Sunken Treasure

Just a few from last year. I have not finished any new ones today.


Sunken Treasure 9/7/2010

My feet sank deep in the sand
As the sea pulled away
And I picked up a shell
That poked through the surface
Shining like a jewel in my hand.

Eternal as the sun
The sound of the surging waves
Countless as the bubbles tickling my legs
The endless cycle of tide, sand, dreams.

The salty water sprayed into my face
And I remembered other times
And other places
Cold and brackish it awakens the senses
To lost centuries unrecorded.

Far out in the ocean
Miles below the ocean
Lay the resting places Of man, his dreams and treasure.

Risking all for momentary glory
So far away from home
The sea reclaims its own
As it washes over my bones
Cleansed from pride and dishonor.

The small fish strives against the waves
Trying to get back out to sea
A furiously flashing teardrop of silver
It disappears
Never to be seen again.

I too am striving
Trying to get back to zero
Back to where I am welcome
And back again to rest.

The breeze is cool
And the birds skim the white caps
Looking for food
And crying.

My daughter dances in the surfAnd we laugh at silly dreams
The kind only children can have
And men only long for.

And I throw my head back
And laugh like a pirate
One who has already found his treasure
And needs nothing else.



Time tilt 9/3/2010

Sentimental feelings die hard
Unresolved and unspoken
The understanding of which
We never seem to know.

You can’t capture wind in a jar
Like our thoughts it escapes into air
Disappearing into unknown spaces
Like puffs of smoke that rise and dissipate
The memories of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

No matter what we do
We always return
And no matter what we say
They remain in dusty boxes
In the back of our mind.

We stumble into quick sand
By using the same old emotions
And never see the snares in our path
But we react rather than see
And sidestep into disaster.

I am here
And the night is still
So still that I can feel time
Slowing down and tilting
Just enough for me to get a glimpse
Of all my life at once
Both happy and sad.

Ceaselessly the seasons pass away
Births and deaths punctuate the days
And now time cycles backwards
Rolling over on itself.

I remember many things that were
Embellished and bejeweled they tug at my heart
And I am left vacant and lost
Thinking of a future that I’ll never have.

I could feel fall coming
A familiar taste and smell of late summer
The sun golden and heavy
Full, ripe and sinking.

There I was walking up the street
And as I passed through the lunch crowd
I saw myself in the past laughing
And wondered how different it could be
Guessing about how I must look
And how he must feel about me?

A strange double life
Split down the middle
With one half safe
And the other drowning.

I can almost see and almost hear
That delusional person I was
Unknowing and purposeless
Such a fine meal for sacrifice.

But I can’t return to that impatient self
That part fell away, split down the middle
Falling downwards without any bottom
And still falling forever.

My dreams have awakened
The secret eye of the soul
Illustrating things forgotten
And unresolved.

Once my dreams were of hidden places
Of huge possibilities opened up
Unexpected and magical
But now they are smaller, dark and cruel
All about the unfinished
The things I never did right
Or the things I never did at all.

My conscience doesn’t bother me
But my omissions are haunting
And I feel unworthy and unloved
Scarred, ugly and wasted.

The world turns on a tilt
The seasons change
And the ceaseless tides of life and death continue
But my heart has stopped
While my body keeps on living.

Ghosts are like a memory
Caught in eternal limbo
Either unwilling to let go
Or unable to leave.

I too am a ghost
Wondering up and down the hall
Reliving some kind of agonizing moment
Unable to ever escape.

We spend our time gaming the tables
Giving to just to get
And loving just to steal
Artificial thoughts and artificial places
No matter how grand
Just shallow and temporary.

The tables exchange our money
And our days reflect our wants
Always a way to use or argue
To our own benefit, money, or time.

Does every thought need a purpose?
And must every action be self-serving?
In 10,000 years no different than today
No matter the planning and the effort
We fall into our actions
And suffer our own rewards.

My words are like water on a rock
They flow useless over dead matter
But let the dead carry their tombs
No longer able to hear
The voice of man or God.


The weight

Imperceptible the creeping end
One millimeter, two millimeter, three millimeter, four
Miles beneath my feet
Ancient rock shifts and sinks
And I feel so very alone.

The time of troubles
That seems to never end
So small that we didn’t even notice
The day it started or the day it ends.

I never noticed at the time
That vague sense of death
Not enough to rouse me from sleep
But just enough to hurt.

It is the first wound deep and mortal
That is the one that cannot heal
Penetrating from back to front
The one I knew was coming
But didn’t know from where.

The secrets are deep within me
And they do not come out without pain
Uneasy they rest inside my memory
Almost undetected, but growing.

Looking forwards you never see it coming
The painful snares that lay in our path
We react rather than see
And side step into disaster.

In my dreams I have seen the connection
And in my heart I have felt its sting
Aghast my breath taken away
At the tragic but expected end.

I have chosen a course
And have suffered the consequence
And I have succeeded and failed
Still standing
But full of deadly holes.

Unwanted I wandered in grief
Back into the desperate wasteland I left
But I never found any water
And I never found any resolution.

The sun still passes overhead
And the past has circled out of view
The wounding words hurt a little less
But the pain never goes away.

I am alone
And all my help has disappeared
Long since evaporated
Leaving salt in my wounds.

Moments pass
And I cherish what I can
My daughters smile
And her soft caress.

Sitting on the rocks
We got our feet wet at the lake
And we laughed at silly dreams
The kind only children can have.

I shall never be as before
The small things do not matter now
Wasted my impatient days of youth
When I knew love
And sighed in false safety.

I am so far fallen
And I know where I went wrong
And I listen to cruel normalcy
And it still hurts my heart.

Everything I ever said
And everything I ever did
All thoughts, ideas, and dreams
Have gone somewhere to stay
Outside of length, width, depth and time.

Just because we cannot see
Doesn’t mean it isn’t there
Beyond our limited vision
God’s dimension
And heavy with time.