standing here at the place we first met

looking out at the rolling waves

as the ocean breeze blows against my face.

Thinking of you paints the masterpiece of our love

as I gazed into your eyes at this very special place.

Look at me,

sitting here in the sand

where I first felt the warmth of your tender hand

as we watched the seagull’s flying up above.

I can still feel that tender touch of your soul

as you massaged my heart with your undying love.

Look at me,

crying as I hold you in my hands

caressing you as I once did before;

an everlasting feeling inside surely to be missed.

I long to feel those soft lips again

as it seemed like yesterday, our hearts first kissed.

Look at me,

letting you go at our special place

as I spread your ashes across the water

where I can still clearly see your face.

Your memory stares back at the tears I cry,

as your release tells my heart it’s time for our final goodbye.

Written April 27th, 2013 from the thoughts that arrived at 5:35 A.M

Eyes wide open inside the 37th dream of a lifetime,

I am breathing —

and as I lay within these minutes,

the very minutes I breathed inside the bosom of my mother’s arms

and started to recognize a world ready to celebrate my life — a world

            that has nourished me through sacrifice and strengthened me through pain,

yet, there is so much still to gain

            in completing this journey released from the soul of a woman

who has left me, but still spirits me every minute of every moment,

            watching down on me, still a baby in her eyes as she is that energy

that exist in drifting skies

            at times of sadness and thought the height of accomplishment –

and I know she sees me now, six months away from a marriage

that her angelic hands found just two days after tears filled my soul

            when she departed this world –unexpectedly

but still she left me with many gifts that left me whole, willing, ready

            and able to love.

As I lay within these minutes,

            the very minutes that birthed the strength that has allowed me to rise

            above,

I reflect  upon the moments that have led me to the absolute meaning

of being.  What is here on this day can be gone tomorrow

but what is created on this day will leave footprints

            inside the pages of eternity as it was 37 dreams ago

within the minutes of a moment that set me free.

(c) 2013 Tarringo T. Vaughan

As he studied my attention
I refused to blink.  He told me things about my-

self I tried to keep hidden under a coffee stained
American Eagle sweat shirt
that found me on the Clarence rack.

I told him to fuck off!  But he continued
to weave his words through my intelligence.
He was such an inspired bastard; cruelty
bunched together in fifty-seven pages

of brilliance.

There was no winning against his intellectual
abuse.  So I let him have the last word.

I closed the book.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan
Beyond Rainbows & Yellow Brick Roads

There we played, on the streets of youth where

            we were free of fear, free of tears and during times

when life taught us the freedom to care. 

We were the innocent — children filled with dreams

learning the art of growth while realizing that everything

around us wasn’t what it seemed but still we believed

in hope, courage and our own ability to achieve — we were

the future holding history tight in our hands

as we laughed, cried and watched our older generations

            die.  And we were the fearless determined

to fly despite poverty chained to our heels– we used

            our wheels of courage to travel to new reachable

destinations where our names gave definition

to the liberation of strength.  We were a new generation,

as in our faces was a new age of challenge; a challenge

we embraced as we played on the streets of youth –

            where once upon a time

                                    there was no crime, emptiness or pain.

2013

Tarringo T. Vaughan

I am guilty.

I have committed a crime and I am here to confess.  I am a murderer; I am a murderer of closed minds and senseless ignorance and I will kill again.  They look at me like a poetic criminal because in my eyes they see a cold stare of ink flooding through the voice of my heart and sometimes they run away.  But they are eventually caught and become my next victim.  My silence has been handcuffed and put behind bars but I still write.  The words just won’t stop and this crime has become an addiction.

I seek no help.             The jury continues to convict me as I am guilty until proven more guilty of this repeated crime that will lead me to incarceration if not the execution chair of literary genius.  My crimes aren’t that lethal yet but I am still guilty of inspiring minds and touching hearts but to them I must be crucified for calling myself a poet.  I am turning myself in.  And here are my rights:

I have the right to remain expressive,

anything I write can and will be used to define me

in the court of literary critique.

I am guilty.

 My existence is the evidence.

© 2010

Public Journal

Tarringo T. Vaughan

by greybeardlegend

Words Unsaid

 
A heart once mute – tears of silence
that at a young age just wouldn’t compute
the confusion and delusions hidden within
a soul held hostage by fear – for many years,
so many words unsaid
I just couldn’t find the expressive freedom
to let out the emotions
rampaging as confused thoughts
inside my head.

Truths unheard – locked behind the door
of a closet with no room to breathe. Suffocating
memories of a young boy trying to find his own manhood
afraid
with words unsaid. I was loved for who I had to be
but left alone because I was not free
to be loved for who I was born
to be.

Paralyzed feelings, empty moments – searching
for healing. I screamed out with a new voice
echoing in a world unwilling
to accept the whisper of my reality
but the only way to grow
and move ahead
with words unsaid
was to finally speak and have my own heart
take the time

to listen.
© 2013
Tarringo T. Vaughan

by_gsorbs

On Bended Knee

Love, in the creation of a moment, kneeled
down before me on bended knee

and within it’s presence
the sounds of steady winds
drifting in from the rhymes and soul
of a timeless sea

held us breathless
as the deepness of a smile captured me.

Love, in the creation of a moment, took my hand
as we stood in the sand,
just the two of us

all alone on a crowed beach, the same place
where we once stood together looking out at an endless

ocean where the renewal of passion
again kissed us with waves filled with a promise.

Love, in the creation of a moment, looked up at me

misty eyed, blending in perfectly with a mid-October
ski, the same sky that led us into the arms

of each other’s hearts.

Love, in the creation of a moment, made a promise
that we shall never part

as the resiliency of togetherness proposed
to me and the tears of joy

whispered to this once lonely boy
that I will never again have to spend my

days alone.
Tarringo T. Vaughan
© 2013

by_vishstudio

Lost Ones

I write for their eyes
as I narrate the loneliness they feel
from inside the of hidden identities
that have become immersed
within the transparent confusion
of society’s delusion.

Some are brave and stand alone
on judgment’s concrete stone
afraid to shine their difference
in the dampened skies where hateful
eyes
plagiarize their souls to be ashamed
of how they were born;

some are young, abandoned and living
in houses that don’t feel like home.
They are trying to be clones
of who they are told they have to be
but in their hearts they just
reach for the moment where
they can be free

and some are reminders of me—hidden sexuality
searching for air
and the right to breathe their own
civil liberty. I write for their pride, their beauty
and their strength

I write for every emotion
they feel they need to keep locked up
Inside/afraid no one would understand;
afraid there would be no one
on their side

and I write for their courage;
the everyday journey
of new discoveries and the celebration
they will inherit by loving who they are
because they will be loved.
I write for them and I write for who

I used to be – lost ones
ready and searching to be found.

© 2012
Tarringo T. Vaughan

by_slevinaaron

One Of Many

I am just one of many experiments who stand alone
in rehearsed crowds lost in a maze
of widowed daydreams
trying to find tomorrow
with transient eyes shut to the reality of yesterday.

It is when I open my mind that I – not only see – but recognize
that I am just one of many questions
who camouflage as the answer trying to find a way out
of the curiosities and possibilities locked and chained
inside the cages of isolated thought
with mental freedom being held hostage by the knowledge

that I am just one of many poets
trying to stand strong against the inertia of time
held back only by fear and the protection
of my own escape – desperate to rise
but sinking in my own environment of unreached
dreams that dangle out of reach but right there
for the taking,

but until I realize
that I am just one of many aspects
in an abstract world, I can only be recognized by literary progression
and the ability to aspirate through the suffocation
of a crowded maze of imitation as one of many
trying to find the correct path towards translation
of the mind and find the focus

to stand tall upon the concrete stairs
of creativity,
because without creative innovation,
a destination to stand apart only justifies
the paths leading to dead ends where possible dreams
remain uninspired.

And without distinction I am one of many poets
translating words into nothing
but just words
sculptured from meaningless expression;
an expression that can only be defined
when I find that way towards transcendence
and step away from being one of many
into the spotlight where I am one in many
unlocking the chains of my voice
to become one me

© 2009
Rewritten 2011
Tarringo T Vaughan

by_kasperionis

Upon the Thought of My Demise

It is upon the thought of my demise
that I wonder if the memory of me
shall wake into tomorrow’s sunrise
or will I fade into the distant echoes
of what once was — barely to be recognized.

All I hope is the flowers laid down upon
my life will stay fresh and beautiful
in the hearts of those who knew me true.
I want each rose to be a symbol of my love;
each tulip sprouting anew – to be recognition
of my constant growth. I want each
lilly to be the fragrance of my heart
as each daffodil will enrich the soil
of my internal and external being.

But perhaps if those flowers shall
be just a faded mark of my existence,
I will still have been a presence in the eyes
of those who have admired and even
in those who may have less desired.

So for the eventual death of me I shall not scare
for to truly live life is not to fall to its fear
as through all the glimpses of my memory
I know I will always be here.

© 2009

Rewritten 2012

For “Tears Of A Poet”
Tarringo T Vaughan