Thus I Wrote

I dream I’m not really here,
I’m fading away to my outline
I’m a wave lost in the ocean
I’m only what I’ve left behind

I play a song on an old guitar
I’m trying to find the key
I can find all the right notes
But the door’s still closed to me

Am I losing my grasp
Of all that I hold true?
Or am I shedding old skin
Growing into something new?

I lie awake in the moonlight
I feel the warm summer breeze
Then it’s dark without the moon
But never too dark to see

I think of that hot summer
We had such beauty and power
We laughed, brown from the sun
Was that our finest hour?

I didn’t mind not seeing you
‘Cos I knew you could be found
I’m finding it hard now I know
You’ll never be around

I lie awake in the moonlight
I feel the warm summer breeze
Then it’s dark without the moon
But never too dark to see

It’s a new morning
It’s a new dawning
The sun has risen again
It’s a new season
It’s a new reason
To change and be born again

The magnolia blooms
The red robin resumes
Singing and building his nest
Mothers feed their young
Hope is the song sung
To Mother Earth’s latest guest

I had faith in spring
And hope for life it’d bring
I embrace the shoots of green
I feel the warm sun
As in the race I still run
Is this what “Truth beauty” means?

We’re sailing through the storm
Feeling lost and worn
The rain is lashing
The waves are crashing
It feels so far from home

Let’s fix our eyes on the skyline
Let’s look for that first sign
I know the sun will shine
Let me hold your hand
Cos I know, I understand
Those fears we can’t command

I won’t be lying to you
I don’t know anymore what’s true
I don’t always know what to do
But we are not alone
I see all the fears we’ve known
Withered by the love we’ve shown

Let’s fix our eyes on the skyline
Let’s look for that first sign
I know the sun will shine
Let me hold your hand
Cos I know, I understand
Those fears we can’t command

I walk down the pavement
I sit down inside
Hot coffee and warm croissant
I start swimming against the tide
I’m reaching out
Don’t know what’s next
I’m reaching out
Trying to connect

It’s a new day
And the sun is streaming hot
I remember the stars said last night
“Nobody knows the plot”
I was raised on a promise
It was whispered in the wind
It said “Give all you’ve got
And nobody’ll say you’ve sinned”
I’m reaching out
We’re all we got left
I’m reaching out
Trying to connect

Dancing together, with new steps we learned
We move together, that’s another corner turned
Saw my team lose again, unanswered questions, confidence lost
We all compete, new questions answered, new frontiers crossed
We’re holding it together
Trying to connect
We’re reaching out
Trying to connect

Will nothing become me more in my life
Than my leaving it?
Will I face my end with graceful acceptance
Or will I end up grieving it?

Some say “It’s better to be a live dog,
Than to be a dead lion”
We must not be burdened by the past
’Cos today is all we can rely on

Men built great monuments to God
And they discovered with good reason
But God was discovered to be dead
He bound us together for a season

Now Hawking worries about AI
“It could end the human race”
What value will we then offer each other
In this crowded Godless place?

See how I live mostly half out of life
I impotently observe and plan
Sometimes I observe women full of life
And I offer them my dwindling uses, as their man

It’s the deep midwinter
I’m walking in the snow
In the quiet, I hear the birds
I like their song as I go.
The pale sun tries
To shine on me, here below
I’ve given up asking
Cos I just don’t know

I’m going to paint my house
In all the bright colours I find
I’m ready to have faith in hope
And leave my past behind

I ran in the wind
I could see a faint glow
My hair was wet
I ran as fast as I could go
I’ve knelt in the desert
As many did before
But I’ve given up asking
Cos I just don’t know

I’m going to paint my house
In all the bright colours I find
I’m ready to have faith in hope
And leave my past behind

The sea called to me
It whispered for me to go
I was on the waves
And against the tide I did row
Then I let the oars float
Now I’m going with the flow
And I’ve given up asking
Cos I just don’t know

I’m going to paint my house
In all the bright colours I find
I’m ready to have faith in hope
And leave my past behind

If there is no God,
We’ve no one to blame,
For when the rains came;
And if there is no God,
We’ve no one to blame,
For when the storms came;

We predict the weather,
Create cities for shelter,
We share & work together
So tomorrow is better;
We find a natural solution,
The incremental execution,
Of a billion year evolution,
For our miracle resolution.

We make our human condition,
With democratic submission,
We accept subtraction and addition,
Without prayer or contrition,
We believe in what we agree,
And accept what we must be,
Without the shouting and wails,
Of medieval fairy tales.

I was falling in an empty forest
I was one hand clapping
You came needing to my door
And I awoke to your gentle tapping

Hold someone’s hand and make someone smile
Forget where you are going, if only for a while
Find your purpose, And nurture your gifts
To find your place to serve and exist

Know that your failures are the salt of life
They exist between try and achieve
They shine and polish your gifts
And your direction to believe

Inspired by Victoria Koenig’s poem Fog…northernthoughts

The world’s now betrayed me,
That hope-myth collage
My dreams have escaped me
Like a shimmering mirage.

Now what should I do
When all my world’s false?
When I’ve lost all my ideals
And all that I was taught

I find the purest line
That I can follow true
And I create bright new principles
New dreams and new values

I look for authenticity
And I take emotional risks
I build my own true code
And I create my own true mix

I now reject your past
It’s not effective any more
I now reject your rules
For my own path to explore

I find my own private self
Beyond your old moralities
Beyond your values and beliefs
Built on authentic practicalities

* Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s – “The Sun Also Rises”.

Ah…the universe doesn’t know
The truth of what’s beauty
The truth of what’s right.
It doesn’t know the future
It awaits our answer
As we compete and fight.

The answer we build together
From competition
From risks and duress.
And of the many who strive
Some will fail
Some will sow progress.

Our birth and death
Show we are links
In a millennial chain.
That we are but stardust…
We’re from the stars
And shall return again.