Tag: life

From Gathering Gloom Under An Empty Moon

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Only you can move
This worn and weary hull
Fill my sails
With words of hope
And carry me to the distant shore
Leaving these waters far behind
To drown in them no more

Tides that wash upon the sand
Crack and split the hardened land
Forced upon to prove its worth
Such as the time that wears my hand
Breaking body and spirit’s mirth
Crumbling which was strong and grand
Even mountains reduce to Earth
But the mountains always rise again

So give me rise
And give me hope
Take away my morning fears
Shone in the light of my younger years
And smooth my jagged edges bare
With breath, whispers and seductive sighs
With the grace of your touch
And the heat of your eyes
With all you give that means this much
And not by the flow of my tears

Your words become my feeling
Your touch becomes my sight
I hear your quiet breathing
End the wandering quiet night
I reach to find that in my mind
Memories and moments, never far behind
Like fingertips gracefully tracing signs
Seeing a feeling that will never grow blind
From footsteps on the floor
Coming to me silently
Dark and shapeless shadows
Begging me to give them more
Consuming me with visions
And stealing my eye

Feeling my way down this whitened road
The hard winds chill and sting with snow
Flesh and bones should never be so cold
When for you alone I would sell my soul
Just to keep this hope
The hope that in my heart I hold
Of warmth on cold nights
Passion beyond all my sight
Pouring love into my life
A wine too rich to drink it down
When the hull does crack
With salty brine in which I drown
And the heart does break
Sails lay limp on this windless lake
Your whispers won’t give guide for this trip
Nor save me from the icy grip
No life or love for life and love’s sake
Slippery rail now leaving from the living
Pulled under by the weight of lost and lonely days
The murky water of my past misgivings
This mind and soul, my final grave

Week Three

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Today marks the beginning of my third week at the new job. It has been quite an adjustment, but a quick transition. The drive is a solid 50-60 minutes of road time in each direction, which I thought would be bad, but it really hasn't been. I struggle with it a bit just being so far from home each day - there is simply no way to quickly get back if the kids need something, or I have to pick one of them up from school. But there is also no traffic to speak of here, and honestly, a commute to Amherst or Williamsville could take just as long with traffic some days.

At least I can prepare for a consistent distance and amount of time.

The job has grown on me quickly. The staff is nice, the people genuinely need my help - not just people in cut-throat positions trying to get ahead. People here work hard at trying to make life and death experiences manageable, positive, and create successful outcomes. It helps knowing I'm helping helpers.

It is a bit of a relief to be busy, not micromanaged while expected to be a manager. To have a say in decisions and actually have it taken seriously. It's good to be back in a familiar feeling environment, facing real challenges. I like the hands-on, client first approach I need to take.

This has been good. Hopefully, it will continue to be.

Cassiopeia Sighs

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Clear and crisp, these winter skies
When autumn binds the summer’s ties
To frosty morning grounds
And silence that surrounds
Hearing nothing but a heart that pounds
And I sigh

I think, and I sigh

For here upon the midnight nigh
The winter moon with arms stretched high
Looks down upon the hills and trees
Leafless skeletons, forgive the breeze
Neither with an ask nor please
And I sigh

I ponder this, and I sigh

Taking back the sun and sky
Against the winters might, I try
But coldly under this smiling moon
I sit alone in an empty room
I sit in a house of empty rooms
And I sigh

I sit, and I sigh

Beneath Cassiopeia seated in the sky
Trying to catch the hunter’s eye
To gain his heart, to gain his mind
To gain a love so hard to find
To have their lives so intertwined
And I sigh

I think, and I sigh

Staring above to the winter sky
On frozen grounds where love can die
Taking from me flesh and bone
Life only borrowed, not to own
Belonging always to our home
And I sigh

I exhale one last sigh

Throwing a Hippopotamus

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Sometimes that’s what this life feels like.

I have been given a hippopotamus, and my job is to throw it over a wall.

And I have to do it. But I have to figure out how first. I’ve already spent too much of my life having this damn hippo falling on me again and again…

The wall isn’t getting shorter and the hippo isn’t getting any lighter.

But as I get older, I’ve learned a little about this hippo, and this wall. And I’m trying some newer, less subtle approaches.

I think I’ll just knock down the wall.

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December 2007

Torn In Two

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Written November 21, 2009. An adventure of alliteration.

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Silence sounding a siren
Warning of this winter wind
Cold condolences carried through
Azure auroras above my dreams
Flights of fantasy flavor
A life lived less lavishly
Simplicity and safe slipping
Sultry seductions only seen in
Daydream delights

Still in silence stirring every sound
My heavy heart heeds to honor
The feeling forlorn following fleeting
Passion paled purposely
Trying to tame this tempest
Lashing laborious licks
Threatening this torn tenor
Saving some semblance of structure
While a winter witch
Whispers this wicked warning

As a tarot tells
Such solemn spells
Like wind song warnings
Heard time and time again
Disguised under daydream distractions
For better or for worse
Reactions recreate the reasons
While hope hurries tomorrows
And one more warning withers
Daring daydream delights

Of Nothing

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

From June 3, 2009 - a time when my traveling was all but over and all I had left were past reflections of what was, and what I learned.

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Isn’t it funny how a flavor can be a smell? Like the sweet taste of scotch on my own breath as I exhale. The flavor invades my nose and I smell... a place. Smells remind us of so much, so vividly of our past.

The smell takes me back to a bar; a random bar on some random summer night in a random city on some random trip. Does it matter where? It doesn’t to me. Who was I with? No one. And that's meaningless.

All that matters is the feeling. That feeling of being able to lose myself in the empty anonymity of being nowhere in particular. To sit at a bar and drink. To be nobody to everyone. To watch the people around me come and go while the ambient music is just a little too loud to be pleasing. The glow of my cell phone in front of me, beckoning me to start a text conversation with someone, or to drag me a little closer back to the reality I’m so far from.

Happy to be far from.

Days long gone.

The time, like all time, was fleeting. But the magic of discovery, and discovering me was vital. Learning what this life has to offer before returning to a trap set once more with the intent of pinning me down, holding me tight, choking me and snapping my neck just for the pleasure of hearing that halting snap.

Now, to play out the details of what remains while still remembering that smell.

And those nights of a different nothing than the nothing of my life.

Incompletely

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Originally written September 6, 2010

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Paper lies cover tight
Unfolded skin
Taken light
Where gaping wounds cry
Lacking eyes for sight
Crying from their vein
Begging to hear your voice
Speak my name
To see the echoes
Gather in crowds
Inside my brain
Sweating, seething
Crazy or sane

You can feel the past
And recreate it

It’s just never the same

Incomplete and broken
Where you once stood
Your love my only token
Giving rise to this flood
This emotion, hope and love
We give in to sheltered dreams
Happily ever-after scripts
Played out on our own silver screens
Fortune for the few
Fame for even less
More of us live askew
Dreaming of false success

But we all have hope
To make each day new
A chance
A ray of light
That brings our dreams into view

While sins we fail to fear
Consequences?
I’m well aware
Revealed when the voice that said
They are more than just words read
From a book of stories told
Fables falling from the fold
The icy waters that rush over stones
Washing the sins that stain the bones
Left by the choices of days past
In hiding places unable to last

And it was here when the voice
The voice said to me
“These memories you hold
Won’t set you free,
And the bodies in your basement,
You must let them be.
Piles of silver, galleons of gold,
And creature comforts,
Truth be told,
Won’t fill your heart
As you grow old
Your world will grow cold
And then, where will you be?
This life is the one,
The only one you’ll get.
Will you live it in full,
Or die in regret?
If you want to live it
In your own human way
Then lift up your roots
And enjoy every day
Break free from what binds you
And seek distant lands
Never look behind you
At the fallen sands,
Live your life true
And life will reward you!”

Words so irresistible
I had never heard
From voices more tangible
Or the echoes they stirred
But this stranger’s voice
Deep in the dark of my head
Left me no choice
When I heard the words that it said

I listened deep
And I took it to heart
Not in wake nor in sleep
But where should I start?
To embrace this life
This proposal so sweet
Would end all the strife
And sweep me off my feet
It would close a chapter
Leaving the past behind
And bury another body
In the basement of my mind

What is there to lose?
I pondered over and over again
Life will always change and move
No matter when or where I begin

So it all starts here
With a decision
And worry
And hope
Set the wheels in motion
Something a little more reasonable
Break away the corrosion
And get to something more feasible
Close my eyes and take a step
Feel the oceans hidden depth
Feel the clouds move again
Feel the rain that they send
Feel the Earth move at my feet
Feel the Sun’s eternal heat
Feel the Moon and the gravity
Feel destruction without calamity
Feel what I feel when I feel
And I feel this wound finally heal

And Nothing More

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

I

In his declaration, he astounds
His good intentions, in sucking grounds
Sinking in the depths of watery Earth
A muddy place of death and mirth
As bystanders watch amused
Nothing more.
Bleeding.
Bruised.

And nothing more.

Nothing more.

Trapped by roots, in a sullen town
Too broken for making speech or sound
Trapped between sky and ground
Not a heaven and hell
Just soles and crown
The hard trodden roads
Under street lights shining down

While the rest of life drowns

Heartless life made muddy brown
A soul left lost.
Tied.
Bound.

Weathered.
Tethered.

And there
His report was found

II

He had waited for his day of knowing
A day to reap all he had been sowing

His day for solace and understanding
Nothing special he was demanding
Just answers to his questions
And the fruits of his intentions
To the satisfaction
Of his innate curiosity

And nothing more.

Nothing more.

The why
Especially the why
There was never an answer to the why
And it haunted him
Lurching a black cloud above
On the sunny days
And times of love
Weeping tears and pain
Cold and drowning in this rain
Rolling down his creasing brow
Nothing that he can change now

He felt older
Older, not wiser
And left behind
With the broken arrows
Beneath the targets he could not pierce
Each one begging the question

Why?

III

Wistful scrawling
On the wall
Ceiling, floor and down the hall
Symbols, words and statements made
Begging for a barter trade
To make them real once again
Bring them to life was his plan
No breath, no sigh, no blood in vein
No beating heart, no thinking brain

Broken
Beaten
Spirit buried

No more this life
Would make him harried

Left with words and nothing more

And nothing more.

Nothing more.

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Originally written May 27, 2011