Gates (day 3194)

No longer could the gates be closed
No longer were they present
Abandoned
For when the sky
Turned its evil red
A wind swept in
Opening the holes
Receding each memory
Until desolation took hold
And all was washed
White with time
Which left no one
To collect
Fragments of dust
Standing guard
At the gates
They could no longer close.

Gates (day 3136)

You guarded the gate
Like Sphynx afar
Stoned and vacant
And mighty imposing
Like a thundering Lord
With a wish for more
Yet slowly people
Fell away
As bricks built upon
A ragged foundation
Of imposed rules
And stolen goods
Will always crumble
Until at last
It broke
Hinges and all
Leaving each pebble
In your wake
A memory
Of a truth once shared

Sunshine (day 1919)

Would you be a heart that will call out?
Shoes so familiar
Like eyes closed into sunshine,
And memories that float into this blank space –
Too happy to change it –
For we’ve started to understand
That tomorrow never comes,
And all we can hold on to
Is the ball clanging around wildly
Inside what we close our eyes to guard against.
This isn’t a memory,
This is pure unabashed and secret dreaming…
A love that screams to come out,
And I’m walking through the madness
With a hope to one day find my way out.

Sunshine by Ned Tobin

Frosty Morning Saunter (day 891)

A motionless saunter through the cold grass leaving footsteps every bloody place that I go and picking up my feet without tying up the laces because the gloves on my hands are too warm and the air is too cold but the path ahead is shaking and quivering in unrelenting uncontrolled mastery non-mastery in spite my insistence on leaving my hands out of their pockets to fight this urge to cower and shelter from the brutal elements hoping to bridge the gap between strength and toughness without too many frost bites but this is ok because I read about it in a book that told me I should and it told me it’s valiant and it told me I can walk on coals with bare feet too because the skin between my toes is too soft and could use a good toughen up but oh my look at that large dog walking down the now covered in leaves path about to jump up on me because I treat it like a human being and acknowledge it’s existence for who in their right mind wouldn’t want to jump up on me with such an acknowledgement but you know the dog is so friggen big it’s like a young man feeding must be expensive is all I can think as my steps trace up the frozen tarmac slipping on the thin layer of ice hardly visible and highly wavering but all is good because I’m about to peak this crest and stand for a moment on the highest point and survey my kingdom for it is my kingdom for it is my kingdom for it is my kingdom that I survey due to my commitment to walk the coldest slippery path in all the woods in the mornings before the dusk has settled in and after all of the leaves have come flying down to the maker of their fate named gravity and decay and decomposition and footsteps along the singletrack path between the naked branches of thinner than I thought birch trees awaiting the bounty of springs sunshine because I’m not ready to give up on the year yet I’ve got plans to formulate and materialize and time to waste and sleep to never catch up on and a nice warm cup of coffee around noon because I’ve begun to let down my guard for certain things as I raise my guard for garbage and consumption and waste and destruction of our land this land my land my kingdom I saunter through on this cold frosty morning good morning world good morning world good morning world get up and go now take it off.