My Poem ‘Fresh Start’

It’s a brand new morning,
on a brand new day,
at a brand new time,
for a brand new me;
it’s a brand new dawning,
on a brand new path,
to a brand new way,
at a brand new place,
with a brand new state of mind,
for a brand new poem,
about a brand new us,
and a brand new life for us
to live breathe and see.

I feel like I am going back to school.
I feel like I am having to learn things over again.
I feel like I am discovering
and tapping into a new source of inspiration fuel.
I feel like I am learning more about myself
every time I sit down with a piece of paper and a pen.
I feel like I am crossing a border
to an unfamiliar territory.
I feel like I am ripping out the last page of my story
from my book, and throwing it into the wind
for someone else to find and one day return to me,
and then we can both know what my last word
and what my last line of poetry will be.

It’s a fresh air that I feel,
and a fresh perspective that I now have.
It’s a fresh surge of blood, energy, and love
that I feel pumping and beating from my heart.
It’s a fresh and gleaming new coat of paint on the world
that I can see my face in,
because the shine is so clear when I look at it
I am instantly reflecting.
It’s a fresh cup that I am drinking from,
as I make the best of every second
of my fresh start.

My Poem ‘Caesura’

Silence. A pause. A full-stop.
A time to think and see.
A natural and needed interruption,
a resonant song-lyric,
a breath-taking moment,
an opportunity to not have to worry about anything
and simply be.

We all need a break sometimes-
even the best play has an intermission.
We all need to stop and look outside at dusk
and watch the luminous lightning-bugs and fireflies,
and hear the sound of the crickets chirping.
It can be a truly beautiful time,
especially when you have had a lot on you mind recently,
and you want to let all your pent-up feelings and emotions go-
that time when you are looking up at the twilight sky
and you know and you see the universe is telling you something
that it wants you to hear, and you need to hear-
that is the time when you can leave the front door of you open
for the stale air to leave and to let the fresh air come in
and clear your mind and vision, to see things come in
and go out of your life with every breath that you take,
and with every gust that the wind blows.
It can feel cold for a while
while you catch your breath and you breathe in deep,
it can be one of the few moments in your life
when you can actually feel truly free.

Sometimes you don’t know you need someone in your life
until you meet them and they fill your life, days, and hours,
with every part of them;
sometimes you don’t know how much you need something in your life
until you feel like you can’t live without it ever again.
Sometimes you don’t know a road you have been traveling on for years
until you break down on it and you stop and see its scenery
up-close and unexpectedly;
sometimes you don’t know your own self
until you look in the mirror and you ask yourself ‘Who am I?’,
sometimes you have to act selfishly, but not hurtfully-
single-mindedly, but not unashamedly.
Sometimes you have to live the life you want to live
rather than the life others would have you live,
so that even a tear can be a smile of happiness from your eye.

Life is about finding peace.
Life is about finding balance.
Life is about acting on things when you are sure about them,
and about using every ounce of emotion- including fear.
Life is about making the most of everything,
exposing yourself to as much as you can,
and letting your heart, mind, soul, run free of any leash.
Life is about taking every chance.
Life is about… that!

My Poem ‘Wildflower’

Standing, growing, and swaying in the breeze,
alone but seemingly content in a beautiful green oasis
at the centre of a big city-
a wildflower, a violet and white, beautiful and amazing
perfect product of nature has me transfixed and completely at-ease.

Others walk on by and do not appear to take notice;
I, however, cannot look away if I tried-
I take in a breath, I look again at the beautiful flower before me,
I close my eyes, and I make a make a silent wish.

When I open my eyes again I see a noticeable flash of light
that overwhelms my vision for a few seconds,
and intensifies the colour of everything around me-
when I now look at the incredible wildflower,
and the green grass around it,
every petal, every blade of grass, appeared to be glowing
and vibrating, and the path beneath me looked as if it
and the grass were the same and connected
like the overlapping waves of a tumultuous sea;
but the flower, it was something else,
it looked like something else,
it felt like something else-
it radiated and glowed like a fire,
like it was actually burning and sending out
noticeable distortions around it like a stone being dropped
over and over into a pond,
or like the sparks that flash at the end of a live wire.

I felt like I wanted to reach out and touch it,
to see if it was real, or imaginary, for some reason-
the air had gone cold, the leaves would soon be turning brown
and falling from the trees,
but this flower felt like as if it were not bound
by such metamorphosis in appearance,
nor in the change of the season.

The wildflower just was,
and as each second that I stared at it passed,
it made me think and feel like the way seeing and hearing
the launch, the flash, and the bang of a firework does-
and I must admit to giving out a gasp
when I was struck by an insight and a vision
that felt like a bomb-blast.

When my sight returned to normal;
when the colour around me faded as the world seemed to reset itself
to the way it looked before I arrived and sat down here
where I was, which could have been closer to a week for all I knew,
rather than a day, or even an hour;
when I stood up, and stared down,
I could still see the after-glow of what I had seen,
I could still feel its pull.
When I walked away, in the corner of my eye,
I looked and I saw something that I hadn’t seen before:
growing behind, and in-line with the one I had seen,
and been amazed so much by, I was literally in shock
at the sight of a second unseen wildflower-
why I had not seen it until now I did not know,
but what it meant to me, and the message it was relaying to me,
could not have been more clearer.

My Poem ‘The Falling Leaf’

A gust of wind blew through the trees,
as I stood in my favourite forest
and watched a single leaf break-away from its branch,
and begin to fall to Earth.
As this lone leaf descended above me,
right in front of me, time appeared to freeze.
This leaf, for some reason, was now defying gravity itself-
its fall had somehow become interrupted-
it was now floating and turning in the air right in front of me,
as if I were witnessing a token of nature and the world’s unlimited wealth.
The rest of the world was a blur to me;
the leaf, however, I could see with impeccable clarity.
Everything felt like a dream, but this wasn’t a fantasy-
this was like another state of reality.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard,
and yet I thought that I could feel noise all around-
something that was keeping me on my feet,
but denying the leaf from finding the ground.
It was as if I was watching a magic trick,
but I knew that it wasn’t an illusion
orchestrated by a magician, nor a hallucination-
what I was experiencing was, I can only describe as being,
like a moment of regeneration-
and this leaf had chosen to sacrifice itself
so that this necessary change could take place;
this leaf was all life on Earth,
this leaf was the changing face of every Earth-born race.
The air was cold, but I felt like a warm flame-flickering lantern;
the trees were still, but the golden leaf continued to turn.

And then, the rest of the world came back into focus.
Another gust of wind blew through the forest,
the branches of the behemoths all around me swayed from side-to-side,
all the leaves from all the trees suddenly fell to Earth as-one-
as if the entire forest had cried.
Every golden leaf that had once been green
and had coloured these woods every shade of life imaginable
now spiralled down through the air to the floor- around me, on me;
however, there was one exception:
the leaf that had fallen first was the last to touch the Earth
that lay in waiting-
it fell, but it fell in its own time, at its own pace-
saying a long goodbye to an existence that it was forsaking.
I was tempted to put out my hand to stop the leaf from completing its journey,
but then I berated myself for such a thought
and I continued to watch the leaf spin for the last time,
and then settle on top of all the other leaves on the ground
that moments ago were high above me.

I looked down at the leaf, until I could no longer discern which leaf had fallen,
froze time, and fascinated me so intently;
and then I looked up again at the trees and branches
that were now bare and free of foliage,
and my mind and thoughts felt flooded, but clear,
and teaming with energy and peace-
like the water of the Great Barrier Reef.
My focus was now clear,
my foundations of life were now cemented.
I believe that I witnessed the beginning, the end,
and the beginning of another universe
that began in the time that it took
to watch the slow flight of a falling leaf.