"wayfarer" poems
On this my happy and blessed day
fondly I remember what Mother always said
upon some naughty day when I made her sad
stalling on her bidding and not being a good boy
Son, live straight and be easy to interpret
Life is a complex menu of choices. Still -
you can cruise along if there’s love in your life
I remember the wistful poetry from my father’s lips
Creamy words spoken in jest or in epic tales
and untutored philosophy when he spoke of his going:
Death has come and it’s time for last words
My life has dragged by but now how it hurries!
Be the person that you must and **** the rest!
A truly rich person shares what they value most
And so it is that I’ve shared my heart and my mind
In numerous lines of poetry that has dared me to write it
On this my 66th birthday I read no ills in this number
For I’m just a wayfarer looking for words along my route
I pick the gems that sparkle and dazzle as I stroll to eternity
The landmarks on my route are
The friends I made and lost along the way
The doleful souls that brought tears to my eyes
The pretty girls that taught me I could never have them all
I remember too the places I’ve been to
And the songs of my people – lively commentaries on everything
And how life always lay waiting to be lived
My day of birth is my day of possibilities
And I keep hearing the line from the jazz classic:
Get your kicks on Route 66!
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 2:12 AM UTC
The countryside is laughing
lighted up with colours
and everyone notices
its fine appearance.
It has green dresses,
the field in spring,
with white
and red and pink buttons,
the blue blouse
sprinkled with yellow
and in the hair
garlands of stars and lights.
The day will run
saying that spring is born,
arm in arm with the countryside,
with a basket of scents
and the tresses painted with the sun
and then there will be a party
adorned with flowers
and cobalt blue nights
the wind that bedews
with mild blows the sea
and the wayfarer that arrives
will take home a smile
to keep on dreaming.
14. 5. '14
Feb 29, 2016
Feb 29, 2016 at 1:01 PM UTC
I have spent
Too many miles
In the beds
Of strangers
Pick up trucks
And
Roaring
Freight trains
To settle
For a quiet,
Small
Life.
I am a wayfarer,
Wanderer,
Vagrant.
No walls can keep me.
I am too
Massive
For civil norms,
I am
Too much
For a habitual society.
A roof would
Keep me from the stars.
How could I
Give up the rising sun?
A door would keep me
From all of the strangers
That I call my allies.
There is too much of this world
That I have caught
A glimpse of,
There is still
Deep-rooted mystery,
I can feel it beneath my feet
With every mile I roam.
The magic rouses
My being,
Stirs my soul.
Though
This may feel like a curse,
Some just weren't meant to
Fit
Into
The puzzle.
Some
Are
Free radicals,
Disturbing the peace,
Agitating the possibilities,
Proving
Freedom isn't dead,
Freedom isn't free,
Freedom is something
That must be stolen,
Freedom is to be
Taken into your own
Two hands.
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 9:56 AM UTC
Wayfarer,
walk with me
down the open, crumbling road.
We’re two surviving souls--
billion year old
molecules binding
our hearts, muscles,
bones and nerves winding--
let us go back to the beginning,
before the time of sinning,
to the start of our creation,
before government or nation,
to find the garden and lose regarding--
regain our innocence.
The sun, rain and wind will test us--
we’ll build shelters of hides and bones,
pick berries and sharpen knives with stones,
play bone flutes and gut-stringed lutes,
and **** nothing without reason
and prepare for each change of season.
We’ll take our water from the glacial melt.
Our fashion will be the furry pelt.
Of course, we’ll remember poem and song--
for they were never wrong;
art was blameless.
It was the only thing
“Civilization” left us.
We’ll spark fire with pegs and strings
whirring, friction, small kindlings
into fire; we'll sit round and tell our history--
marvel at our ancestors’ folly, what mystery...
We’ll write dramas and dance;
we will honor this second chance.
English we will remember.
And French and Arabic, Latin and Hebrew.
We’ll start a new language, or two.
We’ll wash and sew condoms from intestines;
this time, what we’ll invest in
will be sustainability.
No need to propagate the earth--
it is fruitful enough already.
Only to be in harmony, a place neither above, nor below, others--
the animals and plants, who are our sisters and our brothers.
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 16, 2016 at 10:33 PM UTC
A man who cannot dream
is a man without a woman,
like someone thinking of a tractor,
the loss of a limb, the bequest
of a brass bed, a rundown plantation,
a large white house with a black
dinner bell but no supper,
a wayfarer going nowhere,
a vanished explorer
sometimes lost in his own room.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 7:50 AM UTC
What is the dream,
the diary I keep with notes etched to the seam?
What is the goal,
the endpoint at which I determine my role?
The world only skims off the top it seems,
loving only the cream of the crop.
Lost am I,
having strayed from the path,
a world split down the middle,
cut and dry,
and if so,
where can I live,
who can abide my wayward soul?
A soul assembled from the ashes of Descartes and Kant,
a contradiction in continuity,
can I or can't I,
change the hand that I've got?
Listen to the song,
the siren's polyphony,
the refrain rate familiar,
the color tone wrong,
discern for yourself,
what is the bane of the crown?
Stifle your fear and strike at the root,
with shovel in hand bury your sin,
always striving for truth,
rend the tree at both ends.
Yes,
I am a pariah,
***** in purpose and soul,
the wayfarer's failure,
refusing to pay the pathfinder's toll,
and although my map is imperfect,
all roads lead to Rome.
Retreatist,
rebel,
jester,
fool,
gladly I'll claim the whole lot,
each title a badge,
a step towards my goal,
this society is sick and refuses to see,
each individual is a person,
gay,
gypsy,
Muslim,
Jew.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
I knew there was a turn
but it never turned up
and I kept walking straight
in search of it.
The road was familiar
the turn was on the left
in every known way
yet in the broad daylight
it left me.
I know you wouldn't believe it
neither did I
as alike a puzzled wayfarer
I kept on looking for the turn.
It happened to me.
P'raps it happens in other lives too,
the turn always there
keeps eluding.
Then when found,
it's no longer needed.
Sep 5, 2024
Sep 5, 2024 at 11:38 PM UTC
Gold coins jingle
against the curve of her hip.
September.
The spare change falls
like the beat of her
tambourine.
Milk chocolate curls
circle her shoulder-blades.
Breathe in freedom. Breathe out poverty.
Bronze pennies soak
into the rain-washed streets.
October.
Boston is cooling,
A stranger
sees a broken man tremble
and offers a steaming sandwich
and bus fare.
Breathe in freedom. Breathe out poverty.
Colored bills crumble
in her tight hip-fitted jeans.
November.
Lipstick still intact.
Thumb lifted
to the highway,
she climbs
into his truck.
Breathe in freedom. Breathe out poverty.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
I had forgotten the way to the hut that I had traveled to so many times,
so many days. So many moons, I would say. But no one marks moons anymore, except hunters. And I am not one of them. Nor a gatherer.
I listen to old men tell how they felled the stags. I do not believe them.
I am a wayfarer, to use the archaic words I used to love, the words
I had forgotten, the words of time in eternity, the words of orange leaves
on towering pin oaks, the words of circles of shadows settling on Gavarnie, of snowfall in the Pyrénées. Sever Spain from the Continent.
I had lost the language of the ***** spray-painted sheep scampering
over gray-bouldered cirques on mountaintops, boulders turning into mountains in the shadows, in the fog, in drifts of snow. There are no words for this now. Bleating sheep drown them out, and yapping dogs.
There are no words for the radiance of transcendence. “Climb higher,”
I hear them say. Higher into the haze of clouds. Cirque: circle, circus. Acrobatics on hillsides, balancing acts on rockslides, skimming streams in hard-toed boots. I had forgotten the way to the words, far behind me.
I have come to a gate, a steep stile in shadow. No sheep can pass. Nothing looks familiar; nothing looks strange. I saunter in a cloud
of unknowing. I had known the words: worn, smooth as stone unscuffed by hard-toed boots, slick as snowmelt. Slide from France into Spain.
This is the path of Santiago de Compostela, the route of St. James, who said, “Do not be double-minded, brethren.” I cannot remember if I have been double-minded in my travels. I had forgotten the way. If the words do not come, which mind sees the threshold; which mind circles the fog?
What passes, what begins when we travel? I do not look backward.
The way lies ahead, waiting, wandering away from the words. Splotches
of lichen sprout orange and green. “Go no higher for safety.” No higher.
They do not mention exile or ecstasy or the straight path of radiance.
The cirque circles my words in mountain shadows. I must unlearn
the art of travel, adrift in broken fields of stone. I had forgotten the way to the hut. Rocks obscure the path. Light ensures the path leads upward. Nothing is lost. Words hold their weight. Stags dance above me in fog.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 3:19 PM UTC
Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.
I saw men go up and down
In the country and the town,
With this prayer upon their neck,
"Judgment and a judge we seek."
Not to monarchs they repair,
Nor to learned jurist's chair,
But they hurry to their peers,
To their kinsfolk and their dears,
Louder than with speech they pray,
What am I? companion; say.
And the friend not hesitates
To assign just place and mates,
Answers not in word or letter,
Yet is understood the better;—
Is to his friend a looking-glass,
Reflects his figure that doth pass.
Every wayfarer he meets
What himself declared, repeats;
What himself confessed, records;
Sentences him in his words,
The form is his own corporal form,
And his thought the penal worm.
Yet shine for ever ****** minds,
Loved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state,
Disconcert the searching spy,
Rendering to a curious eye
The durance of a granite ledge
To those who gaze from the sea's edge.
It is there for benefit,
It is there for purging light,
There for purifying storms,
And its depths reflect all forms;
It cannot parley with the mean,
Pure by impure is not seen.
For there's no sequestered grot,
Lone mountain tam, or isle forgot,
But justice journeying in the sphere
Daily stoops to harbor there.
1.7k
Have you seen sunkissed oceans?
stretched till eternity,
pacific yet turbulent,
destined to touch the shore.
Have you seen a girl?
carefree and wayfarer,
breaking the norms with harsh blows,
creeping through parochial minds.
Have you seen a girl?
aspires to be the ocean,
her sunkissed hairs are like jet streams,
messed-up but knows where to flow.
Yes, I have met a girl,
vast than the ocean,
turbulent yet pacific,
smeared with sunkissed soul.
Jan 7, 2019
Jan 7, 2019 at 3:50 AM UTC
A sunlit narrow path cleaving
overgrown green hedge, both ways,
such exhilarating surprises, it too can offer,
but would one expect, in the first place?
On my track, I stand arrested hold that flower,
that made my heart jump, in my front,
felt being washed inside out
by a kind wave, transformed.
The flower, romancing the sun
still is on it's branch,alive
didn't feel the temptation
to pluck it like many times before.
Even the beauty's name is unknown to me,
just another hibiscus,amidst her cousins,
"I love the one next to her, the purple one"
said a female voice, a wayfarer like me.
Standing by me, she adoringly looked at her favorite,
I had no hesitation to accept it, like mine.
no ranking makes sense, each has
own quicksilver tongue, if you 'd listen.
"Look at you! how pleased you look
I love the folks, that adore flowers!"
she sounded like a skylark, hands of
evening sun caressed her, we are kindred spirits.
"You have wide eyes like girls,
eyes seeking beauty reflect it"
we held hands like childhood friends,
long lost, looked at each other's eyes.
Isn't it the feeling one try to capture and define,
when trying to say what poetry makes to happen?
it's there, a tangible feeling, if you know what it means,
on our separate ways we went, gifting what to keep for ever.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
In a throbbing coccon seized by ablazen web
thou viscid meanders woven by an unabating tempest
then hoarded in a rapture... by the sylph of the sands.
Rising rider, captive of an upwind sail
meadowy sky lover, worshipper of the ephemeral
fettered Why mooring the eluding eons to a transfixed now
as if the twined dreams of a wayfarer,
nomad of the seas, the sands and the skies
trapped in an ethereal time warp.
Jun 1, 2010
Jun 1, 2010 at 9:10 AM UTC
What of her glass without her? The blank grey
There where the pool is blind of the moon’s face.
Her dress without her? The tossed empty space
Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away.
Her paths without her? Day’s appointed sway
Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place
Without her? Tears, ah me! for love’s good grace,
And cold forgetfulness of night or day.
What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,
Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill,
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,
Where the long cloud, the long wood’s counterpart,
Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.
1.5k
The Great Alone
The greatest fear is to lose the one dearest to oneself the shadows even darken soulless darkness
The day goes without sunlight even at noon day where does the brave contend while loss bends comfort
No hiding place exist you understand the lifeless void love taken only obstruction lives in all starkness
All is gone the tumblers of the safe are dissolved you can’t lock anything in safety nothing can oppose
No desert ever formed looks and feels like this landscape baked to the point nothing recognizable
Shade is filled with inner burning always turning thoughts are only heavy weights you must bare
Where is the water once it held you with buoyancy now seek as you do none is found at all sizable
Burnished sand this wayfarer knows its captivity well it is only like a tightening rope around the heart
The still frightens because down its corridors the laughter of yesterday still quietly forcefully echo
Avoid natural reflections those images the most painful hurts dwell you feel their presence can’t touch
Embodiment longing that holds the greatest promise now a cross a twist on the crops of the god Peko
What mocking to speak of harvest when there is only devastation your heart where not one plant grows
He once walked where you walk his experiences reflect these very facts they are the human equivalent
You have lost that which can’t be replaced you know pain and sorrow he lost most of those he created
Then by love he came to rescue that which was lost he carried your pain by their action he is irrelevant
In the soon clearing mist all eyes will dry dead hearts will be made a live with joy and what a gathering
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 8:52 PM UTC
I'm lost wayfarer.
Show me the way.
Step out of your veil.
Hold my hand.
Talk to me.
Walk with me
To my journey's end.
If not,
Some steps atleast.
Hand in hand
Let's walk and sing.
Come with me
Till that bend in the road
Beyond which
All paths fade away.
Mar 6, 2010
Mar 6, 2010 at 11:13 PM UTC
Dear underclassmen,
You will learn so much.
You’ll learn that when seniors tell you the main stairs are only for upperclassman they’re lying, that freshman Friday isn’t a thing, and elevator passes aren’t actually real.
You’ll learn WWII started in 1939 and it was the bloodiest of them all.
You’ll learn that sometimes, things don’t have to be ****** to be painful.
Sometimes sterile wounds heal the slowest.
High school will teach you to love with a vigor you didn't see coming and to hate with a passion you never saw possible, and you’ll find that after feeling them both so deeply, it sometimes becomes impossible to tell the difference between the two.
You’ll learn about drugs- that they don’t always come in little ziplock bags or orange pill bottle.
You’ll learn that often times, they don’t come in powder or pills at all- they come in words on a page or in blue eyes staring at you through wayfarer glasses that are so clouded you find yourself wondering how they can even see the world around them.
You’ll find your drug- everyone does. You’ll know you’re addicted because to you, it's what keeps the earth spinning on its axis; it's what puts the stars in the sky; it's what you see when you hear the word love.
You'll get addicted to something, and you’ll lose it, and you’ll move on.
You’ll learn that things can change in the blink of an eye, which is just as fast as we are to post our emotions in 180 characters or less, just as fast as we are to scrutinize others for who they love, what they wear,
and what they’re addicted to.
Things change as fast as the speed of sound: 186,282 miles per second.
I learned that in chemistry.
I also learned that Fleen Dog wasn't kidding when he said if you lean in too close to a Bunsen burner your hair will catch on fire.
I've learned that if you don’t stay in the inexhaustible realm of school dress code, you’re a delinquent, but if you wear hoodies everyday, you’re a scrub. If you don't, you're a try-hard.
I've learn that for some reason the word try-hard is an insult.
I've learned that stares can be so heavy you can physically feel the weight of their eyes pushing down on your back as they watch your every move, but more importantly I've learned that those stares only matter if you actually let them.
You’ll learn that often times- there is no correct answer and sometimes you just have to choose what you believe is the most right option because it’s better to guess than to do nothing at all.
You'll learn that even in science, not everything is black and white,
that sometimes the best way to learn is by diving in head first, and if you feel your skull crash into the bottom of the pool, know that you will resurface.
Sep 6, 2016
Sep 6, 2016 at 12:16 AM UTC
O black beauty !
o wayfarer, unaware of destiny !
anguish,how long ?
like an ancient river challenging the stars?
come, come with me
will collect the shells of dreams
quench our quest of melancholy
going to loose nothing, come!
at all , will rest in the ocean of time
will copulate with harmony
when the thoughts of beloved are sown in my body
the wisdom of passion spreads like moonlight,
when the grim reaper smiles
glittering memories and tears are left on shore,
when the fallen leaf sounds like her anklet
the belief of spring and faith of life are restored
come, come along with me....
o black beauty !
under this moon only
siddharth became buddha
in the lap of this moon only
omar khayyam tasted the nectar
the same moon
i am walking holding you under the same moon !
o black beauty !
the ancient wayfarer !
come, come with me.....
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 8:43 PM UTC
Weary and maybe dusty,
maybe a million years old.
Disappearing.
Shouting hatespeech
and trying to make others
as bitter as myself.
Toxic and made of stone.
Crafted of some **** harder than diamond,
but cheaper than **** Also, I'm so *******
sick of hearing about hope in the human soul.
I'm sick of souls.
Cynicism isn't right,
but being ****** isn't lying,
and maybe we all have a little bit
of love and something else.
Exploit whatever feels better.
Maybe I said that wrong,
but if you can exploit yourself
you're the only one who deserves
to ******* do it already.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM UTC
Hardly Hidden
*for Helen,
the High Definition brunette momma among us*
there are tracks in your arm
ready visible
to all those
with a personal microscope
if one
optically
examines the empty spaces
tween your poem-words....
the exterior all smiles,
whooping it up,
children, all smiles,
tumbling, breaking things,
ceilings collapsing, winters arriving,
as is the way of the kids
and nature,
inexorable,
occasionally
breaking you to
smile too
Abut to all this
is the contentiousness,
the aboriginal sense of loss
for what once was,
plain out in
in the secret messages sent
and
you know
you own
my all
unuttered utter devotion
we need no qualification
of what we are
we are friends,
not drinking buddies,
the straight out
semi-secret fans
of each other
thousands of miles apart
of simple purity borne,
you warm me
with endless jokes
and familial tales
and I thank you
for sharing, for trusting,
me with that troubling notion
that I am missing
a sorrowful deepening
that is
after a wellness examination
hardly hidden
but t'is heard around the world,
gunshot to my heart,
come to me when
ever
is understood that this
paean ~ pain ~ poem
is a simple wayfarer's way
of declaring
forever
I know you are sleeping now,
but when the fall sun breaks,
here is hoping me that you
break into private tears
in private places
like the ones decorating me,
celebrating
the best of what
humans
can be
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 10:57 AM UTC
Precious chance for a lonely thought,
Loose, slip-fades sinuously free
A melodious stream of nostalgic mist
From a mug of Arabica sea.
Curiously exhaled from dissonance
In an amber lit café.
He imagines himself a sojourner,
A wayfarer without a way.
Long shore drift en echelon
Long minutes march by metronome
Long is the spellbound beachcomber
For an island all his own.
Long is the dream of an inland man
Lost to his seaside girl.
Diver down where the standard waves
Swimming dizzy for a polished pearl.
Light from her eyes plays on sea glass chips
Tumbled in the curling waves
That crest and break on a beach that waits
for a wish he once had made.
The surf is heard like a lingering kiss
breathing ripples on the smoothening sand
And just as the whisper and simmering fades,
Another promise swells, tumbles, and lands.
The ocean is love running breathless,
In a race between the moon and the sun,
Causing tides to surge across the poignant curve
Of an incandescent blue horizon.
A tranquil star contracts and bursts
In pulsing neon spires.
There’s forever a star expiring
While life glows from embers in a dying fire.
If this writer could paint, it would be a portrait
of the empty space beside him.
Awaiting the image of a seagoing girl,
He turns his canvas into a thirsting ocean.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 5:12 AM UTC
I get snatches from an early memory,
Mother holding an axe overhead,
The evening's firewood she sought,
From the log of wood that lay ahead.
She brought down the blade,
Blunted by time and use,
It stuck onto the log refused to let go,
She lifted the axe with the log and all, brought it down with a rage.
I remember a sharp pain on my left side,
And warm liquid flowing on my face,
I remember the crowds running and and hurrying,
I turned around to see what was happening that way.
I heard the rumors of a scream, whispering violently,
Like an irritating fly it unsettled me and my mother, shocked,
But the scream did not originate within my throat,
A collective roar split the land where the crowds so quickly flocked.
flashback stops
I am now the feared one-eyed pirate that sails the seven seas,
A silent ghost of a tear appears from the eye that isn't there,
Alas! Now the legends of how mine disability arose,
Makes only for whimsical tales narrated in the company of another jovial wayfarer.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 7:21 AM UTC
A cat and a cactus,
magenta morning light,
falling slanted,
highlighting the fluff of both,
a moth flying above,
not knowing the night did leave,
a day begins like a false
memory resurrected.
It could be me or someone else
watching this, a witness,
time today, some other day
any day from eternity's record book,
memories time keeps, has every day
you ask for,
it would have love or war,
everything is possible.
Another day, gently breaks
like a flower, smiles at us.
Cat and cactus,
magenta morning light,
*I see, I hear; a wayfarer,
through this path.*
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 1:03 PM UTC
Restless Ulysses calling seaward
Wave-crest and trough on water
Bark seal slap rush
Carve one sweep, two sweep
Push and the wayfarer
Boot, back, and shoulder
A life neatly bundled going on
On and on and on; wander
Because no god is present
Without vastness, surrender
Fire lick crackle burn driftwood blue
On the sand in the gravel
And restless sailor calling seaward
Take the horizon to break
Spine and sinew ironmonger
The old and elderly will fondly remember
These days when we were strong
And the stars unobscured by smoke
Jun 22, 2020
Jun 22, 2020 at 5:35 PM UTC