Nothing stays pristine forever... no one stays the same way for all the days of their life... over time things wear out like old leather... no one stays untarnished - over time the power of the sun damages the outer skin of something or someone after a prolonged period of exposure. Everything is impacted by outside influences... everybody is marked by their time on Earth... everything has a journey from its creation to its destruction made up of events that came as a result of their encounter with outside forces... everybody has their own individual path through life and at several points everybody experiences moments of significance on par with a moment of rebirth. Life isn't a race... life isn't meant to be rushed... life isn't only about the world around us - because so much of what connects us lies above us in outer space... for some people life is like a rock that needs to be constantly admired and occasionally polished; but, to me, what makes life so special is that every day, upon every thing and everyone, another layer of character is added to what makes something and someone what they are - and some things and some people are meant to be, and they are meant to remain unrestored, tarnished, and imprinted with life's indellible marks.
time
My Poem “Forty”
Where did all the time go?
The last thing I knew I was
celebrating my thirtieth birthday,
and today I am celebrating
turning the big four-oh?
What a forty years it has been!
What a life I have lived!
When I look back I sometimes
cannot believe where I have been,
what I have done, nor who I have met
over the course of my life –
and because time goes by so fast
there are inevitably dreams that I have had
that feel like memories and there are memories
that I have made that sometimes feel like dreams.
It’s been forty years since I arrived
into this world that every day
never ceases to both surprise and inspire me…
it’s been forty years since I was
welcomed into this world with open arms
by my parents and by my family…
it’s been forty years since I first
saw another human being,
since I first smiled, since I first heard
the background music of nature
that never stops playing…
it’s been forty years since the light
of the sun bestowed upon me
the sight of miracles that will always be with me
and will continue to keep my heart beating.
I remember exactly where I was,
what I was doing, and what I was thinking
ten years ago, when I turned thirty –
and when I think back to those simpler times
I cannot believe what the last ten years
especially have given to me:
the gift of inspiration, the gift of poetry,
the gift of perpetual love,
the gift of looking above to the stars
of the night and to the bright blue
of the daytime sky, and the realisation
that life is an adventure that needs
to be lived to be fully understood.
I know who I am, I know what I am,
and I know who and what in this world
mean the most to me –
so, today, as I turn forty,
if I had to choose one word
to describe myself or my life,
I would undoubtedly have to say: Lucky –
because over the last forty years
I have been given a life filled with
moments that are the stuff of pure poetry.
My Poem “Overlap”
Every day overlaps with the last…
every day everybody’s thoughts
overlap with their memories of the past…
every day people realize that there
are things that are harder to distance
themselves from because of the tangle
of lose threads that continue to dangle
from the fray of where we have been…
every day the stories of people
far and wide become connected
to one another as if by fate
in ways that can sometimes feel like a dream…
every day in this world people from
the past, the present, and the future
meet and metaphysically shake hands,
because some things, like music,
cross time and space and find
mutual friends who they feel understand them…
every day everybody wades deep
into the ocean of life and consciousness –
especially while they are asleep,
and everybody can find themselves
stuck in a whirlpool from which
it can be hard to break free…
every day as we get older
every day feels like it is here, there,
and then gone again in a flash…
every day is new and unique –
however, more often than not,
the events of yesterday, today,
and tomorrow will always
find a way to invariably overlap.
My Poem “The Tough Stuff”
When people are surrounded
by artificial light, by heat, and by order
it can be hard to imagine what it was like
for the first generation of human explorers,
who originally began as one diverse group,
who then went their separate ways
to discover and to understand more
about what and who makes the world
the way that it is, as well as populate
the vastly different regions that
our planet is known for the have to be
adapted to living in in many different ways.
The first people didn’t have clothes…
the first people didn’t have maps…
the first people didn’t even have
wooden built houses to call homes…
the first people didn’t even have maths –
but what the first people had,
and what sustained them,
were dreams, inspiration, ideas,
and from the moment that they harnessed
to ability to willingly create fire
they gave themselves the gift to be able
to see and to travel during the night,
to cook their own meals, and to be entranced
by the dancing flames of glowing light.
The first men and women who
embarked upon their journey of fate
to go to places they knew not where
saw things that they could only
conceptualise by capturing their depictions
of them in cave paintings and in legends
that have endured for thousands of years.
The first of us were the first to feel the spark of love…
they were the first of us to feel the passion of life…
they were the first of us to look up at the sky
and wonder about our place in the cosmos,
surrounded by an infinite number of stars,
and question why any of us are here…
they were the first of us to be brave enough
to bring people together to create
entire civilizations who thrived for a time
and who had to go through
more than anybody alive today could ever imagine.
We who are alive today are
who we are, with what we have,
because our ancestors were more
than even they knew that they were at the time –
but one thing that our ancestors knew well
was that in life what everybody
and what everything sometimes needs
more than anything is each other,
and also the knowledge that by
working together anybody can
get through anything, even the tough stuff.
My Poem “Momentary Meditation”
All the sounds around us
can sometimes echo
and be distorted by the voices
and by the noises of every life –
so much so that it can be hard
to keep your thoughts focused on
what and who keeps running back
and forth through your mind.
The cacophonous chaos of the world
can at times make it hard to find the
peace and the calmness that everybody
occasionally needs to keep them alive…
everybody – no matter who they are –
could definitely benefit from taking
some time to close their eyes,
to switch off from the distractions
of memories, instincts, emotions,
hopes, wants, and desires,
so that they may attain some sense
of enlightenment as to who and what
is their source of inner light.
The shining moon and the stars of night,
as well as the bright blue sky of day,
have long been canvas for oracles
who have successfully guided people
and have provided visions of what is necessary,
what is natural, what feels familiar,
and what makes sense when thinking
about the who, what, where, when and why.
Time is precious and finding the time
to do things can feel like a luxury,
but if we do not all take advantage
of moments when we are not doing
anything in particular, apart from
perhaps waiting for the other shoe to drop,
to just stop, to breathe, to look into the distance
at the same time that we are looking within,
so that we can listen to the constant
broadcast of our own biological radio station
when it’s frequency mixes with that
of everything and everyone who
is also deeply resonating as well as receiving
profoundly meaningful revelations
via a deliberate or an accidental
practice of momentary meditation
wherever and whenever that they find themselves.
My Poem “There is always hope”
When you are a child
there is no more magical
and joyful moment of your life
than around Christmas time
when you get to write a letter
to a man in a red, with a white beard,
who on Christmas day will deliver
all that you have been asking for
for perhaps all of the previous months of the year –
and under normal circumstances
there is no one more popular
than the ever jovial Father Christmas/
Santa Claus/Saint Nicholas himself
who children dream about, write to,
and draw pictures of, as well as his
ever present reindeer and his trusted elves.
Christmas is for everybody…
Christmas is full of positive, possibilities,
and you truly start to get into the Christmas spirit
as soon as you start to hang the decorations
upon your newly bought or perhaps your
perennially rediscovered Christmas tree…
Christmas is a season for hope,
optimism, friendship and family…
Christmas is when people need
other people more than anything –
and the greatest gift that you can
give anybody is your time,
because not only is time precious
but it is also free.
Christmas time can sometimes be hard –
even when their isn’t a dark cloud
hovering over every one in every country –
and so many people do not have
the opportunity to be with somebody
on December the 25th,
which is why everybody young and old
need to remind themselves why it is
important to be there for those
who we are blessed to know
as well as for those who may now know
and who may live on their own…
Christmas time should be hopeful
and without fears and tears…
Christmas time should be about
showing love, as well as about being
happy and merry while listening
to Christmas songs that have endured for years…
Christmas time is a wonderful time
that is capable of making anybody
of any age feel as if they are a child…
Christmas time is a whirlwind
of emotions at the best of times,
however when people are at their most
in need of something and someone
to believe in they can look no further
than to whomever matters the most to them
to give them the gift of a Christmas star
to enlighten and to signal that
even on the darkest of nights
there is always hope.
Merry Christmas! 🙂🥳🎄🎊🎋
My Poem “The Ten Bells”
There is a repeating and a constantly resounding phenomenon... there is a moment of time that recurs every few years... there is a place where poet and inspiration can be found, where things only feel right and never wrong... there is a moment like right now when bells ring out, when angels sing - when not even the devil could illicit any kind of fear - when and where the beauty of the poetry of life reveals once again that there is a reason for everything... there is a season that returns - like the waves of an ocean that goes out and then comes back in... there is a state of mind, body, and spirit that never dies, which resides within each of us like a deep and unending well... there is something that happens which never changes, that always rises back to the surface to greet me, over and over, like a poetic rhyme, that has the power to compel me - and it is at those moments when I know without being told that the bells of time are ringing ten.
My Poem “Be Excellent To One Another”
I am fortunate to have been on
more than one amazing, unforgettable
and excellent adventure in my time,
that were all so incredible to me,
and there have been moments
when I have felt as if I were traveling
both forwards and backwards through time –
because who and what I encountered
upon my travels made me look at the world,
at the universe, at reality,
and at space in such a profound,
fundamental, and in such a transformative way
that I never wanted to stop traveling,
because I felt that with every conversation
I was learning something about life
that something or someone
wanted to share with me
within the message of what
“Mother Nature” and “Father Time”
wanted to convey.
I have always wanted to be a time traveler…
I have always wanted to step outside
of the here and the now and see
and interact with people from the past,
as well as learn what the landscape
of the future will one day look like…
I have always wanted to have the power
to speak to ancestors
who lived before I born,
as well as look into the eyes
of descendants who have not yet
been delivered into the world
and enquire about whether I am remembered…
I have always wanted to travel
to a time beyond the wildest dreams
that anybody has ever imagined.
Fantasy is often a collection of ideas
inspired by something every day and familiar
that has been taken one step further
or many steps back so that
it can comment on the events
of present without its message being
considered to be overly heavy-handed…
you can sometimes learn a lot
from fantasy about what is missing in reality…
truths that are irrefutable are what
people cling to and they are what
ground someone like an anchor…
if I have learned anything about life
about the past or the potential future
from books, from TV shòws, and from movies,
it is that if you want to live in a world
that is not full of fakery
and you do not want to commit too much
of your time to those things
and to those people who are bogus,
the best thing to do is to instead
treat everybody with the same respect –
and perhaps one day everyone
all around the world will party
and be excellent to one another.
