My Poem “The Goldfish Bowl”

Rumblings of activity, bangs of sound,
streaks of lightning flash
intense white light across the sky,
as all that can be seen above are dark clouds
as the rain pours down all night –
and it goes without saying that
the forces of nature are culminating
to put on quite a show.

The air inside is warm…
the electricity flickers…
every moment is devoid of calm…
outside my home I hear
the howl of the wind as well
at the crash and the crack of explosive
impacts reaching Earth in the distance.

For many days, the sun shined,
the air was dry, the ground was parched,
the leaves of the trees and the fields
emanated a hypnotic green glow –
however now it is raining,
but if we are to accept the gift
of beauty then we must also
accept that there are times when
nature takes the wheel and tells
us all what we can do
and where we can go.

There are always things
that build up over time
and there are always things that
take our breath away because we know
that what they are made up of
are among some of the many things
that we mere mortals unfortunately cannot control…
people sometimes like to watch things
that they would never want to be
at the centre of but for some reason
they cannot draw their attention away
from
because they are following the
uncontrollable and the irresistible
instinct within them of being
like a goldfish in a fish-bowl
and just staring out at a spherical
wide world that they enjoy just watching
and just observing without knowing
why or how everything around them works.

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My Poem ‘From the top’

My time, my days,
often see me surrounded by people
on an infinite, overwhelming,
incalculable, unfathomable scale;
there are days when the thought
of how many billions of people
there are in the world
literally boggles my mind;
the obsessive observer in me
wants to see everything,
and wants to meet everyone,
and sit down with them,
so that they can tell me their tale;
the dominant writer in me
wants to discover and convey
the meaning of the entire universe
and the meaning of life
and wrap it all up in a story,
or a poem, and leave a message
to live and to love life by
for all of mankind.

I cannot help but look out and see more;
I cannot help but listen and hear
a symphonic opus;
I cannot help by feel drawn
in multiple directions,
while still keeping my feet
firmly on the ground –
like a rocket of potential
waiting to launch;
I cannot tell you how much love means to me,
and to me the meaning and the feeling of love
is the most important thing in and of my heart
that I wholly trust.

Most things occur and are where they are
according to a plan;
everyone is defined by their own unique chemistry
that, to some degree, dictate the things in life
they can’t have and the things that,
if they want to, they can have;
knowing what to do and when
is one of the key indefinable instincts
in attaining your dreams;
some things, no matter how simple
they are on the outside,
are not what they seem.

Trillions of stars,
billions of planets,
millions of galaxies,
thousands of possibilities,
hundreds of variations,
tens of directions –
but only one of each of us;
each of us bound,
each of us free,
each of us still connected
genetically to ancestors
and to distant family members
who once spent a great deal of time
thinking, adapting, understanding,
and swinging from the branches of trees.

The farther back in time we go
into the history of Earth,
and the more we read of humanities
relationship with the planet
we are blessed to live on,
we can tell and we can see
the direct effect that we as a species
have had on our environment,
on life, on ourselves,
and the most fundamental fingerprint
of humanity is the ability
to deliver change globally –
both quickly, and slowly,
quietly, and sometimes boldly –
and because change is in our nature,
we sometimes do not know when
or how to stop.

One thing that I have learned about life
is that nothing is predetermined in stone –
but a prosperous and a hopeful future for all
can happen if people work together,
and if hope can be promised, assured,
and delivered every time it is spoken,
or shown by those who in the pyramid of the world
lead from the front as well as from the top.