We Remember When

When did the tick tick tock
from the tall chiming clock
become a tick tick twitch?
It moves like an itch,
forcing tired memories to rewind, to remind,
of all the past mistakes and those long nights awake,
or the daily grind
of what is still yet to come.
Generations of tomorrows,
filled with the sorrows,
of another tragedy.
Each next day,
painfully birthing another day of duty.
Responsibility.
Another day spent missing a long forgotten yesterday.
 Memories of summer skies and wandering eyes
that once could ponder the day away.
Long passed days,
 when the colors of the seasons were counted
like rosebuds and the soft petals of a lightly yellow tipped lily.
A time when the smell of dirt smelled like life,
 like sun, and moon, and hope, and strife.
We think of those times
between coffee sips and vacation trips.
We remember when.
When love was not angry, or hopeless, or proud.
Love was watching that single puff of whirling cloud
drift lazily across an endless ocean of sky
because the caress of blue was all it ever wished for.
We never had to ask why.
It just was.
Simply because.
And that was peace.
Serenity was the leaves' gentle nod
as the wind kissed their fresh green lips.
Joy was outstretched fingertips never left wanting.
We remember when.
Even after years have passed like a night without stars.
We remember them as we drive our cars.
We remember them as we hide the scars
of some other day's madness.
We remember as we wash the work out of our clothes.
We remember the feel of fresh earth between wet toes.
The memory survives.
It carries us on,
Moving us through the seasons of our lives.
It helps the foreboding chime of time
ting with a softer song.
it reminds us to see past the grind
and keep counting colors.

No Regrets

Sometimes I wish I could turn back time,
Sometimes I wish I could have picked a different line.
A different path to follow, a different way to go.
All the sights I'll never see, all the things I'll never know.

The things I've seen, the things I've learned.
The hearts I've broken, the bridges I've burned.
I've hated the heart that grew black in my chest.
The face in the mirror was an unrecognized pest.

Now, I step back and remember all the moments of life:
Every second of joy, every recovery from strife.
Sometimes I remember what has brought me here,
Sometimes I remember the times I overcame fear.

Every success, every goal that I've met.
Life is too short to live with regret
I am who I am because of where I have been.
I am who I am because of who I was then.

Our World

Hunger and war
and all too much gore
that's what our world is made of

Friendship and family
and love found unceasingly
that's what our world is made of

love given freely
despite politics, hierarchy
that's what our world is made of

Question.

At fourteen I felt
the shots of Columbine,
at the end of a millennia,
at the start of '99.

In only a few seconds,
13 precious lives
all fell to the floor
bodies dropping like flies.

Sprayed down by the toxins
of bullets and pride.
Years of torment left them all
with nowhere to hide.

At the beginning of the last millennia,
One hundred years before,
Our ancestors thought
we would be so much more.

More than violence and hatred,
More than greed and contempt,
More than a child's empty belly,
More than their parent's struggle for rent.

Then, Women were trying to find
A voice of their own.
The freedom to speak
a right never known.

Black men were seen as
lesser, other, apart,
Yet things aren't so different
As they were at the start.

When Neil touched the moon
back in 1969,
A whole thirty years
before Columbine,

People thought we would be
somehow greater than them.
They would not have imagined
How quick we condemn.

They imagined we would
be dressed in space suits.
Flying in cars
with rockets on our boots.

We should have been
living on Pluto by now
Yet here we still are
collecting sweat on our brow

History should teach
each person to thrive,
Yet we became warped in
a world of cynicism and lies

What do we imagine
tomorrow should be?
What delusions of grander
Would we like to see?

Our old leaders
dreamed for peace, love, and hope,
And yet now we to teach our children
simply to cope.

Let us walk away
from our faltering past.
We learned what we could
but new things must be asked.

How do we strive
For equality and peace?
How do we make the hearts
Grow to obese?

Hearts made full
with kindness and love
Each beat giving
Everything it's made of.

How do we reach
a future full of hopes and Joys?
How do we keep guns out of hands
Of lost little boys?

What must we do?
Where must we go
To see men in rocket shoes?
And girls playing on Pluto?

Wicked Souls' Unrest by Beth Bagnall

In the darkness where  true terror burns Remain indiscernible bits Being eaten by worms Apart from their bodies Thrive souls found detached What's left of their corpses Food for beings unhatched. Night after night  they search through the thick air Looking on a dark sky Soaked with the stench of despair,  They stare up at Vengeance soaked stars Constantly reminded of  an ended life's scars These Cursed souls  long for an unobtainable peace Taunted by an unhappy heart  never knowing release Too driven in life with  cruelty, selfishness, and hate A Purity-earned rest haunts  their ever-waking state  With each passing year   While their shells  decay and rot   They search for still beating hearts  to someday add to their lot All that remains is the insatiable desire to hurt All the rimnants of humanity  have crumbled to dirt

Just Shoes

Today

I gave an old woman some shoes

just shoes

I didn't give her catalog to choose from

just shoes

Some old beaten up Nikes

with sweat stains from PE...

that happened to be sitting in the back of my car

but it seemed to have gone so far

to have meant so much

it touched her

it mattered in a way that I have never mattered before

Handing her those shoes made my heart soar

to have watched her walking in wearing a pair of

duct-tape bound, lay-around tennis shoes

that she must have worn for years

on it stains of old lady tears, of broken dreams

and countless fears

Toes protruding

 blackened by a hard life lived

but never fully thriving always diving away from the onslaught of failure

To know that now she walks with her feet fully covered

to know that they are made warmer

because I choose not be selfish

Maybe now she will feel a bit less helpless

Thanks to me and some shoes

just shoes

I didn't know it meant so much just to give

then i realized I didn't know how much it meant to live

To have shoes on my feet that were whole

to have socks beneath them, warming comfortable and privileged toes

Who knows

what life would be like for me

if I had never stumbled across a little old lady

with battered and tattered up shoes

Not even shoes

but the skeletal remains of what were once shoes

These moments are the clues

that help solve life's mystery

there is only way to live

it's to give

It Factor

Sometimes fate moves forward

Toward

The perfect storm of incidence that put us all on the precipice of this profound greatness..

I am a being that stems from strong roots

Taught from a young age that a name is what you make it

You cant fake it

You have to wake up and realize that you can be more. If you give more...

more than your soul has ever given before.

Thanks to the blood that runs through my veins I see futures possibility and it is glorious

the fact that I can look back and see the wrong and make it right gives me something more

than some are willing to strive for.

Acceptance of my true self

But what brings them down will left me up..

By the hands of that great maker .. some mystical creator..

who decided to make the sands of time create this rhyme make this poet speak these words

I am the white dove that flies high above among a sea of grey

The moon beam that cuts the dark of night away.

Who I am was created thoughtfully skillfully with intent to be more

Fate gave me the words to be heard and

My words spin a web of truth and heart,

simple sincere heart beating for love kindness righteousness isn't perfection. Its being an exception

So it seems to me that we are at an impass... so ill give you one of to choices.. we can come

together and lift up our voices. Outstretched hands reaching onward.. forward toward.

Greatness in each moment..

Or you can fall behind..

confined by the demons of the mind ..

as I march on towards the bright light that makes the night glow with possibility.

Walk with me and let us be we.

If not... stand back. Because i stop for no man. .

True Friendship

 You are a beautiful lady 
& I love you. 
Inside & Out 
Through & Through 


Our friendship means everything
 & I hold it so dear
 I will Always need you 
& I will always be here.

I wrote this for my best friend Rachael and I believe it holds true for all women.. who know the privilege of having a best friend... 

Toiling, Ticking Thing

It itches with a undecided fate. 

that survives only on the certainty of
A shaky unsure platform that leads to another shifty summit. 

This toiling, ticking thing called time. 

It changes with the tide 

As it erodes away the edges of dry earth 

A shifting engine with greasy gears that buckle and rust

That toiling, ticking thing called time.

It fades with the echo of a strong wind
The glittery scent of recalled memory
A force of nature that pushes all things forever forward
The toiling, ticking thing called time.

It comforts chilly clinched toes

from the cold winds of a hard life

A warmly swaddled bundle of future's whimsy

This toiling ticking thing called time.

It consumes mountains with the plush fur

of evergreens and soft house slippers made from moss

A healing, hoping, breathing, growing, grasping catalyst of past and now and next

that toiling ticking thing called time

It knows nothing more than everything

Seeing something spectacular in some day far away from this day

A monument of the past that stands strong in the souls of every man

the toiling ticking thing called time.