I cannot be everything to everyone!
I do not want to be everything to everyone!
I am not going to be everything to everyone,
because in the end, I will be nothing to everyone, and
I won't be me.

Man and men everywhere;
Silver-fox, gay, several-times divorced,
But not one without baggage to be seen.
Pimped up with ****,
Waged weary by work or
Isolated through layered losses,
The modern man: a peculiar specimen.
It seduces the obvious why we turn to women to fill the void;
Upside-down desires? Or love that truly inspires?

Desolate.
Dry, like an arid desert;
Limited life contact,
Hopeless.

Crying was a mirage,
Only others seemed to hold the key;
That could unlock,
The healing springs from within.

But drip by drip,
Inner acceptance they bring;
More freedom within,
Who I am is the best place to begin.

My tears are the permission,
To grieve this long journey;
From before my birth,
The pain of a broken world that you’ve allowed me to live in.

Be here,
With these tears.
Don’t leap ahead,
And miss the healing in these cool springs.

When the tears fall,
They release life;
Permission to be,
Freedom to embrace.

New life,
But it first took courage,
To shed that first tear;
You faced the fear,
That held you captive,
But now you are free to fly.

On the wings of a new horizon;
To walk on dewy grass,
With the sun rising, new promises.
Try again, learn and grow stronger,
In your way and time.

Life is in the here and now, the present,
Death is in the past and future; regret and needs to be met.
But talking about dying, pain, angst, the last breath brings life;
Mysterious peace settles, an absence of strife.

We may think we’re alone in death,
But we all go through it, crossing that precipice.
Something we all have in common,
Not just for one but for everyone.

Sharing stories becomes living memories,
Remembered in death, then as homilies.
Celebrating life: a life well lived,
Then, death is seen as not taken but given.

The grief is deep,
It wells and swells
Deep inside.
I now want to draw near
The deep, and
Peer down inside,
See the waves crashing,
See the pretty foam
From the chaos,
Deep inside.
When I come close,
It’s refreshing,
Calming,
Mesmerising.
Lulling me into a deep sleep.
Transforming me from the inside out,
So that Your new creation
May come forth.
Be present.
Even in the cold,
Even in the chaos,
Even in the unknown, and
Even in the loneliness.
Even. Deeper.

Grey skies loom,
Threatening oncoming turmoil.
Or, a promise of loosening
Fixed ways?

She passes faster than we can grasp,
We try to capture her, firm in our clasp.
But she runs right through us,
Savouring, she becomes our mistress,
She rules indiscriminately,
Sometimes, not always, distressingly.

Oh,
Mistress Time, you're full of beauty,
Admired, best in the present, free and fruity.
If we don't, we'll mourn,
And if only despaired, she will scorn.
But now, she comes alive,
Invigorated, we thrive.

Yes,
Face to face, she tells tales,
Of the dreams, places we’ll sail.
Future fantasies, we indulge,
Temptress Time, let us divulge,
Our secrets,
Worn down, we slip; more regrets.

Words come and go,
So quickly,
I can’t catch them all!
They dance across my mind,
And then, when I want to recall them,
****, they’re gone!

Purify us!
So that we burn,
with your glory.
We are fragile selves,
Our egos are weak, so
That we crave our glory.
We hunger, we thirst
For the things of this world,
Purify us!
Burn the distorted lenses,
So that we can truly see,
You!

Grief is like a sledgehammer,
Smashing through life indiscriminately.
The widow tries to hide her wound,
Like a mother cuddling her cub;
Instinctively, protectingly and lovingly.
But their darkness swallows the light,
And they fall deeper into the abyss.
Swollen eyes can only open with tenderness,
And a touch from a heavenly hand extended.
Warmth infuses the dead flesh,
Loneliness liquifies with love.
Intimacy is a potent life force,
That which cannot be known by the proud,
But only the downtrodden and deeply slumped,
Lacking life, tossed aside because their used date’s up,
And the technology has been upgraded to 17.20,
Though new life comes, silence is comforted by a tender embrace,
Life, re-formed, emerges,
And takes on another shape; begging to be discovered.
Silence can then be comforting and enlarging, only if you dare to sit and listen.

Where shall we go?
To get our fix?
To get our relief?
Peace?!

To the fiz?
To the *****,
To the fax,
Pals,

Or to our faith?

Wherever 'it' is, is our saviour.
The gods of this world,
Masquerading as possible solutions,

But leaving everlasting aches,
Not true peace --
Leaving us, searching, in
Purgatory?