The Nightingale sings in the dark

After all others have fled in fear

To remind the ones who hear

That joy can overpower sadness

If one has the strength

To let the notes fly

And if not –

Simply listen,

That the light may leak in.

It is funny how much
Inevitable endings
Can feel like new beginnings
And new beginnings
Like desolate endings;

Not unlike how late autumn
Can feel like early spring
If one is not paying attention,
How you can stand in the cool
On a blue, sunny day in November
And deceive yourself into thinking
It is the song of fresh life in March;

How one can despair in the rains
Not far into the new sprung year
Certain everything’s end is near,
Such is the endless ebb and flow
Of singular hope and wasteful woe.

can you write a poem
while attending a meeting?
what inspiration can be drawn
from administrative tasks?
is there treachery perhaps
in the act of governance
to inspire great words
and the people who read them?

perhaps not.
however there is a certain worth
when people gather together;
a kind of community
that seeks to create something new
and sustain the very created;
so perhaps…
perhaps wherever people gather
rises the opportunity for poetry;
we are, after all, living works of art.

Want to know what my day job is? Watch this.

My column in this week’s Winkler Morden Voice & Altona Rhineland Voice

Stirring quietly one day

I noticed my mind wandered;

So silently and with stealth

I followed it at a distance

To see where it would go.

Never once did it walk

A straight or simple line

But around complex circles

Up hills and through valleys

It went and went and went

At times singing

At times shouting

Still other times soundless

Climbing trees

Crawling through bushes

But never did it rest

Until eventually I tired

And wandered back home

To wait for its return

And the story of its journey.

I heard sounds of joy

Coming from the radio

And I felt moving within

But the body refused them

And I lay motionless

While a torrent of happy

Spun me in hidden circles

Such that you could not tell

For i was a rock on a still shore

To each and every observer;

The spirit leaps laughing ahead

Pulling this reticent mortal coil along

Like a lazy dog hauled for a walk

Secretly loving the air in it’s ears

While wearing a mask of disdain

pain is a nebula glowing in space
beautiful remnant of a supernova
casting shadows on witnesses
as layers of past life rocket away
leaving you hollow in the middle
until perchace a new star forms
out of the coalescing fragments
that collapse back upon you

There is a consciousness

That sleeps with one eye open

Watchful for power corrupted

And wielded as a hammer

On the heads of the dispossessed;

When it awakens in reaction

It opens it’s mouth to howl

In rage, in protest, in solidarity

And it rises slowly but surely

To march like Ents on Orthanc

Tearing down desperate despots

Leaving the new order to others;

It is you

It is me

It is the tide of the sea

Cone to wash away the rot

And bring the good we’ve forgot.

You keep going
Until you don’t
You keep moving
Until you won’t
Breathing, Seeing, Living
A simple act of giving
Yourself to others
Yourself to yourself
And there is meaning
If you make it
And there is redeeming
If you take it
Everything is an act of will.
An emptiness you must fill.