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Tag: dreams

Spare Change: curtal sonnet

Published on May 7, 2025

When you begin to want to make a change,
you may have no idea how to start.
In fact, your mind may feel lost and confused;
your friends may think you weird or just deranged,
and you’ll keep your own counsel, if you’re smart,
to keep yourself from being too abused.
Once your decision to proceed is made,
don’t take all their derision much to heart;
they will not understand the path you choose,
and you’ll be, when at last the hurting fades,
amused.

For you to change the world, you start within;
‘though some may see the need, so few will try,
and most will laugh and see what you become
as strange and most usual, a whim.
You may not even know them, by and by,
those who when you feel different, still seem numb,
and not as close to you as they now seem.
Still, you must find the rhythm of your drum,
and seek the source inside where your own dreams
come from.

07 MAY 2025

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The Use of Dreams: rondine

Published on May 11, 2017

What is the use of dreams devoid of action,
that linger on as hopes before they die;
and while they last, convince us if we try
that in the end we will find satisfaction.
Such wistful shadows taunt us to distraction;
lost in the mist, we separate in factions
and dissipate and fade out, by and by.
    What is the use?

If dreams and hope are to have any traction,
they must inspire our deeds, not just reactions.
We must find rousing songs, not lullabies,
and exercise our wings if we would fly.
If not, life is continuing subtraction;
    what is the use?

11 MAY 2017

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Rest Your Head: lullaby

Published on April 4, 2017

Rest your head and close your eyes,
listen to this lullaby:
let the sights and sounds of day
gently dull and fade away;
let the chirping crickets’ song
slowly make the minutes long;
let the fresh and cool bedsheets
softly lower your heartbeat;
let the shadows of the night
send you off to sleep’s delight.

‘Til the morning, shall you float
on a cloud, a little boat,
gently ‘cross the sea of time,
as the hours of night decline.
Sleep now, in the current ride;
cast your cares over the side;
let the waves roll long and slow,
rock your cradle to and fro.
May you find some peace and rest
in the dark night’s warm caress.

4 APR 2017

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I Can See Ohio

Published on January 12, 2015

Nothing comes from nothing,
yet something always does;
you can smell the future coming
long before the buzz,

sitting on the front porch
listening to the rain
as the winter fades away
and summer comes again.

I can’t speak for Michigan
but I can see Ohio
rusted into sentimental dreams.
Knowing there is nothing left
but giving it one more try;
oh, nothing’s ever really
what it seems.

Idle hands find mischief,
that’s what they tend to do;
you can’t make a liar honest
thinking that he’s true.

Thinking turns to dreaming
where nothing’s ever done;
ain’t much comes to those who wait
without working some.

I can’t speak for Michigan
but I can see Ohio
lost in faded technicolor dreams.
Knowing there is something left
to say before goodbye;
oh, something more important
than it seems.

Dreams of California
turn to chalk and dust;
what you don’t intend to do
don’t seem to matter much.

Lonely days grow empty,
wishing wells run dry;
everything is living
up until it dies.

I can’t speak for Michigan
but I can see Ohio
growing old and busted at the seams.
Thinking there ain’t anything
but a lost, longing sigh
or anything to sell
but an old dream.

12 JAN 2014

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New Year’s Eve 2014

Published on December 31, 2014

It’s not so much the time I think I’ve wasted
or even those things I have left undone
(those grand majestic dreams you hold onto,
beyond their useful life, as could have beens),
the words said I would rather had been left unsaid
and their resulting acts, not wild nor brave,
but thoughtless, more or less, and without purpose
except to further demonstrate a fool.

It’s just another year, why all the bother?
They come and come relentless end to end
without even a moment’s space between them
to catch your breath or lean a day or two.
The moon still wanes and waxes as it pleases
as we each shuffle onward to old age;
each sunset in itself is not nostalgic –
it’s only our perspective makes it so.

Another year: yet more sad days to squander,
convinced of the fatality of life,
to trade in desperation at some pawn shop
for just a fraction of what they are worth,
or worse, to hoard away in some dark cupboard,
imagining you’ll use them later on,
but on that fateful day you really need them
discovering they’re turned to dust and gone?

It’s time again to come to resolutions:
an implication we have figured out
exactly who we are and where we’re going,
the old ways neatly finished, packed in closets
like winter blankets when the weather warms,
or old acquaintances we never bother
to send a note extending our regards,
expecting them to likewise leave us be.

31 DEC 2014

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It Matters: a golden shovel

Published on April 7, 2014

If thinking a thing made it so,
what’s real or not don’t matter much;
and what you get solely depends
on what you tend to dwell upon.

Why think in black and white, and small? In case a
jealous god might find your dream, see red
and underneath a too cruel wheel
crush and throw big ideas in a waste barrow,
like shards of broken pottery, glazed
and beautiful, but too small to fool with,
thrown out in the torrential rain
to be buried under mud and water?

Don’t worry, I’m beside
you; no crazy gods inhabit the
world that can turn a brave heart white.
No one here but us chickens.

After William Carlos Williams’ “A Red Wheeelbarrow”

5 APR 2014

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The End is Near: a chant royal

Published on April 27, 2011

The end is near, and what is worse,
it looks so very much the same
as the beginning. How perverse!
We’d best start handing out the blame
before the opportunity
is past, and we are forced to flee
elected our own scapegoats. How
I wish we’d planned much better, now.
We’re stuck with everything, it seems,
and all those swords we forged from plows
have severed us from our own dreams.

The end is coming, like a curse
or the last seconds of a game
we played half-assed; seeming to nurse
an old war wound, we acted lame,
and in the name of being free
insisted all should “be like me”
and praised the sweat on every brow
that bowed down to our sacred cows.
We’ve ruined everything; the cream
has curdled and is worthless now.
We’ve lost access to our own dreams.

The end is on us, and the purse
we thought to win, the wealth and fame,
has dissipated; while we nurse
our young so long they grow up tame,
and “being all that they can be”
decide on “nothing” as the key
to great success in life, somehow.
We’ve earned it all; but what it means?
No clues, until our final bow:
that fond farewell to all our dreams.

It is the end; no furrowed brow
lost deep in thought will help us now.
The fabric’s worn, split at the seams;
as does the tree, so goes the bough.
we’ve nothing left of all our dreams.

27 APR 2011

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