losing touch

indignant –
compassion starved from
insatiable insensitivity…
 
how can there be justification
for callous abandon?
 
all too often it seems we
close doors,
build walls,
create barricades –
manipulate emotions to protect our hearts from hurt,
yet find,
in the end,
our – selves – starving for a touch –
gentle caress…
 
friendship –
sweet reprieve for our emaciated souls!

i remember when

have you seen me lately?.
looking for you –
following you –
have you felt the presence
of my hands –
as a breeze blew past –
 
perhaps felt the caress of my soul
on your face,
in your heart?
 
longingly – you stare,
yet ever so – placid.
 
your soul cries out to me,
as you stuff silence down your throat,
and the flame – dies!

unafraid…

truly –
nothing conceived within this mind,
i presume –
could ever explain –
the ebb and flow (tide) of life.
 
you,
however,
engulfed in the glow of all-knowing ( – the moon),
refuse to even – suppose…
 
enigmatic as light,
to dark;
your insatiable attraction
to – your you!
 
and i –
hiding behind your mirror –
remain all you can never see…
 
is your anything –
really better,
than the everything of me?

broken hearts

there are some things –
superficial –
easily seen by –
everyone –
anyone!
 
those things characterize,
silhouette by
shape,
by sound.
 
deeper though –
seen scantly,
like constellations through broken clouds –
there are those more personal things,
like pearls…
 
we search,
and probe.
picking over –
breaking down.
looking desperately for that great prize.
and in the end –
missing out on the most precious jewels.
cast away,
like broken shells –
 
we clutter the beaches of life!

behind blue eyes

lips pursed tightly –
scream suppressed –
eyes masking the terror that hides within…
 
in this sad world –
silence becomes a much wanted,
much needed place –
(the voices never quiet)
but elusive;
the dissipating wisp of smothered flame,
phrases barely visible on foggy mirrored panes…
 
to find that place –
where dreams reside –
that Xanadu of peace –
to float like clouds upon a tranquil sky –
oh what release…
 
to find recompense –
from the madness –
(oh father where art thou?)
that would be the greatest gift –
more pure than gold –
to be held –
 
not just the one who holds!

mid-life

age –
simply defined;
a collection of years,
or perhaps –
seasons.
 
society puts up fences –
youth here,
old age there,
either, or…
 
i find my place neither
in, nor out –
and so i sit upon the fence –
dangling my feet,
and my heart,
in both pastures.

Unencumbered

i need you –
more than – want,
more than – have to have,
as much as – to die for…
 
i need –
you,
longer than,
forever –
before – now!
 
addicted to –
the all-of-you,
i cling to your every word.
place them – captive –
in my heart…
 
and when i find,
you’ve gone away –
i pull them out –
remembering the way you looked right into me –
spoke comfort,
calmed storms,
extinguished fires of discontent,
by simply uttering my name!
 
i carry –
you,
deep within – me.
unencumbered
as light attached to dawn –
 
you are my sunrise.
guiding light.
that leads me safely home!

of water-colors and rain

 

unable to feel – fulfilled.

unable to – feel…

precariously balanced between what – is,

and what could be.

clinging to the threads of hope,

praying for – recompense!

 

where did it go – my reason?

i held it – oh so tight –

but my footing failed,

and i slid much too quickly,

into unsure – vast sea,

unmeasured depth,

of doubt…

 

how rudiment –

the concept –

what is – is,

yet what can be – most often,

is not…

 

my prayer – today;

if i’m asleep,

this life – a dream –

please wake me!

for there are things more frightening

than tigers,

and bears…

 

oh – how easily your smile succumbs to my pain –

water-color compassion,

left ,

so conveniently,

out in the rain…

some days, just the gatekeeper to an empty lot…

this piece for you – 

the abandoned one.

solitary confinement, 

it seems, 

in a world of (not always) smiling faces.

 

 


for the you that wishes to be he, 

or she, 

or really any of the they. 

for just one minute of any given day,

to understand feel – 

as much as the absence of touch.

 

 


this piece for you – 

owner of less than (it seems) enough.

shepherd without cause –

gatekeeper to an empty lot.

 

 


how often,

in life, 

do we pass each other on the street –

share paths –

travel in the same direction –

yet unaware the other exists?

 

 


today i saw a homeless man,

and after the initial wave of sadness left,

i found myself wondering if just maybe it was his choice?

while hard to imagine –

life devoid of the accoutrements we deem mandatory for contentment, 

maybe it was his way of avoiding the pain of indifference.

 

 


just maybe he chose to be lost –

less painful,

than merely being –

forgotten…

what then…

what then?
when no more darkness finds itself extinguished by the light?
when all the strength contained within the shell of this body ebbs away
 
what then?
 
will i –
mind free from consternation –
lay down,
become – undone?
 
what then?
 
when morning comes and finds me less than whole,
yet so much more than was…
to fly above the sky and feel the brush of angels wings.
and then –
perhaps –
come face to face with God?
 
oh that the world would listen –
simple truth –
instead of learning in the end,
knowing –
all along!