365 Days of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm

15 January 2009

True, now is then

before and after,

and then will be now
through our hopeful laughter

but only when we have clearly seen
how to live and have fun

with what we think we have done

and with where we think we have been.

True, when we think,

"everything is in front of me
if I stop to look at what I expect to see."

The time for life can only be made
 if the price of survival has been paid.

So what to do when regret sets in
if not go back to the beginning and begin again.

True, there is no truth
if not our own.

There is no faith
if we have grown
so deeply alone
that all we believe is what has been shown
by others

through their discovery.

365 Days of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm



13 January 2009

How many people's hands
has this little gold coin touched
in its years of being passed

round and round, clutched then flipped
from giver to taker, slipped from

liver to faker, torn from

poor child to rich, nurtured from
not enough to much, much more, smothered from
shiny to dull to feed deserving widows with a reward

for having tolerated so much life with a despotic house lord

to the political call to abolish moral values to make room for
greater primes, from church or tax collections to the rich owner of
the small corner store, from praying on knees

to crime to please it as it multiplies and flies into

its own rite and ceremony to itself,

leads some to destitution and others to great wealth?

How much food has it bought
and how many people has it seen

worn, forlorn and fraught with anger
at why this little coin has not stayed with them longer,
been so quick to leave

but that is when it seems almost like we are each time renewed,
purified and rejoycing nude; every time it goes
we are somehow made clean

and the longer it stays
the more we smell like mouldy metal and are heavy, rotten

and stinking mean.

365 Days of My Life through Poetic Expression 

by Tim Holm

11 January 2009

The sword swinging little
side of mankind
is again on the move
down to a holy battle ground trying to again prove with
 competitive pride
that their hurt is deeper
than the deep groove of time dug like a grave

by the other side, that
 wretched slime
 who have refused again to move;

still, no one will give, not even to live in peace.

This, like all others before, is an ongoing war of wit
to see who is most fit

so who in the end
will sit on the thrown
above the other

who will be thrown into the deep
and pitiless lion pit, then pecked to bits by passing birds

 which never have to bout with restless sleep.

There is always just one side left to ease the act of theft

and to teach the lesson we all must keep.

 Hate within mankind's
shiney chest covering vest of armour
dented by apish fists then enemy arms 

no doubt was there at the start
but could herein and once again have been
vanquished and set apart

to prove that it only can guide
to that hiding friend now foe
who someone said lied so many forgotten years ago,

and who led mankind to this bloody show
of who first can slice off 
the other's hands

and who will finish with the sacred dry sands
where nothing but prickly cactus
and poison seem ever to grow
in this age old drought, this rainless
storm of brainless folly.

The entire world will continue to know
the river banks of blood and woe

and weeping mothers by the millions
will continue to be the golden prize

of fat cats sip sunning
near blue soothing pools

in sun-glassed
disguise over their demonic and firey eyes;

the reflection of shooting guns and dropping bombs
on children,
the taking of someone else’s life,

where only money buys
happiness and peace
to death's dark paradise for these unpunished thieves.

Let there be no escape for gun running merchants
like, alas, there is none for he or she who grieves

for her son or daughter, for nature, for the simple beauty in a raindrop or a cheerful smile,

for all the ruthless trial and failed tries
to protect life within the merciless ever present heart of lies we call nature when we should dispise ourselves.

365 Days of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm 

6 January 2009

365 Days Of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm

10 January 2009

When I first dared to stroll
down the Avenue Champs Elysees
where nothing stood in the way of what I had to say,
that screaming and explosive night,

there were oddly dressed people everywhere

and everyone most right
in the zig zagging and flashing colored light
of Paris,
the dense star-life pulsating all around.

Life seemed so wide and limitless;
for me a daring hike along an infinite riverside

leading deeply
into outer space,
the exuberance of passing squalls
of color flashing,
blowing off my hat like dangerously close birds

there to sweep me deeper forward with no return
and up and up and up I grew
to where I could look down on the world,
see the ant like people in confused liberty as I flew,
not hear the roaring motors,
the rapids of cars once guiding me like a herd
of buffalo trampling anything in their way.

I could finally hear my voice,
the words came like snow glistening flakes

gracing my cheeks in angelic flight as if by some thoughtful choice
before landing on a frozen lake in the biting

still
Winter cold and silence,

where I could finally play my soothing harp,
assume my proper place in time, my do re mi 
for others to hear
to help them find their own oblivious day.

Now there is no end in sight.
I am there
doing what I think is right,

meeting the dare
to light into the new world

like new breath after a life long flight,
an internal fight with who I was
and with the question, was I right

to go follow my ideas blindly
into this dark New Year's Eve on the Avenue Champs Elysees,
my first to be 
brought in
with the good cheer and happiness of constellations
in endless new spin; no air but only thin
glimpses of my past,

so close to really being set free
with nothing floating in my way 
to what I have to say or to
where I have always wanted to be and now must stay.

365 Days of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm

7 January 2009

They say she was on the sidewalk for everyone to see.

They say she was all twisted and laying in damp misery.

Her gasp

of pride, her mouth held wide,

the last word she spoke was unintelligible,

probably like when she cried, woke up

to the world for the first time, an infant,

and began her lonely climb

to the end of 90 years.

Where was her son when she needed one?

Wherever, wherever was he?

The record will show that she was born

then later

died,

that maybe she walked a bit up and down the mountain side

and maybe she tried to be a mother.

There is nothing to hide now but time passed by,

knowing that she was left alone for so long

in her dark, otherwise empty room to cry. 

But you cannot hear or feel what 

you only imagine

could be real.

There she was on the sidewalk for everyone to see.

There she was all twisted and lying in damp misery.

How I wish I could have been there

to cushion her fatal fall

and like the son she always wanted

not let her fear at all.

365 Days of My Life Through Poetic Expression

by Tim Holm

8 January 2009

Where are all these places
their perfect pictures show?
Who are the people standing in the sun
we are all supposed to know;

smiling faces of people having fun?

I wonder if I should quickly go and buy a gun

or find a way to run
from what the pictures do not say.
 

Did you know it was raining that day?

Did you know a storm had taken all the people away?

Who took shots of the pretty trees?
Why are they in a stately row?
Is the deep blue lake behind them
a place where anyone can go?

 The children were playing
with their toys and dolls
when the towers fell
all at once,
right there, like Niagara Falls.

Where have all the soldiers gone, 
the boys and girls we want to sing a long life song?

Not one of them stayed home for long; 18 years old, when it was taken, but it is not them, it is a convenient memory they gave when they put our children in their graves.

 They should have been here when it was dawn....
and the bugles played taps on a heavy breeze
that blew to dusk and then it too was gone.

 What is this beautiful desert in the
upper corner of the far right side,
there, where it looks like someone tried to hide
it from view…was that you?

Did you believe the pictures, too?

What is all the shouting?

How much does it cost for these resort places in the sun?

All of them look like they would be great fun;

can the whole family come?

Some of the pictures make you want to cry,

to go and be there but you cannot find your way
nor do you understand another's flair for duty over fact
or being able to explain exactly what is so
different within some
from the way so many others pray
leaving you to sigh and with nothing to say;
just to hope for a better day.

Where have they gone? Where can they be?

He took that little black boy
when he began to run.

That shot was proof he

must have robbed the banks
and the markets all in one.

at long last rested eyes.