Dreaming of More

The state of wanting
Seems indulgent
When you're perfectly fine
With a normal-ish life
And you don't even know
What you're looking for
But you're searching
For something
Anyway

It's ignored most
Of the time
Or there in a twinge and a look
An evening of frustration
And a sigh alone in bed
A quest unstarted
Living in maybes and some
Thought of later
Eventually, or never
No, not never
Just, sometime
Perhaps

Little Flood

Rushing rapids down the road
Going where it shouldn't go
Flowing fast and people slow
Cars lined up and some are towed

Danger possibly to some
Costly work must now be done
Still there's something seeming fun
To stand and watch this river run

Give a Little Lightness

Show the world your kind eyes
The ones that share, invite a smile
Something in that twinkle
The crinkle at the corners
Or uplifted brow, gently

Walk down the street
With your kind eyes
The ones that let you breathe
That share the breath of the pulse
On the street
Some people notice
And brush past
Or maybe find their own for a moment

Look around with your kind eyes
And see the sky today
See each shifting moment, continuously
With peace and good will

Experience the present
With kind eyes
And notice how the angry irritations
Stress and difficulties
Do not cease to be
But do not overrun their place

Seize the world with your kind eyes
And you will truly see
               I have yet to master more than glimpses
               But at the least
               While I work on what's within
               I show the world my kind eyes

Sitting on the couch

Think of swirling galaxies at your fingertips
Dust and sparks of light and life
Patterns and places done in splatter-paint
Intentional lack of control within a clarity of vision
Bright and dull with sharpened edges and blunted corners
Rubbed and blurred together, spread apart
Wipe the frosted glass, smooth the crinkled foil
Think of infinite smallness brought to giant size
Knowing billions smaller and so much so much larger
Existing and thinking of that and then forgetting
Doing so much without thinking
Pushing and pulling out thoughts that can crumble to dust
Or remain steady, some that simply vanish
Only to reappear, astonishing the magician

Sitting, sinking, just breathing
Dancing endlessly with your mind, heart straining
Motionless with frantic energy pulsing through every fibre
Burning while you wrap in layers and blankets for the cold
The audience prompts the actor
Who cannot see that his stage is a marionette theatre

All along no one knows that the strings don't matter
But that doesn't matter either when so many ignore them in the first place

Cleaning Slate

The chalkboard, green, and dark, smooth
A few spots that never wipe away
I wonder how they were made
But now they are just part of the chalkboard

When it's time for a new design I wipe away
The old markings with a damp cloth
No bother with erasers that leave so much dust
But even when it's wet and smooth
Moments later I find dried streaks of colour

So I developed a system, a method to clean
I wipe several times, each with a new side
Of the cloth. I can see it come off in the dye
It transfers even when I had thought it was clean.
Then comes a time when I have to decide that's enough

I wipe one last time in a pattern of swirls
So that when it dries at last, the faded streaks
That I cannot erase
Are to my design. And I know they are there
I have chosen them for my new blank chalkboard.
And then I begin to draw again