Brief Pause for Lost Cause

More care to give than I can give

I cannot,

A pause on lifeline of lost cause,

Regrets, mourned in passing

Demise, Ah poor fate,

Dead loss, god rest it, unpause.

Interred by own hand,

DNR’d, by request,

CPR, though offered, refused,

Cannot care more than dead loss for itself,

Paused briefly, now go on,

Cause choose.

Credits Rolling

Movie’s almost over,

Time to open eyes to life again,

Credits still rolling,

Giving time to make a choice and then

Sink back to sleep,

In coloured pictures – existence formatted – digitised on screen

Or live the dream,

The life you’ve seen and recreated time again in dreams.

Title music’s fading and the links are on,

Continuity, same voice

Designed to soothe and keep you prone,

Empty mug,

Discarded wrappers at your feet,

Soiled,

Comfort formed,

Patronised,

Token’d treats,

Then off to bed,

Arise,

Begin the same.

Controlled,

Encaptured,

Configured.

All for them.

 

Switch off, tune out………………….

 

Turn on. Tune into life, let’s dare again.

Here And Doubts

In the arms of distant travel there’s a stranger

Promising a land of faraway, a gentle mask

To all the dreams of yesters unaccomplished,

To all the hidden questions left unasked.

In that journey of a thousand million wishes,

Soft upon a dream that never was,

There are faces that, as yet, are undistinguished

Biding time, for me, in just because,

Upon a place and medium I cannot know

For time and space and distance choose the ways,

Adventure of the spirit seeks a passage

And ticket is a willingness to pay

The price of what I have before me in this present,

Faced with comparisons I cannot do without.

There’s a life and world I never lived but cherished

In the worlds within the worlds of here and doubts.

Field of Dreams

There’s a clearing in my mind where I can wander,

Like a field of dreams was planted long ago,

Sown by whom I’ve met and all I’ve felt there,

Waiting for the crops that had to grow.

 

There’s a feeling that I’ve been this way before then,

Like someone gave me glimpse then left my side,

Notional directions then abandoned,

But – not really – more as if they ran away to hide

 

To see if I could unearth in the threshing

Or the harvest, whenever it should come to pass,

If teasing, in a tempting sort of measure,

Should balance books bet or if I’d come in last.

 

I feel I’ve failed the test before I started,

Like the race was rigged before I left the block,

Like someone changed the rules and I, as usual,

Was writing or just reading some strange book.

 

There’s a field of dreams I guess we all get lost in, when

In a semblance of a future once glimpsed past,

We entered name and limbered for the race and

Hoped against all hope we’d not come last.

 

Strength to muster, this was all we asked for

Strength sufficient and a well-kept pace,

Sweat and toil, all that work notwithstanding,

We thought, believed that we could maybe win this race.

 

I never was a runner in my dreamings,

Nor in life – I’ve always walked with ease –

Sauntered through, feet always planted firmly

Though my mind has gone its own way as it pleased.

 

I s’pose, like most, I’m just some kind of farmer,

I trudge through day and work and fret and always feed my sheep,

I sow and reap and gather where I can do,

I rest my head and pray for easy sleep.

 

But the voice inside my head that keeps on saying,

‘Arise, awake, you’re sleeping when it’s dawn,

Get up and move, the day is almost over,’

Urges me to seek a brand new morn.

 

One where fields are harvested with fairness

And work’s a task we gladly take in team,

Singing, laughing all the while with gladness

That this is real and not another dream.

 

I guess I’m dreaming even while I write this,

The status quo exists for world and also me,

The race is almost over, I’m exhausted

And weeping for we all who just won’t see.

 

I wish I didn’t care and love was easy,

The way it was when dads and mums were glad,

Once upon a time, in some strange dream land,

In field of dreams where none are ever sad.

 

I can’t believe I’m writing and not hoping,

It’s the news, you see, I really shouldn’t hear,

All that goes around and races onwards

Fills my dreams and field with crop of fear.

 

But, listen, I know I can’t leave this foray

Into dreams and fields and races and this life

Without one, at least just one, little seed sown.

In love and light, the work is cleaved with sharpest knife.

 

I guess that what I’m saying is I love you,

Bizarre, I know, when all of you are figments of the light

Cast across my screen like all the seeds sown

Filling field of dreams in day and night

 

 I wish that I could write in brief, a haiku,

Syllables all counted and best said,

Time being of the essence, that would serve well,

But, alas, that knack in me, bypassed my dreams and head.

 

I’ll go on dreaming just because I have to,

I know no other way to make things real.

Arise, awake, enact, forgive my earnest ramblings.

I call it, tell it, dream it as I feel.

No Dress Rehearsal

Who would shun the chances that life offers,

Negate potential gain because of fears?

Who dismisses what each chalice proffers

But begs with thirst and cries for wasted years?

Why would any soul still fond of living

Draw blinds when sunbeams herald daybreak’s gift,

Huddle down in darkness, scared of shining,

Allow all fleeting moments then to drift?

A sullied sort of existential ruin

That wishes for and prays then barters grief,

Wails their woeful howls at waning moon, with

Persistent yet but absent self-belief.

‘No dress rehearsal’ – words fit to ponder.

Gratitude and action make for wonder.

Credo

Do you believe in laughter held in truth,

In knowing that words spoken find their mark,

That a look, a touch, the gentlest hand may form

A smile that grows within, ignites a spark?

 

Do you believe that gladness grows inside,

Overflows to others open to

Receiving joy as recompense for living

When its trials and labours overwhelm and threaten you?

 

Do you believe that hurting ends in time,

That inner worlds are balanced by all love,

That questions yet unanswered cause a thrill,

Their discoveries a golden treasure trove?

 

Do you believe that somewhere inside light

The heart of matter hides a great reveal,

That nothing happens without cause effect

And perceptions make our own world feel what’s real?

 

Do you believe that logos is the word

Or that words alone confuse a greater thought,

That lips that speak the lies betray the way

And sometimes guidance dwells in what’s not sought?

 

Do you believe in fairies and in trolls,

In monster lochs where hidden depths conceal,

Do you believe in equine wings and angels,

In many wondrous stories though unreal?

 

Do you believe in suspending disbelief

To enter into fantasies that pleasure

While still inside you know factual from dream

But recognise you owe some childlike measure?

 

Do you believe that living is worth living,

That each breath you take admits a purpose here,

That nothing’s yet decided or completed

And that only you can change your greatest fears?

 

Do you believe in worlds you find in books,

In scenes unfolding on the movie screen,

In comic superheroes who astound,

Unveiling attributes too rarely seen?

 

Do you believe the essence of all stories

Conveys some truth distilled to purest form,

That much of what we honour most in tales

Are aspirations we would wish as norm?

 

Do you believe that children hold the key,

That complications thwart our best intentions,

That simplicity and innocence are essential to all meaning

To underwrite and clarify the best of lessons?

 

I do.

 

Transform

Slake, with gallons,

            from the lake

of deep tranquility,

 

find solutions,

            in the mind,

nurture serenity.

 

Cope with problems,

            amid hope,

despite complexity,

 

serve our causes,

            driven with verve,

remember levity.

 

Drink from life

            unto the brink,

too brief mortality,

 

cast futile fears

            or worries passed,

transform our destiny.

 

Plan for kindness

            when we can,

Karmic codicil,

 

not all choices

            need be fraught

nor made against our will.

Fractured Parallels

She let choice go

and wept with shifting weights,

balancing act of

surrogated days.

---

Laughter stroked the back

of pain’s atonement,

soothed the ache

of sometimes waking moments.

---

She gathered tears and gelled

the fragments found

of broken self on heap,

a mortal mound.

---

Inept repair for fractures

gone too deep,

a timeless wound

repaired by only sleep.

---

Eased sidestep to another land

her quest,

paralleled worlds where

multi options rest.

Hidden

Molten blue to navy curs’d

shades of melancholy,

unquenched thirst in barren scape,

soul’s monumental folly.

Bitter sharp the poison bites

‘neath escarpment’s hidden ruins,

assailed around, entwisted fate,

chthonic anthem choose,

hybrid self above the earth

or true to one beneath,

bore terrain, bail debris found,

blowout, chained release.

And so it goes….

The plans changed.

We adapted.

That’s life.

Six became four,

then five,

by technology.

Presence begat

seven.

Two absent by

choice,

circumstance.

Seven embraced nine,

then many.

Growing conversation

included the world,

its entirety,

its meaning,

purpose,

subterfuge,

conspiracies

and realities.

And realities of conspiracies.

 

Gallons of humour.

Tears

of laughter

and understanding.

Hugs and kisses of short farewells

and longer journeys.

Dismissives of maternal worry

enclosed in comprehensive travelogues.

Tickles of

tender teasing,

rude, graphic, enacted

diffusion.

Undiluted,

concentrated

love.

My family.

More growth.

And so it goes.