Poem : White Crosses

This time of year
When the days become short
And the air is dressed with a slight chill
I remember a friend I lost many years ago
For the last time I saw her
Winter was almost upon us
As we spoke our last words to one another
Our warm breath hung still in the cold air before us
But it’s not just this time of year that I remember
I remember those times through songs
Through words someone might say around me
Or sometimes certain places we hung out together
These things bring my friend back to me
If only for a moment
Like a photo flashing in the still frames of my mind
I see her and remember
Even those homemade white crosses
That look like a roadway pauper’s grave
Make me remember
But not only her, many more
That have gone on from me
Dropped away because their fire burned too bright
Too fast
I reflect today
On the good times though
That’s all you have left when they’re gone you know?
It’s been over twenty years now
And the good times still seem like yesterday
For we were reckless youth living life with no limits
I still see her
Wild-eyed like an untamed cat
Laughing
Drunk on Boons-farm
Underneath the streetlights of the city
Underneath the moonlight of the country
Most of all, I remember her saying days before she left me
You will be something special one day
Someone people will love and want to hold on to
Don’t listen to the ones that say you should be
This way or that
Do what you believe in
And good things will always follow you
All just memories now
Cherished for I know there will be no more made between us

Poem : The Lizard King The Poet

Soft was his voice
For he spoke in a whisper
Yet, a voice that rattled with rage as he screamed to the heavens
As he danced in his madness
For Jim had seen through the eyes of a blind man
Blind to the rules of the world that surrounded him
He walked where he wanted
Wrote as he wanted
Sang as he wanted
The new king who was always a poet
Writing what he saw in the next world
The land between realities and dreams
Where the Navajo cries still drift in the sand filled wind
In photos you could see this reflected
In the dark gaze of his eyes
Look close the next time you see him and you will see what he sees
Look past his stare
The same way he looked past the camera lens
Into the world of his present and future
All of his making
His terms
But sometimes living this way can be difficult
Even for a king
For when the edge is where your footsteps rest
One step over becomes far too tempting
At this point
The limelight can quickly change to no light
A place of no coming back to this world
For kings
This is often the case
But for poets of songs their words will live on
Each time you hear them played
Now the king sleeps in the old dirt of Paris
Under marble scratched and graffiti with names of fans
Obsessed with the poet and his words of song
Generations after his life

Poem : Hope

Hope is something that has served me well
Throughout my life
But never more so than the last year and a half
Hope is something to hold on to
When the winds of pain blow without mercy
Without pity
Without love
Like a hurricane’s breeze bending trees
Into upside-down brooms sweeping the sky
And when this happens, I must seek shelter
And the only shelter to seek is hope
Hope is something that comes from within
Hope begins as a thought
Yet something you can see before you slowly turning to reality
Like the autumn leaves bursting with color
Things will eventually change with hope and time
But time is always the key
Hope takes hard work to protect
For at first you must lock it away
Far away
Hide it from the ones who don’t want you to dream
Of bigger and better tomorrows
In a box, within a box, within your heart
Far away where you have to look for it each and every day
Where no one can see it but you
No one can take it away
Then when the time is right
Open yourself up to a life of new possibilities
Reach into your heart and pull hope from your chest
And live a life you’ve only been dreaming of
Where your biggest concern is to be not concerned with tomorrow
And the past is left in the past
A life where you count the stars in an endless sky with the one you love
As the moon shines on your shadows gazing upwards together
But remember
Hope is fragile in the beginning of its emerges
Like a butterfly slipping out from its cocoon
Weak are its wings at first
And when dreams fall apart
The pain can be almost to hard to describe
Your heart feels like it’s stopped beating
Your mind races with such speed of what went wrong?
What could have been?
Or even, what has been
Your distant demeanor troubles the ones that surround you
Your blank stare is constant
For you’re still looking for answers
Yet hope takes hold of you once more
And you move through the motions of the everyday grind
Till you’re ready to try hope again
And live the life you’ve only lived in your dreams

Poem : The Cane And Red Tree Flowers

It started out with this cane
A cane now gazed upon with happiness
It was simple really
Made in a day from scrap wood lying around
For the next morning
I was having a spot of leg cancer removed
I had to have something to walk with
For the doctor would cut deep with his scalpel
Then stretch and lace my skin like a corset
Hydrocodone was also on the menu and would make me off balance
Months went by
I healed and the cane sat in the corner
Gathering dust like white blinds in a window
Till one day I decided it was going for a walk
It had sat to long and so had I
I walked through the thick scrub oaks of North Florida
So I could try to find a way to fix my mind
Down leaf covered paths of sand
Flanked with fronds from a sea of palmettos
Gently blowing in the humid breeze of my state
We walked across planked wooden bridges
With the soft sounds of a trickle from a creek just below
Twisting and winding through limestone banks
A big buck stood just before us
Without fear
For he knew we meant him no harm
His twelve points of bone were safe
For he knew
I needed no trophies to hang on the wall
I was looking for much more than a prize
I was looking for where I had lost my mind
A doe and her fawn grazed just beyond the meadow
As red flowers in bloom blew high in the canopy
On top of one tree
On one vine
In one very big forest
But they only seem to show themselves
To the ones who took the time to look up
To slowdown in the moment, like you and I
To stop treading the waves of the waters of worry
Long enough to breath
Long enough to find our bearings
As I walked with my hand around you
My mind began to calm
Each week I came home and worked on my cane
Staining, sanding, and refinishing again
Each week my cane worked on me
Walking with me as I picked up the pieces of shattered realities
One day I will be old and feeble
Walking with something that started out as scrap wood
A cane submerged in memories of miles walked
Good times and bad
A cane walked through the hours of my life

Poem : Waiting

They say time is a funny thing
But I guess it would depended on who’s keeping it
When your waiting for a flower from Eden to bloom
Or for moments of memories to turn
To days of good lives lived without worry
Without fear
The clock hands crawl to what seems
Like the speed of a standstill
And that’s not funny at all
It’s the small things that sustain me
Yes the small things are what I hold on to
Like a button
Like a stone
Like a bookmark
Like a photo
Like a coin
Things that are meaningless to most
But priceless to me
Held in a box like Jem and Scout’s box of treasures
But mine was not found in a tree
Nor from a blond neighbor named Boo
Not even from a book about killing a bird
For mine is not fiction
It can be held in my hand
Looked at and remind me the good times of the past were real
This is what gets me through as I’m waiting
Waiting for the tides to come in
Without the undertow of constant erosion
Eating away at my soul
Without wave, after wave, of circumstance cutting me down
Pounding the walls that surround me
Yes, I can’t find the humor in the tick tocks of time
But one day my smile will have no end
Then the clock will move faster than ever
For I will never want it to stop

Poem : The Dead Horse

He is my greatest fault
My enemy
But is he?
I beat him then resurrect him
Like Lazarus
Then beat him to death again, and again
But don’t mistake my words
I am no God
I am just a man beating a dead horse
Or so the saying goes
But sometimes
My dead horse will convince me that beating him
Is not my fault at all
That he is not my enemy
That I’m only crossing my T’s and doting my I’s and such
That it’s become second nature to me
To check, double check, and check once more
My dead horse tells me it’s from my up bringing
That my father use to beat his father to death as well
Oh how I wish I could stop and sometimes I do
Sometimes the anxiety that lives within me quiets for a while
And I can put down my stick
And the dead horse is safe to graze for a day
Or maybe a week
Maybe a month
Then something happens to awaken that demon
The demon of anxious what ifs
The demon who steals my breath with his pitchfork of asthma
Makes my insecurities grow with speed
But now I think
The dead horse might be on to something
Beating him came about from protection you see
He’s kept me safe with routine
With checking twice then doing once
Without mistakes
All was taught to me by my father
My mother
Both were Depressionary children
And beating a dead horse kept them in sync with staying alive
At a time when mistakes might have meant the loss of a meal
The loss of a job that could have been worked
When you’ve experience hunger to the point of
Cooking the seed for the next years crop to feed your kids
Or eating half eaten apple cores you’ve found on the ground
Then you will defiantly beat the dead horse for comfort
Like they did
And you will pass this way of beating onto your children like me
To continue and ponder in the form of this poem
And conclude it’s just the way I am

Poem : Butterflies Of The Night

I see you each morning
As the moon falls from the blackened sky
As it casts it’s x-ray light upon the shadowed clouds
Floating puffs of dark cotton
Cotton clouds lined with blue smears of moonlight
Splashed underneath with the finest shades of purple
I see you I say
You and your kind
Swarm underneath the 235 bridge
Coming home to hang under its stone columns
Its giant cement pillars holding the roadway above
Fluttering with such beauty
You do
As you fly in the thousands
And I wonder
What gives you your flutter?
Are you drunk?
From the fermented fruit
Left to rot in the fields waiting to be turned under by the plow point
Left by the migrant workers moving on to the next crop
To the next town
Or is your wobbly way of flying from the nectar of night flowers?
Open and waiting for you to pollinate
With your small pointed tongue
Feeding all night on their sweetness
Yet giving life to us all
As you move flower to flower
I wonder these things each morning I see you
I see you and wonder each morning these things

Poem : Muscadine Wine

The wine that drips and falls from my lips
Comes from the perfect arched arbor
It pours so slowly
Taste sweet to my tongue
Like sugar
From that Red Top Cane being milled in the fall
Yet a little bit bitter all at the same time
That sweet southern Muscadine Wine
Intoxicates me like no other
Has me drunk for days
Washes away all of my troubles
Even if only a sip
Red
Is the color of my Muscadine Wine
Tall is the bottle it pours from
Smooth is the feel of it going down
Taking away all of the stress
All of the worry
At times
That I hold like Atlas holding the world
This Red drink of life gives me comfort
For days through hardships
Most would fall under
Most would break
Not me
Cause I’m still holding my bottle and drinking my Muscadine Wine