Outside Staring In

I suppose all lives struggle in vain

Some days of good, some days of pain

Some years enwrapped in community

Some years outside staring inward to see

Any single warm feeling of loving good

Any relationship sharing as it should

Any hope or joy, or gain, or thrill

And failing, many resort to drug or pill

Then life inside, or life without

No longer matters there is no doubt

For life has been drugged ‘neath insulated haze

And time flows by in lethargic daze

While time does flow, life does not

Opportunity is lost, confusion is bought

As the very joy and thrill so earnestly desired

 Passes right by without love being sired

Drug fueled insulation cuts both ways

Marginalizes scary nights and joyful days

Odd though it sounds, pain actually serves us

It drives us forward with focus and purpose

If we can blunt it enough within our minds eye

We will see each opportunity as it passes by

And with opportunity seen, joy can be felt

So that we walk along with pain expelled

© Copyright 2020 Marty Vandermolen – All Rights Reserved

Dancing in Memory’s Waters

You’re dancing in the still waters of my memories,

Tickling streams and currents of color and light,

Wavelets lap at the cloudy recollections,

Washing away the hazes that have slowly cast 

O’er visions of you in the moonlight,

Glisteningly translucent as you lay bare

Skin rising heat-waves shimmer of scents 

Which buoy my lungs and sink my heart,

Drawing tears within my eyes, threatening to 

Dissolve the last view of the evaporating footprints

You left behind while discarding my life.

 ©Copyright, 2018, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Reverberations

My words fall and liter surrounding ground 

Booming reverberations of hollow sound

For the person I yearn to persuasively teach

Has hardened their mind, set it out of reach

So compromises that perhaps could be

Are swept away like so much debris

And lost along with my ideas it seems

Are the missed chances of now dead dreams

Leaving behind hard-cased silent wall

From which we both will most likely fall

 If every we yearn to once again try

To link together ‘neath crystal blue sky

Cracked and broken as we may be

We’ll risk far less in future to see

If doors exist, if bridges can be built

Instead we’ll salve our own true guilt

With accusations and angry feelings

Scorched earth walls, blown out ceilings

Days will come, years will flee

All we’ve done will cease to be 

Because right here, and right now

We didn’t talk, wouldn’t find out how  

© 2018, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Plow the Row

Perhaps sometime in my future
There will be a joy filled day
Where love and warmth and blessings
Morph my drudgery into play

And if luck shines her face apon me
With that day I’ll find a mate
To salve my wounds and stresses
And help me best my fate

But if my future remains as
My present and past are now
I’ll still strap myself in harness
And hook up to the plow

That defines the row I’ve chosen
To cut deep in fertile soils
Regardless of rains that may pass
Over and bake harden my toils

© Copyright 1986 Marty Vandermolen All Rights Reserved

One of Us was Destined

I never dreamt of stardom
I never dreamt of fame
All I wanted was to love you
“til the cows come home again”
Turns out I was too much country
You were city through and through
And so one day you left me
And there was nothing I could do
For even if I embraced
City noise, smog and sight
I would no longer respect me
And so I’d not be right
A day would come when screaming
Off to the hills I’d run
So since one of us was destined
To leave the other stunned
I’d rather you left me weeping
Then I left you hurt and numbed

© Copyright 2020, Marty Vandermolen, all rights reserved

Winter Sun

Winter sun flows
Downward
Like golden honey
Melting over the
Crippling chill of
Darkness

Crystaline light floods
Pale blue
Sky’s erasing film
gray clouds above
Low sea mist
Below

Restless waves throw
Drowned waves
Pounding endlessly against
Resiting rock anvils
Towering over compliant
Sands

© Copyright 2020, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Only as Bad

When half-light haze of midnight fog
Grips the lands along the sea
Venturing on gray-veiled meadows draw
Forth horrors that could be

Ghostly shadowed shifting breeze
Evil, tensions star-lit mist
Dampened soundless echoes roar
Forth with ear-starved hiss

Civilized has fled the scene
Leaving malevolent hoard behind
To creep and sneak up on you
Worming deep into your mind

Boring tunnels where panic flows
Abandoned down your spine
Setting whole body aquiver
Attuned to every sign

But no matter how dark and daunting
Those shadows, night or day
The fears that live within the mists
Sunshine will burn away

So carry this thought along with you
As you travel life’s winding trail
It’s only as bad and always as good
As your mindset let’s prevail

 © Copyright 2020, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Inspiration

At its simplest
Inspiration
Is an expression of love

At its most complex
Inspiration
Is love’s reflection

How treasured then must surely be
The inspiration you have shared with and
Stirred in, Me

Copyright © 1985 Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

The Bet

“Hey bro don’t ya think it would be so cool
To leap off this cliff, and land down in that pool
Of murcky water right where the river flows
Over that fall, between those big rock rows”

“I don’t know” said I, “seems like a long way to fall,
Not to mention this cliff of granite is like a wall
That would be awfully hard to climb back up
I could be down there all night, maybe til sunup

“Oh heck” says Bro 1, just joining in
“Its only 3 feet out, if that, he said with a grin
and maybe it might, on second glance
be 10 feet down , surely you’ll take the chance”

“To do what the two of us have done too often to count
What’s under the water you can surely discount”
“It’s deep and light and warm and smooth”
They said together, voices pitched to soothe

My cares and my worries, of that I will say
They did oh so often, most every day
Right before I ended up, launched into the air
Sprangled and sprawling with distressing flair

Yet once again, I amped my courage and trustingly took
Their assurance to heart, knowing I was a scnhook
One last look at the gap that lay at my feet
I stepped back a few paces my fate to meet

Praying not to slip, fall, or bounce
I launched myself out with every ounce
Of strength I had, as time slowed to a crawl
I hurtled vertically down that tall, tall wall

I counted the time, and figured acceleration too
I was in the air so long, I needed something to do
Before hitting the water, or so I was told
For rock hard it was, not to mention snow cold

Regaining the top I heard Brother 2 say: “Wow”
“I really thought that couldn’t be done, till now”
Brother 1 said, “No problem, for us it was no sweat
Now pull out your money and pay off your bet.” 

© Copyright, 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Challenges

My brothers said; “Hey go climb that tree”
“Way high up there’s the place to be”
So up I went through leaf and limb
For back in the day I was very slim

Up I climbed and up I went
Until ground was gone, and heaven bent
Down to touch me on my brow
Seemed a miracle then, even more so now

Up, rough bark ‘neath foot and hand
Faster’n any square-rigger deckhand
Past uncounted branches, narrowing girth
til one brief slip…….and I returned to earth

Limping and shuffling back towards home
We happened across an old water tower dome
My brother’s said: “Hey just way up in the air”
“We bet you; you can’t climb up there”

© Copyright 2006 Marty Vandermolen

How the Sand Does Trickle

Sand may trickle through narrowed glass
Marking time as it slips on past
Each shifting print, left on sandy shore
Reminds us of where we’ve been before
But time like the wind and rising tide
Sweeps memory clear as they all subside
And the youthful promise that once filled our veins
Has give’n in to life which now slowly wains
And age creeps up, as experiences are bought
Til we find, sand may trickle, but time does not

© copyright 2020 Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Night Hawks

Hear the night hawk’s eerie cry,
As he circles above in indigo sky,
A sound as lonely as the earth,
Has been since the day of its very birth
Searching each night for food and mate
Riding the thermals, tempting fate
And like that bird I search alone
Over landscape cold as barren stone
Voicing my own, heart-felt sigh
Echoing that lonesome eerie cry

©Copyright 2019, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

I dreamt of being a Cowboy

When I was a boy,
my dreams had me be
An ol’ cowboy
footloose and free
A big ol’ hat,
bandana ‘cross my nose
Heavy sheep skin vest
so my tummy wouldn’t froze
Youthful dreams faded away,
a long, 40 odd years ago
Then along comes Covid
and now don’t ya’ know
That while boots are wore out,
rope and spurs long gone
A close up photo looks like,
         my child dreams were won

© Copyright 2020, Marty Vandermolen, all rights reserved.

By Night’s Stream

I am closer to my forefathers
Than my father was

They have shared their secrets
with me, alone

By the side of the night’s
cascading stream course

And through the glowing bed
of the fire’s coals

And the erie cry of eagles
soaring high above.

And I for my part have studied
their whispers

Practiced their skills
Absorbed their secrets

And for this, I am now unique
For I alone have shed technology

And let it slip away and I am
the better for this

© Copyright 1989 Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Glowing Embers of Eternity

A dying fire holds galactic wisdom
It’s glowing coals wink eternal secrets
Into darkness’ chill vacuousness

And though I may never understand
The valuable lessons radiated in flowing
Shifting yellow-whites and red-orange

I always find a soothing peace
In the heat radiating from these
Slow dying windows into eternity

© Copyright 1989 Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Silver Haired

Silver hairs in the mirror reflect back at me
While I gaze forward in an effort to see
The paths I traveled that led to this place
Me, staring into a mirror at a stranger’s face

I am no longer young, but surely not yet old
Each day’s too dear for the high price sold
And yet each has bequeathed its value to me
By liberating my soul and setting me free

Free to chase the dreams I’ve dared
Free to choose the loves I’ve shared
With other souls who’ve laughed and cried
Lived and loved, hoped and died.

Copyright © 1986 Marty Vandermolen

After Parenting

What pray tell should life become
With setting of child rearing’s sun
Shall life remain moored as in bearing years
Or cast adrift to seek new cheers

As father I wore a certain coat
As parent I captained a specific boat
That carried goods and goals and needs
Provided grain and eggs and feeds

Before that time though I did stand
On a different path across this land
My coat then made of leather tough
To protect me from adventures rough

Old siren calls of places, things
Remain in memory as clarion rings
Urging me to cut the chains that moor
Take aim for far gone distant shore

To seek new life in what’s left of my days
Thus to impact in as many ways
The world around; to betterment make
And to repay the resources that I did take

© Copyright 2018, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Merely Mortal

Vitality faded
as year stacked on year
Now plagued
by the frailties of men
Laid low
from once minor triviality
My toughness
once legendary, ebbed away
Unnoticed until
I am merely mortal

©Copyright 2019, Marty k Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved