Absence

we are all murderers,

we are all criminals,

we are all killers,

we are all thieves,

we are all innocent,

we are all guilty;

we are all dying;

in this place

there is no redemption,

no forgiveness,

no hope;

without You,

there are no answers;

some realities exist beyond

the distant horizon looming

before our limited eyes,

some truths are bigger

than the capabilities

of our simple minds

to comprehend,

some questions

are better left unasked;

somewhere there is light,

somewhere there is forgiveness,

somewhere there is hope;

somewhere there is You.

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The Ballad of Rico and Annabelle

Rico is dying,

but he doesn’t know it,

every day he tells his friends

he is getting better,

every day he grows worse;

he has been to places,

no one should be,

he has seen things,

no one should see;

Annabelle lives alone,

she sits in her box like Greta Garbo,

isolated and alone,

dusted and sheik,

no reason for living,

no reason for dying,

traveling into the hidden night,

without a thought or care;

Rico is in love with Annabelle,

he has loved her for as long as he can remember,

everyday he sees her pass by,

everyday he remains quiet,

everyday he stares passively into the sky,

unconcerned,

uninterested,

that is the way of love;

it is best left unsaid;

Annabelle has waited all her life;

she holds Rico in her arms,

she sees him in her dreams,

she kisses his lips,

she caresses his face,

they make love in her mind;

life begins,

life ends,

this is the way of things,

there’s never enough time;

farewell my friends.

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Keep Your Love Alive (Anne Wilson)

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” – Dante Alighieri - Inferno (Divine Comedy)

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.   I Corinthians 13:8-13

the end approaches,

shadows grow,

darkness builds,

prison bars disappear,

all the self-imposed chains

fall away,

no more limits,

no more boundaries;

no more fear;

words have no worth here,

possessions even less,

all that you think and feel;

unknown,

unimportant,

unimpressive,

unreal,

beyond physicality,

beyond sadness,

beyond joy,

beyond knowing,

beyond wondering;

beyond caring;

only one thing remains,

one thing amidst all the

desires and lusts,

the endless worries,

the doubts and concerns,

the empty, useless emotions,

the greed and envy,

the only thing that ever

mattered all along;

hold on to it with every

ounce of strength that

you possess.

.

.

Now I Know More

sometimes I go back

inside dark and forlorn places,

where confusion and chaos

dance like fire inside my head,

where strange unknown creatures,

silently lurk among forbidden shadows,

places where I stand alone and afraid,

somewhere on the edge;

sometimes I go back to places

where I once was;

I feel the emptiness,

I know the sorrow,

I relive the pain,

I see the lies

for what they truly are;

but then I realize

just how far I have come,

and I know it doesn’t have to

be that way;

now I know more;

now I have a Savior,

now I have a King,

now I have hope,

now I have a reason;

everyday is new,

everyday is alive,

everyday is abundant,

everyday He teaches me

just a little more;

He leads me to places

never imagined obtainable;

He reveals possibilities

never thought possible,

He shows me a love,

beyond the boundaries of this life.

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.

sometimes now

“tell me Gilbarto,”

she whispered in my ear,

on a warm sunny morning,

as we lay together,

her body resting

softly in my arms,

“what is the price to be paid

for simple existence,

in a world

that demands more?”

“so much more;”

we both knew our time

had almost passed,

as all time passes,

in a world ruled by time,

but still we clung to one another,

hoping silently inside

that maybe,

just maybe,

this would be the one

that would not pass,

even though we both knew

it would;

I thought on her question,

and decided there was no answer,

that it was as open ended

as the tomorrow

we both would face,

I thought of my life,

where it had been,

where it was going,

what it had learned,

and came to the conclusion

that it too

had no answers,

a mass of swirling contradictions,

neither beginning or ending,

drifting like the current,

with no known destination;

I thought of His life,

so pure and perfect,

His words

so simple,

yet so strong,

sharp, crystal truth,

far beyond the boundaries

of our limited human comprehension;

He is the king

of us all;

I pulled her closer,

stroked her hair with my hand,

tomorrow she would board a bus,

and her and I

would be no more,

but today

we were one,

even if it was just a moment;

sometimes now

has to do,

in a world where tomorrow

never comes.

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Crossing the Line

changes are not easy,

they never are,

they require deep self-reflection,

honest evaluations;

things which I have never been good at;

once I used to write for popularity,

thinking it was a ticket out,

an escape,

now I write for me,

now I write for survival,

trying to manage life,

mixed in among the dead,

fantasy with the real;

there is a fine line

between fantasy and reality,

genius and insanity,

it is not always easy to tell

which side of the line

something or someone is on,

boundaries are defined,

limits are set, and these become the world

in which we live,

but then someone comes along,

refusing to be confined

by a world of limits and boundaries,

they go beyond the drawn lines,

if they succeed,

they are a genius,

if they fail,

they are a fool;

her and I cross the line all the time,

we both know it,

neither of us speaks about it,

because if we did,

then we might have to admit

there are changes that need to be made,

lines which need to be redrawn,

and that is not easy;

but then it never is.

.

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shadows

we sit among these growing shadows,

standing on the brink of an unknown tomorrow,

hiding somewhere between the darkness and the light,

safe within this land of perpetual sorrow;

moments come and moments go my dear one,

leaving only traces they were here at all,

this moment we hold alone,

free from a land full of killers and madness,

a world of defined boundaries and limits,

designed to imprison all that live within their deadly gates,

and to you do I say;

that it is better to lie here among these shadows with you,

than to walk among the light with any other,

better to have tasted your love even for a moment,

than a lifetime without it.

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