I saw the old man circling the tree trunk
Weather beaten skin, bent gnarled hands
and piercing blue eyes

He seemed to study every knot and crack
in that ancient timber

Then without a word turned and picked up hammer and chisel

The wood chips then began to fly and like confetti on the ground lie soon in heaps some ankle high

Occasionally he would stand back and look but never once a rest he took

Mallet strokes both hard and soft some from under some aloft fell there with unerring skill always busy never still

Long into the night he worked now by the light of an oil lamp and so the tree stump 'neath his hand then became a work of art

At long last he stood and turned to me and said three words " that'll do lad"

I approached to see just what he'd done and there I saw the perfect rose every petal and leaf in place the slender stems in the breeze did sway

With no plan or picture he had made the start
And created the perfect work of art.


So what is creativity? Well that's your next challenge.

No love poems because they've been done a million times. This time something unique

While I know
my dreams
are
running
         down
      a staircase
with..             ..shoe-laces.
        .. untied ..

I feel like a magic spell.
Cast upon hell, cast upon
everything right with this world.
I feel like an angel,
floating in my own head.
Singing words
into threads of melodic chance.

here hope dies.
   but I still live.
what a terrible, wonderful
   nightmare and gift.

Her essence remains,
it leaks into me, but...
only enough to keep in these
thick growing ropes of deceit
of a self
that cannot reside forever

*no one can see my little girl.
    like I can see her.

Take me to a place where I can live.
Far away.
Where I can be, and I can stay.
Where I can relish everyday.

"He inhales by tilting his thoughts slightly."
--Mina

*Then; a sigh.
It's like the wind blowing
over and around
a boulder inside.
It does not budge.
A breathy exhale,
does not better the weight
the sick soul carries
... but it tries.