PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

every sunrise every moment

is as young as it’s ever going to be

no one can read the silence like me

so I may as well talk about

all the empty my blood fills

and I still sit here knowing

there are things I need to do

just to feel like I should,

just to feel this much.

The driver at the traffic light is waiting for a change.

The new kid on the block is feeling kind of strange.

The sacrificial lamb still doesn't know its fate.

   An old man sits thinking he's probably too late.

The clock in the hallway struggles to keep time.

The poet in his study is searching for a rhyme.

The oak tree in the meadow is reaching for the sun.

   An old man now ponders and thinks his race is run.

The blackbird on the fence is happy just to sing.

The goldfish in the bowl knows barely anything.

The youth who once was lost has somehow found his way.

   An old man sits alone, with nothing left to say.

The jury can't decide what verdict it should reach.

The speaker is confused as he bumbles with his speech.

The king has lost his crown, and thinks of what he had.

   An old man remembers when he was once a lad.

Copyright © Robert Haigh 2015

These paths and lanes I've walked along

So many times before.

They've barely changed throughout the years;

Still steeped in days of yore.

Old memories cry out to me,

With tales of family lore.

The cottage where my parents lived

Lies empty, looking sad.

I smile as I recall once more

The happy times we had.

But that was oh so long ago,

When I was just a lad.

St Martin's church, with steeple tall,

Stands proudly on the hill.

My uncle Joe once rang those bells,

And they are ringing still.

Old Joe's long gone — he's buried there,

Along with auntie Jill.

The farmland, stretching out for miles,

Has hardly changed at all.

The cattle grazing in the fields

Are just as I recall.

Same trees  — the ones I used to climb —

Still stand there, by the wall.

I turn, then walk back to my car

Parked down beside the green.

I think about the friends I had,

Now gone, or never seen.

A one-hour drive and I'll be home.

She'll ask, "Where have you been?"

Copyright © Robert Haigh 2017

I placed her head in my hands
and laced my fingers through the patchwork of her silence.
Clocks can't hold you, Love,
but they’ll eavesdrop
and try to slip a limit on moments.

There is too much left unsaid.

I can’t count the days swallowed by you.

I want to be wrapped in you so tightly

we forget what the air feels like.

I remember when we thought we still had time to waste.

I remember when I had so much time left here.

I drive home again and

she has outgrown all her clothes.

I don’t have to kneel to hug her now.

I close my eyes

and suddenly

I am old enough

to have old friends and old enemies

to have memories that won’t last forever.

When did we stop

measuring our lives in months?

I don’t want any of this to be unsaid.

fire fire fire

in the colors I can’t speak

I send it back and forth

on winds

I can’t have calculated

so it’s better to just

hope they stay awake

make me another lifeline

carve me another story

or I will spend every inch right here

sun blazing

now I’ve done it all

everything you can touch

framed in flames

I strike the matches, throw them

one by one

into the universe

with every handshake

I’m breathing you into

infinity

come on

you are all I can see

I send rockets to

collapse at your fingertips

come on

spray paint the world with me

I hope you stay awake

I run on you like moonlight-

it is not something I asked for

but every time I step outside to a midnight

I forget how beautifully

it melds to my skin

and I don’t need

you, I need

to be a part of you,

like every time I come here is a beginning and

you are my timer,

this is the dream

I have heard them singing about

my whole life.

For years I have been counted as lucky,

counting the days,

counting down or up or both.

I have never counted this fast

I want as many half-asleep mornings

as many best nights

as I can get.

It seems like only minutes pass

And then you are gone

Into the nothingness

That surrounds me when you are away

Our hearts fleeting moments

Seem to go by in the blink of an eye

Our desire for one another’s touch

Is only enjoyed in intermittent flashes of time  

How we both desperately want to reach out

And take hold of the hands of time

And use them to bend and mold

The very fabric of time and space

Into a continuous shared moment

Within our very own place

Of timeless existence

in what dark recesses of torture remain

exists a dreaded seed for us to obtain

to keep us sane and deliver us from evil

so goes the creed of an everlasting people

unending doubt resonates to be

impermanance rooted in an everlasting dream

scarcity of hope glimmering in dusk

prevention of fortune in a world of luck

forever told from stories past

eerily reminiscent of perpetual task

systems of new destroyed wisdom once known

for all apart of a world unsown

grimmace and malice plagued once more

in dire times that conjured vile scorn

but it was hope that was given once last chance

now grows a tree from the seed of our past