Hold Me Back (day 2469)

I danced to remember a feeling I had
While roaming alone on Pier Twenty One
Music so hypnotic I had hardly known
Whose eyes I had met with, feverish tone
At first it was silent, the music inside
Spotlight extended to one single soul
Hair twisting sideways each time it lasted
Steps that soon took my heartbeat along
Hands that soon felt for my returning heat
I’m sure that we danced here, but all I remember
Is the way that her eyes would instantly flash
A smile that would curl from the side of her eyes
That took on a new beat erupting inside
And the night ran away as we danced, now, along
To instincts we found in a feeling we now had.

Beat (day 2457)

Sometimes I forget the beat;
Lost souls that took my heart;
Forgetting to write the due date,
I reset my passwords
And upset my stomach
Into a lunch box at breakfast.
I was at the riverside
Listening to bagpipes roll
Like blood letting drilled into my head,
Little splashes kept overwhelming
The lunch I had planned
And my new shoes now soiled.
It’s not that I lose the time,
I keep that in my head
Like Lou Reed holds a note,
It’s that full time
Seems to expand vertically
Nearly catching all of these stars
With a beat I’ve never heard.

Life of a Leaf (day 2408)

I’ve grown accustomed to leaves turning my memories from fresh to curled, a well understood paradox that changes the tide so romantically it hurts like the small spots beside the bulging veins growing inside.

My smile has grown lines, my heart has extended its beats, my hearing has begun to dance with angels upon the dead leaves blowing along the roughly trampled ground – are these our memories we have yet to experience, or have they been forgotten and left to dissolve into earth?

So I crouch down low and embrace the softly blowing wind that helps me to see my passing time I used to think I loved, I used to want to love, so here I’m hurting from spatial infrequencies that cup my involuntary spasms from underneath the table and remind me to forget to itch the pain.

Does this leaf know it crumbles within my palm so slowly softly? Did it reach for me in a pure moment of thought, expecting my return upon amber wings of a sun soaked day like an emotional Prometheus on a personal mission.

Then, like the ashes of memories crumbling in scaled hands of our Phoenix, so too shall sun rise again over the horizon of a small family farm to bring with it a wet spring full of insight and gratitude that runs the width and depth of a heart shaped leaf settling softly upon a well worn path of insight.

Revealed (day 2339)

It was here that I grew
My madness held me there
My heart beat madly
My union of reaching
Ceased to hurt me
While slowly an opal
Opened to reveal
What I knew was the heart
And there a growl existed
To serenade me
Into my desire
My madness
A belonging to
And a deep inhale of
That rose and gleamed
To flourish my mind
Into madness I held

Shuffling (day 2318)

I’m not very far
Just a shining star
A beat sent to the night
Half past what was good
Turned into three songs
I’m not shuffling on
Freight train of my night
Slow song keeps following me
Down another lonely street
Not far to get
Thoughts of home
My weary knees,
Shining star and not very far
Sing me songs I wont forget
And carry me another beat
I’m shuffling on.

Solitary Circle (day 2198)

How do I succeed at following rhythms?
Time passing while my heart beats
With unspoken visitors enabling
Each pitter-patter footstep leading
Into a little hole I don’t know how to close any more.

I watch bluejays easily get mad at
Unflinching sun poking through spaces in a wild canopy
And woodpeckers at ease as I whistle a hello,
Vigorously and meticulously rummaging through
Every year of hard protection.

Will I find answers in these rhythms?
I dance in firelight imagining all of my ancestors
Which brings comfort to my solitary circle
But never ceases evoking deep pangs;
My wild soul, accompanied.

Shawnigan Lake - Ned Tobin

Rippling Madness (day 2098)

I woke into a fright
Although I had it under control
I charged ahead
I yelled out loud
My fierce was pounding lurch
For left into my rippling mass
A spearhead lodged between
My very fourth and fifth rib
Grazing my own beating heart
I looked into wild eyes
Victor of my battling stone
True friend in waking hours
Had become distant as a cloud
To which my heart that had beat for
Beat for nevermore.

Rippling Madness by Ned Tobin