BEGINNING TO AN END

I had walked the streets in a certain town,

For so many years, familiar faces and sounds.

Everything I did, all that I knew very comfortable,

It was my home but now it has gone and ended indeed.

Once again in life, this is my new beginning, strange it is,

I feel lost, a strange place with faces unknown to me.

Street names are just that, only names but not recognized,

Strangers are only people who have not yet become friends.

My new home has neighbors who have not yet become known,

Street names I will memorize so I will not get lost and all alone.

I like my new yard, yesterday has made many a change,

I now have a spot where I can be alone, I hide from the insane.

There is life that traveled with me, some that I have left behind,

I swim in a pool, this is my new day, I heard some new voices, walk a new way.

I’m an inch away from heaven, a lifetime from where I belong,

I can hear my father calling me, In my head, there is always a song.

Beginning to an end, the world is for us not to really understand,

I am here where I am, this is my new beginning, I am where I stand.

Keith Garrett

LOST IN THE WILD

To step outside the world that I’ve known,

Leave it all behind and those who know me.

Off on a great journey to see it all,

Into the wilderness as if nothing else matters anymore.

To try things never tried before,

Experience life through a new open door.

Perhaps a fear of what lies ahead,

I trek across the land, survive if I can.

See many new things from my eyes,

Into the night I hear nature cry.

Not expecting never to go home again,

Lost in the wild is where my life ends.

Keith Garrett

FROM A CHILD’S MIND

The innocence of a child, we can see it every day while they run and play,

Close your eyes and think back, think hard to a place where once you were young.

Thinking as only a child may think and imagine the world as the perfect playground,

For the average, dreaming, child death is a lie, an imaginary story in a scary book.

Fairytales are a reality like living forever or as I did believe one hundred years was life,

As a young boy, I would lay down on the sidewalk feeling the warmth of the sun,

Listening to the airplanes fly high in the sky with my eyes closed, pretending many things.

From a child’s mind, it is a world of magic, rainbows, and that anything is possible exists,

Energy of a different kind is possessed, energy that an adult one day can not again find.

From a child’s mind, most things are simple, reason or logic has no place in their magical space,

The innocence and magic of a child will suddenly disappear into the adult world where the

Reality of survival, racism, hatred, and war will soon take their long ago Innocence far away.

Keith Garrett

“FORGIVE ME”

I was not created to be of perfection, I am flawed,

Do not expect more from me than you do of yourself.

Mistakes are mine of plenty, do not preach of my wrongdoings,

Look close into a mirror before you tell me of how I should be.

Forgive me for not being as great as you believe you are,

I am the mortal man, why is it you think you are better than me?

Sinned have I as hateful I have been to others, not the best one can be,

Try not to judge as hate is the best word in your vocabulary.

Forgive me fore I have not always done my best, words of anger,

Do not speak behind my back and describe what I need to be better,

Forgive me for not seeing the good in you, forgive me for not wanting you.

Keith Garrett

HE WAS A DOCTOR,

NOT GOD
He learned to heal as only a man can, he was human,
A woman’s husband dies, he loses faith in himself,
People he knew in a town also lose faith in a friend.
He was a doctor who did care about pain and suffering,
Angry at himself because he failed another, could not cure.
He was a doctor, not perfect in any way, not made of miracles,
He turned his back on his profession, he turned his back on himself.
He needed to figure it out, he went home, back to a simple life,
Working on his farm, away from the pain and death that ate at him.
This wasn’t who he was, down inside he was a healing man, a doctor,
What he realized, he was a doctor, not god.

Keith Garrett

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

A fight for survival, mans quest for power to rule,

Fear and ignorance but money will be the tool.

Inventors of destruction, builders of a force,

The enemy is our brother, traitor to the land.

Which side are we on, who is on our side,

Conflict and hatred, how many must have to die.?

And then there were none, not much left to say,

Put the bombs away, we may have another day.

Keith Garrett

AN ALWAYS CHANGING SKY

A light shade of gray evenly covering that which lives below,

Clouds so heavy and thick with moisture ready to rain down.

In the early evening as the sun fades many shades of color,

After dark, on a clear, stary night you can see forever high.

Big, white fluffy clouds of many shapes sitting still above your head,

With the wind, you’ll see their shapes change and drift slowly away.

Thunder and lightening visit a dark, stormy day, the sun is there,

Hiding beyond the blanket of nature, the sun still shines without sight.

An always changing sky, never the same throughout any given day,

The sky is always there, it is the elements that move through and change it.

Keith Garrett

THE OLD WOMAN AND THE SERPENT

She lived near the shore of a beautiful lake surrounded by hills,

Her small house was nicely built many years before, she was young.

Once married as now this old woman is mostly alone in her happy home,

She is known as a scary, mean, old woman who by rumors would eat children.

In this massive and peaceful lake lived a giant serpent that wanders the water,

Scared by those who have never seen before but the stories have grown with years.

Where it came from is but a mystery, it has lived here for years, once young as today old,

The old woman and the serpent have much in common as they have shared this place.

Never have they know each other but only of one another as they kept the peace for years,

One late afternoon as the sun was setting and the old woman was gathering wood for fire,

The serpent came upon the shore, speaking in such a manner his words to here were this.

I thought you were mean and scary just as all the rest do, you are an old woman of peace,

The old woman replied back, just as I was afraid of you, a terrible old serpent that kills.

The day arrived when the townspeople came to torment the old woman and destroy the serpent,

The serpent spoke, she is but an old woman of kindness, a life lived has she, leave her now in peace,

In return the old woman replied, leave this aging serpent to wander the water, together we are free.

Keith Garrett

THE FRONT DOOR

What lies beyond the front door, within it,

May it be a possibility to be on both sides at once?

Perhaps in your thinking mind, dreaming thoughts,

A gateway to safety, a warm place to rest your weary head,

Home and family, all the comforts of peace within an opening door.

Beyond the front door is a big world of uncertain adventure,

There are those of fear which will bring a tearful heart down,

Places of memory and happiness, those not known or ever seen.

The front door opens and closes both ways, from different directions,

Never stuck in the middle, love and memories, pain and sorrow, both sides.

Keith Garrett

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THE FRONTIER

Although I have never seen it I dream with open eyes,

Wide open land where the wind travels along the dancing grass.

I dream while I’m awake of these things so long ago, now vanished,

The buffalo were many as they roamed the prairie land so beautiful.

Disappeared did they with the years that passed into today,

Wolves and wild horses once would run beyond the wild frontier.

The Indians land was stolen, once free then cornered, they fought,

I think of this and remember from what I see in my thoughts,

There was at one time a beautiful frontier before man took it away.

Keith Garrett