NO ONE’S REALLY GONE

Before we were us we did not suffer, what did we breathe?

A short life is all there is, does a lifetime seem so long, we are gone.

Is the earth all there is as beyond we do not know if life exists,

Around us is all that exists, beyond the night sky could there be life.

While we are here, we experience many sides to a life not really understood,

Emotions of all kind, they travel with us daily as the sun goes down.

We start out a baby just born, there comes a day when in ways a baby again,

Time takes from us our youthful ways, it can steal our thoughts, we decay,

No one’s really gone, energy and spirit travel on to a new beginning, another song.

Keith Garrett

COLORS’ OF A NEW DAY

The sun peeks’ Its’ face, takes a look at this new day,

Appears’ over the ocean, across the sky, bright, so bright.

Yellow and orange way up high, colors’ In the sky,

Warmth shines from It down, down below.

A shade of blue high above, white clouds’ are a mix,

Colors’ of a new day, colors’ of beauty In every way.

Keith Garrett

CLOUDS OF DARKNESS

From where I stand, I look out at the wide open sky,

There in the distance, a wall of darkness slowly approaching my way.

The wind is blowing, carrying clouds through the air,

Feeling trapped where I am, no place to run.

Gaining on me with a powerful force, these clouds up so high,

Staring up at them in the dark, dark, sky.

Clouds of darkness are everywhere, following over me,

What can happen?, they can’t fall on me.

These clouds of darkness have everyplace to roam,

Up in the air is where they make their home.

Keith Garrett

CLOUDS IN THE WATER

Like the water is a mirror of a scene from the sky,

A floating river as the clouds drift on by, they drift.

Up in the air an ocean of clouds, waves of clouds,

Through the land a path runs free, clouds in the water.

Keith Garrett

CLEAR, CLEAR, SKY

What pictures are there when a sky is clear,

Is it just emptiness or a mind closed without imagination.?

Take a look and into it, you’ll see,

What’s beyond if you’ll only dream.

The wind is there as it swirls with power,

Without clouds, it is less observed.

Perhaps way up high a bird flies by,

A jet on a journey to some other land.

There’s a brightness to a sky that is clear,

You can see for miles if you open your mind to what’s up there.

When night falls in a clear, clear, sky,

Look up and see all there is to be.

Keith Garrett

CHIMES OF FREEDOM

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll,
We checked inside the doorway, thunder crashing.
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight.
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched,
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening.
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain,
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning.
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake,
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked.
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail,
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder,
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze,
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder.
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind,
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind.
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales,
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position,
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts.
All down in taken- for- granted situations,
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute,
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute.
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased n’cheated by pursuit,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed,
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting.
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones,
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting.
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail,
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale.
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Starry- eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught,
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended.
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look,
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended.
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed,
For the countless confused, abused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse.
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

FOR THIS RANCH, WILL YOU DIE?

This place of beauty has stood here for generations,

Built by a great, great, Grandfather a long time ago.

Times have changed in this world around a ranch,

The fight to keep what is yours has been since time began.

You battle, climb the hill with sweat and tears, for this ranch,

Family before you have sacrificed in ways you can’t understand,

What does your heritage mean to you? will you die if they try to take your home?

For this ranch, will you die? will you shed a tear for those who bled before your time?

Keith Garrett

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR ME

I don’t agree, there’s nothing good about you and me,

Meeting someone so perfect is an impossibility, do you see?

We’re quite the same in every way, no way to complain,

I listen to you speak, you sound something quite like me.

We laugh at one anothers jokes, they seem so much the same,

We walk down the street as our hairstyles are something alike,

This is all too strange, could it be that I’ve been waiting for me?

Keith Garrett

CHEROKEE

I remember you my friend, It’s been quite awhile,

You gave a grin but did not smile, there were many miles.

Running through the park, you did have a mind of your own,

Chasing the wind, free to bark at the birds, you would run.

Beige and white, a hound dog that would sleep by the bed at night,

Never have you been forgotten, when you went away it was hard,

Your pain was now gone, chasing birds in the wind would be forever.

Today I think of you as your name came suddenly to my mind,

” Cherokee” you were known all around, I remember your sound.

Keith Garrett

CHAPTERS OF LIFE

We’ve all had our beginning, that place we call our hometown,

We’ll each of us have an ending, where and when we do not know.

Everyone starts out small and grows with time,

We age moment by moment in our given lifetime.

There’s a book that we all own, we make the cover,

The words are created from our everyday adventure.

Our chapters of life grow and are counted,

With every sunrise until the last sunset.

It’s an open book of endless pages until we stop writing,

A novel to be remembered by others.

Whom will judge the value or worth from our chapters of life,

Many will try, there will be those who did like it,

Perhaps some who won’t.

In the end it will be from the spirit in the sky.

Keith Garrett