My Poem ‘In view of the Trocadero’

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You can’t beat a great seat
near a window with a great view –
whether it be a panoramic-view in Italy
that features the epic and awe-inspiring sight
of a volcano called “Mount Vesuvius”,
or the watery-splendor of the majestic fountains
of the Palais de Chaillot in France,
or standing on the rocky-top of Tennessee…
there are some sights and some places
that irrevocably stay with you.

So much art has been created…
so many poems have been written…
so many stories have been generated…
so many songs have been christened
with the identity and the inspiration
that they will always be known for…
so many things cannot be captured
with a photograph, or with words –
because no matter what is seen or said
about a place in particular
there is always so much more…
memories from childhood of a place
that we visited mean so much
because they were the first time
that we went there,
and nobody ever forgets
their first time going somewhere…
legends are built upon
the retelling of tales
and the experiences of people
who wanted the history of the world
to never forget what it is
and what it was about a place
that gave people a reason to say
why it is that they care
and what is the most important thing
about a place that they want to share.

When you are looking out the window of an airplane
you feel like you are within
touching-distance of heaven…
when you are sitting on a bench in Golden Gate Park
and marveling at the oasis
of spell-binding beauty that you see
at the very heart of the city of San Francisco…
when you are standing on a seaside boardwalk
and you become intoxicated
by all that stimulates your senses
as you become hypnotized by the sight
of the bright sunlight
shimmering on the ocean waves below…
when you are somewhere that instantly
becomes somewhere that means the world to you,
you will take that place with wherever you go…
just like the view that I have now of The Trocadero –
a small reminder of a place with the same name,
that lives on even though it is far from home.

My Poem ‘The Wilder Tower’

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I will never forget the first time I saw
and the first that I climbed the steps
of the “Wilder Tower” – the lightning tower…
I will never forget the silence that I heard
and the feeling of peace that I felt
when I stood atop the stone-built tower
that stands as a monument in a former battlefield
in Chickamauga, Georgia…
I will never forget and I could never truly describe
what I was thinking and what it meant to me
to be where I was and with whom I was with…
I will never forget what came over me,
nor how fast my heart was beating,
as we were standing and looking below and beyond
to the green-grass and to the trees
that stretch to the horizon in almost every direction…
I felt as if I had always been meant to be there,
and as if the tower itself had been calling to me
and beckoning to me all my life.

The Wilder Tower stands tall and steady,
and over the years since its construction first began
it has literally weathered everything:
from a delay in its building,
to being hit during a thunder-storm
by a bolt of blue-lightning…
the Wilder Tower is magnetic
and it is a place that draws people to it…
the Wilder Tower is somewhere anybody can go
to climb, to stop, to think,
and to call out for an answer
from whomever may be listening…
the Wilder Tower is a powerful place
to find inspiration if you are romantic
or artistically-inclined,
especially if you a young-lover,
an artist, and a poet.

To some people, a building is just a building …
to some people, a tower is just a tower…
to some people, a memorial to a battle
is just a reminder of a violent past –
however, to me, certain places have great meaning
and they have the draw and the gravity
that they do for reasons
that are sometimes spiritual in nature…
our planet – the world that gives us
all that we could ever possibly want or need –
has many places on it that will forever have a memory
imbued and associated with it
that will always make them places
that are meaningful and special…
I have stood atop skyscrapers –
from the towering Empire State Building
to the beautiful Rockefeller Center in New York City –
and though those buildings and the skylines
that I saw will stay with me forever
in my memories that I will always remember,
nothing and nowhere could compare
to the first time that I stood looking at,
climbing the stairs of,
and then standing atop of
and high-above the ground,
with my heart in my hands,
while smiling and in-awe
of the 85-foot tall
Wilder Tower.

My Poem ‘The Corsage’

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It’s a beautiful thing…
it’s a beautiful time…
it’s a beautiful symbol
of eternal friendship
and of companionship…
it’s a beautiful gift…
it’s a beautiful memory
and a beautiful sign
of how much someone means to you…
I truly love the act
and the meaning of giving
the gift of a flower to somebody –
and it is at this time of the year,
in some places, when love blossoms
and shows itself between two people
and forever forges an unbreakable link.

Soon, teenagers from all over America
will be getting dressed-up
and going out with their dates…
soon, an afternoon of anticipation
will turn into an evening
of dreams coming true…
soon, the stars of night will come out
and young couples will dance and party
till the hour turns late…
soon, young men and young women
will return home after a night of magic
and reveling below the shine of the moon.

Everybody blossoms from a single seed of life
and of infinite potential and possibilities…
every child becomes the adult
that they will one day be slowly,
as they grow and as they are influenced
by everything that they feel, hear, touch, and see…
to their parents, children grow up before their eyes
and in their eyes too quickly –
every day as we all get older
we are reminded that the time
that we have on Earth is short,
however there lies its true-beauty…
we can do much, we can go far –
but the meaning of life is to love
and there is no better way to love
than to give the gift of a flower,
especially when it is prom-night
and somebody gives their prom-date
the most beautiful of all corsage.

My Poem ‘Tennessee Honey’

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Her hair is blonde…
Her eyes are blue…
She and I have an unbreakable-bond…
She drives a Chevy Malibu.

The woman I love has the key to my heart –
she makes me happy, she makes smile,
she’s amazing, she’s incredible,
and she’s the muse of my art.

We met online… we met on Twitter…
I have loved her since the moment I saw her.

The woman I love is perfect as can be –
she’s my Georgia chikadee,
she’s my Tennessee honey.

I have never loved anyone like I love you, Melissa!

My Poem ‘Experimentation’

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Everything begins with experimentation…
most of the things that we love the most
once began as something unknown…
most things we seemingly
stumble upon at random…
most of the things that we take with us wherever we go
are the things that remind us of the wonders
that we remember of our childhood home…
we grow up with certain things…
we grow up with people who we know, and who know us…
we lose things… we have to look in more than one direction
in order to find our focus.

When we start looking beyond our comfort-zone,
when we start following a voice
that calls to us like an S.O.S,
when we start caring about a people
and a world that is not our own,
when we start finding others who bring out our best…
a chain-reaction of events without-end forms…
a new thing is born…
a new way of exploring
the infinite possibilities of the universe is launched…
a new sword to defend you from the dark of the world is forged.

Everything is a continuation…
everybody is a DJ – and every day we all remix what we see,
what we hear, what we feel, in our mind and in our imagination…
when we look around, when we want to journey to somewhere
with a definitive-destination, and we stop to think
about why any of us are here and what should be
our new source of motivation…
when we want a bit of the old and a bit of the new,
when we want both the contemporary and the retro,
then it doesn’t hurt to spin the wheel of inspiration
and dabble in a bit of artistic experimentation.

My Poem ‘Thirty-six’

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So much has changed,
so much is different…
I still have the same name,
I still live in the same place,
and for the most part
I still have the same face –
but I am not the boy who I once was…
and, as I always do at this time of the year,
I am wondering to myself,
as I stare at my own reflection:
what about me has changed the most?

These days, I have brown hair –
where as when I was a child I was a natural-blond…
these days, I take journeys to many places on my own –
where as when I was a boy growing up in my village
the furthest away from home that I went
was down to the end of the road
and to the nearest duck-pond…
these days, I spend hours dreaming up new stories
and making up adventures for complex characters –
where as when I was a boy, I… I…
to be honest, I pretty-much did exactly the same thing –
but these days when I write something
usually I am writing from the experience
of having been through and having seen so much.

I have always asked questions…
I have always looked for the meaning of things…
I have always lived my life without feeling
burdened by other people’s expectations…
I have always looked up to the sky –
at the stars at night,
or to the blue-sky of a Summer’s day –
and I have always been awestruck by what I saw,
because every time I look up I am inspired,
and what follows is always breathtaking.

All life is about change,
about transformation, and about transition…
everyone’s life begins in the same way,
and from the day that we are born
we are all on our way
to the same destination…
all my life, my parents have been there for me
and they have given me more than a son
could ever ask for –
every day, my Mum and Dad are with me
and it is because of them that I am so blessed…
when I was a boy, I said a prayer and I made a wish:
I prayed to God that I would find my purpose,
and that while searching for the meaning of my life
I would find love and happiness…
now, I am an adult –
and, as I look around myself and at my life,
I can say with all my heart
that all my wishes and prayers have come true…
I can honestly say that my life has been one
that I would never have wanted to miss –
even knowing all that I have seen and been through,
I feel loved, and truly blessed to be who I am
and to have done all that I have done…
and I am still only 36.

My Poem ‘Cornucopia’

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Different voices appeal to different people…
different values can be found
within the heart of members of the same family…
different songs and different styles of music
strike different tones depending on
who is listening to them…
different minds and different lives
contain different thoughts, feelings,
and drives, that need the right elixir
to elicit a reaction to break the shell
of their outside facade to set them free.

We are all different – nobody is a robot…
we are all looking for what makes sense –
but sometimes life is a melting-pot
from which we have to put the time
and the effort into molding the molten-soup
that we find into exactly what we want.

Humanity is a choir
of many different accents,
that at times sing harmoniously
as-one with the same message…
our entire planet and every form of life
is an opera with an infinite number
of parts and characters…
some people can be kind,
some people can be savage –
and yet everyone is a vital instrument
in life’s interstellar-orchestra,
even though some people may not think
that what they say actually matters.

I have always championed diversity,
differences, and variety…
I have always thought that it was both
healthy and necessary to make-believe,
to find something that you love doing,
and to never feel too self-conscious
about doing what makes you happy…
some people listen to music,
some people make music,
some people express their gifts
through art that can be easily shared –
me, I write poetry…
but one thing is for sure:
everybody is meant to be different,
and the world is meant to be
a diverse cornucopia.

My poem ‘World War-free’

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Why can’t we be a world war-free?
Why can’t we all just all understand one-another,
live in peace, and be a united beacon of hope
and camaraderie for the rest of the galaxy?
Why can’t all the leaders of every country on Earth
see that constant conflict should not be
what puts the “human” in “humanity”?
Why can’t we all, please, for once in our long history,
just collectively put aside our differences
and want the reality of our children’s future
to be a world that is war-free?

The heart and the soul of humanity
is an endless well within which you can find
the truth to every mystery and the answer
to every question that anybody has ever searched for…
we are one race, of two sexes,
made up of a multitude of colours
and shades of personality and culture…
within the very DNA code of our biology
you can find the family-line
and the infinite branches of the family-tree
of which we are connected to
and have been since our Earth’s first dawn…
we can only fulfill our God-given destiny
and our birthright if we all first choose
to not look back on the problems of the past
and learn to stop reinforcing
the grudges of our ancestors,
and focus on building a bright and beautiful future.

I want now to be when I see a new hope for us all rise,
instead of the sight of missiles and rockets
flying through the air
and ultimately causing destruction and carnage in their wake…
I want now to be when somebody up there from heaven,
or outer-space, comes down to Earth and makes us all realize
what the fate of the entire world will be
if we arrive at the time when we need world-wide unity
and collaboration, but we are too late…
I want now to be when we are lead forwards, not backwards –
when we fulfill the hope of the one who had a dream,
and the one who died because he believed in that dream…
I want now to be when all problems
can be solved by words, not weapons…
I want now to be the first day of a new beginning for humanity
when we finally come to the world-wide realisation
that our only hope of survival can only become a reality
if we can learn to work together to make a world
for all to live in and enjoy that is war-free.

My Poem ‘Blind Love’

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Love is blind…
blind love can be seen,
it can be felt,
it can be experienced,
by people, by animals,
by children, by pets…
someone and something
doesn’t even have to see you
in order for them to love you,
because they can see the real you
without having to use their eyes…
love exists in many forms –
it is bigger, deeper, and more meaningful,
and it can be said and shown
in ways more powerful than language.

If you own a dog, with every lick
that your dog gives you on your face
they are saying “I love you”…
with every look that your dog gives you
they are saying “you are the best thing
in the entire world”…
with every bark that your dog speaks…
with every spin and with every jump
that your dog does, they just want to show you
how much they would do for you…
when your dog protects you
and defends you against anybody and anything
that they think may cause you harm,
they are showing you that actions
do speak louder than words.

True love is unconditional…
real love is unbelievable…
love at first sight is physical,
but it soon becomes emotional
and something much more beautiful…
a love that lasts a life-time
is one that constantly sustains
and rejuvenates itself
by the fact that it feels so natural.

I believe that humanity can learn a lot about love
from observing how we are loved and appreciated
by the animals that we surround ourselves with…
during the early days of human evolution
many ancient cultures revered and worshiped
gods that took the form of animals of every kind…
some animals, in particular, have a reputation
for being a certain way, and by observing
how they act we can decode
what drives the engine of their psyche…
love is there to be found by everyone,
but “real love” should never revolve around
how much money someone has, nor where they are from…
we give our pets names, a home to call their own,
we give them food, water,
and a special place within our family –
and in return, if we treat them
as they are supposed to be treated,
they give us what each and every human being
hopes and prays to find in their life:
real, true, unconditional, magical, blind, love.

My Poem ‘A beautiful day’

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Into the green… out to the blue…
walking over vast fields
as the Summer flowers come into a bloom…
leaving footprints in a hot sandy-beach
until you reach the cool water
of a beautiful coral-filled lagoon…
the sun above your head…
the air around you warm…
the sight and the sound of wildlife
running to and from their burrows and their nests…
the feeling of peace, serenity, and calm…
the Summer is here…
the season of energy and splendor has begun…
everything and everyone is basking in nature’s beauty –
some people are walking… some people are gliding
and flying like a bird
without any sense of fear or concern.

Maybe it is the sunshine
that makes me feel so optimistic?
Maybe it is the bright blue
of the sky that fills me with so much hope?
Maybe it is the warmth of the sun on my skin
that makes today feel like every second
is a moment of magic?
Maybe it is seeing people smiling and enjoying life
that fills my heart and my mind
with inspiration that I want to share with others
and leave people with an air
of happiness and contentment –
like a sea-breeze that slowly
propels the sails of a sail-boat?

On days like this
there are so many things you can and want to do,
and there are so many things that happen
that you see and feel and want to say…
when it is a day like today –
when the sun feels almost close enough
and safe enough to touch
without getting burned –
when you just want to make the most
of the gift of sunlight in every way…
whatever you are doing,
being outside is a gift and a blessing
for those who are lucky enough
to be able to enjoy all that comes
with the paradise of a sunny
and beautiful Summer’s day.