Night-time Memories
My world, a dark blue in its
Vastness comes with aches
And pains and a cache of
Visions that echo in the
Ebony void, of its emptiness.
My music, filled with secrets
And stories couples me to
Winter’s wind as it ricochets
Off my nighttime memories.
I Enjoy
The sounds of waves continually rushing
onto a sandy shore bringing in stories from the deep
where man has no power to edit,
The rays of the sun that never end, which
carry warm supplications in the ether high above
where man has no ability to censor.
The chirping of colourful birds singing feathery
arias high in the trees of a verdant forest where man
has no capacity to tarnish.
Yesterdays of my Dreams
Like butterflies flitting in the breeze,
my mind is floating in the blueness
of a sky full of images, visions,
prayers, and forgotten truths, that
touch the quivering echoes of all the
yesterdays of my dreams.
Untitled
As our thoughts rise and fall on seldom trod paths,
The warbling of birds will cast new visions into
Our evolving memories.
As a rusted gate swings lazily on a copper hinged hasp
It solemnly warms us to loosen our emotional grasp
On those things that are dark, but ephemeral.
As thoughts swim up the river to a placid pond,
They go to a place where contented minds gaze,
and muse upon in the lazy hours of the day,
As things plague our mind, and arrive as if designed
by demons, we must understand that they are just
bits of unreality, and
As each new day leads us to greater happiness,
They will vanish into the darkened void where
All such gloomy things are quickly destroyed.
Burning Tempo
Another day
Like yesterday…
Red dust
Climbing
Into the earth,
The oceans,
And rivers dry,
Birds swaying
In the dry wind,
Ashes in
The hearth,
Don’t cry,
Don’t cry, it’s not
Over yet…
Pretend my friend.
Each day is a
Miracle,
Life is magical,
It’s a beat,
A pulse,
An echo.
Voices
Bounding off the
Heated land, by
Drum sticks used by
withered hands
Hidden inside
Leather:
Pretend my friend, …
Don’t cry,
Don’t cry.
James, a retired Professor and octogenarian is a Best of Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee and has had five poetry books “The Silent Pond,” (2012), “Ancient Rhythms,” (2014), “LIGHT,” (2016),“Solace Between the Lines,” (2019), and Serenity (2022), over 1700 poems, five novels, seven essays, and 35 short stories published worldwide in over 255 publications. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO.
You can find more of James’ work here on Ink Pantry.