the cliffs of our lives

Blind
you can always sense
what you just can't see.
for lying just under the surface
of experience,
are the premonitions
that pop mysteriously into one's head.
it's a way to see into the future,
but it is not a way to know the future.
to cast away the eyes of the present,
for the mind's eye of the future,
makes you blind.
and then all you can manage
is to feel your way around
discovering objects
that are unfamiliar to the touch,
which you assume
are the future.


the woman
sitting hidden by her veil,
sat with her eyes closed
and mumbled in the words of her profession,
the future of the man
sitting across the table from her.
she told him of trials
that were waiting for him,
and of the riches
that would welcome his victories.
the man rose and left,
holding in his arms
the future he coveted.
and the woman sat still
with her eyes still closed
as a young woman entered
and sat down.
the mystic
with her eyes closed to reality
but open to the realm of possibility
evoked forth the words
of the future
of the young woman:
" the life you lead
will have many steps
that will require feet
larger than yours.
your future has splendor
that will need
other's eyes to admire.
the future holds strong
the morals
you have acquired,
but they will be tainted by the souring
of your soul,
and you will need the breath of life
given by the standards of another,
who can stand tall
in a world of shrinking ideals,
and who can stay down,
in a world of rising expectations.
" the young woman,
enthralled by each word,
rose when the sage's words had ended.
but with each step she took leaving the room
she felt the pain of a shortening step.
with every glance around her,
she noticed the world
starting to dull to her eyes.
and as she closed the door behind her
and began walking down the street,
she felt a tightness in her chest,
and found she was panting:
trying to catch her breath.


stepping forward
need not take you farther
than where you are now.
the overwhelming desire
to see your footprint,
before your foot lands,
leads to the erasing of the footprints
that show your path behind you.
looking forward
into the day
that will come tomorrow,
blinds the days that have gone before,
and dulls the moments
that come right now.
breathing the air
that has yet to blow around you,
leaves you lunging forward
into the exhausts of the past,
leaving you to choke in your present.
trying to push out the boundaries
of the present minute,
causes all of the minutes before,
and all to follow
to shrink,
shrinking also
all of the life
that you had lived those minutes,
or are still to live,
in the minutes to follow.


to assume that you can step into the future,
by passing the present,
is to believe
you can reach into the past,
and change all of the disappointments.
you cannot hold the card
in the palm of your hand,
which does not fall into it
by the deal of the present.
the future
is still being shuffled,
and the past has already been lost
or won.


i have looked to the future,
but what i had thought
was the world of my building,
was only the dreams of my past.
you cannot imagine a realm
that is created by the hand
of your body in the future,
without knowing
the new intentions,
and the new dreams
of that future you.
and there is no way to know,
for you never know in advance
how you will actually react,
like you didn't know
whether you'd read this,
or whether you'd like it or hate it.


so before you look at what will pass tomorrow,
finish passing today,
and after tomorrow is finished,
you can manipulate it in your head
to fit the dreams you've always held now,
leaving your future lives and dreams
to you of then.


the prophets travelled the land
telling all who they could find
about the wrongs of their ways,
and of the tragedy in their future.
and they told what their eyes could see,
they explained what their minds had noticed,
but the world of which they spoke,
lacked the heart of each man,
and the power it possesses.
the future of minds,
and bodies,
cannot be the future of men and women
with hearts.
for the heart obeys no laws of behavior:
has no predisposition.
the heart is the culprit
for every time
you knew what you wanted to do,
but when came time,
you just couldn't do it.
so the prophets faded from view,
scared away by the masses
angry at the gap in futures.
they ran away and hid,
telling fortunes to a few,
but frightened of the world of the many.
left without their prophets
to explain to them
what their were going to do,
the people wandered their present,
and meandered through their futures.
a few sought out the prophets in hiding,
but still others tried to become prophets
of their own.
and as they sat upon the mountain,
surrounded by a burning bush,
and large stone tablets,
they could not see their future,
they could not feel their past,
all they could do was scream in the pain
of their present,
which while it had been abandoned
during their searches,
spread out into terrain
they would never have entered,
and explored lives they would never have lived.
the sky opened with the shriek of thunder,
as the skies filled
with the masses
of men and women screaming,
and the earth was replenished
by the raining hopes
and dreams,
shaken loose
from their bodies.


The Drop Into Maturity
Adolescence is
The collecting drop
Of a morning dew,
Sliding across
The top of a leaf,
Till it forms the pearl
Of shiny waters
And rainbow dreams.
Hesitant,
Hanging so precariously
From the leaf's end.
It collects,
Growing larger and larger,
Weight pulling it downwards.
Finally the mass overwhelms
And it falls,
Plummets to the unknown depths below,
To finally touch down
On the mysterious spot
That is its destiny:
Our future.


The Return
When I come back down,
From those moments
when my senses run high,
and my mind soars
through the clouds,
when I come back down
will there be
someone waiting for me?
If someone enters my life,
will they wish to remain
even during the times
when I become enthralled
by the moment,
and I lose sight
and momentarily fall
into an aura of happiness,
excitement,
and joy.
when I regain my soil
beneath my feet,
will she be there
to welcome me back
with a kiss:
a heavenly kiss?


Will there be?
and will she stay?


A Bench in the Universe
You asked me to wait,
To sit and ponder the universe
Till your arrival.
Well I waited:
I passed by planets,
And sailed through galaxies
But nowhere
In all of the far reaches
Could I find you.


You walked right past me
Many times:
In the guise of the goddess Gaia
As you slipped away,
In the form of white giants
As the power of their size
Dwindled to nothing,
And in the form of dust
Suspended in the vacuum,
Destined to wait for eons
Before it will form even a stone.


Each time you passed me,
It hurt.
But I survived.
But when I saw you walk by my bench,
The one last star,
Collapsed.


Does All Love Die
If the heart
Which you so adore
Is hidden within
The man you so despise,
Does all love die?


Submersion
I submerge myself
Into paradise,
But my empty shoes,
Remain on the beach
Of reality.


Dear Friend
My dearest fellow
I write to you this winter night,
Because I fell into a slumber
And saw a beautiful sight.


I remember her vividly
Her face cheered my heart,
I wished to love her forever
For our souls to never part.


We started out as friends
Great fun we had together,
I wanted her for myself
But someone else stole her.


I hope you're enjoying Christmas
And a long,
happy life,
And please tell your children
That you're sleeping with my wife.


Solitary Rose
The rose,
Fallen from its pedestal.
No longer the almighty symbol of love.
Dropped from the hand of one out of love.
Gone are the days of joy and bliss,
Where the exchange of a rose,
Meant much more then imaginable.


With the passing of this landmark,
In these young lover's lives,
Goes too the symbolic importance,
Of that small,
deep red,
flower.
Its value reduced to a level of poverty.
A level of absolute worthlessness.
Left to lie on the filthy curb.
Trampled by thousands of hard souls.
Withered by the harsh elements,
Of Mother Nature herself,
From which this rose sprung.
The small rose,
Whose short life,
Ended the day it was picked.
Destined to spend its after-life,
In the clutches of a woman in love.
But the poor rose,
Was cast away,
When a scar formed,
On that once untarnished affair.
The rose,
Cast away,
Doomed,
Forgotten,
Abandoned.


The Vase
The love of the world
Was collected,
And placed in a vase
Of pure diamonds.


The people of the world
Were rejoicing,
For here in this place
Was pure love.
But what they failed to see
Was that all of their love,
Was now missing.


The hate of the world
Was collected,
And placed in the heart
Of all man.


The people of the world
Were lamenting,
Till the burden of hate
Became distressing.
So with the round of a gun,
There hate they did shun.
And now their hearts
Lie empty,
And the people of the world
Are now missing.


Childhood Lost
seaside visits,
before the tide rose
and the torrential rains
of the storm of adolescence, hit.
the splendor of beauty
before beauty
meant women,
and appreciation meant lusting.
innocence
without purity:
still tainted
by wicked and bizarre
personal dementias.
able to play:
frolic in the surf.
a chance to play with a girl,
without it leading
to bed, then
marriage.


simplicity.
but maybe,
this is all too
simplified:
an exaggeration
of innocence.
retrospection tends
to hide,
or include.
XIV.
The Walk Home
the little boy
walked down the path,
through the forest
with its grand trees
and wonderful creatures.


next he passed
a calm pond,
along a gently flowing
stream.
he stopped
and stared down
at his reflection.
the shimmering face,
looking up at him
was his friend,
who played with him
on those rainy days,
and those days
when everybody else
was busy.


saying goodbye,
he walked the final length,
till he came to his house.
entering inside
expecting to find
parents and siblings,
but instead he found:
emptiness
and old age.


The Boys of Summer
the boys
of a summer
in which I could not fit in,
have spread to a fall and a winter
where I can no longer compete.


a contest has ended,
a battle has been won,
women have been wooed,
yet I have met none.


the sunset shimmers
above the ocean waters
crashing around their feets
as they swing their loves
through the air
with all the strength
I could never muster,
and all of the grace
that could not emerge
between my stumbles.


I sit upon a solitary chair upon an isolated patio,
looking out across the lives
of those around.
I see those boys of summer
change their clothes
and change their styles
and become the boys
of fall,
winter,
and spring.
when those boys
of the four seasons,
seven continents,
and hundreds of languages
court the girls
of heaven,
the women
of paradise,
and the ladies of fantasies,
where is it free
for me to roam?


those boys live a summer
of a life
I can never obtain.
as their skin tans
with the heat of the sun,
my skin blemishes
with the shadows
of the moon.


the boys of a summer
that melts on
into falls,
winters,
and springs,
can take all of the ripeness
they choose,
all of the freshness
they desire,
all of the beauty that I can only dream of,
as I toss and turn
in the twin bed
engraved with my name.
 Blind
you can always sense
what you just can't see.
for lying just under the surface
of experience,
are the premonitions
that pop mysteriously into one's head.
it's a way to see into the future,
but it is not a way to know the future.
to cast away the eyes of the present,
for the mind's eye of the future,
makes you blind.
and then all you can manage
is to feel your way around
discovering objects
that are unfamiliar to the touch,
which you assume
are the future.


the woman
sitting hidden by her veil,
sat with her eyes closed
and mumbled in the words of her profession,
the future of the man
sitting across the table from her.
she told him of trials
that were waiting for him,
and of the riches
that would welcome his victories.
the man rose and left,
holding in his arms
the future he coveted.
and the woman sat still
with her eyes still closed
as a young woman entered
and sat down.
the mystic
with her eyes closed to reality
but open to the realm of possibility
evoked forth the words
of the future
of the young woman:
" the life you lead
will have many steps
that will require feet
larger than yours.
your future has splendor
that will need
other's eyes to admire.
the future holds strong
the morals
you have acquired,
but they will be tainted by the souring
of your soul,
and you will need the breath of life
given by the standards of another,
who can stand tall
in a world of shrinking ideals,
and who can stay down,
in a world of rising expectations.
" the young woman,
enthralled by each word,
rose when the sage's words had ended.
but with each step she took leaving the room
she felt the pain of a shortening step.
with every glance around her,
she noticed the world
starting to dull to her eyes.
and as she closed the door behind her
and began walking down the street,
she felt a tightness in her chest,
and found she was panting:
trying to catch her breath.


stepping forward
need not take you farther
than where you are now.
the overwhelming desire
to see your footprint,
before your foot lands,
leads to the erasing of the footprints
that show your path behind you.
looking forward
into the day
that will come tomorrow,
blinds the days that have gone before,
and dulls the moments
that come right now.
breathing the air
that has yet to blow around you,
leaves you lunging forward
into the exhausts of the past,
leaving you to choke in your present.
trying to push out the boundaries
of the present minute,
causes all of the minutes before,
and all to follow
to shrink,
shrinking also
all of the life
that you had lived those minutes,
or are still to live,
in the minutes to follow.


to assume that you can step into the future,
by passing the present,
is to believe
you can reach into the past,
and change all of the disappointments.
you cannot hold the card
in the palm of your hand,
which does not fall into it
by the deal of the present.
the future
is still being shuffled,
and the past has already been lost
or won.


i have looked to the future,
but what i had thought
was the world of my building,
was only the dreams of my past.
you cannot imagine a realm
that is created by the hand
of your body in the future,
without knowing
the new intentions,
and the new dreams
of that future you.
and there is no way to know,
for you never know in advance
how you will actually react,
like you didn't know
whether you'd read this,
or whether you'd like it or hate it.


so before you look at what will pass tomorrow,
finish passing today,
and after tomorrow is finished,
you can manipulate it in your head
to fit the dreams you've always held now,
leaving your future lives and dreams
to you of then.


the prophets travelled the land
telling all who they could find
about the wrongs of their ways,
and of the tragedy in their future.
and they told what their eyes could see,
they explained what their minds had noticed,
but the world of which they spoke,
lacked the heart of each man,
and the power it possesses.
the future of minds,
and bodies,
cannot be the future of men and women
with hearts.
for the heart obeys no laws of behavior:
has no predisposition.
the heart is the culprit
for every time
you knew what you wanted to do,
but when came time,
you just couldn't do it.
so the prophets faded from view,
scared away by the masses
angry at the gap in futures.
they ran away and hid,
telling fortunes to a few,
but frightened of the world of the many.
left without their prophets
to explain to them
what their were going to do,
the people wandered their present,
and meandered through their futures.
a few sought out the prophets in hiding,
but still others tried to become prophets
of their own.
and as they sat upon the mountain,
surrounded by a burning bush,
and large stone tablets,
they could not see their future,
they could not feel their past,
all they could do was scream in the pain
of their present,
which while it had been abandoned
during their searches,
spread out into terrain
they would never have entered,
and explored lives they would never have lived.
the sky opened with the shriek of thunder,
as the skies filled
with the masses
of men and women screaming,
and the earth was replenished
by the raining hopes
and dreams,
shaken loose
from their bodies.


The Drop Into Maturity
Adolescence is
The collecting drop
Of a morning dew,
Sliding across
The top of a leaf,
Till it forms the pearl
Of shiny waters
And rainbow dreams.
Hesitant,
Hanging so precariously
From the leaf's end.
It collects,
Growing larger and larger,
Weight pulling it downwards.
Finally the mass overwhelms
And it falls,
Plummets to the unknown depths below,
To finally touch down
On the mysterious spot
That is its destiny:
Our future.


The Return
When I come back down,
From those moments
when my senses run high,
and my mind soars
through the clouds,
when I come back down
will there be
someone waiting for me?
If someone enters my life,
will they wish to remain
even during the times
when I become enthralled
by the moment,
and I lose sight
and momentarily fall
into an aura of happiness,
excitement,
and joy.
when I regain my soil
beneath my feet,
will she be there
to welcome me back
with a kiss:
a heavenly kiss?


Will there be?
and will she stay?


A Bench in the Universe
You asked me to wait,
To sit and ponder the universe
Till your arrival.
Well I waited:
I passed by planets,
And sailed through galaxies
But nowhere
In all of the far reaches
Could I find you.


You walked right past me
Many times:
In the guise of the goddess Gaia
As you slipped away,
In the form of white giants
As the power of their size
Dwindled to nothing,
And in the form of dust
Suspended in the vacuum,
Destined to wait for eons
Before it will form even a stone.


Each time you passed me,
It hurt.
But I survived.
But when I saw you walk by my bench,
The one last star,
Collapsed.


Does All Love Die
If the heart
Which you so adore
Is hidden within
The man you so despise,
Does all love die?


Submersion
I submerge myself
Into paradise,
But my empty shoes,
Remain on the beach
Of reality.


Dear Friend
My dearest fellow
I write to you this winter night,
Because I fell into a slumber
And saw a beautiful sight.


I remember her vividly
Her face cheered my heart,
I wished to love her forever
For our souls to never part.


We started out as friends
Great fun we had together,
I wanted her for myself
But someone else stole her.


I hope you're enjoying Christmas
And a long,
happy life,
And please tell your children
That you're sleeping with my wife.


Solitary Rose
The rose,
Fallen from its pedestal.
No longer the almighty symbol of love.
Dropped from the hand of one out of love.
Gone are the days of joy and bliss,
Where the exchange of a rose,
Meant much more then imaginable.


With the passing of this landmark,
In these young lover's lives,
Goes too the symbolic importance,
Of that small,
deep red,
flower.
Its value reduced to a level of poverty.
A level of absolute worthlessness.
Left to lie on the filthy curb.
Trampled by thousands of hard souls.
Withered by the harsh elements,
Of Mother Nature herself,
From which this rose sprung.
The small rose,
Whose short life,
Ended the day it was picked.
Destined to spend its after-life,
In the clutches of a woman in love.
But the poor rose,
Was cast away,
When a scar formed,
On that once untarnished affair.
The rose,
Cast away,
Doomed,
Forgotten,
Abandoned.


The Vase
The love of the world
Was collected,
And placed in a vase
Of pure diamonds.


The people of the world
Were rejoicing,
For here in this place
Was pure love.
But what they failed to see
Was that all of their love,
Was now missing.


The hate of the world
Was collected,
And placed in the heart
Of all man.


The people of the world
Were lamenting,
Till the burden of hate
Became distressing.
So with the round of a gun,
There hate they did shun.
And now their hearts
Lie empty,
And the people of the world
Are now missing.


Childhood Lost
seaside visits,
before the tide rose
and the torrential rains
of the storm of adolescence, hit.
the splendor of beauty
before beauty
meant women,
and appreciation meant lusting.
innocence
without purity:
still tainted
by wicked and bizarre
personal dementias.
able to play:
frolic in the surf.
a chance to play with a girl,
without it leading
to bed, then
marriage.


simplicity.
but maybe,
this is all too
simplified:
an exaggeration
of innocence.
retrospection tends
to hide,
or include.
XIV.
The Walk Home
the little boy
walked down the path,
through the forest
with its grand trees
and wonderful creatures.


next he passed
a calm pond,
along a gently flowing
stream.
he stopped
and stared down
at his reflection.
the shimmering face,
looking up at him
was his friend,
who played with him
on those rainy days,
and those days
when everybody else
was busy.


saying goodbye,
he walked the final length,
till he came to his house.
entering inside
expecting to find
parents and siblings,
but instead he found:
emptiness
and old age.


The Boys of Summer
the boys
of a summer
in which I could not fit in,
have spread to a fall and a winter
where I can no longer compete.


a contest has ended,
a battle has been won,
women have been wooed,
yet I have met none.


the sunset shimmers
above the ocean waters
crashing around their feets
as they swing their loves
through the air
with all the strength
I could never muster,
and all of the grace
that could not emerge
between my stumbles.


I sit upon a solitary chair upon an isolated patio,
looking out across the lives
of those around.
I see those boys of summer
change their clothes
and change their styles
and become the boys
of fall,
winter,
and spring.
when those boys
of the four seasons,
seven continents,
and hundreds of languages
court the girls
of heaven,
the women
of paradise,
and the ladies of fantasies,
where is it free
for me to roam?


those boys live a summer
of a life
I can never obtain.
as their skin tans
with the heat of the sun,
my skin blemishes
with the shadows
of the moon.


the boys of a summer
that melts on
into falls,
winters,
and springs,
can take all of the ripeness
they choose,
all of the freshness
they desire,
all of the beauty that I can only dream of,
as I toss and turn
in the twin bed
engraved with my name.
the cliffs of our lives 1
Table of Contents 		Words Never Spoken. Copyright © 1991 by Matte Elsbernd. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.