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Standing in a dark forest, on a moon-lit evening-
with no idea of how I got here,
and with no concise answer as to what I was feeling-
I looked into the shadows,
and suddenly I saw the face of someone watching me.
The face got larger and larger as they walked towards me,
and then stood two feet away from me,
staring at me with unseen black eyes,
with a face as white as a ghost-
that if not for the moon, you would never believe or see.
“I am Dream,” spoke the man, dressed all in black
and with hair as wild as a thorn bush.
“You have many questions, I would guess;
however, for now, you must hush,”
said “Dream” to me, as he put an ice-cold index finger to my lips.
“Truth sometimes comes when you least expect it,
and moments of understanding happen fewer that the times
you will witness a total-eclipse.”
The man seemed to know me somehow-
it was as if he knew exactly what I was thinking;
as I looked into his eyes I tried to read any emotion that I could
on his face, but he remained nonchalant, still, and unblinking.
I felt like I should be scared,
but, oddly, at no time did I feel uneasy;
my eyes told me, from where I was, that I should be cold,
but my mind and my body didn’t agree.
“Ask me a question,” said Dream, “even though I know the one
that is always on the tip of your tongue.
Ask me the question that you have been asking
for so long to be answered ever since you were young.”
“Who am I?” I whispered, not expecting this man to know what I was asking,
nor why-
the question that I have never been able to answer for myself
without beginning to cry.
“Most that ask that question nearly always already know the answer.
Some stop asking when they believe that they have found a real-world
substitution that they prefer,” replied Dream, as he looked up to the sky,
and then back at me,
and for an instant we two were like two beings of light in darkness
and no longer surrounded by trees.
“The name that you were gifted after your birth was not accidental.
Who you believe you are, and what has befallen you throughout your life
is elemental.”
As I face Dream, I noticed that I too was wearing nothing but black-
but that I was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned in white with a word on my chest:
“What does this word mean?” I asked, pointing to myself- “Is this a test?”
When Dream spoke this time,
I swear that his skin shone whiter that it had before;
as soon as Dream had finished saying that
“This is the word that has forever been knocking on your front-door“-
that was the moment that I felt as if he, Dream, was telling me something
that I had never considered before.
“Is this a dream? I don’t recognize this place?”
“This is a place that is very important to you, I understand-
somewhere you have never visited after dark before,
but which has always made you imagine what it is like to be in outer-space.
This place is infinite, unending- and yet brief, and simple,”
Dream explained, as he looked down, as I did, to see below on the ground
the symbol of a snake devouring its own tail.
“Do you understand?” Dream asked, “Do you recognize the answer?“-
as I looked into Dream’s face, I saw and I felt something that was
incredible, beautiful, and pure:
I imagined a child being born, growing rapidly older-
as if every year of its life were a second-
until the face that I saw looking back at me was myself, completely stunned.
I have always believed that things happen for a reason,
but I never put much credence into the idea that everything in my life
has been guiding me to a truth that some may call a destiny-
that was for stories of heroes, not for me.
“But you are a hero,” Dream proclaimed, to my surprise-
“You do have purpose beyond your dreams and your horizon-
the terminus of all, not just the one.”
“Why have you come to me now? I don’t recall ever dreaming about you before?”
“I have been a part of every dream that there has ever been
since time began, as I will be forevermore.
I was there when you first fell in love and dreamed so intensely,
deeply, powerfully, that you awakened your gift of creativity
and inflamed your waking desire to make someone feel special;
I was there when you first looked within yourself,
found who you were, who you were going to call on the world to know you as-
the name that sounds as perfect and fitting, as it does natural.”
Dream then turned and started to walk away-
to which I soon beckoned: “Dream? Wont you stay?”
And then Dream replied, without looking back over his shoulder:
“I see no need to stay and remind you of that which you know
can only be grasped by they who are the beholder.”
“Thank you!” I called out into the darkness, as the pale-faced
dark-clothed man disappeared so that he could no longer be seen.
“Next time you feel the need to rediscover who you are,”
said Dream, as his voice echoed as if from every direction,
“you need only to close your eyes, return to this place,
and dream.”
Inspired by The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
There are not that many people
who have the time, or find the need,
to sit back and realize that they have it all.
Maybe it is just me, maybe I am just spoiled,
but I have had the pleasure, on many occasions,
to be able to take a seat,
to be able to close my eyes and to feel
like I need nothing more.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say this,
perhaps I shouldn’t write this down;
but after all the years of fun, reflection,
elation, realisation, rediscovery-
for the first time in my life,
I believe that I am standing on a solid and lasting
life-affirming foundation.
Maybe I am jinxing it by saying it,
but what I have in my life now is what I have always wanted.
My life is made up of many different pieces of all shapes and sizes-
most are the same as everyone else’s,
only they are woven-together with a different coloured thread.
My life is as it should be:
filled with all the things that test me, complete me,
give reason to me and for me,
and all the things that make me happy.
This feeling of completion is momentary,
this feeling of having it all wont last, nor should it;
but most people don’t have the time
to thank anyone or anything for what they have,
unless they survive a test of character,
or something phenomenal akin to that of a lightning hit.
Today I walked down a road, known locally as “The Mad Mile”,
and it hit me that what I am blessed to know as my life,
as it is now, to my eyes, is the same as it is in the daylight,
as it is in the dark;
with every step that I take down this “mad mile”,
with every thought that came and went-
I realised that all that I am now
will forever be my benchmark.
In 50 years from now,
you wont remember me;
but I will always remember you-
I will never be able to forget your dazzling eyes:
the widest, and the most beautiful marvels of existence
that I have ever knew.
In half a century from today,
I will still be telling people
about the second that our eyes first met-
the moment that I became instantly lost in everything about you,
and the part of you that imprinted on me forever-after
that I will never forget.
When I one day reveal the identity
of who it was that I always wanted to be in love with me,
I will say your name, I will describe your face,
and I will try to put into poetry the perfection of your smile-
however, even if I have a picture in-hand,
to describe only a fraction of your face’s divinity
is going to take quite a while.
When I am asked by people who you were, why I love you,
and what makes you eternally special in my eyes,
I will tell them that when I think of you all doubt, and darkness,
is cancelled-out, and all I see is beauty in every form imaginable,
and a presence more overwhelming than a pacific sunrise.
I will tell people a tale of a man looking for a truth, an answer,
a revelation that told him who he was,
and then I will them that that man, Me,
when he saw You felt electrified with love and inspiration
at the sight of you, and that that will go on forever without pause.
Every night I will retire to my bed,
still unable to sleep without dreaming about what we said to one-another,
nor without reliving what you will forever mean to me.
I will look back on myself now, and on my memories of you;
I will pick up a pen and a piece of paper,
and I will continue to write more and more poetry.
The smell of freshly-mowed, dew-speckled, fragrant grass-
the colour of the rolling hillsides of the English countryside,
the colour you would only find elsewhere in Eden-
transports me to a field in Austria,
where the air is clear and open and stretches for miles,
and in the distance the horizon is filled by the imposing sight
of the snow-tipped Untersberg mountain.
The feeling of raindrops falling on my head, running down my face-
the taste of natures tears on my lips,
in my mouth, on my tongue, down my throat-
relocates me to Brazil,
to the base of a thousand year-old tree at the heart of the Amazon Rainforest,
in-awe of all the sounds of life that I am hearing all-around:
the smells, the colours- all resonating singularly and harmoniously
to a single beautiful note.
The sight of a rainbow arching across the sky,
the sight of every colour imaginable reflected in fresh puddles on the ground,
and in the gaze of wide-eyed on-lookers-
takes me over oceans and kilometres
to the town of Bluff on the South Island of New Zealand,
to witness the breath-taking spectacle that is the aurora australis-
silently dancing before me, and leaving me frozen in wonder.
The sound of Bumblebees buzzing in the sunlight,
going from one garden to the next-
evolves in my mind to become
the sound of a hummingbirds wings beating without rest;
and at the same time that I am in my garden in England,
I am also in the hot Sonoran Desert in Mexico-
equally entranced by the sound, so much so that I am lost for hours.
And in the time that I am lost,
I find within me and around me all that is delicate, beautiful, alive,
and to be found all-year-round in natures showers,
and especially in the petals of April Flowers.
There is nothing harder
than starting over;
there is nothing worse
than having no purpose;
there is nothing more soul-destroying
than losing your job, your livelihood;
there is nothing more dis-hartening than realising
that you cannot do all the things that you wish you could.
So, when you have to start again,
when you have to find a new job,
and find for yourself a meaningful purpose-
even though the road can seem long, barren, uninviting,
and working against you, as if you were under a curse-
you have to go forward, armed only with one thing:
self-belief-
it doesn’t seem that simple
while you are trying to rediscover who you are,
but it can sustain you for a short time from sinking beneath.
Everyone has a tendency to take things for granted once in a while,
me included-
I truly do not mean to- I value things,
and peoples worth, more than I can say;
however, even I can at times forget and over-look
the things that I have learned that have always stood me in good-stead.
Things can feel unimaginably difficult
when you have no core responsibility,
or a place to go where you are needed-
however, when that is your reality,
you have to go where pessimists fear to tread:
forward; not standing still, or revisiting the past-
learning something new, something out of your comfort-zone,
that in the long-run will build a structure around you
so strong that it will be built to last.
There is nothing more scary, at first-
there is nothing that you want to do more
than to say that things are not going to work out,
so much so that it physically hurts;
but then familiarity sets-in, takes hold of you,
and fills you with a confidence that never weakens,
and is always ubiquous-
and then you will have found your true-calling,
then you will have found your true purpose.
In the light of day
there are not that many people who know me for being Me-
the man who gets up every morning,
and loves nothing more than watching the sunrise,
while writing beautiful poetry.
I love writing, and I love to write poetry!
To me, sometimes when I am writing a poem,
I feel like I am in the driving seat of a Formula 1 car
in the middle of a Grand Prix!
The ideas and the images that race through my mind,
the feelings that I feel when I am writing a poem,
or a rhyme that feels like it is almost writing itself,
is like having an out of body experience and revelation moment combined.
It is a rush, and a phenomenal surge of heightened awareness
of where I am, where I have been, and what I have seen;
however, when I am not writing, when I am not dreaming,
if you were to see me walking down the street,
that part of me would be utterly unnoticeable-
nowhere to be seen.
Most people don’t walk around holding a sign,
or wear a T-shirt to declare to all who they are and what they do-
most of the time the “true you” is veiled
and hidden from view.
As it should be, most people take great pride in their outer-appearance-
while asking everyone else to make up their own mind about who they are
based on how they judge people generally-
the first impression we make on, or of, someone
is usually the most lasting one,
and the one that we reflect upon in our minds memory association gallery.
If seen from far away, then I can honestly say
that my appearance would tell you absolutely nothing about the man I am,
nor what I am thinking about;
however, up-close, and in conversation,
then I feel confident that in a matter of seconds
you would glean something in me
that would eclipse your first impression forever-
of that I am in no doubt.
The first impression is a question:
is what I see all that there is?
And the answer is always the same:
no; however, the first question is always but the start of the great life quiz.
The bank clerk that I speak to every week
could be a beautiful dancer, or an amazing artist;
the waiter that brings me my lunch
could be the next Mozart, Shakespeare-
a future celebrated composer,
or a one day award-winning novelist.
You simply cannot tell who someone really is until you ask them,
and it may take a while before you see them for all that they are
from what they say, but it is not a question of will you find out
who they are, it’s a question of when.
I love a challenge, I love meeting new people,
and once I have begun something I never quit.
To me, life is meant to be loved, and made the most of.
I love to be moved, I loved to be inspired,
and I am a secret poet.
The Life, the Light, the Tears, of the Poet of the Sphere 