A Small Look Inside

Breaks in the Clouds

2012-01-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

There was an ancient age

Maybe not so long ago

Where the dark clouds came

Casting shadows over the land

Silence wrapping old leather shoes

Like an unwelcomed journey

Torn, tattered; with little warmth

Burdening holes carried along the way

The cold persists above all

Never clear from below the clouds

What exists above, beyond our grasp

Senseless trudging down below

Surprise, an awakening moment

Rekindled thoughts emerge anew

Self-reflection, a fog on the morrow’s edge

Dissolving despair from simply cast rays

Shattered faith in desolation’s moments

Torturous shards, pointed fortress

Reveled pain as moments lost

Shadow-less void revealed from nothing

Breaks in the vast emptiness

Optimism transformed from hints

Sharp and focused our lens becomes

Stark secrets, divulging mirror pretends

We live in a world of clouded mist

Seeking breaks to see beyond the grey

In that moment after dissipation

Mind, spirit, and sky unite

Nighttime

2011-12-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

Stan Hywet Hall

Safely inside

Wrapped insilence

Hiddenunderstanding

Unwillingness beyond

Blackbirdcrying

Soaring skyward

Visibly missing

Falling feather

Nighttime feeling

Blackened window

Hidden image

Reflection weeping

Lonesome wind

Solitaryflight

Still believing

Endless lament

Beliefsshattered

Barron shelf

Wakeningmoments

On the wing

Fleeting shadow

Highway

2011-11-20T07:54:00.001-05:00

In the desert out West. The rains didn't come . . . . .

I used toworry
About thefuture
But it’s100 miles away
Down ararely traveled
Dusty,lonely road

My minddrifts
Back to amemory
Lost in anold
Cardboardbox
Pulledfrom the shelf

Afeeling resurrected
Missedopportunities
Wrongturns taken
Leavingdoubt
In abroken heart

It’s sohot these days
I drinkdust
From therocks
My wornleather boots
Trudgethrough parched glass

I wander,lost
Down thatold road
Thecrumpled, curled map
Longweathered
Wellbeyond finding my way

Driftingin melancholy
Beginningto wonder
Mybearings forlorn’d
Annoyinglydistracted
Locked ina heated ripple

Justanother page
In yourhistory’s future
There areno guarantees
There areno alibis
Or justanother wrong turn

Can it be
This iswhere it all ends
Or is itthe beginning?
Kindrednomads
Wrapped inmaddening thirst.

Anticipation

2011-11-13T16:36:00.000-05:00

In farewell

Summer’s waning

Shortened days

Fire’s deepglow

Hearth’sinvitation

Curling smoke

Trickling skyward

Swallow’sflight

Frost’sfirst kiss

Reddish orange,browns

Crackling leaves

Soft melody

Passing testament

Fruit falls

Yellowaspens

Fragrant spruce

Wildernessscent

On the prowl

Harvest bounty

Moonlit rays

Morningmists

Fall’s heartbeats

My heartbeats

Then as one

Future days

Already passed

Alone, nowtogether

Anticipation

Waiting

2011-10-30T13:18:00.001-04:00

Into eachother’s arms

Like afamiliar cup to hold

Warm andsteeped
A memory just ahead.

Standing inrepose

Gazing tothe ‘morrow

From a longforgotten journey

At the edgeof yesterday.

From thepast

Will comethe future

Waiting, allour questions

Impactience answered.

Silence, areflection on the wind

Balanced in between

The infinite

And anordinary life.

One of thesedays

‘Roundwrapping arms

One willhold the others last breathe

Within thatlast moment.

The silencewill speak aloud

With theanswer we seek

Oh memory, I’vebeen away

Far too long.

These Days

2011-10-01T12:03:00.000-04:00

Clown picture at the zoo, with family.

Moving town to town
New guy again
Dream chaser
What’s to be caught?

Traveler departs
Unknown faces
Crowded elevator
Staring walls

Airplane’s drone
Silent seats
Passers by
Ignored obsessions

Street walker
Blinded eyes
Smiling outward
Emptiness replies

Work day
Colleagues about
Seven to six
What’s left?

Digital world
Imaginary friend
Day missed
No reply

Crowded city
Deserted streets
Hustle, bustle
Indifference about

Family, home
Sanctuary

Raging Sun

2011-09-25T13:42:00.001-04:00

Sunset on Lake Michigan from Sleeping Bear Dunes

More like you
More like you
Fill my heart
With your desire

More like you
Touch my lips
With your lips
Sensation lingering

Longing straddles
From the midst
Darkness shines
In your reflection

From the circle of fire
Reach out, pull me
Into the ocean’s depths
To drown away

From my world
That cries for healing
Holding each other’s pain
Until the sun subsides

Raging reds and orange
Fire extinguished
My fire extinguished
With such ease

Will the morning come?

Just a Song

2011-05-09T12:48:00.005-04:00

Downtown area of San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Strings are plucked
A day is done
Now my song is changing

It’s been awhile
The music’s stopped
But now again it’s playing

Into the sky
I’ve seen a face
Looking back inside of me

Glancing again
The stare is seems
Remembers not the tune

Within sun by day
And moon by night
Never ending harmony

In the end
A riddled staff
Rejoining the melody

Backdoor

2010-11-18T08:07:00.009-05:00

The Great Salt Lake with a stormy sunset.

Opening, the back door key
Unannounced comes the dreamer
Never about black or white
Though who really understands

What could be, is in the house
Looking for a future
Wandering in a dark, back room
Unaware, of shadows in between

No connection with the present
Building bridges to the past
From the rhymes of the ages
To the rhythm within the earth

Is the distance coming or going?
Is the distance growing old?
What’s held down to the ground?
As we move, passing along

There is a message
To everyone you’ve ever known
Knocking at the back door
It’s spinning out of control

Today’s memory thinking
Spanning tomorrow in the thought
Unlimited possibilities?
A reflecting, vanished moment

Making my decisions
Reading your inner thoughts
What makes us who we are?
Deliverance in the end

There’s meaning in the answer
Lost within the closing door
It’s there, within the opened crack
Awakened in the sliver of first light

In the end an answered riddle
To think, again and again
About the way things are
Coming in through the back door

In the Silence

2010-10-03T14:32:00.026-04:00

Staithes, England along the North Sea (Infrared HDR image)

See me in the silence
Fleeting mist upon the dawn
Lifted from the darkness
Through the shadows of the night

Name softly whispered
Empty mantra, from blinded eyes
Calling from the deepened echoes
Tranquility, in the first morning’s light

Alone without a healing voice
Passing moments, restless hours
Hope for the hopeless
Emptiness, when there’s nothing inside

Mirages within restive vapor
Flaxen hair in a fading breeze
Emerald eyes, piercing gaze
Sultry lavender, on lingering wisps

Let my spirit rise, running free
With sight from tightly closed eyes
Wayward light, traveling homeward
Draw closer and rest with me

A Season in Time

2010-09-19T07:14:00.033-04:00

A view down the bike path in Xenia, Ohio , (HDR image)

October’s eve has come again
Reddish brown leaves fall, drifting
Floating lazily, dying one by one
Collecting haphazardly in piles on the ground
Then bouncing back from nothingness, anticipating
With the sights and smells of autumn filling the air

As the wind meanders through the fields of grain
Secretly weaving through the harvest stalks
Speaking as a quiet rustle, whispering
Straining to be heard over the equinox of change
The day has on gray-clad shoes
And a cool breeze calls to the distant chill

As summer changes to fall, trudging into winter’s grip
Nature will thirst for summer’s warmed and lazy days
We will dream of cotton candy and the county fair
While counting our blessings for the time we share
So it seems these seasons come and go, subliminally
And our time quickly slips away with such eventuality

A natural progression, marching onward
And a thought of seasons yet to come
I am like a child, with the wonderment of a child
Watching, seeing, observing without judgment
How to be thankful for all that surrounds me?
How to be thankful; for being a part of it all?

Beavercreek, Ohio, USA, 2km from the house. (HDR image)

No More Waiting

2010-08-23T08:42:00.011-04:00

View from Zion National Park, Utah; after a long, hot climb.

Thoughts from the inside
Wondering what the outside is like
I can’t see where I am going
Because it’s like a cloud within the rain

Talk about it, see if it is true
But it’s you; I see in the fog
Stepping forward
Shrouded like this lost feeling

With no direction at hand
Being tired, at this point
Dead on the surface
But still alive underneath

Take a pause
There’s no cause, for alarm
As I dance from day to day
What makes me think about tomorrow?

Will it be different from today?
Are you there? Are you?
Watching over me
If you are, I cannot see the blindness

The darkness creeps in
Like cold raindrops drowning
My thoughts and logic
As closed images, tightly held

Let it go
Released as a leaf on the wind
To drift, flying somewhere
Outside of this color yellow

What am I waiting for?

OSI #130: Pensive

After the Rain

2010-08-09T15:47:00.028-04:00

A sunrise view of the Clow Beck House B&B,
Monk End Farm, Croft-On-Tees, Darlington, UK

Now on the wind
Thousands of raindrops
Wash away the restless air.

Cleansing fragrance
Fresh, like cut cedar
Seeps into the nighttime sky

Grassland, leaves, trees
Rooftops and moonlight
Revealing a sparkly façade.

Under a broken gray
Distant lightening
Preens the cloudiness.

Along the river bank
Spider webs glazed with raindrops
Glisten like strings of pearls.

A croaking frog stirs the quiet
And then another
Until a showery chorus ensues.

I sit on the threshold
Dabbling thoughts with dusk
Along with the thunder’s echo.

Thinking of tomorrow.

Whitby Harbor on the North Sea, NE England

OSI #129: Beginning

Falling

2010-08-06T14:58:00.021-04:00

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA.
3 miles & 3,000 feet down from the south canyon rim.

The experts came again today
It looks like another rainy, dreary day
Dripping through the closet cracks
And wicking within the watery tracks
The expert eyes that came upon us
With painful arms that wrapped around us
A surrounding gasp, and all agreeing
Love, locked on the razors edge

In the light of the moon’s sodden shadow
With starlight filling the nighttime sky
An aficionado of my feelings I became
Then something happened in that starry sky
A revelation in my mind’s own failing eye
Words flowed like silver on inkless remarks
An image, with lines in eloquence embarked
Hidden in the darkest of nights, two of a kind

How did we get here, within forgotten words?
I’m not sure, no longer thinking clearly
But what of the experts, what do they say?
Struggling through shadows partially held at bay
Alluding answers running, quickly hide
Where an opinion is mostly lost in stride
And through a side door, locked in step
Into a letter, written upon our hearts

Now not alone, weathering a wayward passage
The constellations in tow with the nighttime sky
I can’t help but thinking, as time goes by
Where are these experts now?
Tonight, our empty sky is filled again
With revolving stars, as sentiment explained
Riding on the tide of the morning’s rise
Falling in love again, as I look into your eyes

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA
A view from the south rim.

OSI #128: Connoisseur

Along the Way

2010-07-27T08:41:00.023-04:00

Parrot in the jungles of Honduras, shot with a 300mm telephoto lense.

Awakening on the branch of a tree
A huge forest surrounds all things
Ancient; based on size, breadth, and smell
Moist and dark, a penetrating aroma of antiquity is about
Existence is lost, sheltered from time
Passing moments slowly sprout into awareness.

Understanding and comprehension are held like a dark secret
Every door opened, exposes yet another door
All seeming the same in the end, back to the beginning
A maze eternally cursed to traveling, lost roads
But how can this forest exist within a desert?
It’s been so very long since water was tasted.

Washing the dead of winter into the new hope of life
While quenching knowledge that doesn’t exist
Like a river of insight, flowing
Into a giant lake of promise and ascension
Living for this dream and searching for this water
From a promise made long, long ago.

Occasionally other creatures are encountered
Crawling from branch to branch
Hovering like some life spirits, in principle
Closed and contained in hollow, guarded shells
Somehow pretending familiarity, yet hidden nonetheless
Evolving from unsolved riddles.

From slow vibrations to perceived movement
Almost life like, straining to emerge
Yet not sure of what’s ahead
With cracking and tearing, it happens!
This shell of gestation rips into reality
As the metamorphosis completes.

In one maddening moment, from the mind of the chrysalis
After all these years of soul searching silence.
A butterfly emerges and says, “I used to be just like you”
Pausing confusion ensues, and then
For a moment, locking minds merge as one
Exposing the process and its purposeful end.

A journey steeped in evolution, from eons unfolds
Infinity experienced within the breadth of a second.
Just as a thousand questions come to mind
Within the grasp of reality and juxtaposition
The butterfly takes flight and is quietly gone.
Will I pass another along the way?

OSI #127: Cocoon

This is my 100th post on OSI. Thank you all!

Azzura

2010-07-23T17:42:00.018-04:00

A late afternoon view from Pudong across the river to Shanghai.

Standing on a street corner
Almost anywhere
Nighttime is drifting in
Like a dusty curtain closing

In a dark and dirty
Sometimes, lonely place
A shopping cart hurries by
With cardboard pushing it nowhere

It’s a faceless existence
Still baking on a hot sidewalk
Next to a glazed commuter
Lost in the digital world

This time of day, exudes a feeling
Wrapped in lonesome sounds
Like cab horn in the distance
Calling to the steam rising from the curb

From a street side venue
The delivery truck chugs along
Making its last rounds of the day
Mixed within those noises

As a part of daily existence
It seems like a foreign land
From the quiet introspection
Of the countryside, just down the way

From the shadowy smokestacks
Comes a pulsing self-awareness
Deep within the primordial ooze
That made us who we are

I climb out, dripping wet
Feeling and wanting more
How did I get here?
What should I do?

Above the noise and fray
A subtle voice is calling.
There’s an angel in my pocket
Speaking in the tongues of living

Get right with the world, she says
Do something
Make it a better place
Stepping through the subway door

Within a crowding presence entered
I head home once again
Embracing the nightly news
Awaking from my dream.

OSI#126: Angel

Spinning

2010-07-16T22:05:00.038-04:00

Quiet thoughts for a friend

Lost in the sky
The clouds roll by
I think about what is not
With an arrow shot into life
Toward a target; what might be

And I roll within them
Quiver in hand
Bow cocked
Pointed toward, pieces of reason
And the seasons that rise and fall

The world is spinning around me
I can’t latch on
The world is spinning around me
I’m all but gone
And I hear you calling

I watch the sparrow fly
With a gentle feeling grown
If not today, then tomorrow
Or maybe yet another day
While inside, in silence I moan

But what about now?
Taking control of tomorrow
Arms flapping within conviction
Have faith my sister, never waning
I know your strength’s within you

Don’t let the sparrow fall
Give meaning to it all
If not today, then soon
Or maybe yet another day
For it’s still not too late

Many moments may pass
For my sister to understand
And for sure that she loves him
But can he understand?
Another rustled page turns

A sad truth comes to pass
Because you think and make it real
A life contains a future
Every breath you take inside
Leaves one less until the end

The weight is pulling you under
Under this great weight
All you feel is sorrow
And everything I feel, right now
Is sadness for you

And life is like a melody
Within a book that can’t be read
I know the answer is within you
Though I am lost in the first words
So write another chapter upon the staff

The path is clear to enter
Yet no one finds the key
If only I had mentioned
Remembering, I’m just me
As dust fills my eyes

And from the heart
Knowing
It’s never too late

OSI#125: Preponderance

Daybreak

2010-07-08T16:36:00.013-04:00

The day breaks, the breeze comes up
I think I hear you calling on the wind
My heart soars with thoughts of you
A silken moment, carefully lined again

There’s a fragrance in the air
The pungent odor of the morning tide
Like an intimate memory lingering
Summer’s intoxicating reminder, inside

A written message you’ve left within me
A floating bottle on relentless shores
A dawn in every darkness rises
Like a house with many unopened doors

Only you hold the hidden key
Reaching inward, the locks set aside
To free my spirit within this wind
Floating together, where desire resides

Earth and sky depart, then intertwine
Consuming thoughts emerge anew
Other hearts in the other skies are beating
But not as strong as mine, for you

Dans tes bras c'est mon destin

OSI#124: Overt

Passage

2010-07-03T23:10:00.011-04:00

Cades Cove, Smokey Mountains, Tennessee, USA

Pathways into blue skies
Beckon unknown destinations
Memories guide the journey
Like a soft, heartfelt melody
Within a brown-green ribbon
Touching the ground

Emotions given freely
From the heart also travel
Flowing between us
From loves tethered bond
Binding our journey
Within the forest of life

There’s a path that’s taken
A fork speaks in riddles
As divergence from clarity
Staring toward the future
Indecision seems to languish
On anxious tiptoes

Into the fading distance
The choice that’s made
And the path less traveled.
The assurance of what is
Surrounding an unknown embrace
The doubts of what could have been

OSI#123: Roads

Rainbow's Shadow

2010-06-26T21:01:00.010-04:00

The countryside near Oundle, Northhamptonshire, England

Pastel dawn
Hues awaken
Conversing infant sun
Bold answers
Fountain from its soul

Subtle message
Emerge from rays
Dark clouds surrounding
Dampened daybreak drizzle
Within the rain

The rain falls down
Capturing this essence
A tightly closed jar
Apex trapping
Weeping hourglass

Outside time’s circle
Moving hands depart
Within first light
Yellow-red strings
Passing by

Ochre rising sun
Moment captured
Seconds split
At the easel
Muted silence

Awakened spirit
Light within
Shining darkness
At the edge of
A rainbow’s shadow

OSI#122: Ochre

Red Ball

2010-06-20T06:30:00.006-04:00

I awoke yesterday and was thinking (dreaming) about the prompt, and of all things fall! I photographed the sunrise which inspired these words. With summer just beginning I will have to dream awhile longer.

I woke up this morning and felt an edge, with crispness in the air
It was one of those days where I half expected to smell leaves burning
Floating on the air as a familiar perfume, a pleasant reminder lingering
But we are still in the grip of early summer, as it slips quickly away
And October is not yet completely within site, but knocking at a distant door
Yellow and gray, orange and brown, predominate my thoughts.

Taking the long way in, I ride through the country meandering
An unexplained route to my normally rushed alternate
Hills roll by, as the terrain undulates with my unnoticed passing
It’s early morning and the haze creates a silver sheen on the landscape
Creating hues of gray and soft pastels that subdue all true color
Surreal feelings emerge that overcome, into a daydream of fall approaching.

It’s déjà vu as crystalline as it can become, to the point of inundation
And I know I am on the cusp of my favorite season and dream with anticipation
I recollect memories created in the past and the knowledge that more will come
I am glad that I still have the expectancy and wide eyes of a child
Who oft-times seem to get excited about those things society has numbed us to
Have we truly hardened our hearts and forgotten so much growing older?

It was today I looked to the east on my travels unexpectedly
The dawn hadn’t broken so morning’s veil predominated all
On I travel, and in an instance a reddish orange crescent emerges
Rushing upward into view, expanding as a slice at the edge of the sky
I am mesmerized and pause my journey transfixed; stopping
The size and color rush upon this subdued canvas at an ever increasing rate
With an intensity that transgresses vision and belief totally.

I am awestruck and saturated within the experience to the point of chills
While time got board and decided to move on around me
Understanding that this moment slowing, is proportional to the experience.
How to capture the size and sensation of this pallet in deep reddish-orange?
And the enormity of the disk so many, many miles away
Magnified by the laws of atmospheric physics to a point of consciousness.

I stare into the rising frozen blindness, orange warmth succumbs
Should I take flight, thinking? But if I fly too high I might fall,
Caught in the heated currents that beckon the reckless
Safety kisses the ground, as the horizon stares back unknowingly
And I think more than twice about taking flight with untested wings
So from the labyrinth I escape, as awakening reality steps forth again.

Sunrises and seasons are like a rebirth of mind, spirit, and soul
Mysteries that surround our existence yet occasionally hang on at the fringes Outside of our true perception yet interwoven within who we really are
But most rarely pause to think past the surface of thought, to understanding
Yet these things permeate my late night meditations, pondering their meaning
Traveling where they travel, with some acknowledgment as I pass slowly by.

OSI#121: Dawn

Last Home

2010-06-13T07:37:00.020-04:00

Belvoir Castle, England

From the coliseum
Death at the tip of a sword
Surviving again, thinking of death
What a gift this would be, as
Chains clink between shuffling feet
The end of living; but wrong
Dying a little more, this day

Crowd noise, distant fading
A lost echo drowning, in a sea of lost hope
Descending staircase, spiraling hell
Beneath the castle grounds
Circling on cold damp, desperate stone
Nothing escapes; not light or even life
Darkness, home to a demonic presence

That which has no name
Travels unthwarted in my head
Grabbing thoughts by the nostrils
Pulling hard to hold on
While death permeates the stone walls
Seeping in, like the black plague
On an evening fog within the keep

Door slamming, chattered latch
Throw down, dragged
Caressing the granite floors
With pallid tearing skin
Screams as muffled echoes
Flesh crawling in hideous retreat
Alone, utter darkness speaks aloud

Counting days
Tracks lost in obscure gloom
Name forgotten in the book of memories
Then remembered as “Destitute”.
Yet who speaks to the dungeon walls?
Coaxing their obsidian secrets
From the musty, coated granite

Where does this presence sleep in the darkness?
Lurking in the shadows of moon light
Bringing on a haunting psychosis
Just before a raging dawn.
Sleep on till the morning
Sleep on with your last breath
For tomorrow begins another day

From your retched last home

OSI#120: Oubliette

Fragile Wings

2010-06-02T11:09:00.030-04:00

Painted Desert, Arizona, USA

One more feather gone
A set of wings are spread
Tried flying higher this time
But alas, I am Icarus I dread.

With one eye open
Pointed towards the sky
It's wake up time this morn
And I ask myself, why.

Thought creates beginnings
Emotions make them real
Though on the ground, I am again
The falling pain I feel.

Spoken, as a just reward instead
Not a cheering crowd, I cried
Or a warming tender touch
Felt closely from inside.

Just a quiet tear, dropping
From the blueness of the sky
Thoughts escape within, again
Beckoning me to fly.

OSI#119: Icarus

The Tide Goes Out

2010-06-01T12:43:00.007-04:00

Full moon rises like a red eye in the east
A lone witness to my struggle
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Sometimes wishing, the ocean could wash me away
My desires increase in the breaking waves
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Same thoughts rushing through my head
Of emptiness, of what could be; of you, always of you
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Because when I can see the stars, I feel closer to you
Like the worlds, but a little bit smaller
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

I look for the light on the horizon but see only dark
Darkness under the pale, kneeling stars
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

The wind carries with it an aura of sorrow
Feigned attempts at feeling
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Pieces of reason, scattered at my feet
Shattered by love and fear
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

The captain calls; waits for me, waiting for you
Sails unfurl on the ‘morrow
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Nothing from you, everything for you
I can't find anything in this ocean that comforts
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Betrayed thoughts, like the light from a lighthouse
Chasing shadows from gloom into darkness
I watch the tide go out and think of you.

Always of you

OSI#118: Love

Antelope Canyon

2010-05-29T23:31:00.025-04:00

These pictures are from a side trip in northern Arizona this past week to Lower Antelope Canyon. I took several hundred pictures while crawling around in this narrow, sinuous desert canyon. An incredible place to spend a few hours with a Navajo guide. None of the photos are retouched.

Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA

Subtle light
Wrapped in
Dusty moon beams

Dream world
Carved from
Red-brown hues

Tan, parched shoes
Trudged on weathered
Rippled textures

Winding path
Drifting sands
Sculptured smoothness

Ageless pathway
Serpent’s trail
Barren heat

Ancient chant
Awakened spirits
Deepening echoes

Painted Desert
Deserted sea
Nature's etching

Navajo dream
Rising smoke
Subtle memories

OSI#118: Love

The Sea 'n' Me

2010-05-16T14:49:00.008-04:00

Caledonian Canal, Loch Lochy, Scotland

I am intimate with water
Cool sea, full of roller coasting waves
Riding through infinity on frothy foam
Bathing my body, refreshing my spirit
Effervescent arms capture me
Soul-quenching’s embrace.

Misunderstandings wash away
Holding to the truest light
Teaching me about trusting
Floating on my back
While tossing me to and fro
Hardly caring for my well being

Yet inside the depths is the profoundest love
That’s ever washed upon me
I rest like a babe in a mother's womb
Hoping that I will never fail you
Knowing you will never give me up for lost.
Endless breezes blow upon my face.

As the sun shines above, drifting
Many a creature from below pause
To see what consciousness floats above
Along a highway without roads
My insignificance lies beneath
The innumerable grains of sand upon your shores.

I yearn to understand the depths
Of your creation and existence
And why this one grain has any meaning.
Walking along your shores
I leave footprints in the sand
A legacy of decisions made, directions taken.

Turning to retrace my steps
With path erased by never ending waves
Onward I go, within the currents
Hoping the tide will drift my way
And a distant lighthouse will be shining
Showing me the way home.

OSI#117: Floating

Cherry Creek, Hickory Valley, Bethlehem, & Disneyland

2010-05-12T08:52:00.008-04:00

Not my racing bike! :)

Again I am traveling today, but I seem to have lost my map
The wind is at my back, unbounded by any conscious aspect
Sometimes helping sometimes hindering my progress
Invisible but felt by the resistance, like an ego
Today I am free, while lost in the nothingness of exertion
All I can hear is breath, straining against my efforts

Anaerobic in this complaining body one more time
While hills roll by, stopping the time clock around me.
This focus becomes the task and nothing else.
At times a problem needs resolution in this process
And I silently journey to resolve the dilemma
Spinning is the answer at the center of my attention.

But today my objective is not solo
I travel to meet kindred fellows many miles away
I mostly fly free alone these days, but certainly not today
An exception brewed on an old hypothesis
Waiting for the analysis to be certain
While the hermit becomes the societal metaphor

I search for the community that seeks what I seek
Following a fading, nomadic memory
And that journey is where we now go together…..
A Saturday, or so ago, I was on a familiar route
A path I had not taken for more than 2 years….or is it 5 now?
Up until now I had felt like a prisoner to unfamiliar roads

The sun warms as the day comes up and I sense it's time to go
The anticipation of what's to come, puts me on edge
I think I hear voices in the distance once again
I feel this same wind on a winding mountain road
The struggle to make it to the top, the payback on the descent below
As today, I feel strong like when I was twenty

But the terrain demands lots of effort from us today
And every corner begets just one more, turning
Always seeing where we have just been, without any linearity
Accomplishments of finishing are a just reward
With thoughts of the past, and doing it again, as sweet reminders
Beckoning me to try again and again

I yearn for a landmark to remember, while gazing out across a flat plain
Looking for a pinnacle to see beyond this two dimensional view of place and time
Also, a lower latitude from which to set my sights
The scenery at this particular moment is crystalline with blue skies and puffy white clouds
Crisp air, cool; and keeping pace with my movements down this road
Hills green and lush…..the constant whirring says, “You know I still remember that turn up ahead.”

I recollect a unilateral balance of sight, sound, and smell steeped in perfection
Every moment heightened and charged with emotion while effortless
I can’t adequately describe the feeling and my sense of nostalgia
With friends at my side, most hanging back to ease the pace
Thoughts of casual chatter echo in my head
Catching up with things that can’t be caught

Words don’t accurately paint the picture of this day
My pallet being faded beyond this feeble dream
Memory always reflecting, never ending on these moments
But clarity haunts the joy of each passing mile
Wandering the back roads of my mind
Wishing I was on that road again with you.

Reflections on long distance cycling with old friends. 93,000+ miles and counting. The title comes from the names of the roads on a favorite 80 mile riding loop in Tennessee.

Dew Drops

2010-05-12T08:21:00.014-04:00

Transparent filaments
Dangle upon the wind
Connecting the pieces
Somewhere down on main street

Woven loosely
As intricate necessity
Taking all we’ve got
Coming from within

Mists on the currents
Morning shower
Cling to the strands
Diamonds glisten

Shimmering pearls
Sparkling, steely jewels
Calls attention
To the invisible

Dulcimer’s dew
Trembles on strings
Calling to the wary
A welcomed feast

Hands tired
Mind tired
Working overtime
Hanging on

Holding it all together

OSI#116: Trembling

Seedling

2010-05-09T21:16:00.018-04:00

Wales, UK

Hidden, rolling meadow
Planted seed
Remembered, forgotten
Immersing smell
Rich, dampened soil.

Nomadic days
Evolving years.
Maturation
Before emergence
Coming age ensued.

That which is nowhere
Lightless breath
Forced upward, outward
Through rocks
Countless, unforgiving earth.

Rescued spirit
Breaking forth, sprouting
Springtime beginning
Newfound growth
Budding, flowering

Fledgling kernel
Sapling spirit
Trembling earth
Passing moments
Be that seed.

OSI#116: Trembling

Far Away

2010-05-03T09:20:00.023-04:00

Off the southeast coast of Greenland

Time reigns
Trapped as a liquid moment
Stranded in a memory
Cuffed to an ancient tree
Watching me
Yet saying goodbye.

Sands marching
On arid dunes
Drift within the wind.
I am lost in thought
Yet wonder
What might have been?

Has a moment
Or a lifetime just transpired?
Disoriented, nostalgic
Wrapped in aging lament
Rooted to the tree of life
Forever planted, alone.

Growing, yet evolving
Into the past
Never worried
About tomorrow, until
Is it over
Will I have another chance?

Today
I saw a memory
From the heavens
And it wept in silence
Within
As I traveled quickly by.

I tried to grab it
Latch on, I thought
But it was already gone
I turned over the hourglass
To recoup the sands
But they fell away, without me.

I am growing old
And the memories
Are so far away
But once in awhile
They pause, smiling
To say hello.

OSI#115: Reign

Tuesday's Raining

2010-05-01T11:24:00.011-04:00

Qutub Minar in Delhi, India

You’re the one who said she wouldn’t leave
You’re the one who said she really cared
And though I’ve tried to find you
Now I’m alone, so alone down here.

It started out very simply
Like a song you hum, again and again
Over time it changed so slowly
Into something of a worn out tune.

I see my life reflected in so many ways
But you see it through different eyes
It’s only a matter of time, my love
‘Til my dreams follow you into sleep.

Dream walker wearing, a shadowed disguise
Like a flower in a springtime rain
Droplets, adorned with fragrant petals
All along, wrapped in thorns.

Lost in this hidden dream world
Flying clouds across the sky
If I had wings, I’d fly to see her
A bird, dancing on the wind.

Because of you, Tuesday’s raining
And I‘m alone and feeling sad
Now all I see is this cold, hard rain
From the clouds, falling down on me.

You’re the one who said she wouldn’t leave
You’re the one who said she really cared
And though I’ve tried to find you
Now I’m alone, so alone down here.

Walking through the streets of Noida, India

OSI#114: Enigma

Cracks

2010-04-19T12:52:00.030-04:00

Taj Mahal, India..... from a recent trip.

Walking down a deserted, dusty road
Holding the earth within my spirit
I grasp the sand tightly, as a memory
A million pieces slowly slip away
Through the cracks in my feeble hands.

Pathways of life come to a fork
With an unknown destination
I see cracks in the road
Hidden, yet breaking
The pavement’s old, worn face.

You hold me; a touch of your hand
Leaves cracks in my heart
I remember your presence
As an subtle afterglow, on that road
A sojourner to the setting sun’s embrace.

If I were a younger man
Remembering those carefree days
I would not hide in the regrets
Of passing time lost, and
The cracks on my aging skin.

Hope runs through, these simple lines
Despite a cold, weeping wind
Into the halls of an old creaky house,
The wintry nip seeps through window cracks
And reminds me where I am.

You can find poetry, hidden in the cracks
Along the road and walls around us
It’s in the life we live, the people we meet
The faces that glance and smile
And within memories, written along the way.

OSI#113: Fissures

Young girl in Pune, India

Out of Darkness

2010-04-14T15:34:00.020-04:00

Statue at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens

There’s a place in the shadows
With no form, mass, or state
Vacuity, wrapped in total numbness.
Interaction, dampens under a mossy rock
Within the complete absence of reason
Unfamiliar, with senses blinded
Existence reeks from Trompe l'œil.

It’s strangling like an unyielding noose
Tightening slowly, around waning sanity
Senses shutting down
A long, long time ago.
From uncertainty to desperation
A distant voice whispers
“Take off the mask”.

Where does a place like this come from?
When the leaf dies invisibly, falling
Into a void of primordial nothingness
Thoughtless reality passes through barren trees
Stuck to a façade of staunch perception.
Does knowing, make a profound difference
Within a lifetime of understanding?

A restless night, mind made up
Then changed back, again and again.
Finally, the shape shifter awakens
Mocking the calling voice
Within the pretense of masquerade
Silence answers the persistence.
And then, a reverberation
“Take off the mask”

OSI#112: Mask

Mountain Sun

2010-04-09T15:00:00.025-04:00

Arches National Park, Utah, USA

You are like the mountain sun in the morning sky
Lighting up the earth by day
And the moon and the stars by night
Wrapped in plain brown paper with fuzzy string
Into a quiet pond, as a pebble dropped
Your love simply grows as concentric circles within me.
Through your eyes, intimate life moments blink by
From the shadows, the nameless slowly awaken.

Now you know, nothing can separate us
From your all consuming, first light rising
Like a beacon straight into the lens, we meld
Bundled in togetherness around the hearth on a cold night
Reflecting, as one sensitive heart steps into another.
May your sunsets be displayed on pallets of color
Brush strokes on the sky, surrounded in pastels
Like tender hues holding hands within the clouds.

My longing reflects within a prism of time, waiting
Separating my thoughts like color speaking in tongues
The power and illusion of love is all encompassing
It changes us within a touching, silent moment.
Desire, forced to stand alone by the side of the road
Waits for a ride to an unknown destination.
As a seed dropped on the wind, from a dying twig
Its insignificance can land and blossom along the journey.

Untying the string, as a forgotten memory calling
While floating in between the earth and sky
I smile to let the world know I am still alive.
Ascending to your blinding energy once again
Sharing one more frozen, drifting moment
In that instant between a departure and goodbye
The tree branch reaches upward to embrace the dusk
And the sun slowly sets, as your echo fades away.

OSI#111: Vicarious

Springtime Woods

2010-04-01T07:21:00.027-04:00

A mid-afternoon view of the Smokey Mountains this past Tuesday from 1,680 meters along the Cherohala Skyway in eastern Tennessee, USA. What a day to be motorcycling!

I awoke from a dream this morning in the woods
I remembered, but could not place my locality
It’s springtime and the world is alive, growing again
With that light-green color of new growth that darkens in a fortnight.
The sun is just coming up lazily from the east, warming
Turning winter’s darkness into the light of changing seasons.

Today, it causes the mist to cling close to the ground
While shimmering like a silvery curtain, motionless
Hanging on to everything, causing color and view to be smudged.
I still remember the strong forest smell of spring, as lush moistness
A white-noise shower, with birds softly chirping in the distance
It’s the sensation of a cleansing spring rain winding down.

With the unmistakable freshness of a walk in the woods
I’ve often asked myself why I dream and end up in these woods
But I suppose, I too long to be renewed with the spring
And as the seasons; change and passing time ensue
Let’s you and I meet right here, down the path by the large stone
We can gather in this place and share the dream, together.

Words don’t accurately paint a picture of this day
My pallet being softly faded beyond this feeble dream
Memory always reflecting, never ending on these moments
But clarity haunts the joy of all the other forgotten days
Wandering the empty back roads of my mind
Still, wishing I was in these woods again with you.

OSI#110: Cognizance

The Other Image

2010-03-26T20:48:00.003-04:00

Ancient Mayan City of Tulum, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

I look into my reflection
Within a distant scene revealed
This likeness stares back
Like an image, chasing the wind.
Aged, rippled and indifferent.

It seems to have a mind of its own
Like a manifestation in stories
Sung around a fire in the night
Embers glowing within tall tales
Dancing, swirling from yesterday’s sky

The past is the future, so it says
But my heart knows differently.
So the locket is picked
The hidden door swung open
Together; we sail forward in time.

Made of its own desires
Renewed as an alter ego can be
Wrapped in transcended reflection,
Can this image step from the glass?
Detached and free, wandering in the world.

Or shattered, beyond cracks in shards
Posing as a hidden cure for humanity.
Ultimately causing loneliness
In a shroud of chilled raindrops.
If only the image could sing, nourishing my soul.

Then at once, a glowing shadow
Rises from the frame in silvery mist
Casually glancing my way; departing
But in the end, it borrowed everything I own
And simply went away.

OSI#109: Avatar

Forgotten

2010-03-15T17:41:00.021-04:00

On a path to nowhere, my life came upon
A heart; forgotten and barely alive
Alone, dimly lit, but filled with hope.
On a path to nowhere, where no one wants to go.
A route that only romantics travel,
When they have nothing left to do.
Hoping, a purpose evolves in the journey.

An unfulfilled life, aches on the outside
Shadowed under the weight of living
Surrounded by an enslaved state of denial.
Discarded like worn out shoes,
Unlaced within a growing fear
As bare feet walking down a shaky road
Until, they touch the heavens from the clay.

An aging soul can withstand anything
I thought aloud; but it wasn’t true.
At night, crying silently into a river of change
Quivering lips, I later discovered to be my own.
The river of change, the river of being; then realization
That folds thought back into this abandoned alley
My heart incarnate, emerged slowly again.

Like a lost reality, wrapped in a tattered cloak.
Nary keeping out the wayward chill
Only illusion and memory invoke these visions
From recollections lost in the past.
Not these paths or these journeys
Not this maze called life, can hold me back
Until at last the aura, came back into my heart.

It was lost and lonely, but it was still alive.

OSI#108: Aura

Lost Heart

2010-03-09T14:23:00.013-05:00

Cade's Cove Tennessee, Smokey Mountains, USA

Driven, tossed into the relentless ocean of time
Destitute and lost from the guiding eye
I hear a murmur from the heavens above
Nighttime, reminding me of where I am.
And because the sky forgets nothing,
It tells me something happens;
When you grow up, your heart dies.
Slowly, invisibly; an evaporated goodbye.

One day you awake with no bearing at hand.
Alone, sitting by the edge of the galactic sea
Gazing into a meaningless tomorrow.
Lowering my nets; within these days,
Everything seems easier to forget.
With a flash of light, roaring in thunder
The rain and snow fall from the sky
Attending to the parched coastline, so little.

But, don’t let it leave without nourishing,
Our world and this lost heart.
Desperation! And then,
Bid the darkness, turn to day
Wipe sorrow’s tears away
Pure warmth and changeless it may be
When I think of the perfect day
All the mists are whisked away

As the skies are clearing, I will think of you
In whose life, I see all; anew
Let your clear light, forever shine
And not be vanquished and resigned
Come let us nurture a future we will see
With a compass for a journey that’s soon to be
And carry with it, a heart that murmurs softly
To the sounds of the falling rain.

OSI#107: Murmur

Quiet Thoughts

2010-03-09T14:20:00.001-05:00

In the quiet silence of the darkest night
I see and dream again, with new found sight

To ponder this knowledge again as before
Making sense of it all I desperately implore

On the wings of the morning I sit and reflect
Such knowledge it seems, I cannot dissect

But it’s rudely apparent from my abstracted view
That all I perceive cannot really be true

Remember those stones* we have all talked about?
I believe they are gone with shadow-less doubt

So what remains are dreamlike memories, mostly lost
As unmet thoughts unfolding, significantly embossed

In my mind’s eye I still see much clouded doubt
The times I have thought so, I cannot surmount

Understanding the flight of thoughts as feelings untold
The mysteries I search for serendipitously unfold

So, take these thoughts on the potters wheel as lumps of clay
To mold a better world, a better day, and a better me; I pray

* The reference to "stones" is from the very first post on my poetry blog back in April, 2009 which I called Casting a Stone

Endless Skies

2010-03-03T16:30:00.014-05:00

Wales, United Kingdom

Endless skies
Separate the before
And the after
They make me believe
Our connection is so real
Even with an eon wedged between

I look to see a smile
To see a face
That reminds me of you
Reality captured in a photograph
The wide open spaces
Create this unsettled image

Your mind, and
My roaming thoughts, hesitate
Then intertwine, almost like memories.
They sail through the distance
As the endless sky unites us
Gliding together on the wind

Within the heartache of not knowing
The real you, lives in a dream
I see your face
Though know you not
And yet so well
Remembering that moment we met

A perfect day, wrapped in silky words
Crystalline images speaking
Volumes to my heart.
Blue skies, pallid clouds
Steeped in nostalgia
With shadows obscuring reality

And a chance that we might meet
In the endless skies ahead

OSI#106: Hesitation

Times Past

2010-02-24T09:49:00.035-05:00

The castle at Richmond, England; circa 1071 AD.

I’m fixing a hole where my heart belongs
Like a garment riddled by moths
‘Tis laid out on a pillow for all to see
A relic from battles just lost
My armor, pierced and cracked
As a breast plate left in shambles
Retired from the siege, a predawn attack
Leaving my light, forever cloaked in darkness.

Born from a maiden, standing in full view
Medieval, flaxen beauty in peasant cloth
Fresh from the spinning wheel, woven
Thatched golden locks, adorning a sulky stare.
Fingers running softly through her hair
With a breadth extending beyond,
The mountains and the sea
Dressing in the intimacy of morning light; just for me.

Quiet thinking; reveled in the spoils
Exudes an unspoken wisdom
Dreaming of battles hitherto come
From a thief who will rob, yet another heart.
Within a womb that fashions deceit
My thoughts now turn only to you
As my days slip away into silence
More quickly than a hurried runner.

Possessed, blind and robbed of my future
Uncovered and now buried
From a deep crevice completely filled
I stand alone at the watchtower.
Drinking scorn like water, while
Hugging rocks to gain warmth from the granite.
Lamenting my wounds, as empty roads ahead
Within your image, I see again the sunrise

My heart gone, and now my mind
Running out of control.

OSI#105: Running

Running Man

2010-02-21T12:39:00.010-05:00

Another try at song lyrics with the new OSI prompt in mind.

Running man
What do you see?
From place to place
Imagine what could be.

Out of the wilderness
You may fall
Back to reality
Leaving it all.

Running man
Please slow down
Is it worth it all?
You may just drown.

Living your life
A meeting at a time
Have you had enough?
Just to make a dime.

Running man
Decides to be free
Says screw it all
Just want to be me.

OSI#105: Running

Sea Breeze

2010-02-17T07:52:00.028-05:00

The sea shore stretches
Waking from a restless night
An ocean zephyr laughs within the ripples
And into the curling waves.
The gull retreats, belly full
Into the distance, heading unknown
Feathers gliding, a waving departure
Off to the fishing grounds again
With existence in the balance.
Smiling with the breeze, thankful
Just along for the ride

Smells of salt in the air sharpen
As a preservation to our past
It dampens and permeates our thoughts
And sings a pungent melody
To the clockwork of the rising tide
In time with the oceans never ending cry.
As a song the mariner sings
When they sail through the oceans
A song that they sing
When they take to the sea
As the siren beckons to you; it calls after me

I look to the horizon
Lost in the depths of a future
And the sea stares back
From steel, blue-green eyes
Drifting with the currents intently
Wandering, floating into our soul
Already knowing the answers
And who we really are.
If we sing long enough
We become one with infinity
And the notes play back in time

From the edge of the laughter
The mist rolls in, on the wind like a shadow
Foghorn bellows like a growling spirit
Echoing a baritone lament
Warning us of the perils ahead
And tainting the smiling current
If we listen carefully
We can hear the fog lifting
While the ocean speaks again
Whispering, “I am, as you”
And always will be; restless

OSI#104: Insomnia

There for Me

2010-02-15T10:29:00.022-05:00

These are lyrics for a song I am working on.

"The Farm" in Celina, TN

When I’m gone, wild n’ free
When I just can’t find my way
When shadows fall around me
And nighttime turns to day

When cloudy days block the sun
And I stumble through it all
You cheer me up, one by one
You pick me up when I fall

You comfort me when I need you
You forever brightly shine
You come through, my true blue
You are eternally mine

When life brings me down, I take flight
When I have nowhere else to go
I toss and turn alone at night
And inside, my heart will know

A constant weight that I may be
No time for you to rest
Please hold on, stay with me
For I know that I am blessed

You comfort me when I need you
You forever brightly shine
You come through, my true blue
You are eternally mine

OSI#104: Insomnia

Imagine the Wind

2010-02-13T13:45:00.012-05:00

Buddhist Temple, Changzhou, China

Have you ever seen the wind?
Summer’s dusk, rocking on the porch
Cool breeze, southern day, crickets
Rustling, through the golden wheat
Waving in silent passage

Have you ever seen the wind?
Falling leaves announced in color
Departure, a smell upon the air
Flag flying, smooth undulations
Tall pole, rope clinking

Have you ever seen the wind?
Tall ships billowing; majestic
Trying to catch the icy tide
Snowflakes drifting, slanting downward
Frigid taste of winter’s sting

Have you ever seen the wind?
Clouds dancing in the sky
Springtime shapes bouncing together
Newfound growth, sprouting promise
Blustery cold, chased to yesterday

Have you ever seen the wind?
A distant echo carried
Reminder, I’m still with you
Eyes closed tightly
Imagine what could be

Have you ever seen the wind?

OSI#103: Gold

Sunrise Dream

2010-02-08T06:17:00.008-05:00

Standing at the doorstep of the dawn
And crossing through the garden trellis
The image is not what it seems
Within the pastel hues of the rising sun
A golden sign hangs on the morning sky
With nighttime shadows off to sleep
A sparkling nugget, slips from an ancient hand

And with it, a mistress is awakened
Rays now predominate my dreams
Scattered as enticement through a prism
With an invitation to caress the new born day.
Glare-laden eyes, strain to take all that’s to be had
As I reach for the sky, and grasp at the her rays
Shaking off a latent narcosis within the other hand

But the gold slips through my feigned attempts
Dreams turn to nightmares in the first light
With my pockets being empty in the end.
Anguished tears flow within blindness
As disparate water, collects on cheeks and hands
Dampening my grasp, in the morning glow.
Now more easily, I catch the illusive dust

With gold on water, collecting as I go
Abounding within the depths of slumber
Dreams again predominate the moment
Bidding the shadows a sorrowing farewell.
With mistress in hand, together we depart
Into an image that’s not what it seems
There’s a day and a future, that await the unknown

But in the end, do I really care?

OSI#103: Gold

Caribbean Night

2010-02-01T16:52:00.036-05:00

Hot summer’s evening
Bamboo screens flung wide open
Tropical breeze drifting in
Waves murmur in the distance
Drowned by your pulsing sigh
Ceiling fan turns overhead
With an intimate rhythm
Lights down low, shimmering
As shadows dance in unison, above

Two glasses, in a sea of Cabernet
Diffuse inhibition completely, as
Lips touch in a sultry embrace
Floating in an ocean of desire.
A growing storm emerges from the calm
The horizon drops, as a full moon
Penetrates the awakening night
Rustling dew drops, out of breath
Escape with passion, as sweat upon satin

A moist Caribbean heat intertwines
Surrounding and consuming us both.
Thoughts blank into focused moments
With images flashing in my head
Steam rises into the star filled sky
Dispersed softly as gentle perfume
Lustful memories scattered freely
Like constellations spinning skyward
And the tide rises slowly in the distance

Minutes seem like transfixed hours
The deepening sea wanders in time
It ebbs like a frozen hourglass.
Pulses merging as one
Rapid like a bursting energy
In ripples, with the crashing waves.
Then subtly falling, like a breaker into organic foam
Exhausted, drifting into a steeped afterglow
Life becomes singular; simple and complete

OSI#102: Single

Cold Day Traveling

2010-01-31T08:02:00.009-05:00

It is so cold today.
On the train coming to work,
I think all I want to do is to exist in a warm, sun-filled existence
With nothing but a blanket to comfort the journey
The clear blue sky and a bald tree passing are my only companions.
A deep quietness will surround me, and I can think a little, or of nothing.
Time will seem to be still, in the surrounding noise
While the continuum marches on around me
The sound of the tracks click by, echoing like a familiar song
Over and over in my head in this drawl-locked, non-ending loop

The 514’s leavin’ from the station
I see your face as the cars go slowly by
Bye, bye wish that I could see you once again

Everything we do it seems, boils down to making a living at the end.
Why are we so busy, locked in this loop
All the work doesn’t bring much happiness
And leaves us no time to enjoy simple things
Thought, feeling, emotion; our senses stifled to obscure recollection
Snuffed to a dark crowded shelf in a part of life forgotten
Faceless bodies shuffling about our lives
Inversion tugging at our closing door
Unaware of outside stimuli and spirits that surround us.
I feel like I’m being sucked into this dark, long tunnel
Being forced to live a busy life with no choice.
While the pages of my book seem to move more rapidly all the time
Towards an ending known all too well, turning
I wish to retrace and rewrite some of those chapters
Yet my erasers always seem misplaced
Somehow I rise above it all within the homework of writing.
Or at least I try

Do I write for you or is it a personal thing?
Is it a way to step outside this mind locked existence?
As prose dissolves some hidden door.
What’s my motive or objective?
Mostly to capture a thought or emotion?
Or therapy to transcend this busy life, while connecting with you
Or myself
The mystery perpetuates itself
Yet I never seem to find a successful description in the end
Upon analysis and reflection grade C, I suppose
Perhaps I am saved if the grades are curved?
A forced rank dooms my chances while excuses line up.
But maybe this cold numbs my thinking and perspective
Causing a loss of detail in the translation
And providing a saving grace from evaluation.
Does it matter in the end anyway, or perhaps
Just attempting, as I move through this life
Is the answer I seek, with words in hand.
Traveling on a cold day
Contemplating that which defies me in the end

OSI#101: Blowing the Curve

Through the Woods

2010-01-20T11:25:00.033-05:00

Sorry about the length of this. I have been working on for awhile and it is a bit of an experiment. For those that persevere, hopefully you will enjoy. Congratulations to OSI for #100!

Walked down a path through the woods one day
A route I had not taken before
As is typical of these adventures
More of life is lived and learned the deeper I go.

The path was narrow, but well traveled
The kind where the soil, like clay, is packed and firm
A struggle between the traveler and flora
To see who will reclaim the space.

Green, lush, and moist; a temperate rain forest
Demands attention from the senses as compulsion
And sharpens awareness of sound and thought
Haven’t I really been here before?

This dream is certainly varied in its density like the trees
It seems from hedgerow to almost open space
Though somewhere in-between suits my remembrance
A surrealistic light streams through the leaves with a hazy translucency.

As quietness attacks the scene with unfamiliarity
Then, a snapping twig wrapped in a rustle; and a solitary realization
Which way did I come?
How long have I been wandering into the wrong direction?

Just when dark thoughts of this situation creep in
A clearing steps into view with unexpected openness
This calms the fears and reality of being lost
And gives promise to other adventures, in secluded memories.

In the distance a pond or lake floats beyond a thicket
It’s a fall morning and the mist hangs like a veil
Upon the water like a motionless curtain
The infant sun casts a silvery iridescence upon the scene.

Water, smooth as glass, like a mirror into the mind
Imitates the reflection as a perfect recollection
Being lost in the woods, desperately searching
And hoping to find a way, into the sun-filled day.

---------------------------------------<>---------------------------------------
Rousing and startled, half asleep while dreaming
I pondered the woods and thicket travelled, on this late fall day
You know, that place hidden between reality and the subconscious
Where obscurity and thought are intertwined hallucinations.

Being lost, finding my way; all perplexed and season changing
Thinking as I lay, drowsily half remembering while quietly forgetting
My mind slowly sank back to unconsciousness
And my dream journeyed into winter; sleeping soundly.....
---------------------------------------<>--------------------------------------

The shadows cast are long and silhouetted
From leaf-less trees no sound is heard.
Stark as soldiers, standing in ranks at attention
Sinuous and dark, it is dusk on winter’s eve.

The sun’s last gasp of breath slowly escapes
Causing the new fallen snow, starched and white
To glisten like a thousand dancing diamonds
For a moonlit audience neither seen nor heard.

Moving beyond, the snow crunches beneath feet unseen
With that special sound so crisp and well defined
A memory that echoes in my consciousness
And fades as distance comes between.

Solitary is this sacred thought that’s shared
But just ‘round the corner, so it seems
A place I have been many times before
And doubtless will visit when I think of you again.

OSI#100: Sunny Days

Dreaming

2010-01-12T11:27:00.025-05:00

I am the eagle who flies.
So high, I am the sun
Though brighter than the sun.
I wonder sometimes if it's
Worth it? Waiting
For you in the clouds
My life and take-away sorrow, drift
Another calls on the wing
I hear the distant melody

Is it you?
I call your name, but
There’s no response
I also whisper something
You sigh, no hidden reply
What I know already
Is you're not really there
Being struck by this, is worse
More than a nuisance

You should know, that
I also envision you walking
In that special way
Moving with the pulse
Along the rhythm of life’s road
As a thirsted imagination
So, I contemplate what could be.
And if my world falls unwillingly
Inside the chaos of it all

Lost, I couldn’t see why
Within you, the answer is known
From the way you look
Into my eyes, but
Alas, no longer there
Here and now
The light must go to sleep
While I dream of you again
Heart soaring, back to the setting sun

OSI#99: Chaos

Remembrance

2010-01-10T10:25:00.009-05:00

Loch Ness, Scotland

What will our remembrance be?
That of sadness or joy
In pain or sorrow within
You know, it’s up to you.
You know, it’s up to you.

What will our remembrance be?
I think I can remember
A kinder time you see
But, it’s really up to you.
It’s really up to you.

What will our remembrance be?
Growing up is such a revelation
Learning what is not to be learned.
And seeing it’s up to you.
Really up to you.

What will our remembrance be?
Broken dreams and memories
A childhood image shaken.
Thoughts like ripples back in time
Knowing it’s up to you.

What will our remembrance be?
Child, turned adult, turned fool
Taking it all too personally
As time slips into yesterday
And thinking it’s up to you.

What will our remembrance be?
The kindred heart unfolds
The mirrored image I may become
Shakes my very senses
And knowing it’s up to me.

Only up to me

Loch Loyal, Scotland

OSI#98: Indurated

Journey Home

2010-01-07T13:48:00.023-05:00

How can you dream those things
Where there is no time to say
And put off without understanding
The time we have and the moments lost
I thought there was more time
And the time said no, abruptly

I sit and listen to the sweet memories
As life going by in a song
Not realizing what’s been gained in the melody
And what’s been lost in the keys and notes played
Time draws slowly along the staff, questions remain
I wait for the answers, within the un-played tune

Searching as the wanderer; though not knowing the path
May my journey be adventuresome
Meaningful, even if I depart and make it alone
Thoughts of leaving create sinking regret
With all that won’t become known, in me
With all that won’t become known, in you

And ours, within the transposition of it all
Can my time be that pronounced and ending?
Called with no discussion at hand
I sit reflecting, with my heading lost
A compass in passing; only to find
Labored in a dizzied misunderstanding

A softened heart flutters in juxtaposition
As I shudder in disbelief.
Will I stay with you or will I go it alone
The question creeps slowly to the answer
How long will I have, in the fight?
To see if months become years, or days

Tied to the emotions of not knowing
Be with me, I need your strength
If I am to survive, even not knowing
The time I have, and the time left
Be there in my dreams
Be there in my now

This was written thinking about a close friend who is struggling with a life issue that is hardening their outlook on life.

OSI#98: Indurated

Canvas

2010-01-02T08:03:00.008-05:00

From the wing, a lost feather
Falls, floating from the quill
Captured by an artisan
Skillfully crafted into a brush
Thoughts now evoke images
Brush strokes sprout from handiwork
Life immerges as the painting
The only aspiration, unmistakable
Completely covering the canvas

From the colors on the pallet
Mixed in never ending pastels
Now, standing at a point of collision
At the easel, what will it be?
Slide through life smoothly
Brush strokes forgotten or smeared
Rather than entering it profoundly
Knowing we must live aggressively
Outside the image of tomorrow

OSI#97: Wings

The Place You Shouldn't Go

2009-12-21T15:18:00.010-05:00

It was many years ago today we met
I starred at who I really was
The mirror starred back, from the place you shouldn’t go
And I finally understood the meaning

The scene melts in front of me
Flows from frame to frame
Reality becomes an absolute
In the place you shouldn’t go

Voices echo over incalculable distances
With light and shadow’s stroboscopic effect
Forces work unknown and unseen
In the place you shouldn’t go

You came again to me in a dream
I looked for you in the place you shouldn’t go
Knew I shouldn’t, but I’d already crossed the line
You rescued me right at the edge, that I’ll always know

Back from the place you shouldn’t go
Where was I anyway, don’t you know?
Some of you have been this way too
I have seen you there, dancing with the notion

Back to the place you shouldn’t go
Why shouldn't I, can’t you see?
Our reality’s here and now
But the place you shouldn’t go, is where I want to be.

OSI#96: Wanderlust

Sorrow

2009-12-11T08:24:00.038-05:00

The wind carries with it, a memory of sorrow
Feigned attempts nourish recollections
Pieces of reason scatter in the currents
Shattered by love and fear, locked at a crossroads.

Dangling, skewed in the balance
Lost in thought, head in hand; drifting
Deeper into the veil, as eyes open
A porcelain shell cracks in the cold of December.

Eddies from the undertones, speak openly
Through the remnants in the shards
Flashes of light into betrayed eyes
Unlock the emptiness; full to bursting.

Ringing true and hollow as the sound
Captured in the wind, as desperation
Trapped in innocence, fire consumes the memory
As a single match extends; extinguished.

But not with it, hope
Smoke rises from the ash and soars free
Wisps, gliding on the wind as a bird in remembrance
Talons tightly clutch the sorrow.

Alone, a tear drops quietly
Alone, a tear drops now

OSI#95: Junction

Happy Holidays to all!

I took this photo of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA; as the sun was beginning to go down.

The Widow's Lair

2009-12-09T18:42:00.004-05:00

Falling into the depths of murky memory
One coated in old tattered raindrops
There, dampness only permeates as thought
It’s a dark, dreary place
That smells of ancient artifacts
And murmurs as a lair of no return
In the tunnels wander primordial rocks, quarried
Forged from the depths of despair
With one laborer and whip consumed at a time
Breathing granite death into this purgatory

Into the never ending maze, bleak thoughts take me
As a vice compressed into closeness
Dimensionless stumbling, dimly forward
The torch long passing away, into darkness
Minutes turn into nomadic, maddening hours
As the hourglass ages visibly
Now caught in a confused after dream
Until, first with a stumble
Then a heart-stopping bump
And a mind altering thump

Wedged in twisting contortion
Stuck in a horrid clasp, mired in rippling fear.
Overcome with an intimate presence
Wrapped with the stench of venomous death
An entanglement of revenge surrounding
An entrapping, unforgiving web.
Mind racing rapidly; just let the widow pass
With a sojourner's thoughts about the darkness
Fear; oh let me escape thy unforgiving net
Into the morning light, and freedom to the rustling grass

But there is no light, and there is no grass
Along with no escape; falling into piercing eyes
Red piercing eyes, stare from the depths
Through the constant drone of clicking
Click, click; clicking
Echoes in this dungeon; a constant moving clicking
As a metronome to an awaiting death
I am forever caught in the web
Imminence bound in waiting, only hoping
The end comes quickly, very quickly from the dark

OSI#94: Spider Webs

Arcadia's Mooring

2009-12-04T11:45:00.005-05:00

From the lush, moistness of the hardwood forests
Down to the great wilderness and beyond
Morning fog flows over the mountain pass
Clipping the tree tops, flowing softly; quietly
As a river of mist to the rocky coast below

From the stillness, sounds of the ocean come crashing
And well up like roaring, foaming thunder to the hills
On an outcropping at the point, is a pinnacle towering
The mighty waves bow at the doorstep of Arcadia
They are servants to the granite in the beacon

Marked as a transition from the never ending sea
As a demarcation to the rocky cliffs, at the mirrors edge
When frosted gales howl with a nor’easter’s frigid sting
It’s the warmth of the great beam’s presence
That guides us to the shore, and around the sandy shoal

The fleet weighs anchor, with lines cast toward the tempest
Sailing on the elusive ebb of the rising tide
From the toils of the crabbers and the lobsterman
The lighthouse holds the key to a watery voyage
And a rendezvous with the limitless expanse

As a monument for those that brave the sea
Majestic and stalwart is this giant sentinal
A candle lit at the ocean’s misty window
Within its ever searching eye, as sails unfurl
Talking to the darkest night, directing the passage of the mariner

So beware when you sail in the shadows, beyond the piercing light
With darkness, wrapped in a dampened, liquid current
Down the coast we tack, until another signal shines aloud
When at last, that old familiar lighthouse, rises from the horizon
Casting a net over our anchorage, within the safety of the harbor

And Arcadia’s mooring, is once again at hand.

OSI#93: Lighthouse

Lily Pads

2009-11-26T15:33:00.003-05:00

The first waking light rouses
Yawning in the cool, crisp morning
An underlying current speaks
With the daybreak answering skyward

It’s a tacit, subtle question
Rising from the watercolored canvas
Through the sheen of greenish, azure blue
Round, white puffy clouds float

Stretched as billowing, lazy reminders
Drifting in playful migration together
Horizon shifting, shapes slowly change
Overhead on the breezy thoroughfare

An enlightened answer immerges
Evolved in ever changing brush strokes
Revealing what it must be like
Swimming; from the underside of lily pads

OSI #92: Migration

Serengeti

2009-11-26T15:02:00.011-05:00

The Serengeti plains, a place lost in time
Where vast savannahs reach for the sky
Graceful gazelles graze, so close by
Smelling their presence as they lope in single file
Watchfully disappearing into the distance.
As the first sunlight, beams it's rays; and
Kisses the grasslands at the mountains edge
The dawn rises for the predator
Fresh on a kill, returning from the nightly hunt
Roaring in victory, while others cringe quietly unnoticed

In the distance, an ancient volcano smolders in repose
Drifting in from the escarpment to the valley floor below
As the sun climbs to the sky, like birth and death defined
Heat wiggles and shimmers through the air to the ground
Cooking as desire in the predator’s relentless stalking
Feeling the watchful eyes, a search begins nervously
For shade and the protection of the Acacia tree
To cool wayward migrations, slowly in the chill of its shadows
There’s a time honored tradition followed this day
If vigorous enough run, hide, and to stay alive

The wildebeests crowd the grassy highway
With clouds of dust embracing their passage
And zebras graze in the alleyways, trotting slowly from behind
The rains arrived with green lushness and the savannah came alive
With tall trees silhouetted against the darkened skies
Suppressing an emptiness about this space, in an ocean of creation
All came to this gathering for life giving water, and a chance
On the plains of the Serengeti, the feeling is now about anxiousness
It’s been three long weeks since the herd came through
All have said hello to the parched, dusty dryness

And now feeling like death wrapped in old dry hooves
The predators just wait, with the food almost gone
In the distance black clouds rise but the rains have long evaporated
Calling back from primeval ancestry
Loudly again, that it’s time to leave
Quenching a desire steeped in survival
From the quiet place of remembrance
Where life can be hard and short lived
How can dreams immerge in the mist of these tears?
As a thanksgiving for those left behind, unsung

An unforgiving sacrifice for all that follow
And a companion no longer there
In the natural selection that prevails
A passenger to the seasons ever changing.
You can smell it in the air; with arid touch
Attached to the stir on the Serengeti plain
Some are leaving in a dusty goodbye; hurried
With the trail map imprinted eons ago
Urged now with an overpowering, singular purpose
And a journey designed from antiquity, wrapped migration

Looking across the savannah into valley grasslands
Vastness, with magic from the movement of the herds
There’s really nothing else left to say; except
“It’s now time to go.”

OSI #92: Migration

Lumps of Clay

2009-11-22T09:47:00.006-05:00

There once was a potter with two lumps of clay
He molded one statue with an irregular surface
And a glaze covered with many imperfections

He molded another into a statue of great beauty
With a smooth surface like the petals of a flower
And a glaze, exquisite in design and detail

Into the kiln where the clay transformed from lifelessness
Just you and just me; it seems in a metamorphosis
Dancing from dust and water with the skill of the artisan

The sculptor admired his work for a short time
And decided on an impulse to smash these statues
Crushing their hardened surfaces into a thousand pieces

Not satisfied he had captured the essence of his vision
With one statue so obviously flawed to a point
That resulted in unbearable asymmetry from the pair

Then he thought, “What have I done to my creation?”
Slowly, painfully picking up their scattered essence
Haphazardly mixing the pieces from the statues as he went

“I can remake them”, he thought
Better than before, though which piece goes with which?
As he collected the pieces in two disparate piles

Again, mixing these fragments with life-giving clay
Back to the kiln, as another set of statues were transformed
Each now containing unique elements from the other

And so it goes with the life we share
From the potter's wheel, a little piece of each other
Combined to make us more complete than before

OSI: Creative

Two Dimensional

2009-11-16T14:37:00.004-05:00

I come from a two dimensional world
Nothing but x’s and y’s, always bumping into something
No looking up, or looking down
Really strapped in and constrained
The situation is actually quite graphical
My life has gone from plain to planar
If only I had a polar planimeter I would know my area
Am I linear, exponential, or quadratic in nature?
Or, asymptotic beyond a hetero-decimal perspective
Certainly a Euclidian matter to infinitely ponder
Beyond a reasonable number of significant digits
Ah, if only the intellect of Newton, Gauss, or Archimedes
I could iterate, premutate, and calculate the end resultant
However, a two dimensional world breeds two dimensional thinking
So, I am always one dimension away from a creative idea!

OSI: Creative

Hourglass

2009-11-16T14:24:00.030-05:00

Creative moments
Illicit with dissection
Subtle passing verse
Captured as introspection
Thoughts evaporate
A feeling quickly tussled

Drifting in, then out
As fleeting paper rustled
Often discarded
Quill ‘n’ ink mostly wasted
Our ground slips away
Timeless sands; hourglass tasted

Oh, to slow them down

OSI: Creative

Echoes

2009-11-11T06:34:00.059-05:00

I slept at the end of my days
And breathed my last breath
With thoughts of being with my father
And his father; but I was wrong
From the arms of many births and deaths
Had I discovered all there was to know?
How many lives had it been?
To ascertain what had just transpired
Insignificant as a star in the sky
While desperate to understand
If this one point of light had meaning

To bare the fruits from a whimsical karma
Or was it chance?
Directed by a flip of the coin.
Silence spoke the answer
Then pulling, tugging, with oppressive helplessness
Out of balance, from the chrysalis emerged
Until the end became a new beginning.
Returning home, to time’s embrace
Where walls no longer enclosed the silence
The caterpillar awakened the butterfly
Within a metamorphosis transposed

But something was not the same, this time
I still had the memories.
Am I better than before?
Has the string of evolution snapped,
As a sinewy web forthcoming?
From a theory most incarnate
Cobbled evolution traps these thoughts
As vibrations speaking to the strings.
Again, echoes from the past in tongues
Are nagging reminders of something incomplete
Like a melody that won’t depart

Then awakening, within a velvet fog's translucency

From the distance, a ripple of laughter
Comes forward like a breaking wave
It echoes in the canyons
Like a tomorrow that will never end
It’s a future that will come one day
Without warning or invitation
Hearing that same echo, as in a dream
Telling us where we’ve been
From a past life and reality
It’s a lesson on how to live boldly where we are
From the comfortable middle to the ragged edge of life

Not ever regretting the result of our journey
Or the journeys yet to come
Again with you, to finish what’s undone
Or to wait, as I undoubtedly will see you again

OSI: Reincarnation

A Simple Good-bye

2009-11-07T08:43:00.006-05:00

I’ve gone to a place of peace to see my future
I’ll fly away from today without you
I now feel a sense of relief from myself
As I journey into a new reality

I cast aside my burdens and worries
Others left behind now shoulder these concerns
An inner peace overcomes me with growing intensity
Darkness into light I wander; going

Warmth radiates within my heart, from this ultimate luminescence
Though externally, my body grows cold to the touch; from you
I see your past, present, and future intertwine
As this existence melts into another before me

All I know is now known to me; and on I go
As I leave this place I know you don’t recognize me
Years being harder on us all, these last few days
But this future will remember me as I used to be

And the place of peace I now reside in, I prepare also for you
Really sooner than I should have gone, but here nonetheless
To wait, as your journey too will soon be taken
Along this path without consent

But somehow maybe the moment seems right after all
Because I have accepted my time and transition, leaving you
As the beginning and end are really the same, in this continuum
And I say goodbye to you and also hello

Eternally waiting.

OSI: Departed

My Old Chair

2009-11-01T20:29:00.004-05:00

There’s a room to the north
Where the snow comes in
The cracks invite the wind openly
As the windows relent to the winter
The panes long ago traveling into warmth
Allowing the room and elements to become as one
With paint chips curling and dropping together

A dusting knocks at the door, invited
Surrounding my ol’ comfortable chair
As a relic forgotten, in a move long lost
And into the grip of empty, cold abandonment.
Are the depths of this early chill
Already visible in the washed out image of winter?
As a harrow, through the fields I wander

Back to the house and bare room entered
From a recollection acquired in childhood
I step over the sill, cautiously walking in
And the moment is captured in a frozen image
Printed for all to see as a sacrifice from the shutter
As my warmth overcomes and recollects
This mid-October memory; back home

OSI: Departed

Photo Used by Permission

A Day Gone By

2009-10-30T13:22:00.008-04:00

Through colors in my lens, time I see
As strands of clouds in stringy wisps of gray
Etched as silhouettes against a late autumn day
The bittersweet of this silent tint, whispers to me

My thoughts in nostalgia, linger in the background
As woven shades walking arm in arm
Just beyond the hills lies a certain country charm
Wrapped in autumn’s leaves; red, orange, brown

A cool breeze offers reflection in a personal sort of way
And a dove provides an echo in its farewell call
The harvest moon dips low as it beams over all
With its delicate touch on an Indian summer’s day

The warm late-day colors, covered in moonbeams
Wrapped as cozy living in old kite strings
A song that the brook and crickets brings
Capture the moment with the shutter, as in dreams

OSI: Shift in Time

Harvest Time

2009-10-30T13:07:00.003-04:00

It’s a time to settle down
It’s the autumn of the year
It’s a time to settle down
With the harvest moon moving near
It is yours and mine
The days are ours, ever fair
Within our harvest time
And this autumn season we share

Sitting quietly, together in the day
With the smell of earth in the air
It’s a time to reap and see
As we gather the bounty growing there
When you walk with me
Two shadows as one, are thrown
Across our harvest fields
And the time together we’ve known

OSI: Shift in Time

Freefall

2009-10-26T20:57:00.013-04:00

Starring silently and with melancholy
Into the firmament I peer
Seeking solitude in the starry night sky
Certainly an appropriate place
To contemplate our isolation

As an island in an ocean call Infinity
There’s a story to tell from our past
The canvas murmurs from the darkness above
As points of light in salutation, twinkle
Speaking as patterns, revolving in a dance

If I could warp to a time gone by
To the beginning of it all
Then I could be the father of eternity
With a shift in time, most improbably
As random thoughts captured in haste

If I took this message
And stuffed it in a bottle
Tossed into the galactic sea
It would encapsulate time, and our being
Within the hope of a distant response

And out of the darkness you might come
In a freefall to this special place
Back to the island, from whence you came
Again, to the beginning of it all
As an echoed message from me to you

In Search of the Spirit

2009-10-23T07:49:00.005-04:00

As for how long
The time I could not count
My heart started to become empty
My soul untouched
And my senses losing their keenness

Maybe unconsciously making excuses
For my hard and busy life
On this piece of strange land
I felt something suffocating
As if pressed by a concrete, ceramic ceiling
On all sides, squeezing into the darkness

But my heart is always like wild grass
Trying to creep out through all the rocks on top
Straining to greet the sunshine and storms
Always there but mostly unnoticed

Growing up I have always longed to seek a person or soul
Who feels as strongly as I do
Who thinks deeply and provocatively
Who uplifts my soul

Life is so short and busy
It goes by within blinks of the eye
My thirsty and hungry spirit
Tries to hold the fly-by moments
When it is touched
And explore the wonderment

To say farewell and good bye?
When an adventure and new life begins
Unwilling to ignore it and let go
When I’ve found that spirit
I have been wandering and yearning for

Is this you . . . . . ?

Seasons Changing

2009-10-14T22:04:00.003-04:00

November’s eve has come again
Reddish brown leaves fall, drifting
Collecting lazily on the ground.
The day has on gray-clad shoes
A cool breeze calls to winter slowly
This time of year is all about change.
With a promise of renewal
It’s similar to life’s path
With the seasons that come and go.
Green turns to orange turns to gray
A natural progression, marching
And a thought of seasons yet to come.

Elusive Things

2009-10-12T13:11:00.043-04:00

My thoughts come and go
As drowning echoes in a canyon

And memories lose their meaning
With the answers left behind

There is agreement from the sunrise
In our purpose for the day

The world is just an illusion
In an alternative sort of way

While misunderstood truths
Are solutions for problems gone awry

Along with happiness rediscovered
Goes love as a fleeting vapor

Solitude (updated, OSI: Conquer)

2009-10-12T10:36:00.009-04:00

On a mountain top I sit
Gazing lazily out to the horizon
Puffy clouds drift slowly by
And my mind wanders with them
With the sun shining brightly in between
Creating a moving ocean of light and dark swatches.
My brother, the eagle, glides overhead in the distance
Repeatedly calling to his sister, as eagles only can do
I am so high (again), I see no other human form
Just snowy peak, after peak with green valleys beneath.
So, I ponder the meaning of my solitude
With memories of traveling around in the valleys
It seems the world is a buzz with humanity below
Yet for so many reasons those around are blinded
But not by the emblazoned sun above.
They move around in introversion
A personal island in a sea of maddening activity
Often not acknowledging those around.
Is this the evolution of our existence?
Are they trapped within, unable to escape themselves?
Forever jaded by materialism and self?
Or perhaps, they just don’t care.
So it seems on too many occasions
Often times it causes me to seek my summit of solitude
Shying away from the disappointment, is why I climb
A lack of interaction and acknowledgement driving my journey upward.
So once again I ponder this view with hopefulness
But am not sure I can climb down again
Often forgetting my ropes and pitons is my justification
Though this climb is fraught with dangers I know too well.
To die on this mountain top would be a tragedy for anyone
Despite the stark beauty of this place
The real action happens forever, in the valleys below
Though many hiking miles from my lowest base-camp.
Forgiving in forgetfulness, I desperately seek
As a lever for coming down, or maybe it’s just an excuse
Time marches on with the sun turning a page
A new day emerges similar to the one just passed.
Something shiny catches my attention in the distance
I am in the mountains, you know
And another lost soul shares a neighboring peak
Can solitude be shared by someone close by?
With only knowledge we are there for the same reasons?
A wave, begets a distant wave as a union is struck
In an instant, I am not sure I can ever come down

Top Down

2009-10-07T14:31:00.001-04:00

Air flying
Engine roaring
Top down
Convertible
Back seat
Adolescence
Saturday night
Mom and dad
Sis'
Speckled trunk
Ice cream

Arágon's Time (OSI: Talisman)

2009-10-04T19:41:00.033-04:00

And I thought of you yesterday
From a memory long ago
As the woods rustled, retelling the legend

A traveler from a kingdom lost in antiquity
You became of age, in a mystical forest called Arágon
And traveled to the ring in the southern reach

There you learned the ancient, black art
From those with age beyond our time
The apprentice, cultured from incantation to wizard

As a mystic, you dreamt your magic
Through enchanted tales untold
Later spoken in the epic of these adventures

Echoing from the circle, a new realm emerged
Down the eons from the mountains
To the valleys and the coastal moors

The invaders took the land
And made you slaves of time’s content
From the chronicles of the ancient quest

To the nothingness of time itself
The magic of the talisman
Put spells and incantations; upon us

And who would walk the stormy skies
With the power of this charm
The watchtower’s keeper of the magic?

And who would hear the folklore passed
Down the ages in our song
Like the ringing of the Druid’s lyre

So, with stirring memories from the past
Again the lingering magic of the talisman
Opened our eyes, upon the dawning age

Drifting

2009-10-04T19:39:00.002-04:00

I am gazing from a vessel
In an ancient sea called Omega
On a forsaken island drifting
With my charts and heading lost

Why am I so unsettled?
With no port of call in sight
The waves and current speak in tongues
As acquaintances to the horizon

Floating by, goes the seaweed
Memories from the past, with the gull
Gathered as one, in tidal procession
Then gone in a dissolving wake

I yearn not to drift along forgotten
A friendly harbor as my desire
But my paddle and rudder were lost
Long ago discarded and drifted away

In hast, without understanding
Implications misunderstood
Age and wisdom now tack the compass
A friendly tide is my lasting hope

Candle in a Dark Room (OSI: Descent)

2009-10-01T07:59:00.022-04:00

There’s a downward, spiraling descent all must take
To a place with no form, mass, or state; we await
From the light and awareness all sometimes see
There’s shadow cloaked darkness, wrapped in ambiguity
The path that we take we would gladly forget
To the door, in the wall, and the hinge we upset
With a rattle and rasp we yank twisting the knob
And prepare for the journey; as our hearts quickly throb
The stairs spiral downward with step echoed twilight
With a cold, clammy dankness dripped in snuffed-out starlight
As I clutch to the railing, slipping in each awkward step
Consciousness fades into dreams, descending more in depth.

And so the journey begins again; the door creaks, and I cross over the threshold.

Life here is like a very dark room, with a candle in the corner
Unfamiliar when light’s ulterior gaze has been consumed
Or focused in one small region, as a spotlight in full bloom
Daunting, with undetected obstacles as we roam about
Causing a stumble when our attention is neglected and in route
Candle, you are like a beacon in this darkest, dimensionless void
We marvel as your flame dances and flickers, as a flare deployed
Eerie shadows cast on objects within your combusted view
Plays with our mind like a waiting psychosis; slowly emerging just for you
Capable of the softest warmth or immeasurable destruction we all know
A gentle olfactory experience, with wax turning to vapor as invisible flow.

Light, the giver and taker of all humanity is yours, candle
Often brilliant beyond observation, and seeing just to see
From tepid to searing as your intensity permeates in debris.
You’re a dull red flame in fall’s burnt orange, drifting in efficiency
As the fading autumn sun, bestows a feeling of warm complacency
There is a color of time settling down, as new seasons flicker in beauty
And the alter ego of sightless light, dances with the wind
A spectrum full of colors remains; but only the prism holds the key
As a giant dwarf dying, in an orangey galactic sea?
Wandering in the reaches of nothingness, just out of sight
Until darkness once again prevails, at a time before the sinewy light.

I am lost; wanting to move this candle from the darkest corner
And place it in the window as a beacon cast from hopefulness
But have the nightmares returned or is the glass only painted?
Ebony turning into visibility slowly, with the whiteness unfurled
As details emerge from gray, abounding shadows in your grace
Therefore, let’s not be a candle on the currents of the wind
Flickering wildly to die before our time, barely noticed and chagrined
Or burning on both ends with an adolescent, snuffed result.
There is purpose in the light and warmth, given as sage advice
Out of darkness, to illumination, as our only awakening device
And from here I edged my way slowly to the door, and stepped out.

While proclaiming,
“Oh candle, to you we give thanks”; once again ascending the stairs.

Painted Desert (OSI: Colors)

2009-09-21T16:23:00.018-04:00

It’s sunrise on the painted desert today
With awakening colors of red, tan and sun burnt green
An ancient sea stands lost before time
Long ago deciding to recede into oblivion
While leaving subtle reminders all around.

This desert teems with unseen, hibernating life
Desolateness personified in washed out images
Noontime, in a sun-locked blaze that’s unforgiving
Not dying but hiding itself from our viewpoint
While baking everything in overwhelming light.

Sand, rock, and sky intersect in one blinding, heated ripple
Surviving as evolution has allowed it to be
The day is long and hot while traveling
Relentlessly scorching our thoughts and feet
It is so hot; we are lost in this wilderness thinking.

How sandy and parched can our mouths be?
Unable to speak, as mentality shrivels into dryness
The ground feels like radiant, hot embers
With my boots reaching for the sky to kiss the wind
Hoping for some small relief from the scorching chinooks.

The day marches on and the paint on our canvas melts
Following the shadow-less sun, sinking in repose
The size and scale of this place is staggering
Yet I am drawn to it, time and time again in retrospect
Thinking of this isolated expanse as a long lost sea.

Maybe it’s the desolation of the wilderness
That is so familiar, with such beauty and harshness attached
An inner comparison emerges now, as contemplation
But the beauty is not the same, and somehow less familiar
The sun goes down and color smears into grays and blacks.

The heat immediately evaporates into a bone-numbing cold
Even the light is shrouded beyond nocturnal darkness
As stars slowly poke through, with clarity from the expanse above
Causing a silvery iridescence in the valleys below as salutation
Adding hints from antiquity, emerging as shadowy relics

The evolution of this existence continues mostly unnoticed
Until another day unfolds, painting additional scenes to ponder
Some are inside and some are outside, for all to see
With desolation transformed to beauty in the sun rise
As God’s pallet is once again dramatically revealed.

Highland Mist

2009-09-20T09:19:00.017-04:00

Vapor floating, consuming
With small eddies swirling
Visible though hidden
A chorus of droplets drifting
Hugging the ground with closeness
As lost friends embracing
Cool condensate, soothing
A lotion on hot, red skin
Liquid curtain shimmering
As desire hidden subtly
Obscuring tomorrow
Departed long before noon
Dew, as a lingering memory

Crystalline Gaze (Captured in the antithesis of fog)

2009-09-17T15:48:00.007-04:00

Gazing outwardly, the future sees a dazzled, expanding scene
At first blinded with an albino perception, in the whiteness of nothing
Eyes adjusting, details slowly melt into fog-laden visibility
While out of this purity, a small object comes awkwardly into focus

Cowardly at first, then out of sure curiosity and persistence it comes forth
It is crystalline; one of the multitudes appearing, bit by bit
Faceted reflections open the spectrum like a prism revolving
Light splitting into a rainbow, flickering as if possessed by tiny strobes

Only to become dancing lights, as if aimlessly shifting to and fro exploring
It’s late September, and the first snow has come to this place without warning
Unplanned but wanted, as a welcomed change to old seasons dying
While laying a new carpet on the old flooring, hiding the imperfections

Like the fit of an old comfortable shoe, taken on and off without regard
Millions of jewel-faceted stars now glisten into my eyes as I continue to stare
Crunching snow echoes in my head but no one comes into view
The travelers pace compresses these tiny crystals into ice-lined indentations

Disappearing as each step melts in honor of their passing
I cannot move, transformed and fixed, watching; listening to the silence
As a light breeze begins to blow, calling more of these crystals as a shower
Unique patterns falling, as numerous as the grains of sand on a long forgotten shore

Each separate, flaunting its individuality one from the other, while never copied
Infinity at its most intricate, even at this microscopic level escapes comprehension
While contemplation amuses those of us with a propensity for analyzing the obscure
And takes our attention from invisible sounds, hidden in a blizzard of echoes

Millions of individuals now join those below within the richness of the scene
As a frosted chorus steeped in the drifts, accentuates the numbing cold
It is days and thoughts like these that define a life as if freezing reality for inspection
And a blink extends into an unfathomable timeframe frozen motionless

Captured in memory, though muddied with the fog of time and age
Remembering details I cannot imagine now, as emotions more than memories
Resurrecting the causal times of adolescence as music from a familiar tune
And living life in reflected frozen moments, adding meaning to my existence

And lastly, some perspective to my limited understanding of it all
The more I learn, the less I understand, and the more inquisitive I become
Searching, always searching it seems, to see and learn a little more
All captured through the eyes and accumulations of an early autumn snow.

Evening Messenger

2009-09-08T13:29:00.017-04:00

One evening, as the day was on the wane
I saw an ebony shape gliding, as a shallow smudge against the painted sky
You were solitary, lonely; struggling against wind the day had left behind
A black silhouette dancing on a palette of color, heading for the safety of darkness.

I heard a whistle, or was it a whisper as you passed
A sound faint on the currents; and against your ancient vow of silence
You spoke to me and said, “Who am I?”, “Who am I?”
To this day, the echoes from the illusion still disturb and reverberate.

For an instant I thought I must be mad
That inner depth of moment where reality and obscurity
Become gray and ill-defined as dread personified
With waves of overwhelming fear outwardly rippling.

I called back, certainly unsure, to this fleet winged traveler
“Do I know you?”, a pause and then; “I think not”
To my surprise the contrasting image of the traveler paused
Hovering like an shadow suspended in time, waiting for my mind to catch up.

Thirsting in anguish I stood and stared; intently not knowing
Not believing and believing what had just been revealed in the connection
The nightmares that followed, waking memories to haunt
Until finally in desperation, I let it all go, saying; ”Nevermore”.

Scottish Reflection (for Jane)

2009-08-31T21:07:00.008-04:00

I stand on a crag at the precipice and see darkness
I am immersed in the day and feel confusion
I think about tomorrow and see mountains to climb

But when I peer into my heart I see hope
A hopefulness as seen in you
Sometimes illusive, but always with a presence

Beyond hope is a peaceful knowledge
Knowledge of a companion through life’s journey
A journey with a compass close at hand

So peacefulness is a whisper
A quiet moment by a heather covered knoll
Reflections of an inner peace I draw from you

From a highland breeze, on a cloudless day
The strength I draw is from a bonny lass
And that bonny lass is you

Red Rock

2009-08-27T19:40:00.020-04:00

Red rock raining down on me
Red rock raining
Red rock raining down on me
Until I think I’m gonna drown

The red rock rains, and calls out loud
Within that magic, timeless desert hour
I remember the beauty overcoming me
From a sun burnt photo long ago, I still see

I’ve quickly aged, but not the red rock’s hew
It stands the test of time, never changing always new
While marching ever so slowly across the ground
Ever moving, never resting as we’ve found

The light and shadows dance together
With diversity in step as ever changing weather
Pastels speaking for all that care to see
The canvas paints aloud, with changes just for me

And time wraps tightly with antiquity
While the red rock journeys on to the sea
So, forever blue not knowing what will be
‘Cause the red rock’s raining down on me

Drifting Lotus

2009-08-22T11:15:00.011-04:00

Lotus blossom floating
As a wandering gentle fragrance
Delicate silken petals
Tossed from evolution’s garden

Drifting liquid on a mirror
Ripples from a memory
Spoken as a thought long lost
To the flower left behind

Whispering subtle wind
In a long forgotten tongue
Calls to the passing flower
A flowing shadow from above

Secretly listening mirror
Babbles with the chorus
Singing eddies from the current
A symphony for the journey home

Lighthouse

2009-08-03T13:29:00.039-04:00

Craggy cliffs infused with ageless granite
Command a beacon penetrating the shadowy horizon

Brilliance steeped into the masonry of the structure
A guiding torch, protecting the mariner's twilight passage

Relentless waves crashing as wrath into the shoreline below
Deafen the view with sounds of thunder and the siren’s song

A thick haze of foam and spray consume the rocks
And low dark clouds cling to the sky, snuffing the setting sun

Outwardly wandering, the land marches to a pinnacle
Reaching for the waters just at the rocky, barren edge

From the cape, the lighthouse stands alone emanating
Holding it’s lantern in command over the tide and surge

The great ships come and go; tacking, sailing
Returning to wave at the light, bobbing in farewell

The light keeper trudges the staircase once again
Insuring the waters are safe, with our moorings departed

Portal

2009-07-28T08:21:00.018-04:00

Move away from that dark, shadowed corner
Seek illumination from what maybe beyond the pane
Be true to the view and vision revealed
Open your heart and mind to trust; it’s not in vain

It’s a portal into the mind and world
Sometimes clear and other times clouded
With a hazy, limited horizon we see
Urging thoughts of what’s beyond, cleverly shrouded

To see your stark reflection staring from within
A stranger so it seems, calmly departed
Steps to the sill with so much longing
Only to find the window locked and thwarted

There’s a pending, constant reconciliation
That comes to grip with what’s therein
Acknowledging, our hearts are warmed invisibly
With the outside out, and inside comfortably in

So, protected from what we do not know
Giving a glimpse, into the photograph taken
How a few grains of sand, fused and melted
Open our world to all that has been forsaken

Yesterday's Thoughts

2009-07-26T17:12:00.004-04:00

I am sitting on the front porch of my old country house
Staring across the gravel road, up the hill to see the sun rise.
The boards creak as I get up walking, to take full advantage of the view
My senses drink up the morning while the cattle graze close by, oblivious to it all.
The sweet fragrance of new cut fescue grass drifts quietly on the air
Awaiting the bailer’s chore like so many soldiers standing in their ranks.
This all wakes me up more than the strong coffee steaming in the kitchen
And the smell of eggs n' bacon sizzling in that old cast iron skillet.
It is a Tennessee springtime morning, and the day is slowly waking up
I hear the sounds of dogs barking from the back porch of a neighbor’s house.
A tractor starting up from the barn, somewhere down the old gravel road
Has making bales of hay on its mind, first on the list of chores for the day.
Insects buzz in the air, while a dove laments its soft “whooh” in the distance
This place is alive out in the middle of nowhere, just hiding itself from the rest of us.
These smells and sounds are unobstructed by clouds from society’s obsessions
With the morning emerging clear and crisp, like the first fall day after a long, hot summer.
Some good ol’ fashioned work will have me sweating long before noon
While those comforting sounds of home, still ring with nostalgia in my ears.
After all the years, these memories keep pace with the hustle of my busy life
And keep me yearning for yet, one more day in paradise.

Subtle

2009-07-25T08:39:00.012-04:00

The tang of salt in the air
As the mariner’s breeze whispers

Freshness from a spring rain
Clinging to the forest sky, reminding

A delicate flower beckons
As a faint bouquet, drifting

The candle flickers quietly
Smoldering in life for our pleasure

Fresh cut fescue grass
Giving back as the farmer toils

The smell of leaves burning
With October’s burnt oranges and reds

In the heat of the moment
A subtle perfume, as a remembrance

Je me souviens de mes amis.....

Voices

2009-07-19T07:32:00.009-04:00

Sometimes in the evening, when the day is on the wane
I’ll walk through the woods, where the echoes from the day
Are muted like the muffled sounds of nothingness
It’s times like these where the silence is not spoken
Like a softly broken twig from unseen passers by
Whose presence is announced with an unexpected sigh
While frequenting the forest to add variety to this scene
My mind opens up as the ego slowly settles down, in between
And talks to me with an unforeseen sense of reason
Causing me to really hear for the first time once again
Listen I must, but the words are often muted as indistinct voices

Sometimes in the morning as the first light emerges
The horizon begins to glow with anticipation of the dawn
Watching; as the pallet unfolds with color, thought and creation
It’s a cool and crisp shroud from the nights passing journey
And the world has not yet immerged from the shadows
Hiding in the darkness, our awareness is sharpened to the stillness
Our thoughts open up with an eager expectation of this day
While the hidden voice, once again begins its dissertation
And speaks in tongues with a vague, obscure articulation
Only I hear; as a softly felt persistence somewhat hollow yet familiar
Touches my consciousness in a subtle, obvious way
If I listen closely, reality and the subconscious become one
And my heart opens up with all possibilities becoming real
I strain to hear the voice, as a chorus quickly fading into noise
At a point in time where madness and sanity, can become decoys

Sometimes in the quiet, when all has settled down
In an otherwise hushed pursuit, I see beyond these bounds
As my mind and thoughts come to grip with the moment
I talk to myself with embarrassment sleeping, quietly dorment
Knowing others cannot be witness to my careless ineptitudes
With infrequent moments such as this, clarity overrides the noise
Voicing confidence in what I am or could become, with a certain poise
There is no hiding from our inner thoughts, reminding
They come and go as they please often interrupting other pursuits
Only to be set aside with careless, intellectual abandon
As the rest of the world opens up to once again take control

Thoughts of Home

2009-07-04T16:32:00.005-04:00

Loneliness is far away
Loneliness is a smile I cannot see
Loneliness is emptiness inside
Loneliness is a place I hide
From an unknown voice I cannot feel
How many times from this place, I cannot say
I have thought across the void, to you
From a 1000 miles my heart aches
To see a smile, to see a face
That reminds me of home
That reminds me of you.
Over a great distance I have traveled
To a land, where of I know so little
Uncertain of the way home
Uncertain of time moving.
I am lost in myself so often, thinking
Yet reality’s demands bring me back to life
I’ve just arrived, but long for the journey home
How can I say what I feel?
But to say what I feel to you; writing
This detachment is where I seem to be
More often today, than not
Again, I want to be home where;
The log is always on the fire
Peace rests in the air
Like a familiar fragrance drifting
All worries evaporate to nothingness
And your arms are my familiar chair.
Restful, just thinking of you
Knowing the journey lingers on for now
While faces come and go around me
Going about their lives in this otherworld
Longing for the journey home
I hope it will come before the tree dies, falling
The leaves wither in season-changing fashion
And age surrounds me as marching time.
Heart breaking while waiting
With anticipation dwindling to murkiness
While thoughts of home consume me now

Ageless Mirror

2009-07-01T11:01:00.016-04:00

I look into my heart and see a soul that is timeless
Nothing seems much different beyond the scars of life
As I feel like the same boy, still growing up on the inside

Though when I look into the mirror I see the reflection of age
A grayness that has grown into my life and changed the exterior
At the pace of grass slowly growing, it has crept upon me

And I wonder who this stranger can be as a cracked reflection
Quietly staring back at me, as the future moves on
Acting as if they know something I can’t yet comprehend

I have always dreamed beyond the mirror’s glass
Understanding the potential reflected, and hidden behind
Forever wondering about my reflection and of those around me

Now hearing the kind words of others spoken silently
I often feel like the sands of time are frozen, motionless
But I understand the unspoken meaning in their words

Time has not stood still for me, and they know it
Yet humankind fundamentally wants this positive image
While ignoring the obvious changes, in my special case

I’m an adult for the moment, in retrospect only
But my thoughts betray me like a child
Playfully thinking about past expeditions into adolescence

How do we rationalize the dichotomy of this dilemma?
Looking into this timeless window from our past
Wondering how the mirrored glass could be so distorted

But why all of a sudden, the string holding the kite is broken?
Leaving, I remember your reflection as a much younger person
Strangely, I have already forgotten yesterday's aged image

Do I now compare this to my own vague, smudged image?
Now knowing what is to become of me and all that follow
With the unfathomable, comprehended within the iniquity of fate

How does one understand the concept of soul and awareness?
As it relates to the passing time of age, and just being
There is such a disconnect, and I ask why?

I now know I will die young, ever young; as reflected from within
No matter what my age in years or scars accumulated
With a certain contented feeling that overcomes any fear

Rain Falls

2009-06-22T20:32:00.021-04:00

As I sit staring out the window, a cold rain falls
The drops splash lazily in puddles on the ground.
Gray skies stare back at me with a stark expression
But my heart is renewed with recollections of blue sky.

Summer’s faded into fall, which is slipping into winter’s grip
And warmth is a forgotten memory from yesterday.
Inside now seems to be our only place of purpose
But still, I can feel spring somewhere in the distance.

The sky embraces the clouds, wandering freely or sitting still
How this rainy day makes me bluer than blue, reminiscing.
Mentally catching up with things that cannot be caught
While drying out the dampness that has seeped into my bones.

I long for outside and the wind blowing through my senses
The smell of flowers, newfound growth, and promise.
But somehow this mistress winter, again consumes my thoughts
And I am transformed once more, into the falling rain.

Ocean Breeze

2009-06-20T17:19:00.005-04:00

Never desire to be the wind
The mainland’s warmth quickly dampens this breeze
And keeps it from tugging at the schooner’s old sails.

There’s the pungent smell of sea salt in the morning air
As the fog, like a delicate vale, lifts its iridescent curtain
Transforming the mariner’s lighthouse from obscurity.

The waves quietly set a bearing for the gull
With a compass heading to the horizon; while gliding and fishing
Following a routine, evolved from time and antiquity.

Life, desolation and the never ending sea
Oh, desolation!
To be assimilated swiftly as this stormy, aged breeze.

Ancient Wall

2009-06-18T22:58:00.006-04:00

Traveling in this ancient land
Surrounded by the greatest wall
I am an island, floating in a sea of diversity
So different yet so familiar
I put these walls up around me
So I am protected from my ignorance
And perhaps what might be shared
It's been twelve long days since the walls closed in
And it's odd being lonely in this ocean called humanity
Isolated by culture and time
Yesterday, the red dragon fly landed on my shoulder
She told me it was time to go
And slowly, the walls come down

Finding My Way

2009-06-01T15:07:00.004-04:00

I was walking through the woods again
The smell of moist, lush forest prevails
With visual and olfactory oppression
This place is alive with existence

Down the path I go
Not really knowing where I am going
But knowing intuitively I must move on
Because my time is quickly slipping away

A fork (or intersection) in the path appears
I make a choice
Not certain of my decision
Or the resultant of this selection

At some point my focus wanders
And the pathway is lost
In an instant there is astonishment
Where the gravity of the situation becomes real

My senses are heightened
As with a razor’s edge
With photographic imagery
Of all that is around me

Is that the tree I just passed?
Was this twig sticking out?
Do I recognize any of these rocks?
As I retrace every footstep in my memory

Have patience with what is in your heart, I thought
You will find the path
The answer is within a locked room
Just down the way

Lost in the epoch of change I find myself
With my journey stalled in the wilderness
Searching for footprints and a way back to my life
While frozen with the ambiguity of this situation

I cannot give up with my searching
Being programmed with this affliction at birth
Driven by the detail and pragmatism of analytics
Forcing me through the paralysis that is at hand

Through the hedgerows I wander
Climbing over the rocks, I stumble
My surroundings slowly become more familiar
And the pathway comes into view . . . . .

Aspen Time

2009-05-26T18:35:00.009-04:00

Snowy skies in the mountains
Painted with grays and blues
I heard an eagle cry in the distance

Towering spires into the heavens
Beyond our reach or thought
This creature commands our glance near God’s lofty realm

Aspens reaching starkly toward the sky
Lined up in endless, silent rows
Eagles sit like so many soldiers on this river-lined path

Wolf howling from a craggy peak
Echoing an endless lament for those lost
Eagle answering, “I hear your cry and understand God’s plan”

Eagle soaring high in the wind
Searching for his brother or sister, calling
Take me to Your kingdom, I am so close?

Smell of wood burning, floating from the horizon
Giving sacrifice to our warmth
Yet the eagle’s journey is cold and solitary

River flowing with relentless sound
A silent channel called life I haven’t yet traveled
Eagle; masterful, while balanced delicately with existence

Altitude both crisp and clear
Breath straining to exert itself
Eagle glides tired, yet tireless, on an invisible river of air

Snow draped once again on the landscape
Crunching beneath our wandering feet
The eagle glides overhead beckoning our attention; ”Remember me?”

Some have come and gone like the wind
Others begin to fade away, saying
Oh eagle; we aspire your perfection like God’s kingdom

Where will it all end?
I say, never.....
And the eagle journeys on

And like the eagle, we too journey on
Down this river of life ever moving
Our goal, the Heavens like this aerial messenger

I heard an eagle cry in the distance
Acknowledging God’s subtle reminder
Take flight and follow Me.....

My Girl

2009-05-24T07:34:00.013-04:00

Still a work in process. Song lyrics about "getting dropped"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sung and played with a sound like Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as exemplied in their early Byrds influenced work on "Damn the Torpedoes". Nothing like a little experimentation, even if only marginally interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How can I let you know
What I don’t even know
Your the one

You say you said goodbye
Somehow I still don’t cry
Let you go

.. I’m so down
.. Down to be found
.. Looks like I’m gonna lose my girl

Hey babe it’s me again
You thought you’d done me in
Here I come

How can I get you back
How ‘bout a little slack
Check this out

.. I’m so down
.. Down to be found
.. Looks like I’m gonna lose my girl

Again you say goodbye
And you can’t say why
Here I go

My girl, she flies free
But once again she says to me
Your the one

.. I was so down
.. But now I’m found
.. Looks like she’s gonna be my girl
.. Looks like she’s gonna be my girl
.. Looks like she’s gonna be my girl

Edge of the World

2009-05-24T06:47:00.009-04:00

There is a spirit floating in the ether of all things
It binds us together at a subconscious level
As hidden as the attraction of molecules and atoms

Off to the edge of the world I go, in search of this answer
I know I must almost be there, because of how lost I have become
It is easy to get there but almost impossible to get back

The closer I get, the more this ether saturates everything
I step from the edge of unconsciousness into a new realization
Like stepping from the dizzying heights at the edge of this world

Crossing the event horizon I begin to see the absolute reality of it all
A manifestation of mist-like ether forever binding us together
Pulling at me with an oppressive gravity, absorbing everything

I am vanquished into this reality failing to keep up with my own thoughts
If solidly bound we are, consciousness confuses our perceptions
And false perception confuses our consciousness as thick haze

How can we truly be one; because I see.....
I am on the outside, you are on the inside
And I am wondering if anyone is really in there.

As I slowly awaken from my dream, mesmerized
It’s just in time to know where I’ve been
I realize I have clearly dropped off the edge, one of the lucky ones

Falling into the abyss with a darkening, stifled nothingness
Having caught myself at the last instant over this periphery
Climbing back to my future, hand over fist on the rocks

Released from gravities’ deafening grip
Staring back from this oblivion slowly
I see a radiant luminescence that consumes all

Like a sparklers last burst before dying to an orangey glowing wire
The thought and image of binding energy persist
Speckled as numerous as the stars in the heavens, floating

The ether speaks in tongues to all humanity, even me
It gives comfort to the interconnectivity of all things
Though the full meaning often escapes understanding

I now carry a piece of knowledge from my subconscious
Emerging as a fresh ocean breeze with that moist, salt-laden feeling
An awakening conscious spirit from within, back from the edge

How Long?

2009-05-17T08:58:00.009-04:00

Your skin glows like the sunrise on a fleeting horizon
It blossoms as a sea of roses in the purest hope of spring
My heart follows your voice and leaps at the whisper of your name
The evening floats in, on a great eagle’s wing we fly together
I am comforted by your memory, that I carry into the twilight of tolerance
In the quiet, I listen for the last breeze of the day; thinking of you
I wander in the moonlight of our secret place so that we may desire as one
How long must I wait to see you again?

What's it like in a "Strange Land"

2009-05-11T18:51:00.010-04:00

Many times in the long forgotten land
The leaf had died on an ancient tree
I felt a strangeness watching it drift
As if I were this leaf falling

The land consumed its space unknowingly
While hardly guiding the traveler
Who also watched this leaf
Being consumed and thoughtless in the process

If yesterday was a signal from our past
I kept losing something in the translation
Floating as the leaf ever falling
While not seeing anything coming

It reminds me of life ever moving
Our only view through the rearview mirror
Seeing the past clearly through a light haze
And the future as a darkroom, empty

I want to be the farmer, the planter of seeds
Ever growing and creating life through care and thoughtfulness
The process gives us a glimpse into the future
Knowing what’s to come at the harvest

Planting a tree is like creating a life
Which somewhat mirrors our own existence
Watching it grow to a strong oak
From a small and insignificant seed

What's it like in the "Western Places"

2009-05-11T06:26:00.003-04:00

With a melancholy of leaving these ancient people
“Feeling sorrow at departure, my soul couldn’t settle down with softness of the heart spoken loudly”

With mourning of fate,
“It is said that when the wanderer died,
Their boots were still standing on the wildness, drinking the wind”

With deep solitude,
“West by northwest, a place that I have been to in those mountains
With no nourishment anywhere, the sheep flock was eating sunshine on the rocks.”

With sighs about uncertain fate
“I am a soldier on the ground, but fate asks me to become the prisoner of these mountains
Too many dusks, a body that cannot bear torture with invisible chains of the spirit.”

With a persistence of life under the hard environment of survival,
“Believe that trees cannot grow on the rocks or you will feel despair”
In the hard environment of the West, the lives of the people are solitary but tenacious.

With lost thoughts whispering
The sleepless soul, walks the solitary path
“I am the grass, poking through the rocks hoping not to die, straining to see the clouds unnoticed”

With irony unclothed
“I walked the land and felt the spirit of the people. Alone the solitude called loudly because at first, I did not understand it; but I returned from the West and will never be the same.”