Category: poetry

Not Tomorrow

Hesitate
Procure the existence
Animal instinct
I’m no second rate
Half-smile mistake
A little distaste
Mostly requiring a getaway
Tuscany or Brisighella
Perhaps Breiðdalsvík first
Working hard again
Hungry for love
A distant kiss
A solo trip
But not tomorrow

© GÄ

No Strings

You have to be stronger
Than the illness itself especially
If it’s yours but even more so
If it’s someone else’s
Beleaguered or not
You can’t make everybody
That surrounds you happy
But you can feel good about
Knowing you did all that you could
To extend a full heart
Genuine intent pure gold
And then the love goes on
All of the love that has been
Had for you still exists
That love goes on
Without those that love you
Whom you no longer have contact with

You will still have that love for them
And they for you memory energy
Whether you continue on
The same path or take different turns
That love will always exist
Purposefully maintaining its continuity
To always return to that love
Without any requirement to ever do so
As complex as love is
It is also simple
It is in our hearts
And in our own powers
To receive it or to let it be

© GÄ

Under the Moon

On some remarkable stretch of land
Stood a less remarkable man
With so many natural endowments
An ancestral fortune dying to explode
Jumped up in his chest out through
His throat and danced right out
The door without words for how
Restless it feels to rise up in a
Family that requires him to plant
Many seeds on the farm of his
Tapestry and the best of all
That wants to be genuinely was
Always asked to be differently
Different colored socks
Plain colored shirts
Careful what you wear
Or the kids will call you out
Learn how to hold a gun and
Kill things learn how to aim
Listening to the sound of the cattle
On the ground imagine them flying
I can feel the grass in my ear
And the echoes of my favorite
Memories that shaped the man I became
Even though he was only half
Of what was expected
Half of what was intended
Though his first cries
We’re as full and loud as the sun

© GÄ

Breath

She was always irritated
When I would cry the day after
Can we go any further
Can I climb into any deeper insight
Forming a bond oriented
Around a collaboration with
Myself a healing potential
That disallows any
Outside interference
Granted by unpredictable
Stars and wind resources
To be used to control conscious
Rhythms with a sound and
A heartbeat that beats deep in
The diolkos like an ambitious road
Partially paved with stone
Thumping from below I can
Hear myself finally again
Breathing in the beauty
Of my own breath

© GÄ

To Be Willing

When you have a mother
Who kept you alive but
Did not stand behind you
In some of your greatest moments
When you have a best friend
Who coaches you through life
For many years but cannot
Be there for you like a family
Whenever you are down or
Whenever you are in need
When you have a brother
Or a sister who has loved you
And has been there for you and
They have died or even worse
They have also betrayed your
Deepest love for them then where?
Where do you find hope
Where do you find the inner strength
Where does the light come from
It has to come from within
Like a step of one day at a time
Like a drink to quench your thirst
After a very long time you
Take the steps a long the way
Never to forget let go or give up
The path that has been tread
Those people they have helped
You to get where you are today
But who you are becoming
Nothing can stand in the way
Of this someday you have been
Working so hard towards this
And feeling sometimes very alone
Asking the right question
Can bring it home
Not if you can but if you will
This is who you are
This is who I am
This is what it means
To be willing

© GÄ

Du Paradis

Worst case scenario consultant
Benumbed by the current
Icy reactions to a loneliness
That sitting in the back row
Can only bring though in
All the blue hills and
There aren’t any pills that
Can erase all the pain
Or the absence that the
Tanzanian sunset would bring
To the Great Plains if
The lions look to the heavens
And see no light
No celestial pink and orange
Again the same is true
When my heart lies lifeless
On the other side of a banging
Door and the shaking core
Of empty rattling left in shivers
After what’s wasted to tear away
From me in tender cries
As the color dries on the canvas
Of my forehead painted
Like the memory
Of paradise

© GÄ

Pomme

Bad taste in humanity
Might get better at picking
The orchard has been dry
A bit rotten in some places
The worms are happy
A need for riper choices
More delicious comrades
I had a taste of an apple
It gave me hope and
A lot of advice it was
Very wealthy and wise in
It’s perfectly red skin
And then I had a bite
Knowledge and juice
Running down the sides
Of my hunger for meaning
Mouth that was eager to
Take more bites and
Save the seeds so that I
Could grow more trees
And eat more apples
Just like it and for years
I would eat from this valley
Until the fruit was gone
Time to find another
The grass is wet
Beneath my feet the soil
Is crawling with fertile
Imagination and the sun
Woke me up last night
In my dreams talking about
How the rest of the earth
Has yet to be discovered

© GÄ

Happy Laundry

The laundry makes her happy
Just sitting waiting to be done
Next to her love and the boy
Folding one by one
Who is now the man observing
This simpler world of life
Drums are spinning
Clothes are churning
In the background
Of his mind unforgettable
Hard echos of his mother
Saying reprehensible things
About rape and drugs
Why can’t life be happy
Instead of dark and grimy
Like sharing dirty laundry
Wanting life to be more simple
Is like folding happy laundry

© GÄ

Not the Same

Conjecture
Why doesn’t it feel like love
Not the same as making way
For someone whom you love
I’m stuck asking for
Too much and speaking of
Not enough love
Not much room left on this turf
Problematics 101
Maybe the job is done
Even for a best friend
It’s not the first time
I have felt this way
It’s not the first time
A friend has had to say
Goodbye
Able to be there
Why would I chase a friend
If they love you
They are there no matter what
You feel secure they recite that
If I ever felt that I was in your way
Taking up space
Rewrite that the dismay
Yes it’s unbelievable how
Someone can simply not know you
Understand you
See your blank space
Avoid you and your heart space
Even when you tell them
Everything
I have been fighting for
Your attention for twenty years
Of my life
I don’t have it in me
Anymore
The teeth of my life are falling out
I can feel myself deteriorating
I can feel my heart
Slowing down
I’ll get a few things
In order let the clock go ‘round
Guarding leftover happiness
Ugly things
That are bothering me
Move them
Out of the way
Before I truly know
How bad everything
Presumably is
Before it all spills out
Before it all falls apart

© GÄ