I have known,
Empty and in darkness, borne by pain, so I choose to walk alone.

Where are the faces that once I knew so well?
Abandoned or forsaken along the pathway to this hell.

Craving with a longing to know for real true loves hold,
But too scared of hurt again , safe but empty, I sit out in the cold.

Heart of many fragments and a mind that feels the same,
Trust and loves' illusions are the things I have come to blame.

How can I escape here? What is there to do?
For even if I could love again I could have no trust in you.

Something so fundamental broken and seemingly beyond repair.
So obvious to all who see it, they fear getting close enough to care.

A form of emotions scarecrow born of mind and shared by heart,
To chase real love and trust away before it has time to make a start.

So tired of being lonely, of being caught up in this spell,
Much too afraid to step outside, to replay what led me to this hell.

I seem destined to endure loneliness' never ending empty burn...
Broken mind the only ear to heart's desolate and pleading  yearn.

If you want to see what becomes of optimists just look upon the faces of those people coming out of betting shops and casinos.

A pessimist will tell you that optimism is an addiction that will cost you as much as you are willing to wager and eventually the house will win.

You can only be as optimistic as you are lucky.

So many years since the mirror showed the fairest of them all.
Long since the face, a friend once was, I do by memory now recall.
Who was this face, this man... this once was just a mere boy?
I knew him well so long ago in a world once knowing tastes of joy.

We walked in light and sun and no shadow harboured fears.
But that face no longer greeted me as the shadows grew by years.
I shared his hopes, his dreams and passions on so many sunlit day.
So long since did things yet fade and so too his image went its way.

So long since and yet I still recall him as if from some other life.
Slaughtered dream and hope and passion long dead upon fates knife.
How long since he and I were one, I cannot quite recall.
But perhaps that face I saw reflected was never there at all?

So many years ago... a lifetime so it seems...
When once my own reflection and I...
Shared a world inspired by hope and the same dreams.

A face, a man, a boy I thought I would always know,
So long since and too many years ago

Separated by half a world but united by their dream,
Two dreamers who would be lovers share in true loves theme.
In cottage upon a hilltop among trees in blossom their love stands,
Nightly, imagine being there together whilst tightly holding hands.

Each knows of the other dreaming love half a world away
Alternating as one loves by night and the other loves by day.
Thoughts so very similar of the love they wish to share.
Knowing that only by dreaming, together can they be there.

Imagined love by day and dreamed love to ease the night,
In mind alone, things that lovers do, tells each the dream is right.
Only by dream and imagined time there in that lovers place,
Can they know the others kiss and passion born of loves embrace.

And So nightly I will go by dream to that cottage on the hill
Where again she awaits and for our love, time is standing still.

I walked into life's library to seek perhaps adventures there.
Not really knowing what I sought my expectations unaware.

I looked first at the non-fiction upon shelves marked clearly with tape.
The more I looked yet did I realize it was from that I sought escape.

I chanced upon a section where great imagined dramas did abound.
Where mystic stories and strange creatures on the pages could be found.

Caught briefly by the imagined on the pages with heroes deeds upon.
I realized all was fantasy so through the pathway of books I ventured on.

Time passed as it tends by some scale that seemed so erratic in its flow.
As shelves and stories passed me by along the route I chose to go.

I came then to a section with a long queue of people standing there.
Patiently in their place and each with determined and focused stare.

What was it that drew them and caused this lengthened line?
Their looks suggested that the need, was very much like mine.

I had passed so many shelves with random people here and there.
But no other shelf or section for which this queue I could compare.

Through strong and strange compulsion I resolved to take my chance.
To join the much sought after line toward the shelf of "Love and Romance".

Not by rope from a branch nor by knife upon flesh have my pains been given to yield.

But by words on a page do I yet seek to make my wounds to become healed.

Thoughts like demons cast out to be left behind to help me better see the road still ahead.

Perhaps to see smiles and love once more, but if not, a world where I crave less to be dead.

I write not for my arts sake...
I write for my hearts ache...

I write not to remind myself...
I write to re-mind myself...

It would seem my dropping out of school has cost me in loves game yet again.
Going with a lovely lady to the towns hottest club...
How was I to know that the sign outside "Liquor at the front and poker out the back" didn't mean what I thought it did.

How cruel to say you loved me as sweetly in my ear.
How cruel it was to hold me as tightly, your body oh so near.

How cruel it was to press your flesh so very close to mine.
How cruel to share a passion when as one we did entwine.

How cruel to share a romance and true lust when on our own.
How cruel to give the softest kisses that my lips have ever known.

How cruel it was to promise that you would always care.
How cruel it was to talk of a future that we would one day share.

The cruelest thing of all that will always haunt my mind.
Is to recall the beauty of it all in the memories you left behind.

Throughout my life I have made a study of the human soul.
I have found there to be broadly 26 categories and accordingly have labelled them alphabetically.... "A" souls, "B" souls, "C" souls... and so on. Each type having their own characteristics.
Unsurprisingly the 18th group is the largest.

I have stood out on a dark night with no cloud to hide the sky.
And allowed my pupil to focus to become a night time eye.

I have marvelled at the bands of pearl all strung upon the air.
And gazed upon the awesome beauty of the magic awaiting there.

Wisps of faintest cloud stretched through the sparks of light.
Shine like opalescent jewels against the blackness of the night.

Dark filaments and veils against the brighter bands.
That in minds eye give the illusion of fingers sifting sands.

On such nights I have raised a scope to see what I could see.
And have been astounded by the wonders uncovered there to me.

Stars so very distant and of every fiery shade and hue.
Some seem of yellow gold and some of the most crystal blue.

I have looked upon the clouds of gas remnant stars no longer there.
And seen the lustrous beauty of how stars die painted in the air.

Silhouettes of dark clouds that hide where new light is born .
Against backdrop much brighter seemingly blown apart and torn.

Lens turned to the blackness where my eye could see no sights.
Magnifying an endless field so distant of heavens burning lights.

Endless is the wonder and vast and timeless is the scale.
Out upon the universe where only light has time and speed to sail.

When was it that I got old and all of the joy was faded away?
Why didn't I notice my hair all over was turned gray?

When did all my excitement all seem to fade and get sick.
I know from all of the candles it didn't all happen that quick.

Why didn't I observe my youth all quietly, unnoticed slide away.
When did the word "cool" become something that old guys all say?

Why is my six pack now sitting much nearer the top of my leg?
Why do I now resemble someone struggling to carry a keg?

Why is it I go to the bathroom while the world all sleeps at three?
And find that I have to sit down, too tired, even just to go ***?

Oh the girls, how we would make love through dawn until six.
The image just in memory nearly kills me recalling such tricks.

Parts that don't work or sometimes ache that cause me to pause.
Long ago after the rescue giving up attempting to sit on all floors.

I need to put on glasses to read as without I am half blind.
But they take more than half a day if I put them down, to re-find.

I'll finish this gripe with whimper and no raucous call out....
I know I'm still writing but I have forgotten what the ****** about.

Have you faced a fear and known the power of its defeat?

Did you find that your new fear is the not fearing it no more?

Replaced now by a fear of the known roads that lead you to be that brave again and the knowing that you can?

I have drawn back from a world where those roads are where I am compelled by choices not my own.

Instead through isolation I choose not to defeat that fear again. Along that road I know the destination that awaits.

I fear those roads and those who would lead me there.
And as with you and your fears... it is from them that I hide.

I know my own bravery and the point at which I break.
That road for now best avoided and the one way sign well marked.

I write poems to chase rotting ghosts from my soul.
To clear thoughts, voice ideas and to make myself whole.

I'm not here to write classics or tell of epic events.
Just to gather thoughts, clear my head and hope to make sense.

I read what you write and hear your point of view.
I learn from your lessons and I search what is true.

If just one word in return that I write should make you reflect.
I am honored you found some meaning and reason to connect.

I want to learn to forget things the way they have forgotten me.
It seems a fairer way to live....

I have found true love at last so near my dying day.
A mistress who does not judge or lead me only to dismay.
Rewarding in so many ways many treasures so refined.
And gives a love to inspire in return a loyal and devoted kind.

A page for all my needs and fulfilling all of my desire.
My every passion fed fulfilled to light my internal fire.
Never finding fault in me or doubting of my worth.
No truer love have I known in my wanders upon this Earth.

No question of the love now found that meets my every need.
No lies or deceits as went before to cause my soul to bleed.
No test to tell if I am straight or perhaps leaning toward the gay.
I give praise to the creator, and will always laud him, for eBay.

My arms would hold you, secure you, protect you.
My lips would cherish you, desire you, worship you.
I would comfort you, hear you, listen to your needs.
I would live for you, breathe for you, be dedicated to you.
My goal would be to feed your smiles and laughter.
Always to respect and honor you, care for and about you.
I would gladly be what you want and what you need.

Who are you? Where are you?

It isn't something new to science....
It isn't science fiction and a dream to come....

Your heart recalls your past and takes you there when needed.
With your heart you see the future.

Knowing when to use it, when to share it, how far to trust it and when to risk it is the lesson to be learned.

The key to dreams and memories....

I envy you who awakes to welcome the birthing of a new day.
Where family, friends, love and hope are the keystones of your way.

Once I too had those things and could welcome each rising sun.
And like you too I did all I could to hold those things hard won.

I never thought of my life in terms of what it had cost.
Never understood the value of having it until it all was lost.

I never even thought that it could all be lost in the way it was.
To end up living life when the sun rises and that my only "because".

To have a life with meaning and where you can have some good.
Yes I still remember it and I would turn my time back if I could.

I hope you can forgive my envy and know I bear no ill will to you.
But hear, please my en-treatment, your world is fragile too.

Do not take for granted that things will always last.
Better those things in your future than only in your past.

Can a wise man follow his heart and it not be a contradiction?
Can wisdom come from the heart?
Intelligence is something very different to wisdom... does this also mean it resides somewhere other than the mind?
Can you measure these things of yourself and be either?

Is it mind or heart that craves the touch of love?
Is it born within me or come from God above?

And what fires this lonely burning rising in my soul?
What drives this sense of yearning for things to make me whole?

Why do I always feel half empty and always out of place?
Why when I close my eyes can I discern a feminine shape of face?

Why do I crave to fill these spaces so vast within my heart?
How flawed I truly must be, to be missing clearly, some vital part.

Am I meant to endure and ignore my hearts so empty call?
Or should I simply find a way, to not search for answers here at all?

I think back on the good times and the memories that we made.
And in my quiet moments those great times are all replayed.

I remember the laughter and tenderness of the time we shared.
briefly feeling less alone remembering that once you cared.

Of course there is a melancholy sadness in knowing it has passed.
But we built so many memories that the warmth of then will last.

Do you recall those moments when we shared intimacy and fun?
Or are they all your past and in memories, time made you none?

I think often of the passionate warmth, of you entwined with me.
And feel again the excitement of how those times could be.

Always with some loss, but too an overwhelming sense of pride.
When once you were my lover, our bodies laying side by side.

I keep selfishly those memories that you and I have made.
Musing, what I could have done, to ensure that time had stayed.

I think of you often now in that wider world out there.
To hope you keep one good memory as proof you once did care.

If I give you one more chance to lie to me,
would you tell me you love me one last time,
maybe then I could lie to me too,
and have something to believe and dream once more?

Has my path been random or has it been ordained?
Did I make the choices that led me to this life so strained?

Some would say I was tested and it was always the path ahead.
Every choice and word predetermined, all destined to be said.

I always believed I was independent and making my own way.
But I have come to doubt it, I am so less certain of myself today.

Every choice I made has led me here to writing this today.
Less certain than before, less belief in all the words I've had to say.

Confused by life and doubting in just who the hell I am.
Always predetermined, cosmically intended to fail at the exam.

There is no sense to it if I was always meant to fall.
And there really was no purpose to testing me at all.

So even if its random and has all been by my choice.
The failure has been even greater and I am just an empty voice.

A view of this world distorted by eyes now welled with tears.
More broken and alone than at anytime in all my younger years.

No sign of reason and nothing to sustain progress to a future way.
Just the futility that lays ahead as I face yet one more pointless day.

Scream out to the deafness, in pain so deep, of the peril that I am in.
Resolved to the reality there are no ears, and I have no way to win.

Long has been my fight since I fell to this most desperate place.
Knowing an escape by my own hand will not even leave a trace.

To end my continual pain and this life of lonely deep despair.
And with certainty just knowing, no one knows I was even there.

No one left to notice or care how far I fall.
Any path without this pain again a very welcomed call.

How many souls have been lost because they used their heart as a compass?