WHY CAN’T WHAT I LOVE MEAN SOMETHING

Do you ever feel that people bring you down when you speak?

Talk of your dreams, your wants, whom you wish to be.

I find that not many care about what I do or loves of mine,

They’re not any less of worth, precious always in my mind.

What I love means so much to me, others unkind or blind,

Why can’t what I love mean something, others don’t love what is mine.

Keith Garrett

A DAY WITHOUT SYMPATHY
I awoke in the morning, I fell out of bed,

A bad headache but no aspirin for my head.

I went for a cup of coffee but only an empty jar,

Maybe some toast but the butter was at the store.

I went to get the paper in a puddle of mud,

The dog chewed up my shoes, what am I to do.

Got dressed and headed for the car, off to work I’ll go,

The car wasn’t there, stolen wouldn’t you know.

Went to call the police, locked myself out of the house,

Headed for the bus stop, watched the bus drive on by.

I flagged down a cab, please get me to work,

No wallet in my pocket, I gave him my watch.

I walked through the door, fearing I was so late,

This is your day off, you don’t work today.

No way home so I put out my thumb,

No one would stop, I walked all the way.

I had not a key, Oh! what a day,

I broke the window, the door was open all the way.

My T.V. was gone, the phone did not work,

Nothing to eat, time for some sleep.

I went to my room, the bed was gone,

A day without sympathy, on the floor I did lay.

Keith Garrett

GREEK GOD OF THE SKY

It rests way up high, giant in the dark of night,

So far away, when was it formed, millions of years from today?

Beyond the stars, spinning in outer space, thirteen rings around its face,

Father of the sky, seventh planet from the sun, will you ever perish and go away?

You go by a name known to all from the beginning of man, Uranus be your name,

Quite strange as you spin forever tilted on your side, a collision be the reason why.

You orbit with others of names which have been formed so many human lifetimes ago,

Beyond the Earth, space is a place of much mystery just as you hold a mystery of your own.

Keith Garrett

BILLY MITCHELL

Today in my mind but yesterday was a long time ago,

I think of you, a place and a school, I was a little boy.

It was nineteen sixty seven, Kindergarten and you,

The first day of school is recalled in my mind, a boy I saw cry,

His name Was Cotero, I think of those clowns on a wall.

Are they still there? I wonder, swingsets and young friends,

A boy named Grover, Duck, Duck, goose, Graham crackers and milk.

Naptime, I remember the cabinets with cartoonish pictures,

Reading time was the best, Foldout books, three dimensional stories,

Hansel and Gretel, all the best, I was there until nineteen seventy.

Hard to remember the teachers’ names, Mrs. Scott back in second grade,

I think it was Mr. Kelly, Principal with dark hair and glasses,

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt was a song in the Cafeteria.

After school and on the weekends you could play games,

Carroms, maze, and more, Billy Mitchell, when once I was a child.

Friends, Jeff, James, Jimmy, and Alan, wherever they are, I remember,

There was a bell back then known as the freeze bell, stand very still.

We all have our childhood, our memories, a town to call home, then we roam,

Billy Mitchell, I find myself wandering back to you, memories of a school.

Keith Garrett

A LIST OF THINGS TO BE

Never an astronaut, dancing slowly upon the moon,

Flying in a jet across the sky, no, not did I ever fly.

A football star throwing the ball far, a dream that won’t be,

Under the lights, a victory on a Superbowl night.

What is it like to be a movie star pretending to be many things,

Known everywhere, this is not what I was born to be.

An Olympic star, a racer of cars, I wanted to be but that’s not me,

A great writer, a hero of sort would be something I might be.

A rescuer of the down and out, a conqueror of homelessness,

I may not be an Einstein of genius, I am good enough for me,

A list of things to be, how much can one man need?

Keith Garrett

A HORSE CALLED STORM

Jet black, tall and strong, he stands in the morning light,

Out in the grassland roams this free spirit.

Never ridden, not a man calls him theirs,

Answers to not a soul do this horse left alone.

His name is storm, dark as the night,

Moves like lightning, sounds like thunder.

Fierce and at times mean is this beast,

Untamed by man, natural and free.

He is friends with each day, land where he runs,

A horse called storm standing in the sun.

Keith Garrett

STAGECOACH

Come with me, take a ride back in time,

The old West where stagecoaches traveled by.

See the dust in the distance, watch them ride,

From many places, from here and there.

Climb aboard, passengers of a lost time,

Drive on! driver, a journey through the years.

Big wheels and horses that take you to anywhere,

A dangerous ride back in a place where bandits hide.

Indians and highwaymen survive by the gun or knife,

Outlaws or desperate men steal and take a life.

A stagecoach ride may be peaceful somehow,

If along a safe road or beyond beautiful hills in an old western time.

Keith Garrett

WE HAVE TODAY

Remember yesterday as we ran through the fields of play,

Children of innocence had much to say, no worries of the day.

Tomorrow has no memory, are we even in its thoughts,

Tomorrow is our hope, we have today, only today.

For granted is taken the morning’s rising sun,

As we slip into slumber, will we awake in our beds.

We have today to breathe as we please, with our eyes we see,

Laugh today, hold on, and love as much as we can.

You are energy, you are the raging waters that flow never ending,

You are the sparkle in the sky, the shining star that never dies.

Strength and power are you, stand tall and touch the sky,

Close your eyes, feel as your courage reaches far and wide.

We have today, My hand reaches for you, I am with you.

Keith Garrett

THE WORLD CRIES

Tears aren’t always a visible thing, form from within,

We cry about many things, tearful sing alongs remind me.

The young child loses their innocence to become an aging soul,

Each bomb dropped upon the land becomes another tear, my friend.

The world cries over silly things, so offended by everything,

Animals run from the fiery storm, the world cries, they surely do.

My mother died on a cool March day, she went away, cries, many cries,

As time goes by they will fade forever to the inside, the world cries.

Brothers and sisters, they cry for their sister who left this Earth,

Children of a mom who left their lives, cry beyond only one night,

The world cries for many who say goodbye, the end of this life.

Keith Garrett

ECHOES AND SHADOWS

When the wind blows there are echoes in time,

Echoes of all that have passed on by.

The sounds of a lifetime, listen as the children have grown,

Echoes of voices lost with the emptying hourglass.

There are the echoes of those who once lived,

Laughter of young ones, now part of the wind.

Shadows of the seasons, one by one, gone,

Shadows remembered of a man standing in the sun.

Shadows of trees that stood tall in the sky,

Across mountain tops, shadows from morning till night.

Echoes and shadows from the beginning of time,

Time passed by, seen from many eyes.

Keith Garrett