Sorry William

I was once a squirrel poem
and I ran halfway up the tree
before
pausing to notice your
look
pausing to remember your
greeting
your
voice
calling
calling to me
It is your beauty which is truth,
It is your faith which is hope,
your peace which is karma.
And the ships still sail
the deep blue sea
and the world never noticed
you are gone.
And the trains still roll on
tracks of steel
and no one ever noticed at all,
but, oh the difference
oh the difference,
oh the difference
to
me.

***

Lies Poem by Susan Johnston

Emptiness from a belief
Strangled by its own cord
Proud to let it go
So alone
New roads heal past wounds
Set me free to find the love I need
Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies

Boundaries set, values upheld
Tightrope dangles by a thread
Wishing away the pain I flee
From hunger, within me
Set me free to find the love I need
Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies

Hate seethes
Evil mind controls me
Die bastard die

Your blood creeping in my veins
Ecstacy on the wind
Heal the walls of resentment sewn within
Evil eyes bestow on me
Bleeding too I still love you
Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies, Stop the Lies

***

Saddest Poem by Pablo Neruda

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.