look my friend tonight isn’t for the faint
of heart
can’t you see the traffic lights wearily squinting
through the fog
what shall I say to you now when I just want to
see some beauty
but all around is just the aftereffects
of a wasted life
the alley is open if you want to walk down it
Or not whatever
your call
i would urge you not to look down now though
the river runs red tonight
Tag: creative
She Waits
Sometimes it’s comforting to write words and know that they will never be read by another soul. I have a little notebook that from time to time I write in and the act of writing itself is dear to me. I may never read those words again and almost certainly no one else will page through my stash of notebooks to read the mad scribblings that I’ve penned throughout the years. Yet in the moment, the act of putting pen to page is cathartic. Is it not? Do you know this too? I know I can be old-fashioned at times and I don’t mean this to sound pretentious as I proclaim that to write something by hand is oh so much more meaningful than letting my fingers dance across the keyboard as I do now. Writing is writing except when it’s not – yes I mean that pernicious advance of the use of AI – and to raise one medium over another isn’t exactly what I mean to do here. Most of my creative writing these days is done on a keyboard, it is true! Yet still. We do as humans have physical bodies that interact physically with the world around us. So to push a pen a little deeper into the blank paper before me is to walk a path that is well trod and indeed feels good upon the feet. But is not using a laptop – or typewriter or even speech to text! – also interacting with a substance that is created and is part of this physical realm? Yes a computer or typewriter is also a created thing, much as a well bound notebook and a comfortable pen. Is there a difference? Maybe it is only in the mind. But for me, there is something soothing in the act of pushing a pen across the page. For me, writing is analogous to cooking – it brings me joy to stir a pot of something yummy bubbling on the stove. These two hands are moving in joyous harmony to create something that is good. Hm, I am talking myself around again. For when I use these two hands pressing keys upon this keyboard to write something from my heart and soul, am I still not creating something even then? Is this not a creative act just now? A communication from the mind to the wide world around, even if I am the only one who reads these words. And as from my heart fully-grown springs a theme on creative work, I am grateful that I can use this created frame to craft something beautiful. Even now, from this faint image that shines with reflected divinity, I look upon the page and feel a leap in my heart recognizing that I too have the capacity to create, even if of necessity it is a lesser capacity and most certainly not unmarred. From age to age I write and even now I smile to see words appear upon the screen that faintly mirror my own realities. I crumble up the paper and toss it over my shoulder. This page has about reached its end.
Waves Crash Against that Great Rock
Down the stairs and up the red line
across the universe the music climbs
spirals of thoughts and a kaleidoscope
of lies
what now do you whisper in my ear
what now do you dangle before me
it’s deceitful and manipulative
you know it i know it
cease and desist
or else i shall come and be forced
to spin a new tale yet an old one too
one you’ve heard far too many times yet
you still refuse to believe it true
what shall i say my friend?
i love you yet i turn my face away
i weary of resting my eyes upon
lesser stories
i sorrow over beholding
thinner glories
why do i persist in delighting
in the manufactured
when the real thing is glimmering
in the corner of my eye
oh little child
keep yourself from idols
Quite Right
She leaned on the balcony and strained to see the stars. That’s all she wanted in this moment. She wanted to rest her eyes on something beautiful this night but alas it looked as if it were not to be. The clouds hung low over the skyline and nothing pierced the veil save the twinkle of a plane’s lights every two minutes or so. There were nights Natalia loved living in the city, times where she couldn’t believe her fortune to be living here at the center of all things. Then there were nights like tonight, when her feet yearned to run through a grassy meadow and her heart longed to hear the laughter of a brook as it ran past. Tonight, Natalia wished she could rest her eyes upon the heavens and see the stars strewn across the sky in all their glory. But tonight her ears were full of wailing sirens and the lights from the building across the street trumpeted in her face and laughed in mockery of all her dreams. Natalia sighed as she folded her arms around herself. She closed her eyes and let her imagination take her far away, back to her girlhood home. She could see the cottage at the end of the driveway, she could see the garden that lay at the back of the yard. She could smell the woodsmoke ascending to the heavens and she could hear the clucking of the chickens too. If she let herself sit long enough with her sorrows, she surely would hear his voice next. Instead, all she heard was the drone of another plane across the city sky.
Visions
I want to see the northern slopes one more time. I have seen them in my dreams of course, more times than I can count. But I want to see them with my own two eyes. I have been promised this is not too much to ask and I hold on to that promise dearly. I want to see the white-capped hills stark against the vastness of the sky. I will walk on that well-trod path and let my feet carry me swiftly onwards towards the stile. Then the wild grassy fields that shall let me walk to the very feet of those mountains for which my heart longs. I will run my hands through the tall grass along the path and fix my eyes on the prize. But then I remember the scars I bear and I bow my head in shame and weep. Then I remember the one who calls me friend, the one who has been scarred too. I weep all the more. It is too much that I should be loved as much as this. Even to the end.
It is time now. I delight in the vision that is set before me. I see the mountains grow larger now. Oddly enough, the sky seems no less vast. The weight of heaven presses upon me, but gently, as the hand of a father upon his son’s shoulder. I see now a little cottage at the base of the foothills. There is a little vegetable garden next to it. And a fence surrounding all. A figure rests upon the fence and looks in my direction. He waves his hand in greeting and then beckons me forward. I smell woodsmoke on the breeze and…is that beef stew? A feast it seems is in store. I walk forward towards the man who waits at the door of that little cottage at the base of these northern hills.
Longing
See how her feet traverse these
age-worn stone steps
and nimble dance from side to side
ocean sparkling in greyish green delight
and then you see the rocky cliffs
above you rise
of course her scarf blows in the wind
hear her voice singing that hymn
see the path ascend towards
the distant summit
do you see the flowers growing?
The Silent Years
sun beats down without mercy
oh for a glass of water
or at least a leaf tumbling down
a promise of what is to come
would do enough for me now
autumn walks and
a scarf snugged tight
a half poem written
power lines stretching past
tall brick buildings
and branches bare silhouetted
against the twilight sky
Grocery Store
She offers a smile as he walks past her in the coffee aisle. He half stops and half keeps walking in that way you do when you’re not quite sure if you want to take a moment to interact with someone not yourself. He didn’t expect to see her here today. He didn’t expect to see her anywhere for a good while longer yet. But here she was, in his grocery store and holding a bag of coffee beans. Was this fate or was this torture? Or perhaps both? God did have a sense of humor after all it seemed. He does end up stopping after all and gives her a half smile in return. They exchange a few tentative words. She reaches out. He pulls back. She tries one more time. His walls stand tall. She bites her lip and half turns to go. His heart skips a beat. And then. “Do you want to maybe go grab a coffee later this afternoon?” Her face lights up and her eyes dance. And then. “Well, I already have the coffee.” She playfully waggles the coffee beans at him. And he laughs and she continues. “But I don’t have you.” He smiles. “So, then, skip the coffee. Dinner for two?” She nods bashfully. He decides that’s the note to end on and turns around and fairly strides down the aisle. She sighs. Now that’s sorted. What was the next item on her list?
Ashen
White hands strayed across the piano keys and whispered soft to me. Do you feel the thunder humming? Do you hear the sizzling of the wires as they pass messages up and down the years? Do you see the lights off the northern coast gleaming through the fog? Do you smell the woodsmoke of the bonfire that crackles on that Hawaii beach? I wish I could write a story that would encompass your trials and tribulations and yet still hold you safe within its arms. Yet my ability to do such is outmatched by my vivid vision and I fear that anything I write will shrivel in your presence and turn to stone under the stars. Yet perhaps even that stone will stand the test of time better than some other scribbles and perhaps the star-washed etchings will someday bring tears to a pilgrim’s eyes. So should I not attempt it and see what this feeble hand can bring forth? Should I not at least break out my notebook and try? I put my hands upon the keyboard now and cry to heaven. I get on my knees and pray for aid this night. Why do you call me to account now for what I haven’t written? Why do you look at me with such tender compassion when I know my failures are even now within your sight? Oh I must with diligence press on for that for which I’ve been called to do. Do I believe it possible that I can craft this gem of steel and starlight? Do you? Please don’t text me asking for an answer. I walk this path even now wondering what I shall say at the end of all things. Thankfully I don’t need to present a justification. The price has already been paid. Do you smell the scent of roast chicken cooking? Do you see the light of the candle on the coffee table that flickers this night? Do you hear the tapping of the keyboard as I write this prologue? Do you feel my arms around you holding you as you cry? The lightning struck outside and I turned the record over.
Nostalgia Met
She picked up the stack of pictures from the end table and flipped through them. Most get a cursory glance. But for a few of them, she paused and gazed steadily into the faded eyes that look up into hers. These pictures that live outside of memory and screen – what stories do they tell? Is it really a land that time forgot, a lost realm that belongs only to the dreams of those aged few? There is one picture in particular, a candid shot of a group of friends in front of a lake. Storm clouds crowd the frame and the three youths glow with the vibrancy that seems self-evident in the moment captured. One boy laughs as he half raises his hand in jest while the other looks away across the water. The solitary girl gazes at the lens and squints, mouth half open as she wonders if the button has been pressed. The moment lost in the past and now lost in the present as it is shuffled to the back of the deck and the women sat down on the edge of the chair. She wondered what she was thinking then. Those clear eyes and that unfiltered invitation. Why was her hope then so much smaller than her dreams? She closed her eyes and touched her brow. There were wrinkles there that marked her prayers. And in her dreams now she heard the piano playing the melody she ached to hear.
