So afraid he, (of) duplicity,
he locked himself away in his tower.

When he'll leave, no one can say,
until the appointed hour.

Through falling leaves, and fire's hearth,
fresh dew and Summer's harvest.

He hides and waits behind locked gates,
in his tower, filled with avarice.

For you see, this tower is not empty,
nor, hollow, echoing or cold.

It's filled to bursting, with such great treasure, worth even more than gold.

No gold, nor silver, no precious stone, gathers dust in these thick walls,

Something far more hallowed, abstract and rare,
adorns and decks the halls.

Trust.

A simple thing, yet complex in itself.
And those who earn it, and give it freely
Are seen to have great wealth.

Hard to find, hard to give,
Difficult to buy and without, live.

Easy to break, easy to lose,
Easy to foster with those you choose

Bonds worth more than any bond,
Without it, life's joys abscond.

But.

What worth has treasure,
or hoarded wealth, if not spent and shared or given?

If you harbor it, keep it, and clutch it tight, everything for which you've striven?

Just dust and dust, ashes and tears,
Loneliness and paranoia collected for years

As valuable as it is, the tighter you hold,
Trust becomes worthless, a Fool's Gold.

For Trust left to stagnate, rot and fester,
Becomes useless, and to the soul, a fetter

But see! A crack, a flaw overlooked,
In this stalwart bastion.

A window, a portal, through which shines a light,
Igniting dormant passion.

Across the moat of sorrow,
And over the walls of grief,
Through halls filled, yet hollow,
Shines a tempting belief.

The light of hope, the sparkle of joy,
The shimmer of dreams and fate

And on the winds of change, a sound,
A whisper to contemplate.

"Trust me," calls a distant voice,
A tempting change to his current choice

"Some of yours for some of mine,
We'll make the trade, and it'll be fine."

He stands paused before the door, thinking, "No, I've heard it all before.

You say 'some of that, for some of this'
Then something will surely go amiss.

You'll break my trust,
leave my heart stinging,
and go off happy, merry, singing.

And I'll be left, betrayed, alone,
with one more hurt etched in my bone."

"Alone," he says, looking around,
At his desolate sanctuary, devoid of sound.

"Is it worse," he mumbles with chagrin,
"Than this bleak hell I placed myself?

But surely I must remain vigilant, and guard my bountiful wealth."

"Only," he murmurs, pacing now,
"To look at it, all I see is stuff.

Bountiful? Valuable? Yes and yes,
but certainly more than enough.

And what is its value, truly, to me
Besides something to trade, to barter?"

And he suddenly filled with certainty,
He'd die alone, a false martyr.

He hauled at the doors,
rusted from disuse,
Man and door made a terrible groan

"No! Not yet, my future's not set,
I have yet time to fill my home!

With faith and joy, love and more,
I'll fill it with those things by the score."

So saying, and with one final heave,
He tore open his castle door.

Doors flung wide,
on the threshold he stood,
A thin smile and challenging glower,

"Come one, come all, and barter with me,
For now is the appointed hour!"


And as he filled his spacious abode,
I believe I'll finish this rambling ode,

I rhymed too much, there's barely a pace,
And the metaphors are all over the place.

Too, I'll say, halfway through,
it became more of a flex.

A challenge to myself, and to you,
To make the verbiage ever more complex.

But at the core of the matter,
on a serious note,
is a thought that should be engaged

The matter of trust and broken hearts,
Hope, that the pieces be salvaged.

For just as easily,
he could have deafened his ears,
And shuttered his heart some more,

But I, as Writer, naive as I am,
Had him ignore the pain from before.

Is this a reflection of me? Or you?
Perhaps both. No, probably me.

But everyone shares a similar pain,
Even if others can't see.

So to bring this to a close,
with less metre than prose,
My message, stated more simply,

Trust and hope,
those precious things,
spring eternally!

Trust is a must, it is essential,
If you can't trust, there is no potential,
Can't build a strong bond, Can't call you a friend,
If there is no trust, you might meet the end,

Without trust, there is no friendship,
It's what you need to get through hardship,
I know I had trust, I'm truly aware,
But my trust's been broken, now darkness to bear,

Just like glass it is quite frail,
Fixing it might become a fail,
Though one thing is certain, that once trust breaks,
You can't earn it back no matter the stakes,

Trust is just a leap of faith,
Within the dark we see a cave,
The path's uncertain, we are blind,
Till there is light that we can find.

I don't know if I should trust you
It's true
You give me deja vu
You made me second guess myself
You made me question if I should tell you the truth about myself

You make me cautious about my words
Scared that I'll slip up my words
You make me think that life is a chess game
One wrong move and I lose the game
I got to move my pieces wisely
To not move my pieces truthfully

My faith is the certainty that gives me clarity to see
that there’s a path just beneath the current uncertainty.

My faith is a step, a one step at a time
not much of a leap, but me taking his hand with mine.
My faith is a day-by-day holding,
a minute-by-minute treading
of my boot in his footmarks left for me as a blessing.

My faith is choice that needs repeated repeating,
a daily seating at his feet,
it's not a fleeting feeling,
it’s a morning and evening both-knees kneeing.

My faith is a decision and decisions were made
to be made,
so pray,
take him at his word and take the next step,
but don’t be surprised if it involves you getting both feet wet.
Cos that is where you’ll find Jesus
at the point you find yourself out of your depth.

My faith is the certainty that gives me clarity to see
that whatever my path,
my God has gone before me.

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and repeat]

We
fit toge
ther seamlessly
like the numbers on
a digital alarm clock,
moving without hesi
tation, from one figure to
the next, a movement of time transi
tioning,  unsettling, unnotica

bly building on and constructing ourselves
within the construction of time
itself. We are the only
static constant, the on
ly reliable source:
time keeps moving
forward, and
so will
we —

In what form is love?
- spirit, they say we affirm, we
readers of poetry and fantasy, they
thee common literate audience ******
religio politico industrial always right,
on the side of justice, as it seems,
to the minute, did I remember
to meet the grandchildren at the busstop.
NO,
I did not, and would not have but, their
grandma called their grandpa to remind him,

be cause he as been waxing more beamused,
made afraid for the moment, mind
time pause, now, we think, how say
the sages past, must we treat
with care for fear of proud wrath,

encultured hero worth, a weight
in the bag we measure worth with,
Jungian *** archetype old guy, no powers,
patiently refolding complex islands of mysteries,
never needing to have been, all spread out, trust me,
we uns stretch it always out, just smooth
as touch in rest in time to think. True rest./.NPC
compressed rest, as time accelerates and few guess,
we were the missing energy, we few who blew our minds.

We revived in many old ties to whys too deep to reason
directly with, we had ****** shames of lives we ruined,

we all felt it was wrong when we did it, but the boss
said god said, how was we to know, tsalhearsay, here

we say.
Stop and let the money makes its answer, lovelessly.

I'd rather write a million poems
Than appease to what's unjust;
I'd rather die a million times,
Than in you to put my trust.

And if in the end I really must,
I reckon there's spells to cast;
And for those I'll be ****** for,
But at least I stayed,
True to my core.

summer to summer
year to year
moment upon moment, I remember you
unveiling the open secrets of your heart
like leaves upon a tree
cascading upon me
in the fall
I read you
your tongue wrote my sorrows
my pains you kissed with pleasures untold
within your realms of beauty
I basked
and I forgot myself
forgot the aches of time and temper
how hot the summers had become
how dry they became with no lover to bear
but you
you were more than lover to me

pure... inspiration

a forbidden flower, nested
'pon yonder peak, in meadow's midst
treacherous though the journey
in my mind, the ease was paltry
for we met on bridges between us
in visions of grandeur
visions beyond vision
where your flesh was as my flesh
for when I caressed myself, I felt you
your hand was my hand
and your words were my night song
and your grace was my quilt
in the terror of being alone
you covered my nakedness
my fear of a life lived alone, dying alone
you wed me with wonders of

what if

and I paced at the doorstep of desire
bouquet of dreams in hand
before me, as though a fencer
but no walls between myself and thine
and though my thorns may *****
and my beauty be that of a man
a woman's touch I'd unsheath in greeting you
to profess knowing you as you
so deliciously
know yourself
to touch you as if you wert my teacher
and tame you as a man tempers his heart,
should he dare
trust a woman with his soul
and yet

these are naught but fancies,
my dear

naught but frightful desires
unkempt
off the shelf of the gorge between us

still

were I more than I am
I would guard these artful mementos
of heartfelt wanting
as a promise to you
despite your
forlorn embrace

and in the moment of meeting
we would speak these words together
because you'd always have known my thoughts
how could you not,
since you are
the woman
of my dreams...