My Poem ‘Thirteen o’clock’

The clock has struck one too many times,
it is now thirteen o’clock,
there is a splinter in my mind,
time itself has stopped,
the past is a fantasy,
the future is an open and wide new country,
reality is broken,
the mirror of reflection has shattered,
I feel like I have awoken
and I am having to call into question
what truly matters.

There is an old riddle
about what you should do
if a clock strikes thirteen,
and the answer to that riddle
is to “get a new clock”;
there are many times in a person’s life
when they have to stand and stop,
look back, look forward,
not knowing where to go and where to turn,
as if in a state of shock;
revelations of ourselves
that occur to us should not be feared,
but they must be questioned;
mistakes are not always a bad thing –
sometimes they can be vital lessons.

There is a legend that says
that if a man hears a clock strike
thirteen times he can save his own life
or someone else’s;
I believe that the thirteenth strike
is when the true picture
of how the world truly is can be seen
by an instant amalgamation
of the fragmented pieces.

Today, right now, for me,
it is thirteen o’clock;
as I remember the road that I have walked and my path,
a shadow shrouds the events of my past as I look back;
it occurs to me that I have been here before,
and that perhaps the thirteenth strike
is the life I have been living within
every second for years;
time and life are like a time-piece,
and they can only function correctly
when going in the right direction –
and for every ‘tick’ there must follow a ‘tock’;
the spin and the orbit of the Earth around the sun
is constant, and I realize that I too
must keep my momentum going and I must
never contently stop.
There is only one way
to know true happiness:
to break free, however you can,
from the everlasting time
of thirteen o’clock.

My Poem ‘Foreverland

The stories we tell children
are incredibly important;
the traditions that we keep
are how the world works;
the tales that we children
are what they need and what they want;
the observance, the ritual,
the continuation, the spoken word,
the twilight bedtime storytelling,
to a child is like imaginary, magical,
meaningful, and real fireworks.

Retelling stories, reenacting and bringing to life
parables, fables, lessons, and legends,
in a play, or in a piece of expressive art,
teaches children early on the power
and the wonder of language and imagination;
even as an adult you will always remember the times
as a child at school when you were taking part
in an ensemble celebration
of one of the greatest gifts of any civilization:
the art of communication.

It is important that children
know about and believe in magic,
and are allowed to dream and imagine anything,
and taught that when it comes to their own potential,
and their future, nothing is impossible;
a child’s life, well-being, and happiness
stems from a constant feeling of comfort
that they must be gifted with from the day they are born;
other worlds, other ways of looking at something,
different ideas, different variations of a theme,
soothing and beautiful music
that sounds as if it is from an album of voices
and melodies from another planet,
can give children a skeleton key to anywhere in time and space,
and give children a truth and a feeling that is so special,
that is so eternal, it is fantastic.

Dreams and wishes do comes true,
but sometimes not when you expect them to;
you can do and see just as many breathtaking and beautiful,
hopeful and gorgeous, spectacles when you are awake
as well as when you are sailing away
on the winds and waves of your dreamland.
If you believe and never forget
that every person is a story in themselves
that is ever-changing, old, but also brand new,
as an adult, as a child,
you can continue to live he dream of true miracles
that comes naturally if you continue to believe
that everything – the past, the present, the future –
is a foreverland.