Contemplations

1:11 at night
I lay awake in thought
Sprawled out over the love seat
In the living room
Alone

Typing on the keyboard
In precise patterns
As to transcribe this poem
This very one you
Read

Unsure of where
I'm leading you
I just continue on
While I think about
Everything

How did my life
Get to where it is
It is not bad
I do not complain about
It

I enjoy my life
But how did I get here
From birth 'till now
Such a journey to be
Made

So indecisive
How can I not know
I give everyone advice
Yet I am now
Confused

Girls, girls, girls
There's a mouthful there
10 million words written
And still no man
Understands

School, ah stress
They go hand-in-hand
I used to enjoy it
But now education
Hurts

Chest pains
Physical and emotional
School and girls, respectively
They take their
Toll

I often wonder how things
Perhaps have progressed
In differing ways
Than I
Wanted

And how to
Change the path
My life seems
To be
Following

But regardless
I press on
Despite all the pain
Thanks to the blood of
Christ

If not for that
I wish not know
Where I would be now
Sitting and what I'd be
Contemplating

I think about the game
My friends and I
Played together
In the brief few
Moments

About the sleepy dog
Beside me
Beckoning me
To go to
Bed

And about the girl
The nice and pretty young
Woman in my living room
Earlier tonight with
Me

And about so many other
Things and people
When did life
Get this
Way?

Where it confuses me
So much as this
I dream of the simple
Times of my
Childhood

Wondering where the
Past 18 stanzas and years
Have led me to
And where to go
Now

I pray every day
I sometimes cannot rest
Trying to figure so much out
When it ought to be in God's
Hands

I just keep on
Insisting on doing it
All alone and just keep on
Failing, crying, and dying
Again

- Daniel Z. Garrett -

Pacing

Pacing
Around about
Back and forth
Pacing

Wishing
Moments by
Hoping and praying
Wishing

Crying
Unending tears
Joy and thanks
Crying

Holding
Little arms
Fingers and toes
Holding

Releasing
All nightmares
Worries and fears
Releasing

Pacing
Around about
Back and forth
Pacing

- Daniel Z. Garrett -

Tick-Tock

Racing forward, never ceasing
This gift of ours, what a blessing
He leaves as quickly as he came
Unable to slow his passing

So many try to hold on tight
Feeling that they are in the right
They don't realize that they are lame
Paralyzed with fear at her sight

She's deemed the great equalizer
She is not bias, just watch her
He leads you to her as if tame
And you soon do wish that she were

But she is wilder than the night
The young and old will feel her might
And you will feel her all the same
So cherish him while there's still light

- Daniel Z. Garrett -

The Time When the Red Bird Calls

We sit here waiting for the time when the red bird calls
Hearing, listening to a silence piercing through the halls of eternity
As we count the seconds, minutes, hours to fall
Until the red bird calls

Some wait so long and the red bird never calls
Many abandon their posts and perish afar
But those precious few who wait for him
Never fade

The red bird's call is so mellow, so quaint
It eases the pain of all who lend ear
But all who reject him
Fall

And in the evening as the red bird sings
It ascends beyond the stars
With it passes all time
And all who listen rise with him

- Daniel Z. Garrett -