ThatJimGuy's Blog

SO the haze
which envelops us
dissipates
and now
I see you there
just as you were
when you called
to me

And no, you didn’t know
how powerful your voice
your beautiful
songs of swans
and others
which I drank in
would reach
my old wretched
wrinkled and
yes, sometimes hated ears.

And if the years were kinder
and our hearts younger
And if the ifs
of our lives
torn asunder

If the ifs
of so many dreams lost
could become like us
hanging on
to our threads
in our lonesome beds?

If the ifs
of our lives
could escape our heads

and soar

into the purple dawn’s light
I see out the window
of a new dawn?

And if the ifs
of ours pasts be forgotten
and start anew
with this morning’s rays begotten
with its purple glory, above the haze
our tears ablaze

with star-shine crystals
salted with love and pain

If I could but share
your secret flame!

Oh, but if I could just
hold you tight
and whisper away
our fright?

of being new again.

Mon coeur, elle est dans mes rêves,
un fantôme, un souvenir
mais de peur qu’elle est toujours lÃ
et ça suffit je suppose…

sometimes 2
———–
sometimes the memories are too much
sometimes too little
hauntings and longings
tied up loose and twisted with
a thread of time
sometimes

sometimes
———
sometimes i think i’m dying
other times
i think i’m living
sometimes i’m tired of crying
other times
i’m tired of giving

sometimes i feel so old
like a stale piece of bread
covered with mold
no one would eat it
unless they were starving

sometimes I feel like i’m hungry
for something maybe i used to have
or perhaps never did
for what i used to be
for secrets
i hid

and when all is said and done
and whispers cease from my lips
would you have said you have won?
would you watch the liquid drips

from some machine?
i think you know
what i mean

sometimes the dreams are too much
i wake with sweat
wondering forever
if i’ve paid the debt

and if i can die easy

ghosts in the river
——————

AND I went down to the dock
walked the
familiar path
slower, now and heavier
the stones were crumbling
strange
after all, the rocks, the shells
still seemed the same
the sand
the water glistening
in my old eyes

Stood and used
all my senses to take it all in
and remembered with joy and pain
I saw our ghosts on the river
swimming, sailing, fishing…
it was almost too much
for my decrepit brain

And I wanted to dive in
and drown with our ghosts
and be who we were again
to swim amongst the seaweed and reeds
to feel the salty breeze
to sail the winds
of yesterday

I hesitated
on the edge
the sea-birds calling our names…

The boat is gone
you have another
Our wives are gone
we have each other
friends forever (We promised!)

And it is sad but fitting
that we share this bond
for we ran fast and far
when we were young
DARING the wind to catch us!

I see our ghosts
of years gone by
sailing the river
with a tear in my eye
though I would never admit it
the lump in my throat
I wish I could kill it

SO before I return
leave me this please
and do not tease
my tears
for the ghosts
are watching.

threads
——-
what should i have said to you?
in this strange, new,
frighteningly strange new world
where each thought spoken
each word written
with their many
fine colored threads of meaning
blend the rope
by which me to hang?

(in response to a provocative internet conversation…)

Whispers of Eternity

pour mes enfants, je vous aimerai toujours

I find my eternity in my daughter’s face.
If there is only one single thing I can pass on
to her and my son, then yes,
I might be able to die in peace,
defying all that time has done to us.
Knowing that these wrinkled old hands
with which I type
were once as as vibrantly full
of the pureness and purpose
of our former youth.

And we swore we would die
before we ever got old,
but here we are, and life goes on.
Our eternity lives on,
in other lives and other eyes.

Whispers, soft whispers
of what we were,
and long to be again – but never can….

So let us rejoice in the beauty
which our children may discover.
Let us never dismiss all
that our youth had uncovered.
The secrets we thought were our own.

Let us be brave in the twilight
as they are in their morning sun.

Let us never forget what it was…
what it was
to be young.

©2010, Jim Sabean

Memories of Rain
—————-

splish splash
patter plop plop
I hate the rain
except when it reminds
my soul to smell your scent
and touch you again

Soaked, uncaring, oblivious
to the wetness
between us

Pureness of your lips
touching mine
the bliss

Oh! That touch I miss!

And we didn’t care
about the clouds around us
we didn’t care that lightning
might strike us
The darkness was our friend
Touching in the rain
until the end

And I drank pure
from your pristine lips

-Jim Sabean ©2010

come
—-

come
i can smell your
sweated scent
beyond the shifting
fringes
of my
dark
reality

come
i can hear your
light stalking
forest feet
beneath my song
howl with me
at that shivering
night
sky

come
let me lick
clean
your fur
we shall bathe
entwined
under our
naked
moon

Paths I
——-

Oh please never
stop
thinking your thoughts
out loud like thunder
sometimes like rain
soft summer misty cool
surround me
your essence

If you were but to speak
I can listen, too.

Traveling paths
no one ever noticed
or dared not walk
you DO have your beat
your drum, you lead
reluctant it seems
or perhaps you know
not
that others try to follow
that rhythm ever
changing yet constant
somehow

The Wise Ones, you collect
like an anthology of yourself
you cannot choose all
nor even one
to follow, dear
Your path is not theirs
Your path is where you walk
those spaces where you talk
never in other’s faded footprints
eroded memories and time-worn words
of wisdom will not lead you!

Your path is where you walk!

It’s OK if you lose your way back
for you are always there
with you
did you not know?

I hear your drum,
though you may not
it is a heartbeat
and distance has no meaning
for its sound is unusual
and nothing bars its way
across all possible
dimensions.

To hold your hand
and walk those spaces
would be like holding air!

And yet -
I would gladly try
would gladly cry.
With you?
I would gladly fly!

Along and across
your secret paths
even you cannot see.
The dark secrets
do not scare me.