Etched Forever in my Heart… For Jim.

When I was just a child of two

you left to sail the sea.

You couldn’t stay around, it seems,

to help with raising me.

As years passed by and I grew tall

I saw you now and then,

and listened as, with glowing eyes,

you spoke of where you’d been.

You always made a place for me

you were so strong and good.

You never spoke your love for me

but it was understood.

You taught me all the things it took,

you made me understand…

from you I learned just how it’s done;

just how to be a man.

It seems like only yesterday

you lived your final day.

With courage, peace and dignity

you left to pave the way.

But, I see you in your children;

they’re images of you.

I see your smile and gentle ways

in everything they do.

So, you’ve not left me, brother

you’ve never sailed away...

you’ll live within my broken heart

until my dying day.

Something Sweet

Just write me something sweet, she says…

and leaves the rest to me.

She trusts my lost and distant heart

is as it used to be.

But I can feel the sadness there

she doesn’t know to hide.

And she can read me like a book…

the sorrow deep inside.

Yesterdays

My mind will often wander

to how my life was spent

from birth... from morn to evening,

to how I came and went

Then, for a breath, I’ll wonder

before my time is gone

how much was pre-determined…

how much was mine alone?

Drink of Life

My planned spontaneity doesn’t surprise; 
the rose colored glasses don’t cover my eyes 
but all of that matters so little. It’s true 
because of the fortunate presence of you. 

We’ve matching insanities, perfectly synched 
we stare and we stare then together we blink 
Compatible vices, no reasons to hide 
with hearts on our sleeves we will stumble in stride. 

When life gives me lemons, I know what to make, 
I’ve gallons and gallons, I’m filling a lake. 
And wasn’t it fortunate, nearly a sin 
that I should meet one to whom life would give Gin. 

Poetry

Poetry’s the music
that was playing in my heart
right at the beginning
of the ending from the start–

long, cascading verses
to express a single thought,
freely given secrets for which,
once, I would have fought–

philosophizing, prophesizing,
boldly telling lies,
romantic inspirations
wrapped in wishes sealed with sighs–

memories of miseries,
imaginary love,
wanderings and wonderings
and magic from above–

prejudices, urgent kisses,
honesty and myth,
pain and pretty, joy and ugly
whipped until they’re stiff.

Poetry is equal parts of joy
and primal fears,
half completed verses
seen through veils of poets tears–

brightly painted shadows
from the dungeon known as me,
imaginary imagery
that’s absolutely free.

Oh, Riley the Frog

Oh, Riley the frog
lives deep in the bog...
or, so says a deep voice within me

He jumps and he croaks...
he laughs and he jokes
as everyone turns green with envy.

Young Rileys a child
whose whimsy's so wild
he thinks that he lives on a lilly...

Young children have dreams
because, Mom, it seems
reality's boring and silly.


.... or so I've been toad.

Sunset

USS Oriskany (CVA-34). Now the worlds largest artificial reef.


She isn't, now, the lady of my youth
who taught a virgin boy to slake his thirst
with water from the sea of life, but truth
be told she will forever be the first--

the first to find the man within the boy,
to challenge me to gamble, to explore,
the first to turn a sorrow to a joy,
to show my eyes an unfamiliar shore.

I''m moved from fears to hopes and hopes to fears
to see her make believe, to keep pretending,
this lady in her gray and dismal years
who steered away from any thoughts of ending.

Now rest my lady, gently down to sleep
within the ample bosom of the deep.

Echo From a Silent Heart

For Mom


Memories of memories
          imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
          a loss that others feel.

Photographs and traces of
          the one who was my world,
black and white reminders of
          a pretty little girl.

Questions ask me questions
           but answers don't reply,
the echo from a silent heart
           can never tell me why.

The gray and faded image,
            the mother she became,
what do we have in common now
            beyond our common name?

A tattered family bible holds
            a note penned by her hand,
pieces of another's past
            I'll never understand.

And if I ask the questions
            will answers that I find
restore the faded image in
            the bottom of my mind?

Memories of memories
             imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
             the pain I'll always feel.

Yestertimes

For my sweet granddaughter Nikki. She's older now and even more beautiful.


"Yestertimes”, a magic word she coined because she's four
she uses to refer us to, generically, "before".
"Pretend we are outside, she says, "and 'tend it's raining, ‘kay?"
Articulated joy in her unique and special way.

"Show me mad," I say to her, to make her strike a pose.
I aim and snap a picture as her little spirit glows.
"Woe is me" another pose, a hand across her brow…
I take a second picture through the love and tears, somehow.

The years will soon adjust her look, increasing age and size,
she'll add a curl and curve or two to compliment her eyes.
I'll save, of course, these pictures and this memory in rhyme,
but Lord, if you would let me now, I'd put a stop to time.

Gifts

Some years ago I dared to ask the Lord
to stop all time, a beauty to preserve.
But life will set what pace it can afford
and time must charge such toll as we deserve.

My wish, though penned in earnest verses true
was rendered moot as life reviewed the rhyme.
When God decides to dress a beauty new
then He will build the clock and set the time.
 

And first among the many things I've learned,
I’m compensated though my wish is wrecked
for beauty has been doubled and returned
and time is truly cause to this effect.
 

In silence now I watch my gifts unfold...

a wiser man but surely never old.

Lady of the Night

Her face is of another world, 

the lady of the night, 

her beauty framed by Heaven's glow 

of alabaster light. 

Radiant yet softly shy,

behind a veil she slips. 

Eternity can't make a face 

her beauty won't eclipse. 

She smiles at her companion then 

serenely turns away 

as if she were a lover lost 

with nothing more to say. 

She peers into the depths of space 

in darkness, unafraid

then turns to face the world again, 

her monthly penance paid. 

© Copyright 2003 Dean Neighbors

I'm such a lunatic.

Self

Breaking on the sands of life,
the never-ending sea of time,
shaping no two grains alike,
distinctive self, uniquely mine.

In the minds most hidden places,
in the essence of the soul,
each child is unique and special,
born to play a novel role.

Celebrate your own uniqueness,
glory in this thing called "self",
in the final calculation
it's your only source of wealth.

No one else can dream your dreams
or live your life the way you do.
The changing tapestry of time
will not produce another you.

Recall

This is for my Naval Communications Station Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam brothers.

The memories that long endure
gain worth in special ways,

though some are sharp and some obscure,
or lost in timeless haze.

The images of brothers lost,
of pain, of joy and tears,
are funds accrued to pay a cost
that's decades in arrears.

So share your tales of distant youth,
exotic Asian lands,
when fate was held by older truths
and hearts in younger hands.

Recall the storm, recall the rain,
remember every brother--
as you recall a faded name,
then I'll recall another.

~ Dean Neighbors~ June 20, 2013

Garden Variety

She isn’t a garden tomato
nor cantaloupe, onion or beet.
She doesn’t allow much debate. Oh,
she’s so undeniably sweet.

Pragmatically speaking, she doesn’t
give looking behind her a whirl.
She isn’t, most certainly wasn’t,
a garden variety girl.