Magical Thinking

Once believed
that thought
held magic

that God decides –
worth and merit
in limbo

Such folly –
intent and sweat
beget progress –

Dreams manifest
when step by step
goals take charge

and God,
on the sidelines
applauds.

(Image my own)



We Are Mermaids

Severity of disease
defines degree of marginalization

Who will enter the darkness;
rub shoulders with despair?

Disability is entrancing
but doesn’t invite engagement

We are mythical creatures,
those of us whom fate has chosen

Passage aborted, movement
encumbered, we fantasize

about normalcy –
to be forgiven, just a day

That we might shatter
our barricades, and bound

carefree into the ocean waves –
like the mermaids that we are.

(Image my own, aided by AI)

The Answer

3:33 AM
Startled awake
The answer
there, on the brink

Of course I lose it
rising to answer another call
Oh, how it taunts

Try to recapture the moment
find the right twist of body
as if I’m a radio tuner
signal lost

And what answer would that be, anyway?
Now fully awake, pondering questions –
only one applies

This newly formed fear
I’ve dared not voice it –
it cuts deep

Is there an answer
and if so, do I want to hear it?

I fall back to sleep
awake hours later
mind blissfully empty.

(Image my own)

What Dreams Reveal

Two decades before the fall
I dreamt of that white house
with black shutters,
entered the dimness
and saw myself –
withered, a straw body

Could I have altered the course
gathered that mummified self
in my arms, breathed new passion
into old bones, stopped
the onslaught of night
of cells freezing
passionless

No.
I walked in oblivion
seduced by false trickery
dim-witted in the fading light
cold, aloof, unresponsive
warnings be damned

Two decades later,
body inert, mind bereft
of hope – I dreamt
of a younger self
so intent on life
that she passed me by.

Shoebox Dreams

A simple shoebox, repurposed
with plastered images of dreams –
paper affirmations of aspirations –
shelved and forgotten, its contents

snapshots, faded and torn, remnants
of another time, a different future –
captured when potential was prime
and possibility untainted by illness

This one was retirement – a supposed
celebration – but note how the colour
has drained the cracks obliterating
pride of accomplishment; and notice

how this one crumbles to the touch –
the fragments dissipating even as
my life has dissipated, the image
lost before memory resurfaces, so

much loss when circumstance dictates
direction, overpowers will, and plans
like snowflakes, vanish in the heat
of reality – pain and insult burning

But wait…this one looks promising –
the edges only slightly torn, the image
discernible – could it be that there is
hope yet – a future author I might be?

That’s the thing about times to come,
we fill them with imaginings, and pray,
our hope, like balloons set free in a sea
of unforeseen challenges, and seldom

does the end result reflect projected
plotting, and yet, there is power in
the dreaming, and so I’ll replace the old
with new photographs to store away.

(This is a rerun of a rerun. Still resonates. Image my own)