My Poem ‘Continuum’

There are moments that happen to us all in our lives
when, within a heart-beat,
we feel like we have crossed the ultimate finish-line,
as all the events of our life- past and future-
appear to flash before ours eyes.
These rare moments of insight can knock you off your feet,
unsettle you for days, but after deep contemplation
they can reveal the continuum of your life, your place in everything-
why you are so important.
I was unprepared and moved to tears when my moment came,
I don’t remember everything that I saw about myself,
in what must have been only a few seconds;
but there is one thing, call it a gift of my future-self,
that still remains.

They say that time-travel is impossible,
but, then again, they used to say that same
about men on the moon.
I believe that if you look at a problem from a different direction
all the answers to your questions will begin to sing in-tune.
I see things in life that I only wish others could see with me;
I see the spark of hope in those people who say that they are giving up,
who only need to take the time to hear the reason why things need to happen-
because, when you are looking at things through a veil,
the mist that you see can be as thick as syrup.

When I look back, and when I look forward,
since my moment of connection with all space and time,
I don’t see a beginning, or an end-
I see a forever existence that is, and will always be, beyond understanding,
but I know in myself that I and we are connected to everything else
like the nervous system of a universal spine.
I don’t have proof of my belief,
but then again you can’t prove that you love someone-
you can only say and show that you do as best that you can.
Like most people who believe in something, I have faith-
for the same reason that you don’t need to prove that the world exists,
even though it cannot be seen by the eyes of a blind person.

I know what it feels like to lose something,
but I also know that if you believe in things, in people, and in yourself,
you cannot foresee how greater the world will become;
you will see, feel, and understand,
that the world doesn’t end when you reach the sea and the sand-
it continues to the stars, as part of the universes, and life’s,
infinite continuum.

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My Poem ‘Still’

At dawn, when the cloud patterns in the sky
are unlike any that you have ever seen,
when the trees against the sky look like stencils on a canvas-
monochrome, like the birds that nest within them-
as seen from a distance, like something out of a silent movie scene.

At daybreak, when sunlight first touches the rooftops of houses
and bounces off windows, when everything looks shiny and new-
like the first time that you ever opened your eyes,
looked up in curiosity, and asked why the sky is blue.

From the moment that we learn to talk
we are all asking important and fundamental questions;
it may not sound or seem so at the time,
but the questions that we begin to ask when we are a child
we still continue to ask as an adult-
though they may see some reinvention.

From the moment that we wake-up in the morning,
we crave the one thing that we need to open our mind
and complete the circuit that will set us in good-stride
for the horizons of the new day before us;
from the moment that we begin again to reconnect with the world,
we always go to the source that enlightens, entertains, and aligns us,
and to the relationships that we have grown to trust.

As soon as we first venture out into the world,
as soon as we take our first step out of the door
to wherever it is that we are going-
we can already sense something in the air,
we can already feel the changes within us and around us that are undergoing;
as soon as we first hear the voices
and the conversations that are taking place,
between friends and family on phones, silently at fingers touch,
or to people standing or sitting side-by-side-
we are equally intrigued by what everyone has to say;
however, sometimes, we can all feel like satellites
circling other satellites in outer-space.

Even though we all know nothing about everything,
we know what we need to know to keep our world turning,
to keep us going, and to bolster our will-
because, even though all worlds change, don’t stop,
and can seem chaotic and confusing up-close,
when seen high above- like a planet in space-
all things seem logical, peaceful,
all things seem still.

My Poem ‘Sugar’

I have written poems that no one will ever read;
I have given gifts of wisdom to friends, to family,
to those people that I have met who were in the most need.
I have met people who are utterly convinced, without doubt,
that because they are not who and what they once aspired to be
nothing good is ever going to happen to them,
who are so obsessed with money, that they are blinded from seeing
from where the troubles of their life stem.
I have never been like that,
I have never bought into the notion that wealth is integral to happiness-
the more you have does not mean the happier you are going to be;
in fact, sometimes, the more you have, the more likely you are to feel stress.
‘More’ is the obsession that humanity has fallen into,
‘money’ is the drug that sweetens our tooth;
some people continue to do what they have always done,
afraid to look behind themselves at the shadow of the truth.
When you think you have nothing,
when you think you have lost everything and everyone,
you find yourself presented with a choice:
you can either worry about what comes next,
sit alone in a dark room day-after-day, asking yourself “why me?”;
or you can look at yourself, listen to yourself,
change the way the world knows you as being,
and you can start with something as simple
as changing the tone of your internal voice.
Because, if you are to succeed in anything,
the first person who needs to believe in you is yourself-
the words that your soul speaks to you
are important to every part of your health.
When you have to run though a fire
to get to a brighter, better, more brilliant period of your life
that will carry you forward to new challenges, it changes who you are;
but the delights that come as a result of the test of time,
make everything that happens to you taste sweeter than sugar.

My Poem ‘Eclipse’

The Sun is shining brightly in the sky,
the birds are singing and flying above in the air,
there isn’t a cloud or a frown to be found anywhere-
it is as if it were a normal, beautiful, day,
when everything around everyone can easily be understood and quantified-
and then, slowly, darkness sweeps over the world
and bathes all in shadow: as a planet, a moon, and a star,
come into perfect alignment together,
and our greatest inspirations in our sky put on a show.
Within a matter of a few seconds,
day has seemingly become night, all eyes look above to the sky
where a phenomenon of nature is taking place-
our Sun’s light has momentarily been eclipsed,
leaving only a faint golden halo to be seen
where minutes ago it was shining epically, blindingly, boldly, and bright.
What was being witnessed now by all
under this veil of magical solar and lunar synchronicity
was strangely and instantly emotional, for myself
and for everyone around me.
I felt humble, and small;
but also blessed, content, overwhelmed,
and elevated somehow, as if I were now ten feet tall.
For the briefest of seconds,
everyone was transfixed by the exact same thing, at the exact same time,
and it felt like we were in the midst of something incredibly special-
something that no one on Earth had a part to play in,
but which they were intended to have witnessed-
something wholly divine.

Then, a burst of unbelievable light exploded on the left-hand-side of the ring
and separated the sun and the moon from their union,
sunlight washed over the world again like a wave,
and revealed Earth- humanities home, that we sometimes take for granted-
to be the perfection that we have been looking for all our lives,
the enigma that requires no solution.
The moon slowly fades beyond our sight, for now,
and the sun seems bigger, brighter,
as if it had been remade behind the silhouette of the moon, somehow.

People continued to look at the sun
in almost disbelief at what they had seen for a few minutes more sometime after,
before returning to whatever it was that they were doing before:
some were still in-awe of the spectacle,
some returned to work without hesitation,
and some people celebrated their joy at having shared such an experience together
by kissing each-other on the lips.
I stood with my hands behind my back, with my eyes closed,
hypnotised long-after by the meaning of the moments of darkness and light-
still with the thoughts in my mind that were brought to life
by the gift of the eclipse.

My Poem ‘I never said goodbye’

I watched you from afar on that dark moon-lit night,
as you walked towards your future and left me behind.
I wanted to say so much to you before you left,
but I just couldn’t-
when I realized that you leaving now would be forever,
that I would never see you again-
I just couldn’t say goodbye.
We were only meant to know each-other for a short-time,
I know that now;
we were never meant to be anything else to each-other
than what we were;
we only knew one-another for a few months
and you may not even remember me a year from now,
but I just wanted to say how important to me
the days, the hours, the minutes, and the seconds with you were.

The day after I first saw you, I wrote a poem about you;
today, a week after I last saw you,
I cannot help myself from feeling regret
that at the moment you may have wanted to say goodbye to me,
I did not have the heart to say goodbye to you.
This poem is a goodbye from me, that I wanted to say on paper now,
which I couldn’t say to you in-person before-
this is the only way left for me to say to you,
in spirit and in words of any kind, at least-
that you made me a better person for having known you,
as I always felt that you would
from the instant that I saw you waiting at the door.

It doesn’t matter if you never read this,
or if you never learn that you had a profound effect on me;
what matters to me is what happens to you now, in the future,
at the moment that you realize that you have everything in your life
that you ever wanted.
I will be like a tear that rolls down your cheek and then gets wiped away-
you will forget me, as you should;
you will go on and touch the lives of countless people your entire life;
what matters to me is that you are happy.

I don’t want to be anything other than grateful, for the rest of my life,
because of the fact and the effect that you had on me,
that will forever stay with me;
I don’t want to do anything but smile and think of you every time I cry.
I wanted to write something for you,
so that I could read back to myself and remember you by;
I wanted to say the farewell to you, somehow, that I wanted to,
because I will always be sorry that I never said goodbye.

My Poem ‘Just You and Me’

Let’s go for a walk in the woods, just you and me;
let’s go hand-in-hand, as golden leaves fall all around us,
and conkers drop to the forest floor
from the branches of tall horse-chestnut trees.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods,
as the seasons change before our eyes;
let’s go for a walk in the woods
and be showered in sunlight,
as it breaks through from above and below
to hail the arrival of new life and new skies.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods
and watch spiders spin webs,
and rabbits appear fleetingly from their burrows;
let’s go for a walk in the woods
and let our imaginations run wild
while we search for the origin of every shadow.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods,
let us just stand there surrounded by transformation
going on underground and in the air;
let us just stop and breath in perfection into out lungs
and feel its effect on our mind and sight;
let us become intoxicated by nature and the suns light
and walk without a direction until day turns into night.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods
and say nothing with words, but everything with a smile,
everything with a look, everything with a touch;
let’s go for a walk in the woods
and feel inseparable while in each-others clutch.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods, day-after-day,
in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, and in the snow;
let’s go for a walk in the woods
and appreciate how fortunate we are to be here at this time,
in this place, and what we leave behind when it is time to go.

Let’s go for a walk in the woods,
let us run through the woods as if we were children
who could go anywhere we wanted, without fear-
closing our eyes, with our arms out-stretched like wings-
not even realizing the gift that we have of choosing
who it is that we want to be.
Let’s go for a walk in the woods
and walk in our own footprints-
content, because we are together,
because, as far as we are both concerned,
it will always be just you and me.

My Poem ‘Remember’

We forget so much of what happens to us in our lives,
and when we do think back we often remember the bad before the good;
but we are not meant to remember everything-
even though at times we wish that we would,
and would give anything to ensure that we could.

Pure, undiluted, memory is momentary-
it lives for the briefest of times
and then it changes and evolves
into something else entirely.
Memory requires a totem, an anchor,
so that we can hear its echo again,
and see its projection-
something like a sound, or a smell,
or a symbol, or a feeling-
so that we can regain any kind of connection.

The events of our lives are like water in our hands,
and we are unable to stop our clear recollections of those events
from passing through our fingers like grains of sand;
however, no matter how many details fall away,
something always remains-
pieces of a life-time of memories and experiences of a puzzle enshrined within our brain.
It isn’t until we get older that we mourn what we have lost
and chastise ourselves for not remembering more-
that is why we celebrate and champion the achievements of others
when we are in their presence
and when we feel like we are a part of their accolade,
because it makes our aspirations soar.

In every culture on Earth since the beginning of recorded history,
humanity has endeavored to invent new ways of every kind
to help us recall that which we forget so easily:
calendars, cave paintings, monuments, time-pieces, reminders,
photographs- something we can look to
which will make sense of the world around us-
a life-line that keeps us from sinking to depths of perpetual unconsciousness.

The more heightened our emotions of something are
the stronger our memory of them will be-
that is why the more that you think about something,
and the more that you try not to think about something,
the more it will recur in your dreams
and float on the surface of your memory.

It is important to remember,
but you cannot remember everything, all of the time.
Just as in life, the greatest gift of our memories
is what pops into our minds when we least expect-
and the more unexpected the thought
the more that we ponder its origin,
and the more we reflect.