There once was a very fine cat called Flick.
A more respected cat there has never been.
Well groomed, very proud and much admired.
Flick was well educated and some would say both wise and smart.
So well admired and trusted that even fish looked up to him.
Now Flick ran a local school which offered very specialized classes.
Adult fish would drop their hatch-lings off to learn from Flick.
So many hatch-lings were trusted to Flick's care.
For many years and generations hatch-lings came and went.
Flick's prestige and adoration growing as the years passed.
Then one day....
A former hatch-ling... much older and somewhat troubled by life,
spoke out aloud of his time at Cat Flick School and of how the Cat Flick upon the hatch-lings was Fed A Pile.
By any standard all the fish agreed... such is a Cardinal sin.

Trying to fill the days and forcing them to go.
Finding there are too many in a never ending flow.
What to do with time that never seems to end.
Seemingly more hours than with which I can contend.
Playing games and dithering just to pass the time away.
Sleeping endless moments and still finding its today.
Why do all the days seem so very long?
What choice did I make to make time ebb so wrong?
I know it hasn't always passed or seemed to happen in this way.
But oh so long ago since they were all a twenty four hour day.
No rhythm or regularity in times pattern anymore.
Why so many hours and what are the days all for?
I used to measure days by the passing of the sun.
But many times I sleep and of daylight I see none.
You may think I have control of all rhythms in these things.
But why control the repetition tomorrow always brings?
If I sleep eight times and I eat just only three.
Is that not a measure of how long my week should be?
Must I sleep just seven and eat per some schedule too?
Will I then contend with time as I am meant to do?
Will days take new meaning and my hours hold more reward?
Or will the extra hours awake just make me much more bored?
If I sleep twelve times and I eat when I have need to.
Aren't the days still the same length both for me and you?
Do we really share the same cycle if I view it on my own?
Or does time really move much slower for those who are alone?

Like a hungry shark has loneliness again come to feed upon my heart and mind.
Ravenous and savage it feeds upon a soul that warmth and love has left behind.
Once again a mind and heart that love avoids is to the darkness lead.
Bloodied, mauled and torn to shreds, remnant carcass left floating dead.
Never sated and without remorse it tears, as it feeds there in the empty dark.
Savagely, ever feeding, ever gnawing, ripping into my souls last hopeful spark.
Hungry, starving, ravenous and in frenzy and seemingly never fully fed.
No worth, no value, adrift, no purpose to any futures' plan but still I am not dead.
Razor teeth intent upon taking every ounce of my last mortal dream and hope.
Until mind is convinced that it's only peace is best found in a loop of sturdy rope.
This is the game that shark and loneliness play so often within my heart and mind.
The shark, the loneliness, love or a length of rope who wins I am still yet to find.

Melodies of my soul in soft dulcet tones,
play through my mind once more in the night,

Emotion vibrating through my very bones,
to keep me company until the mornings light.

Words in the shapes of harmony and verse,
that give voice to my heart in purest sound.

To speak of an empty lonely universe,
and of a love my spirit never found.

How can flesh endure when a soul cries,
in relentless voice, in such a sad refrain.

While lament will pass at suns early rise,
A lonely soul knows, the song will come again.

I thought to write a poem but no subject came to mind
and though I racked my brain not one topic could I find.

My head was full of nothing even though I had a need to rhyme.
But no matter how I strained it was quite simply a waste of time.

I sought to look for inspiration in the reading of a  new book
but I never really found it, despite all the time it took.

Perhaps I could find motivation in some TV and the news,
But that made me feel quite weary and so I took a little snooze.

Mind refreshed from sleep still no thoughts of what to write
and so it has remained through to these small hours of the night.

My desire to write a poem to entertain you as you read
has all come to nothing, so many hours later, I must concede.

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.

Solid door seemingly so sturdy now tight and firmly sealed.
No hint from outward of hearts secrets, the mansion has concealed.

Many dreams long now vacated from the vast and empty halls.
Fragmented memories that hang, framed upon the fading walls.

The facade of many windows where no light within does show.
Seemingly no memory of love that this heart may once did know.

Like echoes upon the air the hidden memories ensconced in there.
Until echo fades to nothing and empty sadness taints the stale air.

Tortured walls in hallways that peel, are rent with unfilled crack.
Memory that time has worn and eroded as only time can lay attack.

No hint of any joy or laughter left within this mansions frame.
No face of beauty even in memory by which love recalls her name.

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.

In a foreign land,
over two thousand years ago,
there lived a man,
whom the world would come to know.

Raised out of Nazareth,
his humble place of birth,
tasked with spreading words of love,
and of peace throughout the Earth.

Many were his deeds,
and so timeless and true his word,
that he changed the shape of the world,
for those who saw and heard.

He challenged the authority,
of those who then held sway,
by telling common people that through his Father,
there lay a better way.

Challenged by his word,
and fearing influence on the wane,
by deceit and lie,
they sought to take control back again.

Despite his deeds and truth,
evident in what he taught,
by deception, lies and betrayal,
he was rounded up and caught.

In a trial that found no arguement,
to undermine what he had said,
he was sentenced to crucifixion,
nailed on a cross until he was dead.

I am sure you know the rest,
of how on the third day he did rise,
and you have seen our world still battling,
against the hate and all the lies.

On this very weekend, remember,
this man from long ago I beg,
for there is much more to this remembrance,
than the chocolate in your egg.

A thousands spires that whirl and dervish,
high upon the scorching currents in the air.
Across the empty desiccated wastelands,
so long parched without waters soft repair.

Like gyrating embodied souls rotating,
to lay scar deeply carved upon the land,
driving clouds of rock like pelting hail,
headlong until all is shattered into sand.

Flashes of lightening and thunders call,
clouds cast in iron, observers of the scene,
testament in muted light from up on high,
sole recall of still waters that once had been.

Desolate open and forsaken landscape,
where only wind gives motion to the world.
Leaden clouds of rain without a falling,
static charged clouds constantly re-curled.

How long ago it was that life had left,
its own scars and marks upon the soil.
until through life's' own achievements,
a once beautiful world was left to broil.

In that not so distant time when remnants
of the miracle that was life is erased and gone.
not one thing that we have ever seen or know,
nor memory of who we once were shall live on.

Once again the sobbing of my heart,
drowns out thoughts of laughter.
And still the ache of loneliness tells,
there is no sign of what I am after.

Through ache of the soul and a pain,
deep in my damaged spirits broken core.
Everything I am and all of my being,
just longing for someone to adore.

There is someone for everyone,
I have heard people often say.
So why this dark lonely space,
my head cant make go away?

When you have love to give,
and there is no one there.
Until all your body can feel,
is darkness and empty despair.

How can you hang onto dreams,
or even make effort to cope.
Abandoned by love and alone,
knowing each day there is no hope.

A pain so deep and this endless ache,
so much love to give it cant be wrong.
Through hearts cry and souls pain,
Somehow I am meant to stay strong.

I can't

There's a music in my soul,
soft lyrics sound in my head.
Words I know so well,
about thoughts I've never said.

Like spirits on the wind,
grains of sand before the storm.
The harmonies in tune,
where the symphony does form.

Sometimes the theme it is so clear,
constant lilt and steady beat.
Stories of places I would go,
and people I've yet to meet.

Often I hear the cry,
of a soul that's lost its way.
Where thoughts hide in the night,
and my demons have their say.

Some would say its a sad song,
but it has a comfort when it comes.
With the violin song so clear,
and steady beat of muffled drums.

My soul is singing to my mind,
and through the harmonies they play.
To chase darkness from my thoughts,
until they dissolve all life's pains away.

Yes I love it when it sounds,
when that music fills my soul.
I can feel alive again,
spirit for a time completely whole.

Let your soul write your song,
listen and heed  its steady refrain.
Move along with it, where it leads,
as it comes to ease your pain.

There are but only twenty four hours in each and every day
though so often this seems untrue whether we work or are at play.
The measure that ticks the seconds to make the minutes,
to make the hours that so slowly merge and fade away.
Until memory and minds shadows, paint all with shades of gray.
Life's joys and countless traumas that by seconds come and go,
at the ticking of a clock, shaping for each the living we come to know.
Smiling faces joined in laughter or sad eyes so full with tears,
by second, minute, hour, day until time becomes our lived out years.
We journey in a search for contentment and for a heart to find its way,
passing dreams that fade as if but seconds and still hope of that one day.

They tell of a land to the North
with misted valley's and of glen
Where red deer wild roam
as they make splash upon the fen.

Strong and hardy is the stock,
many with deep red hair,
Raised from their day of birth,
on naught but deep fried fare.

Custom demands of each a thrift,
and preservation of everything,
this all born out on coinage in pocket,
bearing the head of the last king.

They are true a hardy race,
of this many can contend,
and rumours abound all over,
of them tossing trees end on end.

So too there are tales of a legend,
that gives some despair to the soul.
that they smack a ball all over hillsides
until it falls into a wee hole.

Cultural music is a strong tradition.
and dance often accompanies that,
with much joy and merry festivity
to sound of someone neutering a cat.

An ancient tongue they sometimes speak
that gives cause to a certain lilt.
But ire them not for revenge is sweet
as they turn backs and raise their kilt.

Over half a hundred years
and still I journey on.
At times I'm left to wonder
Where all the years have gone.

Memories that hold the proof
that this life was really mine.
Reflecting as I sometimes do
was it fate or predestined line?

Did I make real choices
that took me down this path?
Or did some cosmic scheme
shape every tear and laugh?

Is all I am and all I've been
of unique and individual shape?
Or was I made to be like this
taking part in manufactured jape?

If some hand does guide it
and I be but actor in some play,
What point in this life I have,
for it to be played out this way?

Of course there is no answer
that I can ever be sure to know.
So I just blindly journey on
to wherever this line might go.

Random course or predefined
my day to day follows every bend.
And over half a hundred years,
I am so much nearer to its end.

How can it be that your words describe what I have seen?
How can the words you write describe the path I have trodden?
Bumps and hills, hurdles, smiles... how do you know them?
Are my thoughts, experiences all so openly seen that you have access?
Were you following, reading minds, perhaps spying or stalking?
Even my thoughts and emotions in precise framing in your words.
Are you me in some other form I have until now never seen?
How can you understand me and know me when we have never met?
You were not there when I lived these things. How can you know them?
Our pathways in different lands, at different times and yet you write me.
How can we share these footprints and yet never meet?

So long ago was the wonder turned to real by the Eagle flying by.
A child in awe I watched that miracle outside of Earth's blue sky.

In grainy black and white the world united in an up turned gaze.
To dream a unified dream for all, in those long ago heroic days.

A dream for all of mankind and your words they called it so.
Joint in belief of great achievement of how far our species could go.

You carried the heroes of a decade that paved a road up to that day.
You caught the minds of others and set new heroes on their way.

There was Mike and Buzz and you and yet others there would be.
Who would follow that first footstep that you left upon the sea.

Through the journey of life,
I followed where my nose has led.
A majority of my story,
on pages now turned and read.

There is a change in me,
a need to seek some other guide.
For my nose at times has led,
to so many places where I cried.

So short the time remaining in my book,
I want to follow my own heart.
To smile and laugh again,
and let love and passion play its part.

Somewhere out there,
there must be a lover that feels the same.
Yet I don't know where you are,
and I don't even know your name.

I hold a passion and a love for you,
so vast it would cover all the sea.
My heart cries out for some reply,
who and wherever you may be.

I am both a repository of unused love,
and so very much all alone
So whomever you may be,
find me soon, life is pointless on my own.

Walls enclose so many things,
and often have no doors,
a mind can have so many rooms,
without obeying spatial laws.

Dark or light the varied rooms,
where thoughts can play at games,
to fill mansions of many floors,
and tenants have unforgotten names.

Nights where faces come and go,
all marching from distant past,
but all were gone so long ago,
from the first face to the last.

Time that ebbs at varied pace,
as memory plays out the parade,
recalling all the ones once lost,
and those who never stayed.

Universe of lonely empty feeling,
all that memory has now become,
No sense of being yet still alive,
just a chill that leaves you numb.

A heart that once yearned for love,
of the promise that it can bring,
but yearnings perished long ago,
to become this sad and lonely thing.

I am told I see my glass half empty
I should see it half full when I look at it
Empty or full either way I see a glass containing ****

If E=MC squared and I am 9 stone why cant I get up in the morning?

If all things are "relative" why haven't I heard from any of you?

If nothing moves faster than light how does that cold drop of water beat me when I go to the bathroom in the mornings?

So difficult a thing to give the inexperienced a way to understand.
Why I am shaped the way I am by things I had never planned.

I could tell you of those things in the hope they would shine a light.
But unless you have been there you just couldn't see them right.

Now I know that from the outside I may look the same as you.
But I also know that on the inside I can see a different view.

Those unplanned things that changed me in oh so many ways.
Leaving me without a point or purpose facing lonely empty days.

So deep the changes made that I struggle to leave my own door.
In a head that despises minutes and asks what all the hours are for.

In a mind that knows me Oh so well fearing you can see inside.
Withdrawn from your society is my only safe place to hide.

My mind is not so broken that I have forgotten all my past.
It knows full well that by choice hope and love have been outcast.

To the inexperienced from a mind that survives a life in this way.
I hope you have clearer understanding of how I live my every day.

I have no wisdom to offer or warning of a path you should avoid.
External views wont show you why survival has been employed.

Where choice has different meaning, instinct plays a bigger part.
And mind suppresses both hope and dreams of a broken heart.

I am become who I am by the path my life road has turned.
I am this shape by instinct to survive, not from lessons I have learned.

I tried to be what I am meant to be.
The shape the world tells me by shout.
And no matter how I fight at getting in.
My thoughts are turned back to getting out.

Did you see me fighting demons?
Did you note I'd left your space?
Do you know the wounds I took?
Or had I left you with no sign or trace?

Do you know the demon "black dog"?
Does it wait outside your gate?
Do you have strategies to fight back?
Or do you let the "black dog" decide your fate?

For now I keep the dog at bay
In early days it visited so much more
And though I am still winning right now
The dog seems so much stronger than before.

I don't think that deadly "black dog",
will ever allow me to get back in.
But each day I have the courage to chase it off,
I need to believe there is some reason for me to win.

It knows my thoughts and uses them against me.
And I know I will need to fight on so many days ahead.
I cant see a time when the dog will call on me no more.
But if I stop the fight ... the "black dog" will make me dead.

There must be others going through what I'm going through.
This an attempt at conversation with those who feel as I do.

I live a life so empty and always on my own.
It seems so short of reality to describe it as alone.

The days are endless cycles that fade and become as one.
Looking to find some distinction when basically there's none.

Emptiness and lonely just doesn't tell it right.
And to say its isolation really doesn't describe my plight.

A world devoid of relationships of any type or kind.
Has left me with distorted disposition and an overactive mind.

I find days, weeks, months and calendars obsolescent things.
A consequence of every day repetitive in everything it brings.

I don't know how to stop it defeating me in this way.
For when I try to fight it all motivation drains away.

My life seems forever lived in the deepest sense of sorrow.
Knowing what I did yesterday and today, I do again tomorrow.

The light at the end of the tunnel is actually a sense of worth, of value, of relevance... a sense of purpose and place.
The loss of these took me here.
It is not a light that those in the tunnel control... seemingly forever beyond my reach and unable to believe in value, place or worth.
It was never the aim to switch the light off. It was the hand and judgement of others that threw the switch to off. It is why the light and the switch are on the outside of the tunnel and not in the darkness where I am.
If you give no worth...
If you give no value...
If you give no relevance...
If you give no purpose...
Then there can be no place where the light can shine.

Why seek to dream as dreamers do,
when only nightmares are the ones to come true?

Why seek a lover who soon may part,
leaving exposed bare soul and a broken heart?

Why seek to hang on to joy and hope,
when a mind is so tired in can hardly cope?

Why does my soul seek and crave such things,
I don't really know... lets see what tomorrow brings.

Have you ever faced the dilemma of knowing that only love can save you and then had your mind ask you if that is your motive for the relationship you are in?
If your motive is to fall in love can you ever find the real thing?

It may be a truism but optimists cant escape it....
No one is right all of the time.
The only difference there has ever been is the frequency between  being wrong and right.

When an optimist falls in the woods only the pessimists will notice.

My life continues to end at seventy beats per minute.

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.

The most beautiful places and beautiful times are always shared by four eyes.

Life gives birth to optimists.
Then raises them to be pessimists.

When someone tells you that you have wounded their soul you can't mend the wounds by denying or arguing you didn't.
Their soul, their wound... your conscience.

Why is it do you suppose that as a species we have been given the senses to perceive, be curious of and bear witness to fourteen billion years of the wonders of the Universe.... yet we have not the common-sense to know or be assured of our own tomorrow?

Somewhere out there it is quite possible that intelligent life exists... but it certainly isn't us.

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.

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

By degree I feel the present turning,
as the sun yet once more comes to rise.
Eastern sky that lightens by the minute,
as it pushes heavens starlight from the skies.

One more day upon the pathway,
of where time does bid the flow.
As if by gentle stream or sometime rapids,
and fate compels the path I come to know.

Uncounted I recall repetitions,
on so many long ago, half forgotten days.
Where relentless turning of the Earth,
would shine a light upon life's awaiting plays.

Once light that shone a wonder,
on mystery and promised dreams.
Abundant in every kind of possibility,
to overflowing like flooded streams.

The flow of fate and time,
that set love and dream out upon the flow.
Until only memory of such sunrises,
is all my heart can now hope to know.

The turning will go on forever,
and so too the coming of the light.
But even at this hour I sense the dusk,
and I can feel the closeness of the night.

When you stand in darkness and choose to hide your face.
Know that you are not the only one who hides in such a place.
When you are at the edge and feel its pull is getting near.
Know that you can reach back and you can find me standing here.
When you feel the need to use the solution of your choice.
Know that you can call out to me and I will hear your voice.
Its true you do not know me and may think there is some cost.
I would rather you called out to me than to know that you are lost.

Of dust both stars and we are born and so to all will each return.
But in between, dust gives a heart a need for loves' enduring yearn.
In times' course on cosmic scale all particles are drawn to another one.
And so stars and love set adrift, until once more, all but dust is gone.

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

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.

I thought to write a poem about the town where I do live,
a brief poetic description is what I had hoped to give.

I thought it would take but a minute, so very little time,
but I ran into a problem because Whyalla has no rhyme.

I thought to tell its history of ships and iron and steel,
but Whyalla hasn't got a rhyme at least not a word that's real.

There is an old story told of how Whyalla got its name,
it tells of two Afghan's asking their god why they even came.

I could have told of the bush that surrounds the whole of town,
But Whyalla not having any rhymes just really let me down.

There is nature in abundance and some very scenic coast,
but you cant rhyme Whyalla so I didn't stand a ghost.

It isn't everyone's idea of a cultural oasis or a hidden jewel,
I could have told you good things if poems had no rhyming rule.

I would encourage you to visit Whyalla, if you have the time,
it is really quite an amazing place, even if it doesn't rhyme.

It's just a small country town just part of South Australia,
but to sell its attraction via a poem can only end in... failure.

Happy are so many memories...
But better still is the instance from which they are born.

Its only those you trust with the keys who can destroy your soul.
Everyone who broke your heart you gave that power to.

All lives matter!!

I remember being son.
I remember being brother.
I remember being boyfriend.
I remember being husband.
I remember being father.
I remember being employee.
If you have had your fill can I make a memory of being me?

If I told you I love you, that I care for you, maybe even desire you... would you have me arrested?

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

I stood and took my bearings my mind bare of thought.
Into my view came a bear bearing a *******.
The ******* on the bear back was bare.
Barely had I seen them when their bearings altered.
Bearing straight for me I barely had time to bear away.
Beyond me now and bearing for the Bering Strait.
I watched a bare bottom and a bear bottom bearing straight for there.
Re-telling this is barely bearable and certainly more than most can bear.
I know not what became of the bear and the bare ******* but at least Ive got this stuff out of my head.... sorry if its left you bearing the pain.

The reality is that there is a difference between love and need.
The understanding of both is only evident when true love is found and the contrasts revealed.
Only then are hearts, minds and souls contented as one.