13I Ways to Stop Time

I.
I was smiling at a photograph
accessing the past
when I noticed the ladybugs
that were crawling all over
the corners of my consciousness.

II.
On the wings of an eagle we soared
drifting around the sleeping world below.
We sailed past ocean beasts
and escaped the cannibals
and then, in the still of the night,

III.
I was rehearsing the character I wished to be
practicing tones and eyebrow movements
when I looked at the stairs in front of me
and realized I had just come from this place.

IV.
I did not let go of your hand.

V.
Sucked out, cold as ice, my blood stopped it's flow.
Some spirits ignore life's limits.

VI.
The stories are true, I tell you!
Scientists can create anything these days.

VII.
I waited and watched the late afternoon sun out my window.

VIII.
I have a personal relationship with God
He answers my prayers
when I need a redo.

IX.
I buried the kookoo-clock six feet under the earth.

X.
Someone once told me of a circle,
where all things
come back to point A.
So there is no reason to look back,
it will come just beyond the midnight moon.

XI.
I was dreaming.

XII.
The world washed away when I saw you, Maria.
You, in your white dress,
underneath the thousand disco sparkles.
I couldn't breathe
from that moment forward.

XIII.
Within the confines of my mind, counting
is for recording my gains and losses.

May You Rest in Peace

I nearly fell asleep at the foot of a tomb stone.
The peace amongst the dead tempted my aching heart.

In the sun, with the company of singing autumn leaves,
I listened with a smile, to the lull of their stillest song.

What magic it is to feel time halt in the presence of the dead?
How peaceful it must be to let breath fly away and be free.

And yet, autumn leaves sing different songs in the company of the road.
Their colors flush with a warmth that shines on passersby.

The brushing lullaby persists through life’s traffic,
and calls often for some to rest under the shadow of the leaves.

I drown myself in clear water

I drown myself in clear water.

Warm, clear, water
with reflections of lights and colors past
Every beam of joy I've ever seen
sings like stars beneath the surface.
Every color ever soaked into my skin.
Every sparkling pattern to have made me glow,
once.
I'm drowning in these lights
and my body cramps violently for air.

I am immersed in water that boils fiercely with memory.

In the depths
I reach out with hesitant hands for a glowing pink light
she is the light of my first love.
through warmth and tenderness she set me free
and on the edge of her glimmer,
my fingers fall through the emptiness of her false existence
and bubbles escape from my screaming lungs

I am not sinking,
only floating just bellow the surface,
I can see sun of the outer world through this watery screen,
and I want to swim upwards.
Shimmering by,
more reflections of lights and colors past.
and so

I drown myself in this clear water.

Tell Your Love

"It is the humble man who risks his dignity to speak up for what he loves. It is the courageous man who dares contradiction and acrimony of argument to defend his beliefs. If one loves anything, truth, beauty, woman, life, one will speak out. Genuine love cannot endure silence. Genuine love breaks out into speech. ANd when it is great love, it breaks out into song. Talk helps to relieve us of the tiresome burden of ourselves. It helps some of us to find out what we think. It is essential for the happiest companionship. One of the minor pleasures of affection is in the voicing of it. If you love your friend, says the song, tell him so. Talk helps one to get rid of the surplus of enthusiasm that often blurs our ideas. Talk, as the sage says, relieves the tension of grief by dividing it. Talk is one of man's great privileges, and witha little care it may be one of his blessings. The successful conversationalist is not the epigram-maker, for sustained brilliance is blinding. The successful conversationalist says unusual things in a usual way. The successful conversationalist is not ht e man who does not think stupid things, but the man who does not say the stupid things he thinks. Silence is essential to every happy conversation. But not too much silence. Too much silence may mean boredom, or bewilderment. And it may mean scorn. For silence is an able weapon of pride."
Mr. Blue by Myles Connelly (pg. 80-81)