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