Poems by Jeff Bresee

Much time I now spend, watching
Watching as others pass by, living
Living their lives
I watch not for care of wanting to know them
Or even so as to learn from what they do and say
I simply watch...and wonder
Wondering why. Why do I feel this way?
Wondering how. How have I come to this point?
Wondering when. When can I ever hope to feel again?
As I watch, I remember
Remember what it was like...
To feel as they feel
To laugh as they laugh
To cry as they cry
To hope as they hope
To hurt as they hurt
To love, to hate, to long, to fear, to yearn...to rejoice...to live
But such is all that I have...memories
Memories which flow before my mind's eye
Even as the people flow before my gaze
And I, I sit quietly in the shadow...
And wonder.

I paused to stand and watch a man who had come to the road's divide.
My wonder soared as I watched his stare slowly shift from side to side.
He stood as if not noticing that many passed him by.
They moved without a second glance down the road most traveled by.

Then as I watched, he stepped full stride toward the path of lesser wear,
And soon he vanished from my view round a bend into the snare.
I soon, like him, stood center road, faced with that daunting choice.
My gaze down his road, causing fear, I quenched my inner voice.

For miles I walked the crowded road breathing dust from others' feet,
Until in despair I stopped and stood, my heart and soul deplete.
I gazed about, still holding hope, the other path I'd see.
On yonder hill I saw him there, the man who mentored me.

The path between us steep and rough, unforged with dangers there,
Yet still I left my path of friends, ignoring their bewares.
I pressed through hardship, pain and fear o'er rocks jagged and bent.
In time I crashed limp on that path, my every resource spent.

But then a warming touch I felt, a friendly voice I heard.
It said, get up and tread this path. I rose without a word.
And as I looked, I saw him there, he continued on his way.
His only words as he walked on..."You're on the path, now stay."

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I chose in err.
But looking back, perhaps as well...all memories now seem fair.
Much time I spent on the beaten path, and what I learned, immense.
But I reached, at last, the other path, and it has still made all of the difference.

Inspired by Robert Frost

Waking, I find
Another chill encrusted day
Awaits me
Where I shall walk alone in step of time
To the blighted rhythm
Of what must be
And the looming shadows
Of what might have been

My only solace
Comes of looking back
Upon the horizon of
Memories past
Where the fluxing tapestry
Of life and chance
Carried you soft and safe
Into my arms

And I held you
And you held me
And for a time
No wind of change
Could bear us sway

But somehow...
Some dreadful way how
My eyes left the beauty of yours
My arms reached out
For ambitions of pointless return
And in deafened silence
You slipped from me
For I held you not

And now I am left to search
Across the rolling linen waves
Of life and consequence
Holding hope that
Fate will grant me pardon
And bring you to me
Once again

But I age in waiting
I tire of hoping
I stammer in broken steps
For each night your vigil kept
Brings me aside my bed
To utter yet again
A prayer unanswered

A million ways to spend a day
not tried them all but have to say,

that if I had the way to when
I'd quiet find and open then

the pages of the poet's hand.
Then fly away to distant land,

or feel the fire of deep desire,
submersed in words, I'd never tire.

Or float through worlds that few have known,
no boundaries there, no thoughts of home,

nor caring what is real or dream
as feelings flow like crystal streams.

Which feelings I am lost to find
inside my heart, inside my mind.

In daily walk amongst the dead,
cast to the sea with boots of lead.

I feel that I would drown and die,
my only hope the thought that I

can find again the way to when
I'm all alone with such a friend -

the healing words of poet's hand...
the only words I understand.