photo credit: I miss Sally ….. via photopin (license)
I am small
Neglected and broken
Put aside
In favour of newer toys
Bright and shiny
Presents unwrapped
But it would be wrong
To throw me away
And misplace the memory
Of the adventures
That we imagined together
And the games we have played
© 2018 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
Originally published 13 March 2016
photo credit: Marco Nürnberger The Shadow via photopin (license)
What doesn’t kill us
Makes us stronger,
What doesn’t kill us
Makes us wish we were younger,
What doesn’t kill us
Makes us wish for yesterday,
Makes us wish.
That the Shadow would go away
Leave us to our own designs
To roll the dice,
Leaves us to play the game.
Fate in own hands
Impostors by another name,
Captains of our own sinking ship.
In control of our own illusions
With mastery of all our delusions.
With all the weapons ready
At our command
We are ready
To take a stand.
What doesn’t kill us
Makes us wish we were younger
Makes us long for the Shadow
That we fear to go away.
© 2018 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: mugley wet purple dawn #2 via photopin (license)
The memory fades away like the rain
Or a dream upon waking.
Just a dream, even a dream of pain;
Its shadow will pass
No matter the length of the shadow cast.
It dissipates as the dawn breaks
And the sun rises even against the moon’s will.
Yes the world goes spinning on
Despite all the tears cried against the tide,
Motion wins still.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: Thomas James Caldwell Big Pine Key Sunrise via photopin (license)
Clouds dissipate before me
The confusion disappears.
I lose this transitory blindness, and see afresh
The tempting beauty of the morning.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: Derek R Goulet Beach Bird via photopin (license)
Yesterday is not tomorrow,
Memories are not today.
All those childhood tears
Yet you are not crying now.
You survived my darling,
You survived.
And those heartfelt sighs,
Too, too many goodbyes.
Teddy bears the only lonely listeners,
And birds with broken wings.
Yet you survived my darling.
You may still fly.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: Karen Newman Photography Family Photos via photopin (license)
Dead foot dominion
Where corridors echo
With the sounds of corruption,
And wanton wind colludes
With the creak upon the stairs.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: sleepyjeanie Defined by Time. via photopin (license)
Hello yesterday, have you returned.
That dress is faded now
But recognisably the same.
And the shame I feel in your presence
Has never, ever, changed.
You are the lover I can never leave.
The paramour I can’t be parted from.
You are Yesterday. My regret.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: medusa of the haight, scott richard via photopin (license)
So you’re gone again
Taken your light and headed home
At the first hint of tears.
As if you fear you’ll melt in the rain.
But you still want me to pretend
That it’s all about you,
That the planets and the asteroids
Are just hanging around
With nothing better to do.
For the butterfly to flutter a wing,
You know that chaos thing you do.
Shouting out to the universe to stop it all
Complaining about all that crazy emotion and gravity
That you claim is dragging you down.
Putting the blame on me,
Expecting me to carry the weight.
But I can’t, not this time.
It is not visible in my stars I think
Not now that gravity has moved me on
And the eclipse has hidden you from view.
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
hiraeth:
(n) A deep, wistful, nostalgic sense of longing for home;
a home that is no longer or perhaps never was.
photo credit: Silent House via photopin (license)
This is not the place
Where the river flows
Rerouted to a moment of déjà vu
Over some other town.
Where the leaves were a different green
Growing on different trees.
The past was another shape to this
And the stranger I ran into
Had eyes a different shade of blue.
This is not the room, back then
The sun shone in a different light
With windows on a different view.
There were more reds in the sunsets
Back in that other place.
When it shone on lazy summer paths
Wandering through those dragonfly lanes.
And that stranger I ran into
I remember eyes a different shade of blue.
This is not the skin, the feeling is not the same.
The fields of wheat we walked through are gone now.
Just a ghost remains of the golden hue
That holds the moment in my mind.
That road, pavement pools sparkling in the rain,
Takes me past the turn
But never back to the door of home.
Never back to the stranger
With eyes that were a different shade of blue.
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
