Gone now
All of the clear moving pictures
While I was sleeping
Something arrived peeking carefully at me
And slipped away again
As I woke and forgot
Something important
Wisps of memories tangled in the dawn
Like the sound of your beating heart
And the touch of your hand
Covid
Doctors
ER
Nurses
Teachers
Issues
What do we treat first
How Urgent is it
Who will perish
We weigh one life over another
Government flaws
Fears and misunderstandings
Reigning and raining and reining
Battles for control
Losing impact
Burning the future for immediacy
Out of balance
We will topple ourselves
The solutions are there
Outlined ideas
Who suffers while we plod forward
Against obstacle after obstacle
Built of greed
Teachers flee
Doctors give up
Nurses go
When no one will help you or teach you
Can you scrape food from dry mud
Bandage your broken heart with leaves
From a dying tree
Will you sooth the scrapes with yesterday’s cloth
Reciting verse after verse of sonnets from moldy tomes
Bury yourself now in the tomb in the ground
Cover up your nakedness with transition and transform
Dust dust walking
Ashes ashes talking
You’re almost out of time
Can you fall asleep under the stars at night
Or will you waken again and again
Reaching for something you can never acquire
Peace prosperity home
Build it then
Don’t lag or lack or lap up the lies
Build it in balance
Be ruthless cutting down cutting out paring away
What damages us
This whole earth is our home
Let’s make it grand and natural and flowing
Instead of an old barn in barren field with the roof collapsed from rotten wood
Very dominant on the downbeat carrying a quarter note sequence on the guitar that makes you want to stomp your foot keeping tempo, with your head bopping. The chorus is very catchy and quite eerie. I dig it. “I understand you’ve been running from a man who goes by the name of the sandman”. It is known that the inspiration for the song comes from conversations writer Dewey Bunnell had with returning Vietnam veterans and their fear of being attacked or killed in their sleep so they relied on medication to fight the urge to sleep and meet the unavoidable, sandman.
http://theskepticsreview.weebly.com/music-review/america-history-americas-greatest-hits
I had trouble sleeping the first ten years of my life – recurring nightmares, traumas, fear. Then again at various times in my life under deep stress, or processing out past experiences. Being able to sleep is sometimes such a lovely miracle.
I’m concerned about how slow we are all moving in the face of real and present dangers – it’s like a dream where you can see it (the threat) but cannot move swiftly enough to avoid catastrophe, but we still have time if we move together to solve the most major issues facing our collective humanity, our collective life here on earth.
A moment for pause
A reflection of growth
That is all
How many hours spent
Polishing personas
Painting over scars and cracks
Hiding every ding and scratch
Perfecting every step and sigh
Practicing our alibis
Hiding deeper down within
Ourselves be unseen
Squelching every tender scream
Masquerading as someone who
Is balanced, calm, and true
How many lies are stacked upon
The book of truths
I see you there upon the stage
Dancing freely hiding rage
Trying trying once again
For a moment just to fit right in
There is a time of courage love
To drop the acts and rise above
Let go of who you’ve tried to be
Let yourself be seen and see
Who would love the you you hide
Who will stay there by your side
In intimate interlude you may just find
That you really like what’s in your mind
Once the past has been accounted
The present flows just like a fountain
The future then is the new mountain
Waiting for your feet to climb
Unmasked and whole filled with divine
There’s nothing now that you can’t do
To dance and fly and sing so true
Step off the stage and into life
Let go of pain and hurt and strife
Live
Live like you were meant to do
Live and to yourself be true
We drop our masks and dance
The music has come to an end
We clap and bow and in these shadows
A new dance can begin
I catch myself shuffling when I walk
Downcast
Down hearted
Lower than that
I am sinking into the earth
One step after another until I am there
Among the rocks
At the bottom
Of forever
The infinite is here within
Each step
Raised and lowered
Feet and eyes
I cannot look up
Until the sun cuts through
The clouds
Until I see blue blue
Reach for me
I have gone nowhere but down
The sun has pulled the clouds between us
Every day now colorless
Reach for me
Let there be color in this world
Let there be light
Let heaven descend once more
Remind me I am made of dust
Reflecting the center of my solar system
I step and straighten
Outside held up by force of will
To stand tall and be proud
My eyes still meet the ground
Begging for shelter
To not be left out alone in the rain
I dance
My eyes meet the ground
I close them and raise my face to the rain
I am quenched and drenched
Dancing and hoping for brighter skies
A break in the clouds
A respite from the torrent
To try again
To wrest joy from circumstances
Dim
Walked a spirit path down by the river
Listening to the trees upon the wind
The sparrow and the robin and the cardinal
Swept through the branches once again
My feet spoke to the earth the rocks the mud
My skin heard sunlight shade and breeze
A symphony of sensation under a canopy of leaves
I was in love that day, I believe
An intimate encounter with my spirit
An intimate rendezvous with love
A romantic intertwining of the world around me
With myself until the differential dissapated
Can I tell you how to walk reverent upon the earth
Can words convey how to take each step respectful
Is there a way to transmit wilderness into civilization
I’m not sure, but I try
I’m not certain, but I try
We are not separate from the world around us
We suffer isolated
Meditate upon the flower or the tree
Concentrate on the wasp or bumblebee
Listen listen
For a moment understand
We all walk together on this land
In a certain light that’s fading
I am beauty
I am grace
They send me messages to tell me
Of the beauty in my face
In a certain light
I’m sure that’s true
Age has tracked me down
Cornered me and keened
The wrinkles and the grey
The softening in between
Would some then dare remark
How my spirit shines
A spark
Or that my mind is fascinating
My humor there it seems
Well stocked and well equipped
With a smart retort and quip
Right there on my lip
Would that my inner self
Show beyond the skin
I’m beautiful within
The light is fading dying
Twilight has come again
My beauty is revealed
As the light begins to dim
There’s a chorus in the moonrise
There’s a song emanating from the stars
There’s a dance that never ends
I take two steps and back again
I’m beautiful it’s certain
In a certain light
I still lay my head upon the pillow
Alone another night
Will he see the bright beginning
Right here near the end
Will he approach with reverence
The soul I hold within
Will there be a time of reckoning
Where joy and happiness are twin
To the darkness I endured
To make it worth it
Help it mend
I look at myself in the mirror
“You’re a dork.”
I think I should be more positive
And try magnificent
“You’re a magnificent dork”
Maybe beautiful
“You’re a beautiful, magnificent dork!”
Maybe without the dork
“You’re a beautiful, magnificent fool!”
I sigh, closer to truth
If not completely clinched for the day
Foolish, I can live with that
Heart open
Eyes clear
This beautiful, magnificent fool heads for the door
Softly singing to the clouds
The misty morning hush
The day is black and grey
I never get enough
No colors in my world
No song within my soul
The rains have come forever
Flooding every pore
It’s a sloggy sort of sunshine missing
Weather in my heart
It’s a boggy sort of colorless
Art that couldn’t start
It’s a painting and a picture
Of a life that’s drab and frayed
Black and grey
I sit here in contemplation
Of the colors that had been
Of light and white and gleaming shine
Of lavenders and sin
I’ll reach again I know it
The moment and the poise
Where melodies resolve from
The ruckus and the noise
A brightening and glow
A tightening and a flow
Of creation and relation
It will all come back again
Until forever ends I’ll settle in
Under the blanket in the gloom
Light a little lamp in the corner of my room
And read a Russian author and nap right through
The dimness and the thinness that presents itself today
Black and grey
Old photographs and losses
Hope turns its face away
Neither one of us can look at me
That’s quite okay
Let loose the mooring from the dock and float
Out upon the foggy misty waters
There’s mysteries and secrets in the early morning haze
Could last for days
Or just a moment
The world reduced to black and grey
And I’ll travel through the hidden
Corridors and ways
In black and greys
Gentle truths and comfort ruthless
Written here and gone away
There’s too much to figure out
Too many options
Too many ways to get it wrong
He had to think of his kids
Finding a place to live was easy
Misses having a room with a door
To be able to close it and eat something and watch tv
Echoes all around him
Ghosts of the past in his eyes
He would tell me my secret name
My eyes glowed emerald when I plucked the strings
He liked the guitar playing
That I was better at it than I let on
That it’s too difficult to know how old people are
How big they are
Nothing is as it appears to be
He studied the palm of my hands
Staring into them
He said I was difficult to read
That I didn’t seem like someone who had experienced tragedy
He wouldn’t tell his family he was struggling
Didn’t want to be a burden
He had places he could stay
While he figured it out
Could he have a smoke
The sun glowed softly while we played guitar
And spoke of mysteries and truth
The trees whispered
The breeze sang quietly
When I left he was still a little lost
Standing in the sunlight
Under the blue blue sky
Pondering
Wondering
Wandering
Through the pitfalls
Around the obstacles
Over the barriers
In his mind
