The boy : 8

There is a boy as tall as a tree,
who carried his decades on branches
His shoulders were the neighbor’s fences, lost baseballs and skinned knees.
His arms held the tireswings.
The blue in his eyes, easily a place to skip stones.
A laugh in the air around him,
The warmth of mother’s dinner,
A Christmas morning smile.

Boys like this are usually fairy tales,
because it is easier to write about good people
than to raise them.

All boys grow, to become statues or men,
but he carved a spot in the bark on the tree
and that is where the little boy will always be.
Running down hallways and drumming in tabletops.
The child exists, so does he.

Dull

Dull

I used to think it was the answer to anything….
To dull the pain and loneliness!
To make all your worries,
And cares fade away.
But, over time they slowly slip back,
In through the cracks,
The cracks of a broken heart!
Or even a broken bone!

Today’s Person – A Golden Shovel Format Poem

Watch, now, how I start the day

In happiness, in kindness. – Mary Oliver

 

Today’s Person

 

Each day I wonder who will cross my path, for them I watch.

I can choose to be a spark in the life of another, I can choose that now.

I can learn something new, I’ll show you how.

The statement cannot begin with I.

You, has to be the start.

The

person

that day,

they let me in.

Happiness,

It filled my soul,

the inner joy of kindness.

 

– Mary-Jeanne Smith

Golden Shovel

Here’s my attempt at a golden shovel:

The original line inspiring it is “After Aging Well” by Robert Lee Brewer

When you’re getting old

You are free to respond

Be like a frog

That sits and jumps

No thought given

You feel young, then kerplunk!

 

(Hour Eiight – Maritza M. Mejia)

Hour Eight

The problem is, of course, that the
road is long for the pilgrim
and he wished he had took
off sooner or looked closer at this
dream before he went and bet it all

Set out, you have to
if you want to be
Elsewhere, otherwise you will be an
insomniac shut-in, an open
question, questioning the invitation

If you want to
Be set
free, You have to get yourself out

Setting Out, Scott Cairns

What-Might-Have-Been

"Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been"
-Stephen Schwartz

Ev'ry time I think I'm done with love
So very tired and done with love
Here you come, with an often, soften look in your eyes
My heart tells my brain here we go again!

It won't be long, I know it's coming
The moment you decide to break my heart
And steal another day

I go back to where I was
To reset for the next time you soften, often your eyes
And take my hand to another land
Of dreams and drama
Oh what-might-have-been, I see so often and I'm sad to see it's shore again.

Hunting no Fun

Going on the hunt

setting their traps,

it makes them feel tough.

 

Shameful cowards

hurting God’s creatures,

They hunt them in fun

trapping small ones.

 

What have they won?

what can they gain?

why can’t they see

just how much this pains?

 

The human race

saddens me great,

hunting them down

how much is hate?

 

Kiss on My Brow

His darkness I must bear and Take.

His broken promise consecrated by This:

All it took was just his Kiss.

My heart and soul, he cast his spell Upon

A prisoner of manipulation and deceit; The

Only love breathes with that deadly kiss on my Brow

 

A Dream Within a Dream, EA Poe

Golden Shovel

I worry that I’m not better til

something reminds me that I am human:

fragmented clips of barking dog voices.

On the couch I wake.

Afternoon has come to us,

thoroughly bright and

warm with sun. Together we

are strange and in breezes drown.