Always I fight to restrain expectations

For dreams are so easily drowned

Not every ship can survive in the open

And not all safe harbors are found

Often I’m angered by selfish behavior

Wrecking the world in its wake

Often I’ve wanted to keel-haul the guilty

Compelling the dreaming to wake

Sometimes I settle for what I’ve been given

And sometimes I set off for more

Sometimes I help others weather their tempests

And sometimes their pleas I ignore

Seldom the world offers kindly attention

And seldom it leaves me surprised

For ignorance showers our every encounter

And sorrow is seldom disguised

Never have I on the tailwinds of others

Expected to profit or thrive

Never will I overstate my achievements

And never will I have “arrived”

The Captain stood over the elderly Maiden

Alone in the forested vale;

The chiton she wore appeared ragged and dirty,

Her skin had turned sallow and pale.

She lay in the forest, alone and unsheltered,

Her dwellings dismantled by time;

The world had forgotten their grand decoration

And stately, majestic design.

The lute by her feet held no music inside it,

Its strings had been broken and frayed;

With no one to listen or cherish its timbre,

Its function instead was decay.

The book by her side lay neglected, but open;

The sunlight had yellowed each page;

With none left to write to, her inkwell had hardened,

Its surface now crazen with age.

The Maiden herself appeared fragile and tired,

Her hair, like her eyes, were worn grey;

Her purpose and labors had long been forgotten,

And no one remembered her name.

The Captain raked through the old Maiden’s possessions

To steal only hammer and nail;

He stood up and nodded, then left her to whither,

Alone in the forested vale.

Both infancy and childhood

Are siblings from the start

Their friendship, seldom understood,

Is primal at its heart

Adolescence is a crowd

That passes through the night

It calls, exuberant and loud,

Yet quickly fades from sight

And middle-age is but a band

Of neighbors in their fields

Behind each swathe of tended land

Their secrets lay concealed

Old age, a stranger in the park,

Prefers its calm repose

Akin to dwellings cold and stark

From where he first arose

You'll pass through the dimmest recesses

In darkness they'll want you to start

But reasoning only oppresses—

They'd rather you see with your heart

Sometimes my searching upsets them

Their tempers are never the same

But when they've consented, I've met them

And always they've known me by name

Sometimes their fire comes willing

When offering sweat as the spark

The blaze can grow, laughing and thrilling

But sometimes I'm left in the dark

You'll want to give up, you'll grow tired

But don't let the chase go ignored

The seeking is what they admire—

The seeking is what they'll reward

#poetry #thoughts #micropoetry

A pen is out, the mind reopens

Its secrets and their silence broken

A smoke is lit, the coffee’s black

It’s time for thought, for going back…

For going back to snow and frost:

The winter spills, all color lost

Skis unloaded, poles unpinned

Glinting bevels, biting wind

The lodge’s heat that primed your fingers

The moment lost, its warmth still lingers…

For going back to all that clings:

Family ties, now severed things

A need to go, a plea to stay

The flotsam friends who drift away

Deleted contacts, faded pages

A past embittered as it ages…

For going back to fervent whispers:

Lands of burning fields and blisters

Limestone slabs, the Southern Cross

Muddy waters leagues across

The jungle deeps, the belts of sand

The wonders I don’t understand…

The spell is burst. The present calls

The corporate combine slowly draws

My smoke is snuffed, the coffee’s cold

It’s time again for growing old.

A warm eclipse its entry brings:

Through glasses darkly, stranded things

Enliven and infect the heart

Setting time and soul apart

Faces slip, and moments pass—

Mere baubles in the cloudy glass

Words cast out and none remembered

But time persists—the past surrenders

The tangible then reappears

Until at last the surface clears

The visions fade, the faces dim...

How coldly then the light seeps in.

Delusion comes as kindness

A gentleman throughout

His lies are but the finest

Adorning you with blindness

Before he casts you out

Revolt's a fairy-story

That children like to tell

Whose tales of noble glories

Sound comical and boring

To those who know them well

Anger sounds like reason

A false soliloquist

Whose influence will deepen

Each word a minor treason

When passions can't resist

Happiness is hollow

Despite his clientele

His pitch you'll quickly follow

Propped up with false bravado

But worth's the better sell

Amid the field, the future looms

A barrow-grove of lifeless rooms

No sylvan roof to blot the sun

And the rain will leave you shivering

What are you when your forest fades?

Can magic simply steal away?

The timeless things can be undone

And their loss will leave you quivering

#poetry #nature #loss

Beyond my porch, I watched a yellow bus

So like the one that had accepted me

Back then—when winter storms were dangerous

But on the bus, we had no sense of it—

No storm outside distracted from our laughter.

That's how it was: together, we could laugh.

Behind my car, I wrestled with the trunk

And forced a scraper out. My fingers burned

When raking off the frost that sealed the windows.

I got inside, and fumbling the dials,

I all but willed the heat to course my fingers.

In time they flexed, and then I joined the road.

The car was silent, save the hissing vents

And laughter revenant between my ears.

As ripples rest upon the shoal,

An image becomes clearer:

A silhouette is rendered whole,

As the pool draws flush its folds,

And forms therein a mirror.

Atop the sheen the portrait sways,

It dances in the dark;

Take care to glance but never gaze:

Beware the wickedness displayed

Within this watermark.

Whose image floats atop the sheen?

From whither was it born?

This homunculus you see

Is not as it appears to be:

In deceit it is adorned.

Behind its eyes no soul you'll find,

It moves not on its own;

By your perception it's defined,

A doppelganger of a kind

Malign and mischief-prone.

When viewing via mirror-pond

Your double in the glare,

Glance only at the figure spawned,

Gaze not into what lies beyond:

Beware this Gorgon's stare.