Ode To My Favourite Pen (day 3067)

I found you down a darkened road
Construction and rainy smells
Inside an old historic building
In to what felt like a historic store.
The walls were lined
With countless pens
And items supporting pens,
All illuminated so eloquently
Showcasing the finest specimens
Any penman could want.
In here I walked back and forth,
And fellow patrons wandered deep in thought,
Where finally in the deepest corner
I found you resting on a stand
Not a fingerprint laid your barrel.

And now so many years have passed
Yet not once have you let me down
Though the world we’ve traveled by foot
No wear shows upon your barrel,
Your nib a perfect flow.
And your mark has been inscribed
On countless pads sent afar
With, what I believe, quite an exquisite touch
Unique to me, my penman mark
You so critically help me lay.
I look and hold you every day,
Proud to know you by feel and weight
To have you by my side,
And to know that when I need you most
You’ll be right where I lay you down
Ready with your perfect balance
Upon paper we do play.

Weight of the World (day 3043)

How do you manage the weight of the world
When the weight of the world is too much?
When the birds are all sent to the sky, flying
By the dinosaur bones floating through the air?
How do the trees that lived for ten thousand years
Live for thirty years rotting in a house?
How does a landscape dug up, bulldozed around,
Erected with skyscrapers of metal and glass
Placed on the land held sacred for generations
Now become meaningless and void?
Perhaps it’s become a subject of cultural appropriation
Us humans and that of the Gods,
Powerful mother Gaia and her wiles and subtlety
And a grandiose sense of reality.

Coals (day 2803)

Yellow coals burn in my ancient fire
Radiating my self into night
For I cometh for no depth
No talisman – slender
I come for the full weight
Of each choice I’ve ever met.
So I’m left here spinning
Middle of the square,
Conscious of my coals
In the hands of each soul
My remission dares to re-enter.

Slow Tune or Jangle (day 2481)

I’m going to split myself into unending characters
That rasp along to a slow tune or jangle
Waiting for a sunset slip – in to make me better
I said carry me away!
With something dragging behind I needn’t care for
Lurching, weaving, my staggered step keeps leaving
Why did it ever matter that this meaning had punctuation
Drawling leftover party pleaser at midnight
Taken too much sugar glitter!
And Madonna playing quietly as gamblers swing their weight
With a pretty little dancer making eyes across the room
I am endeavoring to depart, avoiding unnecessary chatter
Closing out this night as a single dusty platter.

Our Daily Step (day 2433)

Ask yourself questions of thy soul:
Those of pith
That require no translation
When repeated backwards to the mind,
Those that break you down
To your very foundation
Whereby upon rebuilding
A new found power exists.
Are you inside enough?
Building virtue like an Olympian
Sweating breaks down the truth.
Ask these questions of thy soul
Until blood of our deepest toil
Stains the back of our lively dance,
And reverberates from the weight
Of our daily step.

Passion Journey (day 1535)

This road carries the weight
Of a passing song;
Our fearless warrior carried on.
Deep as jungle screams at dusk,
A dusty trail stays hidden but not gone.

A road turns its wiles away.
Heavy hearts jump and start to say:
Adventure is this journey’s end!
Press forth into within,
Make passion journey’s beginning song.

From My Heart and Throat (day 1302)

Some days I don’t want to exist anymore.
Some days I don’t want truth to be hovering
Around the center vortex of my cranium.
And it’s not even a weight,
It’s a lifting feeling that attaches itself
And continually pulls my gaze
..and hands
To face collecting clouds with nothing but
Questions rolling from heart and throat and
Rain drops that keep falling down my face.

From My Heart and Throat by Ned Tobin