The Flow of Time

The flow of time is always cruel…

Like wintertime molasses

I'm older now and such a fool…

I don’t know where my ass is.

(okay...its stilly....I don't care)...lol..... it is a "draft"....which means it can look silly while I continue to work on it until it either makes sense...or I quietly delete it.

Tapestry

In tribute to the grace of loving long
I offer this to you in threads of rhyme –
A layered quilt of life, a silk sarong,
our tapestry – eternal, spun from time.

The narrow, cobbled, stony street we saw
where players danced and sang in days of yore
has yet to touch this lovers feet. In awe
I realize that now I love you more.

A piece of steel upon a knap of flint
can strike a spark that will, with luck, ignite;
we came together as if heaven meant
to purge for good the dark abyss of night.

A conscious thought, a choice, or cupid’s call--
you are my only love-- you are my all.

Summers end

The clouds, in fury, gather and the wind begins to blow
the summer from the land, but summer doesn’t want to go.

An angry shout of thunder follows each new flash of pain.
The weary earth is set upon by multitudes of rain.

The nights of autumn fall on the retreating summer sun,
and mists above the morning tell the world that Fall has won.

South of Clarity

"A constantly revolving parallax,"

perhaps describes the nature of my brain,

Unpolished, precious stone with tiny cracks,

where logic begs emotion to refrain

from taking over processes of thought;

where feelings beg of logic, "take a chance",

In both directions all of this for naught,

which serves to fuel insanity’s advance.

I've given all the time I care to give

to finding what my friends would call "a cure",

and frankly it is comforting to live

within the northern border of obscure.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies…

in vain they search the babble for the wise.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in places never pierced by crystal eyes.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in murkiness that never clarifies.

(pick your favorite ending ....I can't decide.)

© Copyright 2005 Wayne D. Neighbors

When

When all our anger’s overturned
and innocents are free at last
from bloody sword and hellish burn,
when war’s a relic of the past,

when Man’s uncertain enmity
presents, in breach, from evil’s womb
and love becomes our legacy
as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb,

a marble, gilded monument,
inscription etched with golden rhyme,
will sing the dirge; the grim lament
to chronicle, to rue the time ...

when eyes beheld what souls abhor;
when children slept in arms of war.

When Rhyme has passed

---

I think I’ll think outside the bag
and write between the verses.
I’ll stiff them when they call for sag
and act while they rehearses.

I know I’ll live outside the land
of rules and lengthy speeches.
I’ll, finding rhythm, tune my hand
when free is what they preaches.

I’m anti-poet, since you asked,
inside the lines I’ll not.
And chances are, when rhyme has passed,
my verse they’ll long forgot.

Edited by: thewebsailor at: 1/15/04 11:56 pm

Watermarks

Watermarks

---

this is what happens to me when I am having trouble coming up with things to write about...... I get all crazy and turn out stuff like this...



So blocked you are again a fool,
personifying down.
A graduate of nothing school;
a makeup without clown.

So write what down inside you lives,
though hard it is to do.
Write verses your behind you gives;
a little past of you.

If share you do your broken dreams,
a healing you will know.
Much better pain not hidden seems;
be not afraid to show.

Release emotions from your head,
like pistons from a steam.
Escape they will if held instead,
like poets from a scream.

Write backwards if it calms the rage;
face gallantry with fears.
The watermarks upon this page,
they be the poet's tears.

Versions

Sections of life from the version du jour

in verses to hold all the pieces

fragments of me from the cutting room floor

the ego/producer releases

to public inspectors, interpretive fools

who read what emotions surround

attempting to fix me without any tools

by wiring my hot side to ground.

A cloth of intentions they’ve woven from thread

that’s spun from my lines or between.

They’d save me from living or ending up dead

or something they haven’t foreseen.

Unfinished

It's not exactly therapy I guess
although these words, I find,
are more than just the way that I express
the storms within my mind.

The poems are a lifetime set to rhyme;
the scripting of a role;
a simple heart attempting to define
a complicated soul.

The poetry is meant to shout above...
more often, though, it sighs
in sweetly whispered welcomes to a love
or bittersweet goodbyes.

The verses sail the seas of age and youth...
they wander where they will.
The poems wrote the poet and, in truth,
they're working on him still.

Thirty Four

The first ship I served aboard in the U.S. Navy was an Essex class aircraft carrier (USS Oriskany). We (the ex crewmen) tried to save her as a museum...not enough money..She narrowly avoided the scrap heap several times.

But, after a long and valiant battle to stay alive, she was to have an ending fitting to the american naval hero that she is. A burial at sea.....She was sunk as an artificial reef...with an appropriate monument nearby etc.... the final deployment of Ex-USS Oriskany CV/CVA-34 was completed on May 17th 2006. Despite early concerns that she had landed on her starboard side, she was found to be sitting perfectly upright in 212' of water, with the flight deck around 135', and the top of the structure at 69' in the Gulf of Mexico, 22.5 miles offshore from the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, FL, Coordinates - N30:02.542 W87:00.374

For more see the MBT (Maximum bottom time) divers website at mbtdiversers.com/

34

A call has come we can’t ignore;
the bells of glory chime…
to gather o­n a distant shore
a crew from out of time.

We come to grieve the many dead;
the shipmates lost back then...
and as we hear the tributes read
our thoughts return again…

to ports of call in foreign lands
a distant, brighter day;a
when life was held in younger hands,
ashore and underway.

We listen to the bugles call
and wipe away the tears,
as names and faces, we recall,
across the many years.

And as the circle draws an end,
forgive the tears we weep
to see our gray and weathered friend,
committed to the deep.

~ © 2005 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go In Harm’s Way."

John Paul Jones to M. de Chaumont on 16 November 1778.

Yestertimes

"Yestertimes”; a magic word she coined because she's four
she uses to refer us to, generically, "before".
"Pretend we are outside, she says, "and 'tend it's raining, ‘kay?"
Articulated joy in her unique and special way.

"Show me mad," I say to her, to make her strike a pose.
I aim and snap a picture as her little spirit glows.
"Woe is me" another pose, a hand across her brow…
I take a second picture through the love and tears, somehow.

The years will soon adjust her look, increasing age and size;
she'll add a curl and curve or two to compliment her eyes.
I'll save, of course, these pictures and this memory in rhyme,
but Lord, if you would let me now, I'd put a stop to time.

Lemons in the snow.

Opaque

Opaque, before the light of early dawn, a window pane; a portal to our youth, plays visions out of time. My eyes are drawn to scenes within. An oracle of truth embraces me, its chilly arms enfolding my heart and all my dreams. She loves him yet; she mourns the distant hand she could be holding; the touch her mind and body can’t forget. As dark as any moonless night I’ve known, and darker still; my heart. What muse that’s left is black as any crow that’s ever flown; beyond despair, and utterly bereft-- as if the eyes of God were unforgiving; as if my soul had died and left me living.

Gibberish

Gibberish (read it quick before I come to my senses and toss it). Some of the people who live in my head are dirt loving tree hugging freaks. Then there are those who drive battleship cars that smell of petroleum leaks. Christian-like beings in radical veils made of conservative shroud woven in ignorance spun on a loom with no thread of reason allowed coexist madly with liberal hacks consuming with plasticized spades the ugliness flowing from factory farms while wearing their rose colored shades. How is it possible reason prevails and lucid thoughts flow from my pen? Could it be this is just gibberish and I’ve thoroughly fooled me again?

Carlos

The old musician spoke to me in rhythms and in voice. The anger that he couldn't see revealed itself as choice; a choice he couldn't see to make, the boy inside the man, as forty years of this mistake electrified his band. With music of the heart designed to light his darkened soul, the sweet guitar sang in his mind and tried to make him whole. But in the end the instrument that opened up his heart was spoken word; a sentence meant to pull his life apart. And there, revealed, the pain he'd kept completely out of sight; the long forgotten boy who'd wept in fear throughout the night. And ever after, knowing now, he thanked the Lord above. And ever after, knowing how, he filled his songs with love.

Chronicle

So, it’s off to omega I go, and as future events I traverse it’s a comforting thing just to know in the end I’ll come back in reverse. My personal universe lives as a chronicle written in rhyme filled with hints that my subconscious gives me of previous travels through time. As I travel time's infinite scope I’m aware that my passage is paid with the tangible substance of hope from which all human wishes are made.

Melody

A never-ending melody
is playing in my mind;
the quintessential poem, yet
without a single rhyme,

a sonnet for eternity
containing not a word,
a lyric never written for
a ballad never heard.

I write a single verse a day
my heart in every line,
a tapestry of ecstasy
my love for you entwined.

My silent muse composes verse
to trepidation’s themes.
I write for you a song of love…
but only in my dreams.

Out of Print

Within the book of wasted time a section must exist with articles in perfect rhyme of poets never kissed by lady luck or fortune’s son; (the gender matters not); of loves and favors never won; of passions never wrought. My chronicle would grace this page my love, if not for you as written by some useless sage for all the world to view. My dearest love, I here exalt that I am out of print. The presses, dear, were made to halt by orders, heaven sent.

Memory

~ Memory ~ 2/02/02. For Mom. You crossed the boundaries of life to sail in Heaven's sea... and I was left to bridge the gulf between the world and me. You left a child too young to see you didn't choose to go. A child who grew into a man before he came to know... that you left too, a legacy... a memory of love that God himself would be content to be the owner of. ~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

Autumn Apple

The Autumn apple, crisp and tart or spicy crusty warm in pies to please the senses; touch the heart the nose the tongue the hungry eyes.