Balthasar Gracian

Javan

There was a time
When my mind had it's freedom
to wander aimlessly through the days
to travel to distant lands
or soar among the clouds
and to hold imaginary lovers
through the night.
But now things have changed
and it seems my mind has been tethered
and can never get too far
from thoughts of you.

<->

Can I live without you
now that I know you
now that I know you exist

Can I sleep at night
without seeing your smile
now that I've seen it for real

Can I be the same
now that I've changed
with the gentle touch of your hand

Now that I'm divided
by my need for you
without you
can I be whole again

<->

You have come into my life
through a door I was afraid
would never be open again
for many have slammed it
on their way out

So please feel free
to stay as long as you like
But should the time come
that you must leave
please, close the door gently
as you go

<->

Whether it was chance
or that thing called fate
that brought you to me
I really can't say
and I don't believe
it really matters

For I have been lucky enough
to have the opportunity to hold you
not just in my arms
but also in my heart

And should the winds of time
blow hard enough
to take you from my arms
you can rest assured
they will never
take you from my heart

<->

There are so many words
yet there are no words
for when I look into your eyes
No words nee to be spoken
and the warmth of your smile
Is a statement in itself
and how could I ever try to explain
the trembling in my body
when I touch your face.

There are no words to explain an emotion
so I open to you my mind
that you might walk
among my dreams and memories
Then...and only then
you might understand my silence

Rod McKuen

I've will enough to make
as many journeys as I can
in the name of love and longing,
and years to pay for time I've
wasted.
I'm not sure
what waits beyond the block
but I'll travel down the street
to have a look
if need be.

<->

Every time we say hello
to some new encounter
we're on our way
toward goodbye.
Some distance
from the actual phrase
but moving toward it all the same.
The distance between those two words
becomes a little less
as we grow older.
Be aware then
that tomorrow
is only tomorrow.
There is nothing to fear
except the coming of another day.
But two against a winter morning
are sure to claim one more victory
over chance and trouble.
It I seek your eyes
I'll do so with my eyes open.

<->

Taking the time

Taking time to love is what it's all about
what makes the clocks turn, and the
sunsets come true and without
complication.

That doesn't mean lying close in
shut up rooms or staying always
face to face.

It's meant to cover walking, being
apart and knowing that coming back
together makes small distances
even smaller.
and taking the time to love
is, most of all, caring enough
to not hold on too tightly
and yet not run too loose.

<->

The lifetime I have left
I open up to you
to tread upon
and travel through.

You pave the road
I'll follow
You build the bridge
I'll test it first.

<->

Trust me, and I'll do good things for you,
Even if to make you happy means to leave
you.

<->

Clouds are not the cheeks of angels you know
they're only clouds.
Friendly sometimes,
but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms
I'd push the clouds away
or make them hang above the water
somewhere else,
but I'm just a man
who needs and wants,
mostly things he'll never have.
Looking for that thing that's hardest
to find-

I've been going a long time now.
Along the way I've learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times and make them into
big times,
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren't so good.

<->

There is no wrong side
or right side
No misery in not being loved
only in not loving.
I learned these truths myself
to tell them to you now,
as you go sailing through the sun
on your way toward life.

<->

How can you say something new
about being alone?
Tell someone you're a loaner
and right away they think you're lonly.
It's not the same thing you know.
It's not wanting to put all your marbles
in one pocket.
It's caring enough not to care too much.
Mostly it's letting yourself come first
for awhile.

<->

I've come to know your body and your eyes
the way a child might memorize
his favorite fairytale.
Yet I need the reading once a night
the same as children do.

Don't leave out one dragon
or a single tree thet grows within the forest
that the knight rides through.

So a childwill tell you
of the story he knows best.

Leave your body as it was this afternoon
or yesterday,
changing nothing.
I think I know thw way it floats above the bed
on summer afternoons
and dives into electric blankets in the winter.
Still I must be sure my memory hasn't made
new freckles your beach-brown shoulders
never knew.

<->

I come expecting nothing
(though secretly I know
that there is something
there has to be...)
Still whatever happens
is a gift of time
or touch or both.

<->

I close up
more often now,
not just to you
but even to myself.
I know I should
bealways open,
at least I ought to make
a better try.
I will.

<->

You run like rivers
not yet sure
of destinations or roots.
The sweetness of you
covering everything it touches
so that a smell, a feeling
lingers even when you've passed.

Having not yet bitten
or gouged your way
into the earth.
You move directionless
and yet with such a sence
of sureness
that almost no one notices
the way that you take over
everything you touch.Its as if an alien angel
arriving in the night
spread her cape
and as it than unfurled
each pass she made
morning one shade better.

<->

The best of them
are guardians
not guards
The difference
is a subtle one.
A guardian protects,
advises and reports,
a guard is posted
to keep out
or not let in.

Always listen and evaluate
the guardians instructions,
Beware and be wary
of the guards,
Not even dogs
who walk beside them
are approachable and friendly.

<->

Maybe there are
no more doors,
if this is so
I'm Glad the last one
opened up tn you.
Should I go on ahead
I'll leave a trail
of bread crumbs
or multi-colored twine
to help me find
the way back
to this happy place.

<->

The outer reaches of the heart

The outer reaches of the heart
are never fully tracked
but I have seen the limits
of my own heart in the distance
and I now know its boundaries
to be unlimited.
I had begun to feel
that sorrows fought and conquered
could not touch or threaten me again,
but this new grief is wider
than the sleep of reason.

I have moved through solitare
to some new unnamed place
beyond alone,
and I am stranded here without a map.
I wish that I had not gone
swimming in the distance
without
an island or a raft
as harbour or safe floating place.

<->

Beginning Again

The eternal magic of eternal things
sends the dreamer out into the world,
brings him home again.
One wind makes another.
Recent rain reminds us of a rain ago.
Sunshine is the same each time
sen through different eyes.
felt on different skin,
it is still a wonder and a prize
as love and loving always is again.

I begin today, in life, in love,
in everything
the same start I had every yesterday
not concerned with where I am,
where I have been,
only where I go and to what end.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I love the dark hours of my being
in which my senses drop into the deep.
I have found in them, as in old letters,
my private life, that is already lived through,
and become wide and powerful now, like legends.
Then I know that there is room in me
for a second huge and timeless life.

But sometimes I am like the tree that stands
over a grave, a leafy tree, fully grown,
who has lived out that particular dream, that the dead boy
(around whom its warm roots are pressing.)
lost through his sad moods and his poems.

<->

You darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes
a circle of light for everyone,
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them!-
powers and people-

and it is possible a great energy
is moving near me

I have faith in nights.

<->

You see, I want a lot,
perhaps I want everything;
The darkness that comes with every infinate fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing,
and areraised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.

You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly, gives out its own secret.

<->

The kings of the world are growing old,
and they shall have no inheritors.
Their sons died while they were boys,
and their neurasthenic daughters abandoned
the sick crown to the mob.

The mob breaks it into tiny bits of gold
The lord of the world, master of the age,
melts them in fire into machines,
which do his orders with low growls;
but luck is not on their side.

The ore feels homesick. It wants to abandon
the minting houses and the wheels
that offer it such a meager life,
and out of factories and payroll boxes
it wants to go back into the veins
of the thrown-open mountain,
which will close again behind it.

<->

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be
with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near.
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself'
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest strom of all.