Dead Hand

Why do you wait for the days to pass

Why not seek out what you long for

These days are too brief

This time all too fleeting

Do not live only in memory

You can only learn so much

from the dead hand of the past

Let the present be your 

perpetual teacher

Lost and Found

what is this memory

breaching the surface

of the present 

a face 

an evening

a place

two people lost

desperately

trying to be found

Sangre y Tierra

Laying in a hammock at night

listening to the stillness of evening

in a rural Mexican town

Heat of day fading

Grandparents asleep

Aunts Uncles Cousins gone home

for the evening

Alone in the room where 

they slept and played as children

A light to keep the darkness at bay

Leonard Cohen singing in my ears

as he picks at his guitar

My life waiting for me at home

Yet this life here 

separate 

and necessary 

to my survival

to find a way forward 

by looking backwards

to where two lives met

and gave life to mine

Morning 10/23/17

Sitting here and waiting
for nothing and no one
What more is there
There is more
Waiting just beyond
Where our vision lies

I speak of hauntings
Yet it is only memory
of which I speak
To accept the past
and let it go
How hard is this
lesson to learn?
We carry this truth
with us until we are
ready to accept it

Endlessly walking through
doors and hallways
Spectator and participant
to mine own life

History written by both
winner and loser
yet is it not possible
we both lost?

I am still searching for
completion
This task is endless
Perhaps actualization
has occurred
Perhaps it is all past

We move and live
We gain and lose
We continue until
we no longer can

Why escape from myself
when I will always be there?
To become more myself
To become more present
To become more whole

What could make us happy
could undo the lives we've made
so we keep these lives
and let the heart keep it's secrets
alive within us

Past & Memory

We create the history we wish to believe.

A wise man was once reputed to have said that.
I don't know if I should believe it because many
fools have attributed such statements to unnamed
wise men in order to give credence to their own
words. I ask myself if it is true, however. How
many of the events of this world do we take on
the word of others? Most, I would imagine. It is
foolish to think we could verify all things in this
world but some we can at least take on the account
of those who were there. On a smaller level we
do this in our lives. How much of our lives do we
truly remember? Think of that for a moment.
Multiply that by countless humans living and dead
and you can begin to see the problem. I wonder
how much of my own life I cannot recall. My own
birth, for one. But who would expect that or want
to in any case? As we live and move forward in
this life we create gilded coverings for our memories.
The past becomes an amalgam of truth and fiction.
We are the authors and audience of this. As time
passes these thoughts become codified in our minds
as gospel. Is it possible to live without this occurring?
I imagine that it might be possible but I cannot say
definitively that it can. We sit and think of these
things and cannot give ourselves an answer.
If there were an answer would it be one that we
could trust? Do you trust yourself to tell your
own story as honestly and truthfully as possible?

And

And once there was nothing
And then there was
And then there was everything
And then there were beasts
And then there was man
And then man was spread
throughout the world
And then man forgot
And then man kept trying
to remember
And then man remembered
And then some men
wondered if it was too late

Present and Afterwards

What will be remembered 
once all memory has been exhausted
Will it be anything worth holding on to

Grow up and be a better man
Leave the bitterness in the past
Free yourself

Late Night Thoughts, Page 2 5/5//17

Memory filters back at it's own pace. How it surfaces
faces and times from the past. What lesson must be
taken and learned? Those answers are at hand  if one
is willing to delve just beyond the surface of image and
memory. Joy and failure, the twin poles of life.

What is the truth of life I have been seeking? It had no
single answer. Many answers for the same question,
each fitting for a time and place. There is truth and
wisdom in this world if we are willing to seek and
accept it. This burning desire to understand the unknown
of the world and of ourselves. A thirsty spirit is always
seeking. Let us drink of this world.

Words are given more freely than wind. Action is a diamond
to be desired. The value of thought and contemplation.

Am I searching for God? Am I searching for enlightenment?
Am I searching for a better way to be human? Must the
answer be yes? Of course, it must. I am searching within
and in this world. I have to seek. I must seek. Suddenly
I remember staying at my grandparents home, watching
the sun set over the town of my fathers. Colors swirling
and melting until black streaks across the canvas.

behind / in front

quantify the years until numbers
become meaningless
all of time sits behind 
and in front of us
this moment glowing in amber

Cottage

Is it too late or too soon
to live out our fantasy

Beachside cottage alone
and together

Send out tendrils of hope
purely from habit

Close your eyes as my
hand strokes your hair

Everything confirmed
to dead memory

Sparks emerge from
time to time

Brief signs that some
life still within

When I hear the voice
of the Ocean

I wonder if you can
hear it too

Verse for a Song

Reaching in the dark 
for something to hold onto
Slowly moving your feet
You'd rather be dancing 
than tip-toeing around
What it is we have to say
What it is we have to do
Here with the lights off
Trying to find our way out

Once Upon A Time

Life is growing stronger
day by day
in her womb.
Her daughter is learning
the sound of music
through the steady beat
of her mother's heart.

Once upon a time
is such a beautiful way
to start stories for children.
To tell tales of courage
and strength, of fear
and overcoming obstacles.
Once upon a time
is another way to think
of memories
and moments past,
of chance and presents
relegated to ifs.

To love truly
we must sacrifice
and let go of things
once desired.
We must let our
hearts and wisdom
strive for more than
mere fulfillment of
our own desires.

Little girl,
growing by the day,
stronger and stronger,
I hope to meet you
someday. Maybe
before then
your mother will
have told you
about an old friend.

I am just a shadow of 
the love we once had.

Acts of Emptines

It was cold in bed
Before you came
And afterwards
I couldn't sleep
You left and
I asked myself
Why I felt such
An emptiness
I know why now
Years have gone
And I remember
This lesson on
Love and acts
of emptiness

You Whom I Loved Best.

Processional

Not ready to own up to my part of the blame
Pass it off again and again
I'll take this load if you'll take your share
Let the days gather behind us

Scattered Thoughts All Gathered Together (evening - 6/4/16)

Interpretations of Reality

Create the world you wish through selective perception

Change and Realignment

Consciousness moving through an eternal present of possibility

Beauty as a sign of temporary attraction

What is everlasting?

The Business of Life & Loss

How to Move On Without Ever Letting Go

How quickly we move from disappointment to acceptance.

These late nights move through us
as we move through them

Memories of distant possibilities are nothing more
than snow melting in the noon time sun.

Better to let some memories gather dust.

we were done and
that was it
and that was that

My back is nothing more than
bone and flesh
and can be broken
far more easily
than I care to admit

What is fit to be buried and what
is fit to be kept?

Desire and Reason rarely have anything in common.

I need some silence to balance out all the noise in my life.

No reason to be awake
yet you cannot fall asleep
so you stay up until
the night takes you

One must look past mere physical beauty to find substance

Enraptured by her beauty
I became a slave to an ideal
that no one else could
ever hope to match

Can we ever find the beach that has no end?

When all you want to do is talk
and the night is late
and the glass is empty
but everyone else is gone
or asleep
so you sit alone
and hope the words
will find you

I would have loved you if
you ever gave me the chance

Only the dead are free.

Like the silence that stretches across the desert at midnight.

The restlessness of the soul.

Let the page feed your spirit.

We let each other go as gently
as a breathe being exhaled.

Broken Teeth and Bloody Tongues

The Overlap of Dreams

Sueno pero recuerdo
lo que tuve recordar

Shadows that exist only at night.

There was never anything to hold onto
but we clung to another
as though nothing could tear us apart

My broken bones
cannot be reset
I grow together
fractured and imperfect

The illusion of choice
The choice of illusion

These lonely nights of worry
Where are you right now
Don't worry
I'm just here trying to breathe

On Promises

The past has been built on broken promises
must the future suffer the same fate?

purify

If only the rain could

wash away more than

just our thirst.

Living Among the Stars

So many names 

and faces scattered 

in my memory

I feel awed

by the constellations

in my galaxy

How lucky I am

to live among such stars