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

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Born in the age of free love and still paying off the debt.

A heart that craves for loves sweet embrace,
for all joy that such love entails.
A mind that bears the scars and wounds,
of when trust and belief in love yet fails.

A heart that longs for shared joy and warmth,
entwined with the passion of one who cares.
Weighted by all the hurt and sad lonely memories,
in a mind that remembers a love it no longer dares.

To love again hearts and minds war is fought,
and frequently though trust in love yet prevails.
Through mind ever conscious there is no one,
the thought by which it constantly assails.

It is said that the saddest love is of an unrequited kind,
and that it leads a soul to deep despair.
Yet I know this to be false for the saddest love,
is to crave love with all you are and to have no one ...
in love to share.

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?

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.

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.

In a world where traits such as bigotry, greed, narcissism, non-empathy and some level of superiority (in ones own mind) are the key attributes to ensure success and some sense of purpose and fulfilment... I am less distressed than I should be to have failed at life.
I have come to appreciate simplicity and things that are genuine and wonder what reality looks like to the successful. Do they value a warm embrace and a soft kiss and the company of someone who likes them for who they are in the same way I do? And when (if) they feel and experience these things in a genuine way does their success still feel good when they reflect on what made them? Do they even reflect upon such things... or would they be less successful in their own minds if they saw themselves for who they are?
Can you be happy if your aspirations are something other than to love and be loved in return? Without these all is deception and you are both the deceived and the deceiver.

I have called out often to you
and I have craved your intervention.
Never really sure if you exist at all,
I still sought for your attention.

I searched the faiths a many
and I have tried to understand.
What it was that I must do
to reach out to your open hand.

My faith has wavered greatly
as my time has ambled on.
Yet often did I pray to you,
though at times my faith had gone.

So many times did I reach for you
from the depths of my despair.
Hoping for some magic sign
that you were standing there.

I have looked upon the world and universe,
To see its beauty and its terrors too.
In some unseen and mystifying way,
these things all cry out a testament of you.

I have come to think that we,
are not at the centre of your plan.
Your universe so vast in purpose,
for the tininess of a single man.

Endless chaos and reconstruction,
on a scale that a lifetime can't comprehend.
Recycling endless matter,
on a path seemingly without an end.

Yet you gave me mind and time,
to see this snapshot of the plan.
Giving cause for hope that you can hear,
the prayers of this small man.

I came upon the page and thought to write of who I am and who I was.
I thought it best to explain the things that people saw when they looked my way.
How I came to be what I see in my own reflection.
I gave benefit of doubt that they would or could then have some understanding. Perhaps naivety was my flaw?
The more I wrote the fewer looked.
Is it simply me or the openness that makes it so?
Is it what they see or the not wanting to really know?
Could it be that honesty is a frightening thing?
Am I better off to keep secrets and carry a facade?
Would then perhaps more be interested in who I am?
Would they then have the time to stop a while?
Or is it simply having seen they see no value?
And yet it is that I still need to fill the page...
and to hope someone will see me and stop a while.

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

Born of mind and heart and folded by the soul,
thus a poets words are forged.
Cast upon the fickle breeze or dispersed by howling gale,
perhaps to find new minds and hearts in which to grow.

Does everyone come to realize that life is just a terminal illness?

That feeling you get when you try giving up being a pessimist.

Where there is a will there is... a dead relative.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel... but no one has ever seen it.

Every cloud has a silver lining... the gold ones have already sold.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to see it... the loggers make a killing.

It costs an arm and a leg... but its way cheaper than getting married.

You can lead a horse to water... just follow the stink of dead fish.

Is your glass half full or half empty... then hurry up its your round.

If the shoe was on the other foot... you would look pretty stupid.

Better late than never... especially if you only met her/him once.

What day is it?....
Oh... !!!
Why couldn't it be yesterday?!
I survived yesterday.

I have had a little problem for the last four days or so,
of when I go into the toilet I just can't seem to go.

I get myself all seated just as comfortable as I can,
try to make quite certain I am centred on the pan.

I wait for things to happen but nothing seems to start,
no motions seem to occur not even some hint that I might ****.

I decide to try and push it and build pressure by holding breath,
but all that seems to do is put me close to suffocated death.

I grunt and squeak and gasp until an ear popped gasket blows,
all I end up doing is going red and blowing bubbles with my nose.

I tried a change of diet and drank gallon upon gallon of fruit juice,
but still there seems no evidence that anything is coming loose.

I have tried a change of position with my knees against my chin,
but I found it really awkward and ended up falling in.

My belly has gotten very large and feels as tight as a drum,
so much so I contemplate if you can use a crowbar on your ***.

I am sure outside the toilet they are hearing more than mere moans,
Looks I get quite often suggests surprise I've still got any bones.

I know that sometime eventually this thing will have to pass,
I just hope that when it does I can still use paper on my **.

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.

Many are the droplets that bead upon the windows pane.
As I look beyond the misted glass at the slowly falling rain.

Low hung wisps of white race upon the grey-est sky.
And puddles form with unheard splash before captivated eye.

The ground is damp and made sodden by the ever steady flow.
And so to now runs a stream that follows where kerb bids it to go.

Leaves upon trees seem now burdened by drops so hard to bear.
Made to shed their cargo by the motions of puff of dampened air.

A distant roll of thunder to accompany the patter on roofs tin.
A symphony by nature heard, whilst warm and dry within.

I look on as melancholy witness through drizzles on the glass.
Melancholy not through rain, but rather, from knowing it will pass.

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.

On such days black paint is all I need.
No shading reaches my palette.
No fine detail or delicate strokes of brush.
No intricate patterns of light to master.
No shapes to angle just correctly and in proportion.
No tones to give expression or perception.
Canvas of any size from white to black.
Imagery catching perfectly the mood.
These words the only weapon left to keep some canvas untainted.

When purpose, hope, dreams and future are gone and you know with certainty that all there is, is a past..... do you still see beauty in a sunrise?
When loathing a new dawn becomes your reality and despair lays as far as you can see, can you forgive those who lead you here?
Can you value your worth or forgive yourself for the mistakes you made along the way?
When all you have touched are gone or have either abandoned or been abandoned.... where does "stupidity" start to become reality? Do you see the sunrise and believe that you have reached the point of ultimate "stupidity"? The sun will always rise... must you avoid "stupidity" forever?
When you reach out a hand and there is none willing to take it how can sunrise hold any joy?
I am burdened by the expectations of those who would have me view endless sunrises.... they hold me back from reality to keep their dreams and hopes at the values they instill them with.
They fear "stupidity".
If you live here then we are neighbors you and I.... we share the same sunrise.

Have you ever reached a crossroad in your life and with complacency or with fear of what left or right offers or entails, at high speed powered on, only to find it was actually a T junction?
Only then you realise that life has no reverse gear and that some walls are very hard?

Are you raised or seated when you have to wipe your ***?
I feel compelled to ask you as there seems no rule of thumb.
Do you use your left hand or do you use the right?
Do you really scrub it or stroke it nice and light?
Do you scrunch the paper or fold it layered flat?
I hope I haven't intruded or offended by asking you all that?


My apologies but sometimes my brain just wont engage neutral gear.

I survived the broken heart just fine.
It was the collateral damage to my mind that killed me.

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.

Often when I thought myself wrong it was then that I was.

Offshore breeze of more bluster than steady.
Drawing white tips to waves of an emerald tinge.
White crested green seas surrounding.
Hands clenched to rail covered by misty spray.
Rolling and pitching immunized by the visions before young eyes.
Sky of pristine blue with radiant white wisps of cloud.
Horizons unending even where blue and green meet.
Two seals at play in the tossing waves.
Glistening grey bodies ducking and diving beneath breaker.
The prow through frothing ocean, pushing aside waves with ease.
Carving on steadily through liquid green and white anger of sea.
To the starboard horizon a darkening shape.
Bands of cotton stitched atop.
Drawing now noticeably ever nearer.
Almost by magic the horizons shape appears,
wind gives way to breeze.
Waters now at ease taking on more familiar and everyday hues.
White shapes astride the shore with tones that hint and suggest.
Now ever nearer becoming buildings and the buildings a city.
All the while the stitched cotton band reshaped to form clouds.
Blanketing perfectly the mountain called Table-Top.
Young eyes still locked in wonder, hands still holding rail.
Now docked along quayside, vast cityscape beyond.
Table-Top with cloth as backdrop.

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.

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?

I think it truer that there is more than one light in the tunnel.
There are many exit signs... many corridors.
But... only one to which my key fits that leads to the light my eyes can focus in.
A tunnel can lead to many places... better the tunnel than a place you don't want to be, no matter how bright the lights may seem to others.
If such weren't so there would be no tunnel and my eyes would never have lost their focus.

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".

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.

If you would just stop making choices....
I could live by something more than consequence....
If I promised the same to you would you not be at rest too?
No choice. No consequence.... nothing.
Isolated, contented.... safe..... nothing.

To travel from light to darkness takes but the instant to blink.
To return requires an unknown path and a light worth finding.

Like post-it notes,
upon a yearbooks page.

Hand scrawled summaries,
of the important bits.

Faces, places, names,
happiness and sadness,
loves and passions,
hurts and pain.

Tattered but treasured remnants,
that taught me, that made me.

They fashioned me,
and completed my design.

All duly noted and stored,
and learned for good or ill.

These are my memories,
they are both me and mine.

I walked this beach a thousand times and never was it as beautiful as when I walked it with you beside me.
I walk it on my own once more and its beauty is but the memory of when you were in my arms.

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

Truly it inspires me to visit the ether on which you pen.
To speak of things of who I am,
and of my times of "when".
To see the universes you've painted all revolving there.
To understand that not all voices,
are tainted by despair.
In a universe of darkness no shadow could I see.
Shouting words into the pitch,
I thought only heard by me.
I take the time to thank you all whether you write or read.
For in my place of darkness,
you have planted starlight's seed.

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.

Long and arduous had been the climb.
Fifty years or so in the making.
A pinnacle claimed but unseen for what it was.
Was it folly or push that became my past, present and future.

Falling was but a blink in the making.
No anchor to hold me and foundations removed, abandoned, lost.
Successions of ricochets from jagged rock to jagged rock.
Carved to the core by granite hard betrayal and failures.

By chance did my fingers gain purchase to slow the fall.
More of a roll downhill than the plummet that near killed me.
But still trending down into the chasm of who I have become.
The place I am, the present, the bloodied remnant of who I was.

Limbs askew and misshapen-ed, bones shattered and core exposed.
Total vulnerability to even the meekest of creatures with ill intent.
Cowered, afraid and alone in and darkness still falling.
Momentary reprieve as fingers strike stone but too torn to grasp.

Mind operating in fragmented, distorted jigsaws of thought.
No box top picture remaining to focus the picture I am meant to be.
Too many pieces in different shapes to be who I once was.
Uncertain of enough pieces to make myself a semblance of whole.

Still endless the fall and the darkness.
Creature or granite strike constantly feared.
Cowered, alone, afraid and defeated.
The darkness and fall are who I have been made.

I live in the darkest of places,
it is here that I constantly dwell
Some would call it empty,
but to me its name is just hell.

So rare is there anything,
that enters here into my night.
But every so often I am tortured,
by glimpsed reflections of light.

I watch as light approaches,
feel its warmth inside of me.
Giving rise to both dream and hope
and the promise of things that might be.

I watch as light passes,
and bathe in its radiant shine.
Thoughts voiced by madness,
I look to the light for a sign.

As it draws nearer to my existence,
and knowing what I need it to be.
The light always unerringly diverges,
I now aware the light just didn't seek me.

I sit and remember the lights,
here in my own black little shell,
I look all about me at darkness,
knowing that light wont ever want hell.