Standing in the Clouds Today and More Poems of Pondering

Standing in the clouds today,

Aware that I am not alone.

The sun falls down upon my face,

Somehow I feel you've came back home.

My eyes fall down upon the ground,

As thistles gently dance for me.

The lilting breeze the only sound.

No mortal man here to see.

Soft bird calls caress my ears,

An ethereal sound as peace ensued.

I thought of when you’d smiled and said,

‘When I'm gone, I'll watch over you.'

I hadn’t really understood,

Youth is blind and doesn’t see.

Now standing on this peak today,

Your words finally make sense to me.

The smell of Pine fills up the air,

Soft dampness formed from morning dew.

I feel a swell within my heart,

Aware a bridge has formed to you.

The clouds seem to be so close,

I want to raise my arms up high.

To touch those soft and weightless dreams,

To feel that bright blue endless sky.

I don't know if it is this place,

With life and beauty everywhere.

Perhaps because its been ten years,

Maybe an answer to a prayer.

In this moment here and now,

Surrounded by those drifting clouds.

I sense your smile warm my skin,

I feel your presence all around.

Love is anchored deep inside,

You'll always live within my heart.

A bond was formed that cannot end,

Our souls will never truly part.

Her eyes are blinded by the unfamiliar glare,

As sunlight dawns upon new skin.

The safe confines of nurtured hold,

No longer held deep within.

She was dispelled and displaced,

Her passage drew a map of pain.

The bestower of life had never known,

Consuming, searing then gone again.

Lost from her protective cocoon,

Replaced by a strange new world.

As spring shoots slowly reaching for light,

Rose petal fingers softly unfurl.

Lost to all her mind has known,

Surrounded in uncharted land.

An awareness of her hunger dawns,

The call to survive as nature planned.

Pure and precious breath pulls in,

Then urgent cries, her wants ensured.

They gaze in wonder at their child,

Teardrops drop. Fears reassured.

They feel a joy inside so sure,

That no-one could ever have conceived.

The love endowed in genes and souls,

Their reason for being. Or so they believe.

As I sit on the precipice,

Eyes fixed on a shard of light.

Scribing my own bildungsroman,

A single chance to get it right.

As I glance back over time,

Wondering why I stooped so low.

Hoping I can still walk tall,

Desperate for a means to grow.

Lonliness was all I'd known.

From birth just a tiny blight,

Crowded room; but all alone,

Never could get it right.

Seeing no-one at my back,

Shutting down those inner doors.

Surviving, trying to stay intact,

Inside scars as open sores.

Passing through those fleeting rooms,

No one there to call my own.

In angels I never did believe,

Then she came and took me home.

Foster mother or gift from God

I really wasn’t sure.

I found I slowly thawed inside,

All my issues, she endured.

On the awful day she died,

I laid down my tired, young head.

The precious mother I had known,

Replaced by hopelessness instead.

I began to try in school,

Working hard to make her proud.

I thought I'd found another way,

To let all the sadness out.

Time passed on, now a man,

I met a kindred soul one night,

Blue eyes filled with hope and care.

A smile that chased my pain away.

Although I felt a love inside,

I felt I needed to be free,

I had to run. I killed her pride.

She then mourned her time with me.

No ties to bind, no noose around me.

I heard my son was born one day.

A link so close I couldn't see,

Another life I had betrayed.

I sent money to ease my guilt,

She wrote on his birthday every year.

Trying to force the ties and binds.

With photographs which fuelled my fears.

I saw my eyes as I gazed,

Then tried to wash those thoughts away,

Work became my mind's back door,

The reason for getting up each day.

Blacking out my thoughts and fears,

With sad affairs and booze.

Now my hair, it comes in grey,

Twenty years I choose to lose.

Today I am going to meet my son,

I don’t expect too much, you see.

I never went to look for him,

He was the one who sought out me.

Upon my path in this life,

Too many tears I’ve cried.

Repeating patterns of generations,

I could have broken, I should have tried.

I cannot change the past,

Fear caused my loss of sight.

My own boy says we can try again.

With the time that I have left,

I will try to make things right.

Another Sleepless Night...

I cannot sleep once again.

Surrounded in silence, like a lone wolf.

Woken from a very potent,

not very pleasant dream.

Whilst night's embrace devours me,

dangerously dark and thoughtful,

Wind breaths on my window,

dubiously waking the dead.

In my head, I want to sleep,

clock softly ticking, as I try to sleep.

Morning is coming. Cruelly creeping...

up on me ...... like old age.

How will I get up? Tarnished by tiredness.

Less than six hours, and I am no good.

Given to daydreams and yawns.

Victim to slow thoughts and tantrums.

A fool to be fractured by nocturnal reverie.

The cold, dark air is biting me,

as I clutch the covers tighter.

My head runs in reeling rings.

Whilst only darkness stands still.

Dancing between my vision's doorway.

My mind turns torridly over,

restless disjointed cogs of thoughts.

This to do. Doubting that.

Soaring damnations of calm.

Why can’t I drift away?

a bobbing bottle on the tide.

Tick tock, crows the clock,

taunting my tortured ears.

I wonder how I will face the day.

As night shrewdly slips away...

to rest his weary eyes.