My Poem ‘Burned’

You can’t conceive of the pain,
you don’t realize how much it will hurt,
you don’t know how close you are to a fire
until you get burned.
When someone breaks your heart,
when someone sets your mind alight,
when someone clouds your vision,
when someone tears your feelings apart,
when someone takes you above and beyond
and then drops you from a great height,
you become a shadow of yourself-
scarred, dark, lost-
you feel like you are coming undone.
You feel like you want to get even,
you feel like you want them to know
and to feel what you are going through;
but it doesn’t matter:
who they are, who they were,
they no longer are, and they never were.

I wear the invisible scars of a man
who has dared to touch the fire of too many flames,
who has been enticed by the heat and the light
of more false-stars than I would care to name-
they shine for a short-time,
but then their true-self is revealed:
they seek attention and love from anything and anyone
that they can, and then they return to what is familiar to them-
leaving their heart-broken victim to pick themselves back up again;
and it is then that you can, and should, lift up your head,
move on from the pain that aches in your chest,
and eventually feel healed.

Everything that we send out comes back to us;
every voice in a dark tunnel gets returned;
every heart-breaker will one day become the heart-broken-
so remember that if you are the one who has ever done the burning,
or if you are someone who has ever been burned.

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My Poem ‘The Fire’

One of the first lessons that my father ever taught me
was how to start a fire;
one of the first gifts that my father ever gave me
was the knowledge of how to keep a flame alive
and burning for as long as it can,
so that its light and warmth will never expire.
My father taught me that a well-fueled fire
will continue to burn long into the night and go on into the next day-
just as long as you treasure it, look after it, don’t take it for granted;
and if it seems to be dying right in front of you
you do everything that you can to make sure that doesn’t happen,
and never walk away.

Fire was the integral discovery of humanity
that took our ancestors out of the caves that they lived in,
and away from the camp-fires that they sat around,
and fueled their dreams that they could start a fire of their own-
one that humanity and the world had never known:
a fire that would spread from heart to heart, and from head to hands,
that would see us all reaching for the stars
and searching for truths that we can all appreciate and understand.
That fire is always there,
you can feel it beating and burning in your chest all the time-
it can make you feel euphoric when you are happy and inspired,
and it keeps you going when you are feeling down or tired.
And that fire within you is your one true gift-
your fire came into being when two fires, the fires of your parents,
became one fire-
the same fire that has been burning for billions of years,
made up of many colours, that will go on for as long as the universe exists.

Every time I see a flame dancing in front of me,
or a fire burning strong and bright,
I feel something inside of me-
my own flame, my own fire-
being stirred and gifting me with insight.
Some people call the fire,
that will continue to burn forever within every living thing,
‘hope’, ‘drive’, or ‘will’;
but I like to think of it as something more powerful,
I like to think of it as the necessary component of all life, everywhere-
and it should be cherished and basked in,
and observed around us and above us in the air.

To be able to feel and to see the fire in as many people I can
around the world is something that I look forward to the most,
and it is what makes me rise everyday a little higher.
There is nothing more amazing to behold
than seeing the lessons of my father right in front of me,
and keeping alive the flames and the sparks of natures fire.

My Poem ‘Solo’

I am alone.
I am the protector and the keeper of a sacred light.
I cannot let this beacon go out.
I must continue to shine.
Just as the stars must continue to burn, distant, constant, and white.

The ocean is never still,
however people continue to cross it- no matter its unpredictability;
a heart never stops beating,
however, no matter how much fortification you have around it,
you should treat it as a miracle, and marvel at every beat
as if it were your last;
and cherish every breath like a flame that dances between life and infinity.

I feel a dream-wave come over me
and then immediately wash me out to sea,
to the realm of the dream-maker:
I dream that I am on a boat traversing through an icy sea,
as I stare up at the stars above me in the sky
from the bow of an unstoppable and mighty ice-breaker.

I am awoken again by a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder,
but the sky and the sea are calm, clear, and golden, so far-
looking out now you could so easily mistake what you see for a dream,
because the vista of the vast water
is more akin visually right now
to a beautiful sunrise landscape on Mars.

I pass from day into night so easily.
I welcome the arrival of the moon,
just as I cherish the rise of the sun.
I can go from walking under the stars in the dark,
to hearing and seeing every detail of day life
while on a morning run.

When I see the light of others go out around me,
I mourn their passing as if I were mourning the loss of something inside of me,
that for every hour that passes continues to mean something deeper.
I cherish the memory and the light of others,
just as I cherish the light within me that shines for all the world to see;
because I am a dreamer, because I am a guardian of hope,
because I am a lighthouse keeper.

My Poem ‘Olympic’

From light to flame;
from fire to torch;
from the child that dreams of the future
while staring up at the stars from their porch;
to the born competitor who wakes up every morning,
striving to do better than they did before,
who will be flying their flag on their chest
in the Olympic games, and with the eyes of the world
they will watch as a beacon of hope for all will soar.

The beacon will light the entire Earth when it is ignited,
and, for a short-time, everyone on Earth will,
in our own way, come together in our support for another-
who dreams of nothing greater than to see
the people of the world be united.

Expectations will leap;
heart-rates will jump;
the human machine will be witnessed, admired, and pushed to its peak;
emotions will be up and down like a roller-coaster-
and in triumph we will all feel the awesome ecstasy
that comes with every fist-pump.

We will all celebrate,
and we will all commiserate;
we will all live with heart and mind and belief,
united together like never before in something
that will reverberate, inspire, and inform,
the lives, the people, and the imagination,
and keep alight the fire of hope for everyone forever-
it is what has been carried in the hearts of many
since our ancestors first step,
it is what has driven every athlete, believer,
dreamer of a better world- whomever, whenever, wherever.

We can all do wonderful things;
what we have all achieved up until now is but the start;
how far we look to the horizon
is a measure of what the future will bring-
but what matters the most in life
is not what you get when you reach the finish-line,
it is what you achieve when you choose to take part.