A star in the sky…
a light to guide you…
a religion to live by…
a god and a role-model to look up to…
when you need an answer,
when you need inspiration,
when you need a flare of hope
to wipe away your fears,
when you need a destination…
distant lights…
far-away, heavenly…
people and places who call on others
to come to them and follow in their footsteps…
someone, something,
that you can’t find anywhere else on Earth…
someone, somewhere,
with whom you might find your life’s purpose…
someone, something,
who transcends an idea
that you might have previously had of a hero…
someone, somewhere,
to whom you have always been meant to know…
some people know the following that they have
and the interest that there is in them…
some people who are influential
in another person’s life
carry on doing what they do
oblivious of who they are…
some people talk to millions of people
every time they tap at a keyboard key
or write a word with a pen…
some people have a muted-voice,
but what they have to say
can journey straight into a person’s heart…
some people who are well-known the world-over,
and have been doing and working away
at their craft for a while
have learned, sometimes the hard way,
both the pitfalls and the beautiful things
that can come with a measure of success…
some people who are famous for doing
the thing that they love
sometimes do not get to see
the true joy that their art flowers into
within the soul of others…
some people cannot handle the attention
that is sometimes focused on them,
and they live a life of excess –
and they sometimes feel a loneliness
that they cannot express…
some people, no matter how important
and successful they are,
sometimes have to pay a price
for being so noticeable –
but, for the vast-majority of people
with a voice that their fans listen to,
there are great things that come
from having a so-called “Star power”.
light
My Poem ‘Finding Serenity’
I once followed the light of a Firefly,
and when I watched it
until its last second of life
something happened, something amazing…
the light of the Firefly went out,
but then the Firefly was reborn into Serenity –
and now it will live forever in my heart,
and in the hearts of many…
all those who were caught in the Firefly’s wake…
as it flew, as it soared,
as it became something close to people’s heart.
Firefly meant something special,
and it always will…
Firefly was like nothing else
that anybody had ever seen –
because it was unique,
because it was not afraid to be itself,
because it gave us all a vision of something magical:
a world that was shiny and beautiful
filled with different people, from all walks of life,
all working together, who all believe
in the power of the impossible,
and that believing in one-another
is what makes them mighty.
The Firefly continues to fly,
and now it is a star in the night-sky…
Serenity is always there to be found
right where you left it –
like a book on a shelf;
it is so sad to see someone’s spirit
leave this world –
I know that life is precious
and that we are only here for a short time,
but it is the thought that you
will never see the like of certain people again
that hurts the most;
everybody looks for something,
for someone, for some reason,
and what we all seek is out there
waiting for us to find it…
sometimes it can be something
as subtle as a song, an experience, a feeling,
or a verse of poetry…
if you keep going, if you keep looking,
and if you don’t stop believing
that you are going to find
what you are looking for –
then, maybe, you can be like me,
and you can be lucky enough
to have found Serenity.
In memory of Ron Glass
My Poem ‘Winter’s Solace’
Life can sometimes be hard;
sometimes people can live a life of silent pain;
life can sometimes feel like an endless night,
during which the time until the arrival of new light
can seem too long;
sometimes all you need to have in your life,
to get you through a tough time in your life,
is your one and only best-friend –
especially when you feel low…
especially when you feel like you have nowhere to go…
especially when you are up all night
and you sleep through the day…
especially when you need the strength to be brave.
There is always hope, even in darkness;
you can always find solace,
even at the centre of a world of madness;
keep a hold of your faith,
even when you do not at first
recognize the voice of God;
keep love in your heart, always –
and with it you will live and breathe with a purpose,
and every time when you fall to sleep
you will rest like a log.
As the world turns, seasons change…
as the days run away with themselves
it is so easy to feel as if you are losing your place…
as the clouds gather, it can be hard to see
the light of the sun…
as the hours feel like they are merging into one,
everybody needs to stop time,
everybody needs to gather around a source of light –
because everybody needs some peace,
like that which you find in a sun-drenched
autumn-colored forest…
everybody needs some winter solace.
My Poem ‘Torchbearer’
I don’t know where it came from…
I don’t know where it began…
I don’t know if it was passed on
to me by my Mum or my Dad –
but I know that I am
the beholder of a fire,
a spark, a light, an energy,
that brought about the creation
of the universe and life-itself…
I feel it constantly burning in my chest…
I see it every night when it illuminates my dreams…
I hear it every morning when I wake up in bed…
I know what it is and I know what it means.
I have known of this internal fire for a while…
I have been driven by this incredible torch
since I saw its rise…
I have tried to describe it
and write poetry about it before,
and every time I do just knowing
that it still burns bright and wild within me
always makes me smile.
I am sure that more than one person
in my life has seen my light
sparkling in the blue and the sometimes green
irises of my eyes –
I see it too when I look in a mirror,
and I know that no matter what happens to me
and where I may end my days
that the light of me
will touch and inspire another
and another and another,
and when humanity finally makes itself
another home on another planet
orbiting another star
that same flame will help fulfill
the destiny of a countless number of people
in an infinite number of ways.
It is a comfort to me
to believe and to know
that I will never truly die…
it is hard to put into words
something that I know instinctively is a part of me,
but also a part of a continuum
that transcends both space and time…
it is why I was born…
it is why I am here…
it is why when I look up at the sky
I believe that I can fly…
and I am not the only one
here on Earth blessed with a gift
to be a beacon of the universe’s divine light –
we are everywhere…
and I never take the fire of my birthright for granted,
and I am honored to be one
of a universe full of torchbearers.
My Poem ‘Cherish the Light’
Light is a gift…
light is a beacon…
light is the life that we live…
light is a signal…
light is what paints the colours
and the hues of nature’s seasons…
light is what everything rises towards…
light is what highlights the beautiful…
light is the source
of what is constantly driving
every one of us forwards.
A life without light
is a very dark place indeed;
a night-sky without stars shining in it
is like a life without love – incomplete;
a life spent without artificial illumination
is one that truly understands the importance
of the sun and the moon to all our lives;
a child born in the glow of fire-light
who does not think to take it for granted
knows that light is the most important miracle
known to the entire universe,
and that the greatest repeating spectacle
that anyone can witness in life
with their eyes is the epic, silent,
beautiful, breath-taking,
ascension of the sun
at the moment of a sunrise.
It is almost heart-breaking to watch the sunset
and to see the world around you fall dark;
it is amazing to look up at the sky at night
and see an almost-infinite number of stars
beckoning and telling their silent stories
of space and time, distance and journey, life and death;
it is sad to think that because light and life is so precious
that it can so easily be taken away
as quick as extinguishing the life of a spark;
it is every living-thing on Earth’s right
to have a light to live by and gather-around –
light can be found on the outside,
however within our own mind and heart
there lies a light that is more important
to keep alive and burning bright until your last breath.
Cherish the world…
cherish people…
cherish the magical…
cherish love…
cherish the sun…
cherish life…
cherish imagination…
cherish the light.
My Poem ’50 year-old Revolver’
I’m sitting here in my kitchen,
at the kitchen table,
with The Beatles’ “Revolver”
playing on my record-player
and a Smith&Wesson
lying next to my still cold bottle of beer…
the house is quiet…
I am sitting almost in complete darkness,
but for the light of the fluorescent-light above my head…
I am thinking about my life –
what happened to screw-up my world so bad…
I am planning by the end of the night
to end it all – and by that I mean
I plan to be dead…
I just can’t take the pain of the heart-break any longer –
I don’t have any-more fight left in me…
this isn’t the first night that I have sat like this
in the dark with a gun in front of me,
but tonight I know is the night
when the stetson of death
that I have been trying on now for a while just feels right.
I am a washed-cowboy…
I am a man planning to ride off
into the sunset and never come back…
I have seen sights and I have been through a lot
since I was a boy –
living without a daddy since I was five,
dropping our of school, making a living
doing what other people wanted me to do,
drinking myself under more tables than I can remember
in bars in each-and-every-one of the fifty states,
surviving a heart-attack…
loving, hurting, pretty-much earning a living
doing things that even I can’t find the words
capable of describing what has slowly but surely
earned me a one-way ticket to hell…
if my life has been a dream this entire time
it has been a nightmare from beginning to end…
my fate was already signed, sealed,
and delivered a long time ago –
there was never any question of how,
just the ultimate question of when?
I always loved The Beatles,
and I have done since I saw them
on Ed Sullivan in ’65 –
I used to wake up every morning for a year
with the words to “Good Day Sunshine”
echoing in my ears…
any-time that I was feeling low,
I would recite the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” in my head
and instantly I would smile and feel more alive…
I haven’t listened to a vinyl-copy
of a Beatles record since 1985 –
but over the years I have heard and listened
to The Beatles’ music wherever,
and in whichever town I came to rest,
and every time I did I would throwback
a glass of J.D. and relive the brief happy times
that I remember from my life.
Death is like the Taxman
that you spend your entire life
trying to hide and run from;
I have been seeing the signs leading me
to where I now sit all my life –
Here, There, and Everywhere –
and when the moment of me sitting here
with my Pa’s Revolver that he left for me,
and The Beatles album that I remember the most of all
playing and it’s songs echoing all around me,
now feels like the moment when I am
going to do no more For No One else but me –
and I Want To Tell You that at this moment
I know that nothing and no one
this time is going to stop me.
And then, I wake up…
And as I lift up my head,
and as I open my eyes again,
I look out my window and I see the sun rise…
and I feel a hand upon my shoulder,
and I hear a voice telling me that
Tomorrow Never Knows who any of us will be,
but God did not ever do anything for no reason
and that if I just hold on a little longer
I would one day be saved and find true peace.
I had always been a believer –
I even remember sitting across a table
and sharing a beer with the Devil-himself
in Vegas in September of 2001…
I have seen and I have heard people pray for their lives –
but God never once spoke to me directly:
but maybe he is now?
I have spent my entire life
running the roads and seeing every wonder
of color to be found in the United States of America –
but it wasn’t until the moment when I was woken up
and saved by the light that greeted me this morning,
after the life that I had been living ended,
and I decided to take my life into my own hands
and walk away from all that I had ever known –
leaving behind what I knew
had been holding me back like an anchor:
my old house, my record-player, my life,
and my daddy’s fully-loaded
50 year-old revolver.
My short-story “Up In Smoke”
Check out my short-story “Up In Smoke”: http://wp.me/P58vDG-BC
‘Up In Smoke’
My Poem ‘The Chosen One’
You are The Chosen One…
you are here for a reason…
you are capable of more
than you could ever imagine…
you are where you are…
you are doing what you are doing…
you are shining like a distant
star in the dark…
you are silent,
yet your voice is echoing…
you are instrumental…
you are elemental…
you are indomitable…
you are integral…
you are saying something…
you are expressing the intangible…
you are hearing something:
music, rain-drops, a concert,
a down-pour, a stream of consciousness,
nature, beats, a distant rumble in the clouds,
poetry, to be embraced, to be held,
to be grasped, to be assimilated –
because it all matters,
because it all makes sense,
because it all entrances…
think about it all:
who you are, who you choose to surround yourself with,
what has led you here and what has carried you this far…
for me, it is my heart that has brought me here;
this time was chosen for me
to shine my ray of light as the rain falls;
for me, moments are precious and timeless,
unregrettable and unforgettable;
my parents would have moved heaven and Earth for me
if they could while I was growing up, and even now…
choices are so important…
time should not be wasted
by wrapped yourself up with a chain of what if’s?…
an idea is magical…
realizing a mental-picture is potent…
seeing something that nobody else can see
is blessed and celestial…
if a flood looks like it is on the way,
if you think that you can’t weather it,
save what you can anywhere and any way that you can,
and try to swim through whatever comes rushing towards you,
and if all else fails build yourself a life-raft
out of anything that you can find,
and never lose the one thing that will save your life
if you let it… never lose hope…
because The Chosen One’s do not often
get a say as to when and why
they are thrust into the lime-light;
heroes become heroes because they save lives
and they give themselves freely to another
at their time of need;
the divine conductor sets the stage,
writes the melody, keeps the orchestra in-time and on-pace,
and gives gravity to everything,
and they are present every second of life –
when we die our destiny has been fulfilled,
however our impression on the sandy beach of life
still remains long after we pass-over
to what lies beyond the horizon;
anybody who touches, anybody who teaches,
anybody who takes a hold of their life
and who wants to love and share life’s
infinite riches of experience,
inspiration, and light from their perspective
does so because they must –
because they were given a choice
and asked a question, the answer to which
was in their heart their entire life –
because right from day one,
they were, as you are,
the chosen one.
My Poem ‘The Light at the end of the tunnel’
At the end of an alley of shadows,
a light in the distance like that of a star,
at the far end of a dark tunnel,
like a shard of sunlight through an open door,
the end of one journey, the beginning of another,
the place you have to reach
so that you can share
what brought you through the bad times
that you never thought would be over –
nothing can prepare you for that moment
when you catch up with your destiny,
when all the confusion of the past
falls behind and you can be the one
who you always wanted to be.
A ray of light from the heavens above,
a stream of energy from on-high,
a rainbow that forms when clouds of grey are broken –
a symbol of both hope and love –
can be like a miracle to those in need of one;
sometimes to find out what you should do next
you need to not push too hard
against what is coming towards you
and do what comes naturally
without you having to try.
Things are lost for a reason’
things are found when the time is right;
sometimes in your life you may go through
more changes in your world than Earth has seasons;
sometimes to over-come any fears
and insecurities that you may find within yourself
you have to plant new seeds
in the garden of your mind
that will one day grow into beautiful flowers
and trees of hope, and dig-up the weeds
that your garden doesn’t need –
and which are only serving
to take life, energy, and growth
away from what you need to thrive
and to keep your secret paradise alive.
Life might be a short four-letter word,
but its meaning and its route
is deeper and it is longer
than could ever be documented
or described with images or words;
a person’s life is a world…
within a world…within a world;
life is what you find when you stop
looking at the future
as if you are viewing it
through the wide-end of a funnel;
a life is what you can find
when you decide to stop walking
at the pace that other people
would have you walk –
and instead sprint like an athlete
towards the light that you see
at the end of the tunnel.
My Poem ‘Searching…’
A night-time astronomer…
a day-time blue-sky observer…
a cosmic-archaeologist
who uncovers the face of the past
by looking back in time
as they look up to the stars…
an Earth-bound poet
who looks at the world around them
and imagines a similar beautiful day,
in a far-away country,
that will always live forever in their memory –
in spite of the speed of time
that always wants to pass by too fast…
a nostalgic boy looking through
a physical family photo-album…
a book-lover in a book-store
looking for a new book title
to jump out at them…
a self-confessed bohemian young woman
who rides the Subway every day
with their head-phones on
and their music-player in their purse…
a doctor in a hospital E.R.
desperately listening for a heart-beat
and feeling for the unmistakable tremor of a pulse.
I search… we search…
everybody searches throughout their life –
some search for truth in darkness,
some search for and find joy
when they are given a gift of inspiring light,
and some use their gifts to help others,
and some use the answers they receive
to the questions they ask to create art,
to write, to give others a reason
to give them the gift of their precious time.
Everybody in life is looking for something different;
everybody in life likes different things at different times;
everybody in life has priorities and personal opinions
about what in life is the most important;
everybody in life at times journeys low,
and everybody in life at times ascends high.
A person, a place, a name, a face,
an identity, a commonality,
a heaven on Earth, an interface –
we all use our sight,
we all use our senses,
we all use different sources of light
to mend or break-down fences;
we are all surfing a wave of something…
we are all the beholders of a star in our life
that is worth protecting…
we are all in a constant state of changing…
we are all on a never-ending trek
to find that which has been waiting for us
the entire time that we have been searching.
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