And, my
Aren’t I the special one
Awake at 3 AM
Awash in luxury
Amidst the trappings of power
A haunted soul
An exhausted prophet
After more
Answering questions
Asked by chandeliers
At this expensive hotel
Among crystalline futility
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Each feeling is a flower, fresh, unique;
Like love or loneliness, each one is pure,
And beauty of discovery hangs round
The edges of the garden path that leads
To who you want to be and where and how —
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Summer on the edge of madness
Broken in emergent song;
Love’s a shadow born of gladness.
Nights too short for days so long
Shades come down on pages turning,
Glances lead to bodies burning,
Tangled up in their intentions,
Loves and likes and cites and mentions —
Summer in the glowing garden,
Moments known of passing fire,
Ere the fall comes hearts to harden,
Towards the autumn of
Desire
In the cool of autumn, still
We stood and wondered how,
We’d found each other in
This savant maze
A capturing, a visioning,
A laughter, and a pause —
A hymn, but more of promise, than
Of praise
It came with resignation, and
It went without applause;
A family, a faction,
And a fight —
The autumn sun was fading, and
The days were growing dark,
And we were changing colors with
The night
With time, comes winter, with its chill,
And we must finally go inside for heat,
And memories of the spring,
When everything was fresh and new,
And summer,
When we felt how love could be,
When heat was running wild,
Autumn,
When we stood out in the cool,
The evening cool, and watched
The twilight gather with
Its purple whispers
Of a looming time;
A time we’ve only known
As parable
With age, comes winter, with its rime,
And frozen becomes attitude, and time,
There is a slower pace,
And giving up of contest, game, and race;
But character is fate,
And all we leave’s too early, or too late,
The winter has it’s way
There is only the challenge of each day
And dripping memories,
That melt like icicles from trees,
And spring starts for another heart somewhere:
Another heart and life
Somewhere
Our things end up in boxes,
Our boxes lie in rows,
And though we clean our clutter,
Its presence always grows
But maybe it’s symbolic
To thus our stuff divide,
Since we end up in boxes
That lie there
Side-by-side
the world is beautiful and sad,
i see it as i wander by;
the good things that we want – so bad –
our reason – just an alibi –
the aching heart will know no peace;
the tired soul will find no rest —
the world is beautiful, but sad:
our worst is so mixed up in
all our best
But a brief moment the sunset lasts
With a growing chorus of crickets then
Comes the dark
Across the bayou, lights I start to see;
And I hear from far away the sounds
Of the distant high school football game
Autumn wraps its arms around me
Sitting on the side of a hill
Looking at the shadows and lights on the water
Feeling the breeze blow my hair
And a faint smell of wood-smoke is in the air
And the scent brings strong memory
As though reliving moments in the flesh
And not merely in thought
Of bygone days spent by the bayshore
Of your golden hair catching the last rays of sunset
Occasionally, a car goes by
And I watch the headlights trailing off
Around the bend
And life, or at least my life, this life
Has unity
(Photo by me. Originally Posted 11-14-2015. – Owen)
Rebecca always hated me
I know, because she said:
And if I passing, spoke to her
I might as well be dead
For all the interest she would show.
But I would always try:
And she might glance up from her book
Or not, as I went by.
But then, one day, she spoke to me
And asked me if I had
A copy of Persuasion
She could borrow for a tad
I said I did, and brought it on
The very next of days;
Rebecca took it with a glance
That turned into a gaze
“You like me, Owen, don’t you?”
I did not know what to say —
“Well, don’t. Because I don’t like you,”
And so I went away
But lo, the years have gone
And I now see what I mistook –
Rebecca
If you’re out there —
Can I have
My fricking book?
The morning wakes upon the hill,
The moon awaits me in the glen;
I set out with a frozen will
To talk to you again.
The world is just a funeral fire,
A ceremony of remorse;
And still I’m climbing, ever higher,
Set upon this course —
I asked you for forgiveness once;
You set about it with good grace –
But you’ve been gone, and now your ghost
Moves softly through this place
Of missing leaves, and morning mist.
Mid echoes of intention,
I take the path that upward lies
Defying such convention
As would dictate a different course.
I knew you back when love was life;
And life was not enframed by death
And peace was not entombed in strife.
We can’t recapture innocence —
For once it’s gone, it’s gone for good,
And all our striving, in a sense,
Is just so much misunderstood
By others; and by (often) us.
How can it be the trees still know?
They lose their splendor; still, they stand.
And every single path will show
The wisdom of the rocks and trees,
The solemn beauty in the soil;
Where love is not some rash disease,
But more like liberty in toil –
To live, to grow: these are our days –
To strive to know as many ways
To scale the hills as we can find:
And integrate the body-mind
Into the whole ’twas meant to be.
Whether on mountainside or fen —
As morning wakes upon the hill,
And moon awaits us in
The glen
The world is dreariness today
The whole dang town seems haunted:
It’s very cold and gray outside
And that’s just how I want it
I like the feeling that I have
That nature doesn’t care;
Beneath the dull immensity
That I’m just barely there
The world is large and heartless,
And is deaf to our demands:
This cold indifference spreads across
All peoples in all lands
And desolate my people go
Behind their walls of stone:
There is no earthly paradise
We’re all
The hell
Alone
(“Desolate My People Go” – 12/31/2014)
Some people say that where they are
Is where they’re meant to be;
For years, I never understood –
Those comments puzzled me
Sometimes, you’re down and desperate,
As I was, long ago:
I saw no reason at the time
Why it needs must be so
For almost thirty years ago
I tried to end my life;
I never would have known my kids
My grandchildren, my wife –
I never would have typed these words
That you are reading now;
I would have been a nobody,
A nothing. A no how —
I couldn’t find a reason,
Couldn’t generate a spark
To see me through the nightscape;
Through the hopeless, whirling dark
But somehow, day led on to day;
And I regained my voice.
Then I decided living
Was my only living choice
I do not know where you might be,
How your life’s filled with pain;
I do not know the grief you’ve felt,
And that, I will not feign —
But this I tell you, reading friend:
There is, most times, a light:
So you can climb the hill ahead,
And fear
No more
The night
(“Nightscape” – 7-1-2015)
