You may freely copy these poems and use them in electronic or printed publications, but only with the express condition that the line showing my copyright is always included.
SHAFT OF LIVES
- I have been falling, falling through all eternity,
- Through countless lives and worlds
- And as I fall I have reached out, in lonely desperation,
- For something to hold onto, to save my fall.
- That fragile branch called Faith could not hold my weight
- Thin and unformed, it was broken easily.
- The stone ledge of Hope crumbled at my touch
- And even precious Love could not save me.
- So I fall, on and on forever.
- One day, one time, in one distant lifetime
- I shall find that thing onto which I can hold.
- Then I shall grasp and clamber onto a thin stone ledge,
- And climb a spiral staircase worn by ten million feet.
- Up and up I shall crawl, for days and weeks and years
- Until I come to a rotting wooden door on rusty hinges.
- Then I shall push it away in frantic desperation
- To find myself standing high on a mighty tower
- So shall I jump and spread my wings,
- Soaring through the sky on the fresh warm air.
- Then two men in the fields below will look up at me
- And one will say, with awe in his voice, ‘There he is!’.
THE DREAM THAT WAS REALITY
I once dreamt of being within a stone tomb, perhaps that of Jesus, since the stone shelf was devoid of coffins or bodies. It was strangely comfortable and I felt no fear. As time progressed I became increasingly aware of the intricate details in the carved stonework. Eventually I realised that this was not a dream; this was a reality, not one that I had known before, but a reality all the same, and I knew that if I did not wake in that instant it would be my new reality, that my old life would come to an end. And so I awoke, but with a strange regret that I had now lost that special place, perhaps forever. But I also knew what that place was; it was death, and I no longer feared it. And so I went back to sleep, found myself again in that subterranean place, climbing stone steps and standing in a pure white light into which I threw myself. And so I learnt that there must be no fear in destiny.
LOVE AND TEARS
- Tears, a pointless emotion,
- Enough to fill an ocean.
- Love, a flawed devotion
- Still driven into motion.
CONTROL
- Some seek to control you,
- Others to be controlled.
- Many seek both,
- But most are confused.
DREAM SEEKER
- When young we seek a dream
- Of happiness with the one
- But it is only a sweet illusion
- The thing that drives us on.
- For without such hopes
- There is only despair
- Until with age we learn
- To live without illusions.
FREEDOM
- Freedom from things, from fear, from war,
- Thoughtless of hate or love,
- With no need of caring or being cared.
- Freedom from life or death,
- As a bird flying, seeing, being,
- With no want of words or reasons.
©Ray White 2006