My Poem ‘Robin’

A light has gone out.
A star has died.
The smiles and the laughter will live on
and dampen the fires of doubt;
who you were, who you are,
and who you will always be,
will fill our heart and soul with joy forever
and bring tears to our eyes.

You have been there all my life, since I was a child;
I cannot imagine the world without you in it;
your spirit still remains with us all,
and it feels like there is no one on this planet
who is not feeling an immense sense of loss right now
at your passing, and I myself am having trouble
coming to terms with the reality
that you are no longer with us, I have to admit.

It just doesn’t feel real;
it just doesn’t seem right;
knowing you are somewhere else makes me feel ill;
knowing that we all have lost someone special
makes me sad- like how a kid feels when he lets go
and can do nothing but watch the wind take away
the gift of joy that was his favourite kite.

I cannot begin to know exactly what to say;
I am genuinely struggling to know
how to stop myself from feeling so helpless;
I have been replaying every line and every word
that I heard you say all day;
I have been thinking about you
and about what I see of myself in who you were,
and echoes of you in me, and I see two people
who just want to make the world a better place
for us being in it, and also a shared wish
to surround ourselves with the people of this world
who to us are nothing short of the best.

Life is seldom straight-forward;
why we do what we do is not always easy to figure out;
life can sometimes seem like something
that we may want to run away from,
and sometimes we all can feel like a fraud,
but what you always taught me
was that no matter what is going on in our lives,
if we truly need and want someone to save us,
there is always someone waiting to throw us a life-belt.

You are someone who I will never forget,
and neither will my family,
as well as millions of people from all around the world,
who all agree wholeheartedly that you are one of the most
amazing, phenomenal, funny, smart, exceptionally-talented,
people there has ever been.
I will miss you so much, and I will remember you, watch you,
and think about you often, and I hope that you have found
what you were looking for, I hope you found peace.
Fly free. You will live forever.
Goodbye, you wonderful shining star.
Goodbye, Robin.

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My Poem ‘Now’

If I knew that today was my last day on Earth,
if I could feel and see the last strength
and the last light of me flickering,
if I could feel my spirit getting ready to leave my body
and journey to the stars,
then I would go to the one place in this world I have always wanted to go,
with the one person who I love with the power of a curse,
and we would do something that would be my life’s defining memory,
and it would be so amazing-
not only would I cry from my eyes,
but I would weep from my soul, from my dreams,
from the final breaths being expelled from my lungs,
as all I could hear over everything else
was the beat of my heart.

If this was my last chance to do anything;
if this was my last chance to say anything;
if this was my last moment to think something,
to feel something, to want something, to have something,
I would outstretch my fingers and take hold
of the hand of the one right besides me,
and I would look into their eyes and I would sing.

If my face was being touched by the sun for the last time, I would cry;
if my lips were being kissed by perfection I would smile,
and I would truly be content to close my eyes
and let go of gravity for the first time, for the last time,
and have the means and the gift to fly.

If the time of my life were to be ending;
if the finish-line were to be fast-approaching;
if I knew the one thing that was ultimately
the most important truth worth knowing;
not being able to stay and continue to live
and experience more would hurt more than anything-
because that is the fight that we all one day lose,
because we simply cannot keep fighting.

I really do wish that I could life forever,
but I also wish that everyone else too could go on
and live alongside me and with me for all eternity;
I wish I had a heart and a body
that would never give out-
sometimes I imagine that I am looking back at myself
with eyes that have seen infinity,
and I imagine that I hear myself say,
and especially at the moment that the curtain closes on me
for the final time: enjoy the all of the now.

My Poem ‘Wormhole’

From out of nowhere the vortex appeared,
in the blink of an eye there was a bright flash of light,
the second that I saw it I fell into it,
I was travelling faster than light, faster than thought-
the entire universe spun, flashed by,
and became simple and confined,
and then expanded without barrier
and became infinite and clear,
and in an instant I was somewhere else, at another time,
lying on my back, awake, with memories I never knew I had
and I could not remember creating.
Finding myself, finding my feet,
standing up and looking around and at myself,
and every time I looked and I saw what was within me,
I saw a new horizon, a new view, a new world,
that I could see in every detail and in deep colour.

I know where I am, I know who I am;
I know what the vortex was;
I know when this is,
and because everything feels new but familiar at the same time
I don’t feel confused or lost.
I have been here before, and I will come back again;
I am walking in my own footprints,
and I know the memories they bring back of a time before-
like I know the face of an old friend.

Sometimes where I am feels like a beach of white sand
that I am standing on and facing out at
a blue, green, and gold-kissed ocean;
and at other times it feels like I am in the middle of a busy city;
at times it feels like I am in motion;
while at other times it feels like
I have been shocked into stillness,
as if having come in contact with a surge of electricity.

I am reliving my own memories and experiences,
and then I am floating above all and marveling at the beauty below me;
I am constricted within the shell of an egg,
and then I am breaking out of my own translucent bubble
and racing through a forest of trees.

Extraordinary thoughts occur to me.
Gorgeous sights reveal themselves to me.
Dreams become reality.
Time stretches infinitely.
The temperature changes from really hot to freezing cold.
I feel like I am a child
about to be pushed out into the light of the world,
and also at the moment of the end of the universe,
after coming out the other side of a wormhole.

My Poem ‘The Black Swan’

I saw a black swan on the river today,
swimming in the ice-cold morning air.
Alone the black swan made its way without a care-
one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen,
the swan captured my attention
and stimulated my imagination almost immediately.
The stark contrast of its beautiful black feathers and its red beak
to the white of the surrounding snow.
As it made its way down the river
the black swan looked up at me as it passed me,
and for a second we two exchanged a gaze that stunned me-
so much so that I watched until it left my sight
and went to where I was unable to follow.
I had never seen a black swan before, but on this day of all days
I was not lost on the significance of its symbolism and meaning.
Seeing the black swan,
as I made my way to say my final goodbye to a good friend,
made me stop and think
on this personal journey of remembrance that I was taking,
that the world was trying to tell me something,
that I was going to receive a gift on this day
that would be for me and for me alone to understand,
but the consequence of that would be heart-breaking.

I had attended my friends funeral, but I hadn’t really said goodbye;
I had written a poem describing how I felt about their passing,
but I felt that I hadn’t really spoken to them as I always had;
I felt that simply attending my friends funeral service
and sharing my sorrow with their family was not enough-
in my mind, I thought that I needed to go back to their grave
and reconnect with them in some way,
so that I may hear them again,
and maybe I would stop feeling sad.

The snow covered everything in the graveyard,
but I remembered where the body of my friend now lay
without a second thought.
The wind was bitterly-cold as I stood facing the frozen Earth
above and below the now empty shell of my friend.
As I spoke to them in hushed-tones hoping that they could hear me,
because I knew that my memory was quickly fading
and that time was growing short.
After standing with my head bowed in solace and in silence
remembering everything that I could about my friend,
an image of the black swan that I had seen began to grow in my mind
until it was all that I could think about-
and then, above me, to my awe, shock, and astonishment,
I looked up and saw a black swan flying in the sky over-head,
and I fell to the ground at the sight of the black swan’s wings
outstretched like a dark angel ascending to the white-coloured clouds.
After regaining my footing,
I was fortunate to just catch the sight of the black swan
before it disappeared into the fog of the horizon-
as I did I swore that I heard my name being spoken somewhere far-away
in a whisper that I could barely hear,
but its depth of resonance was unmistakable-
like the crashing waves of an ocean.

Making my way home, the gift that I had received continued to ring in my head.
My memory of the swan that I had seen was glowing,
as if I had seen it in infrared.
I felt this feeling in my heart that my friend was still here in some way-
that their part to play in the universe was now proceeding on a different path-
that they will return to life in other forms, their essence will never be gone.
I had thought it impossible to accept the truth of my friends death,
and to try and reconcile the reason for his return to the source of all life,
until I saw the beauty, and caught the gaze, of the black swan.

My Poem ‘Not of the Body’

Our mind, our spirit, our consciousness, our soul-
everything about us that is the most important thing about us,
that is not of the body,
that is the most phenomenal thing about every human being,
that is deeper than any ocean anywhere on any planet,
and is the adhesive that holds together the whole.

Our essence extends beyond us.
Our mind never stops working.
While our body is resting, regenerating,
after being used to excess,
our mind interprets the messages that we have received,
but not clearly perceived, from the world around us-
a process that we can sometimes witness the progress of
while we are dreaming.

When a baby is born,
when a child first cries-out
and first extends the reach of their life-force and touches the heart
and connects with the consciousness of their parents,
the moment is so magnificent, overwhelming, and enticing-
it is as magnetic as the Earth’s core,
and as beautiful as the song of Angels.

When a body breathes its last breath,
and enacts its last deed;
when a body reaches its last instant of usefulness before death,
and you feel the sensation of being new-born again and free-
at that moment you need nothing,
at that moment you hear nothing,
at that moment your entire life unfolds before you
and reveals the meaning of your life
and why you were so integral in keeping the universe expanding,
keeping the galaxy spinning, and keeping the world as diverse,
engaging, and wonderfully-unpredictable,
as it has always been since its beginning.

People never truly die.
When we die, I believe that all that we are, all that we ever were,
and all that we forever will be, goes on-
and as we shed our mortal shackles,
as we take our final look at a sunrise or a sunset,
we understand what it all means:
why people in our life mean so much to us,
and why acceptance and realization is life’s key-
that is when all existence comes into focus,
and we understand that we are celestial beings in our natural form
of many states of reality that are not of the body.

My Poem ‘I cry alone’

The snow is still falling.
The world outside my window looks and feels as if it is frozen in time.
The death of my friend is like a shard of glass impaled within my heart,
the pain of which there is never any fore-warning.
I have been trying to talk about what has happened with others,
but what is on my mind I cannot express
until I am all on my own and I begin to cry.

Overwhelming grief consumes me and has cocooned me.
I think about my friend,
and as I do I am reminded of the times that we shared,
the things that we said-
discussing our mutual likes and dislikes, and opinions.
I am trying to recall as much as I can about my friend,
before the waves of time come into shore
and wash away the impressions that my friend made
on the sands of my mind, and all that I remember of him
is carried out to sea.

Death touches us when we least expect it.
We don’t know what it feels like to lose someone until we do.
I feel like something is missing in the world now,
and the universe is unsympathetic.
I can’t begin to imagine what my friend’s family is going through.

I am writing now to try and make sense of my confusion,
to reconcile my belief in reason, necessity, my philosophy on life;
however, I am finding it hard to do so-
death to the living and to the grief-stricken
is like being stabbed with a knife.

When you hear that someone has died that you know so well,
it almost feels unreal, at first,
it feels like you are stuck in a dream-
it’s like having a fog around you,
or like being imprisoned in a glass cage,
and to free yourself you feel like you have to shout and scream.

Writing is like therapy.
Writing is helping me to say what is inside me,
and what better way to express anything than through poetry.
It is still hard for me to believe that my friend is gone.
I keep thinking about all the books that he will never read,
the films that he will never see,
the things that he will never own.
Then I think to myself how my friend came into this world with nothing,
and how he left it with so much.

Saying goodbye, accepting someone’s passing,
is something that you ultimately have to deal with by yourself,
in your own time.
I am coming to terms with my friends death as best as I can.
And that is why I must cry alone.

My Poem ‘The Overview Effect’

I feel like I have returned from death, returned to life,
I feel like I have been resurrected.
For over a week, I lay helpless in my bed,
as my thoughts and dreams went into overdrive
and manifested into different and varied guises,
colours, textures, and ideas- some that I do not remember entirely,
some that I choose not to recognize.

At some point in our lives,
we all have this urge that appears before our eyes
that tells us to look within and begin a journey to find ourselves;
there are so many schools of thought on the subject
of how to embark on the ultimate journey of identity:
a walk in the woods, a prolonged period of silence
and deep-thought around a fire,
reading a thought-provoking book-
all methods that I would recommend, which have served me in the past.
Being ill, however;
having your body and mind feel like they are turning against you,
feeling like you are locked in a prison cell
with your worst enemy: incapacity.

This new year has not began as I had hoped.
Unfortunately, the normal feeling of euphoria of Christmas
did not carry me over the cusp of New Years Day
with the normal feeling of joy and the smile of happiness on my face.
I felt like I had been struck by lightning
and had fallen from the tallest building in the world
to the hard and unforgiving ground below,
and it all happened so fast,
and I didn’t know exactly what had happened, I didn’t feel a thing.
I was broken. I just wanted to feel better,
and for all that I was feeling and experiencing to come to an end.

No one is a statue. No one is bullet-proof, untouchable,
unfliching of the debris of life,
and everyone is stricken from time-to-time by something
that feels foreign and alien of themselves,
that is not easy to purify ourselves of;
we all must accept that life itself,
and our interactions with what life has in store for us,
is nearly always going to be out of our control.

For the last seven days, I feel like I have been in space-
circling the world, instead of being a part of it;
coccooned in a bubble; fighting to find my way back
to feel well again- almost forgetting what normal
everyday things are that we take for granted:
the taste of food, the feeling of sunlight on my skin,
forgetting me.
Coming back to Earth now, finding my feel on solid ground
after so long of feeling weightless,
I am still regaining my balance,
I am still finding parts of my life to reconnect.

How I am feeling now is better than I was,
and I hope I continue to feel that way.
What I am feeling now makes me think of the memories
and recollections of the astronauts who went into space
and their perspectives of seeing the Earth from so far away,
and how seeing it changed them:
a way of seeing the world, which I see and understand now,
that has been called the “Overview Effect”.