Monday, September 30, 2013


Valentine
It is that time, yes it is Valentine.
 Even though I am not yours, as you know,
and, as it goes, you are not mine,
yet let me take this opportunity to show,
that during this day – a passionate time –
there is something we all need – its name is love –
and whether it comes to you – from me – in a rhyme,
or from a heart, cold and old, or from the spirit above
that which some of us are,
or that which might make us a star
in the eyes opened – who can see –
and know that which comes from me.
It’s not, my Dear, an end.
Its Happy Valentines my Friend !!!


Linda B.
I am your watch tower, during the night, it seems,
who may help you get passed the fright in your dreams,
until, that is, dawns early light – that soothing light of day –
comes into, what becomes your night, and takes the fear away.
We pray that they will be gone, never more to stay
in the deep recesses of your troubled, mind’s eye,
but to take wing and fly freely into that great blue sky
where the winds of time will blow them high !!


Take them far above all that puts and keeps you down
so that you can take your life, turn it around,
know the music, hear it’s beautiful sound
fill your days, your nights and know what you found

will carry you above all that has driven you into the ground.

B. J. “A” 2
February 15th 2002

Monday, September 23, 2013


Two souls searching ?
Inspired by a writing from my sixteen year old Daughter

This old man, sits in the shadows of his life’s plan,
this fading shadow, of what once was a man !,
who’s life’s colours, his aura are not but shades of gray
that come in, and seem to fill his every day.

And then, black shades he doth find
in the troubled shadows, in the mind
 of his youngest, his black haired beauty,
his ever growing all knowing, big cutie
who’s mold is told, as it sets sound,
after all the rules have been laid down
for this, my dark haired child
who’s dark soul seems so wild
with rage, her soul locked in a cage,
and there seems to be no turning the page.


 That book needs to be found,
her soul, her spirit set free,
to know that beautiful sound,
 find inner peace, let herself be.


Escape the clutches of doom, find peace
and know just how easy it is to release,
from the deep recesses of her troubled mind,
all she looks for but never seems to find.
 That place where she may set free the flames,
get out and get away from the games,
be strong my Dear, and put the fires out
with the such glee, be free, and shout.

B. J. “A” 2
February 27th 2001

Lost in a strange Space
A writing by my youngest Daughter

In honest god truth, I could not really explain,
 to you all, what is going on in this painting.
What I can tell you is, the title explains a lot,
because a lot of the time, I am lost in a strange space,
that is so indescribable that I’m not going to try.
The flame I’m holding in my heart represents all
the anger and frustration I hold inside me,
in fear of letting it out, may lead to destruction of myself.
My face is black because a lot of the time
I feel I have no real appearance, just a mind.   
The faint yellow around me
 represents what little faith I have in my body.
If I could explain, to whom is reading this,
all of what is going on inside my mind
I would, but I can’t, and all I know,
of what is keeping me alive,
is the love I feel for a few people,
 and the love they return .
By Melanie
                  Atfield .

Sunday, September 22, 2013


Once upon a time.
When time counted !!!
Once upon a time, what lived in my Girls, mind,
was all I needed to see the world by, and for it to be.
 Now the father in me has become not, you see,
but memories of their play, days to never again find,
as from life, they shot me out,
 leaving me to think, of days in parks, a scream, a shout,
higher, higher as I push them on their swings,
 reminiscing of walks, through forests dark, in summer springs,
 through the snow, in the pouring rain,
nights within childhood pain,
laying and playing on many beaches,
all within the ocean’s reaches.
In youthful notions, motions from bouncing on beds,
 rainbows of many colours filling their heads
as we hitchhiked across Canada’s highways
and through many of adventure’s byways
that crossed many meandering brooks,
 that now lay dormant in so many of my books.
Rivers cold, shivers bold, quivers as the story is told
of all that memory doth hold, in words that showed,
in many thousands of pictures that will never be sold.
  

B. J. “A” 2
February  3rd 2001

Saturday, September 21, 2013


Robbe .
Like a snail, out of sea, stuck to Mother Earth.
Never able to see, never able to fly it’s girth
since a time in youth and at a place
where currents carried away Hope, created space
 between, making it difficult for her to get by,
 and she did slip, into the corner of my eye
carrying the heavy weight of her world,
 her house, her walls, as life unfurled.

All this weight, she carries upon her, oh so fragile back
as she dreamt her butterfly dreams, watching them crack
at the seams, still a caterpillar, climbing into this Tree,
- never a chrysalis or pupa, never a butterfly to be free -
onto branches, of this long time, winter Tree, larger pieces of me
 you see, as she tries to spin her cocoon, hang it like ringing chimes,
to dangle precariously, blown by the winds of fate and her troubled times
as she be faced with gusts that spin her around this crumbling old soul
never to realize her dream, hanging back is all she will come know,
 from this entity, not hanging onto everything you want to do
as you come tumbling down, striking the ground, anew,
 in the silence of your painful sound, never to be heard
as you search, longingly, for the right word
 but know not to be metamorphosized or to reach the skies.

Be your butterfly self, be set free, be beautiful in this life
 and live it !, so you may see, - yet may never be free from strife –
that you are not left on the ground, beneath your dreams, shattered.
Stand tall my Dear, know that all may not lie there, scattered
to the four winds, nor will they come to die there, a little or a lot.
You may never know why ?, and I may never know what you have got
but life goes on even if it be, in the ashes of your dreams.

You offered me your beauty, your love, your passion it seems.
Your compassion I knew, all, I walked past, hearing their cries
as I looked down into hell, up into heavenly skies, but seldom into your eyes,
to look into the depths of your soul, you, come to know.
For I feared to look, I feared to see what surely did show.

I look past much in life, this I know as I watch you go
away from all you dream, a dream that can never be,
your dream, your desire, your passion to possess me.
And so, this misty veil, of your desire and dream dissipate,
they fade away as you slowly let go and accept fate.
Passion slowly fades, dreams and desires wane,
and surly will be accompanied, by a little pain.

An end will come, this is life and is inevitable,
what lingers on, is best, is what is memorable.
As I watch, more than a few of my yesterday’s
creep in and get in the way of my todays,
 I wonder about the barricades, waging wars, erecting walls
against all of my beautiful tomorrows and shadowed halls ?

B. J. “A” 2
January  2001

Friday, September 20, 2013


The Womb
Bouncing off the walls

From the womb, that sacred, secure, worm hiding place,
 life’s human incubator, from which it will reach out to seek sight,
from the darkness of memories’ enormous, lost space
coming together from that place where the universes light
- cosmic consciousness – is, through life’s prisms, refracted
from its oneness into a coat of many colours reflected
into many dimensions, spread out as a person,
the personality we see in the mirror of reflection
-- that living entity, some parent’s son -
or in the mirrors, in the many faces that come before us,
is the life that comes to shed its light, it’s dark,
it’s gray and all else that exists in its every day,
that at times, is light, is bright or very stark.

From this life I see ?, but only see a spiral
- like that of a hypnotist’s wheel
or that form from the twilight zone -
going round and round until nothing.
Drawing one into, what never moves, it’s centre,
it’s illusion, it’s reality, a reality without height,
without any
width , without any depth.
Its reality is to go around and around and around
like an album of various performers, on a turn table.
The essence, it’s life, the needle that flows across the surface,
grooved on its energy, now spent, as it, at end goes
nowhere, no further as it skips, jumps back a bit,
goes forth for a bit in static noise, in shades of gray,
on black vinyl to the very end and that my friend
is all that is left of my light of lights and that of my life.
My Dear,Child

Mandy, my dear child, I forgot to state,
that it be your mother and me
that have come to be the authors of your life,
 it is we that are responsible for your strife.
It was our hands that wrote upon the slate,
 the future that foretells the story of your fate,
 a story that we all are so sad to have lived, to see.

Man
 
The ways of man, the ways of me
 are not what I am, are not what I see,
but surely, they are, in the end, what I be.


A distance, small or great, from being free.

To soar upon glorious, feathered wings,
 high above all, with a sweet voice that sings
of all the right choices one’s life brings
that could take one beyond all that stings

the body, the heart, the spirit, the soul.
To  take us to that place, what a thing to know,
that we may feel free, may know a safe place to go.

Shadows frozen upon the walls of time,
along those mirrored halls, memories, they shine
upon all that life has become, this fate of mine.

Woman
Is woman ?, Venus, a distant planet
or a fisher of men, men to catch in her net ?
Is woman ?, the statue of ancient myths and legend,
or might she be other ?, alive, real, warm and a friend.
Her heart, to many, she has lent,
 will any one man be sufficient.

My birthday gift, to me.
In proses

   This night of November 27th , in our year of the lord, two thousand and one I decided to treat myself to a living birthday present, a living, dancing birthday card, fifteen days late in the coming .
   They be some lovelies that make old men’s mouths water, if only they could, – had not dried up – give him wet dreams, if only he dreamt of such things, where nothing seems as it is or should be, or could be. But isn’t that the reality of life ?
   The first gift of eye candy came in a natural state, this black haired beauty was going off as I came in, and then, after a little time had passed, a fair haired beauty dawned on her act and came before me in all her natural and unnatural beauty, dropped all of her inhibitions and exposed her enhanced, unnatural beauty, the works of some sculptors hands – a doctor of plastic molds, whom I have to admit, is a master among his peers, for his work flowed so naturally into and along with the beauty she was born with, I was impressed. It was difficult for me to discern at first, but being a, very personally flawed, protectionist, it finally showed.  More down time had passed before this raven haired beauty with bright rays of sun light streaking down past her temples and sliding off her sculptured cheeks, cascading down from above, flowing softly over her soft bear shoulders. For those who believe that all women are ball busters, this I have to say to you, “ in all my flawed wisdom, this lovely, this young lady is not one ” but I do believe that she could be a tooth buster, for there was not a spots upon this beauties body, of joy, of pleasure that a man could and certainly would lay his lips to, softly sink his teeth into, that was not hung like a Christmas tree with all these perfect, golden trinkets, these diamonds dangling, before discerning eyes, just waiting, with delight, for someone to bite .
  Time to go, I have seen enough of the show, no more do I need to reminisce about all that I miss, of that time, when spring was sprung upon us with her sparkling green attire, that set on fire, dead wood  brining warmth, for a moment, that I could not retire from and so I stay to watch one more play of body upon the mind, upon ancient memories, upon the stage as she turns another page with a radiant smile as warm and bright as the sun streaked beauty, that came before her, who’s warmth seemed to radiate ( wishful thinking ) towards me, who’s smile and attention brightened up my otherwise gloomy day, who’s playfulness seemed as sincere as the natural beauty of her natural body as she pranced, paraded and danced before us, us who came to see, - for one brief moment ( for whatever reason ) – wish and reminisce and now it is time for me to go, I have seen enough of the show to remind me of all that I used to know.


Words
The words I use, are the multi coloured leaves
I share, the leaves that fall from my autumn trees.


They are the flowers, from who’s ovule, come the seeds
that have fallen upon none fertile ground.

Going nowhere, but around and around.
From them, nary a word, not a sound.

In decay, having fallen from the stem,
 they tell, they enlighten, to who ?, who I am.

They, sometimes come, in torrential showers.
These word pictures of mine, never reach the towers,
for they are nothing more than dying, decaying flowers’.
Dust on the wind, falling upon the blind, the deaf, like rain
screaming to all, telling of degradation, humiliation and pain
 that this life has brought, and brings around again.

All that has come from within,
I do not know where to begin,
except from this troubled soul.
From where it all comes ?, I do not know !
It just comes in flashes and begins to show
me, upon pages that lay before these eyes
as they come across the darkened skies,
from where this life of mine lies

?????
You have come, boldly to me
like a dream in the darkness,
yet you seldom allow me to see
beyond the veil,  your life in all its starkness.
I never know where you have been ?,
I only know what I have seen.


 Lawyers
The legal eagles I have known
fly low, incompetence they have shown
standing before the court
as they come up, all too short
has been my experience with the man
who never seems to do the best he can.
And so, laden down with laws
 my lawyers seem to have no claws
or wings with which to fly
right into that legal eye.

Reflections
The child in me looks out to see.
Where is the man in you ?, where can he be ?

As the man I am, looks to find, where is the child
in you?, that entity that once ran wild.
Looking, yet never, hardly ever do we see
that which we should have come to be.
B. J. “A” 2
November 6th 2001

A day of pouring out

The above was the insanity, of the chaos in my mind.
It came on the heels of depression and a troubling time.
Then came the spirit of catharsis, shows up in my rhyme.
Into the dark ages, my soul had crept,
for a few short years, my spirit wept,
the Grim Reaper, my heart had met,

my rhymes, my words had set,
a coarse to release, from the gloom
that weighed heavy, in the confines of my room.

The dark years have slipped past, have gone on by,
leaving no reason for me, to lie down, and cry.

B. J. “A” 2
September20
th 2013

Thursday, September 19, 2013


Memories And Melaine .
My youngest  Daughter

Taking a stroll, this day, through the pages of time.
Time that has passed into history, a history that is yours and mine.
That history, my Dear, are the memories, and the thoughts of a time
when a little of you, your life, your excitement was mine
to live in, to delight in, to give to, to participate in,
in that great adventure of a developing little Girl.
A little Girl, who needed so much more in her world,
much more than this poor excuse for a dad, gave.
Sadness to the grave, will I be, for all that I let slip by,
slip out of sight, never touched by the hands of this old man.
So much that never became a gleam in my eye.

Now, what never was, will never be !,
lost forever !, never to feel, never to see !
As I sit here, empty and alone, with me
and my memories, speaking in fleeting whispers,
in words, in word pictures that project
the history of my family, as I tried to protect,
with my life, as I see it before me, in ten thousand
three hundred photo stories that lay upon two thousand,
seven hundred pages of words and pictures that explain,
project, enlighten and give life to the thoughts and pain,
of those memories, those experiences, these photos,
 to anyone who will, one day, get to see, in painful sight,
that compares not, to the pain felt, as you took flight,
a flight that is never to soar from this little soul, this beautiful Being,
this Girl Child of mine who’s name sings out in Melanie,
to tunes that I my never hear the sweet sounds of her melody.
Melanie, bound up, unable to be set free of the chains
that weigh her down, keep her from turning around, claims
her fragile soul, keeps it in a place, on a plane where her wings
are unable to spread, to soar, carry her spirit above experience and sings.

The songs I would love to hear before I go,
These sights I would love to see, a world to know
is that my Daughter’s wings spread to show
that my analysis, my understandings will flow
out of my thoughts and to believe that one day, it will be so !

In the meantime   
  
You slip in and out of my sight
like a wisp of wind, caught by the light,
 like smoke waves, particles of dust floating by,
 like ghosts in the sky brushing past the corner of my eye,
lightly touching my lips with a Daughterly, kiss
– oh, how this, I will surly will miss –
 then off again like a whirlwind, to escape,
- my heart, my soul, my spirit, this doth rape –
 to the life of a teenage Girl, blown by the wind
 – for this Mr. Mom, it seems a sin –
 to the four corners of this world, life’s experience,
and I wonder what will be your dance ?,
and if you will ever know the essence of true romance ?
My expectations !, expeditions and adventures into
 your thoughts, desires, dreams and in a direction you
 may guide yourself into a future I am unable to see,
nor one in which you will confide in me.

I am truly sorry Melanie, that any of what might be
good in me, I did not give, to make live within you
all that is within you, that sometimes I do
not see in my state of blindness.
This, to you I must confess !!!
These things, my Dear, I look for, hope will be,
- but cannot seem to see – may never set you free.

These, the thoughts of  You, even if the sight
is brief, the numbers few and far between
– in your hasty retreat, flight
 from any close encounter –
brings a warm glow of light
to the long, empty days I’ve seen
and helps makes my life a little sounder,
bringing to an otherwise gloomy life, rife
with so much unnecessary, pointless strife,
thoughts and feelings that carry me through my days
and long, long nights of wonder, what will be your ways ?

Shine on my Beauty !!!
Love Dad
B. J. “A ” 2
 
November 6th 2001`

Wednesday, September 18, 2013


Mandy
My middle Daughter
As I see it, as I have felt it, as I understand it !
Mandy, is, and certainly has been a closed casket,
a closed book, carrying with her to the grave’
all that is buried deep within her soul,
all the secrets her heart holds,
all the thoughts kept within her minds hoard,
all the feelings encased within her young being.

Except, that is, on rare occasions when a worm,
or two, bores holes into the darkness of her,
below her earth shell, allowing a beam of light,
from within, to reach up and touch the outside world,
enlighten the inquiring minds of, those of us
who would like to know and know the truth.

 
Then again, maybe it is me, just me who lives in a grave,
kept in the darkness, kept from seeing the light,
kept from knowing the truth,
the whole story or the story at all.
Could it be me who keeps it all away from myself ?
B. J. “A ” 2
 
November 6th 2001

Monday, September 16, 2013


Solitaire / Solitude

Solitude will be my recognition, my fame !
Solitude is my time to claim !
Solitary is my adopted name !
Solitaire is the name of my game,
to play away these hours of mine
until there is nothing left of my time
on this plane or of this rhyme.
B. J. “A ” 2
October 19th 2001

July thirty first
Two thousand and one


An end has come, to times filled with the recordings of sounds
from a glorious, ancient past.
Time has come to empty the mind of what hounds,
time to indulge in a lengthy  fast.

Time before now

There is beauty, where there is light,
but, it has become obvious !, that night
is not a place of beauty, peace or rest
for a man, who, out of his life, has made a mess
of troubles, troubled thoughts and deep reflections.


And like me , they get lost in the quagmire,
and at the cost of my soul on fire,
burning with flames of pain, in depressions
grip, without the ability to solve, that which is,
trouble, which my lot in life is.


B. J. “A ” 2

July 31st 2001


Another Time before now
My heart cries out, with each lonely tear drop
I realizing that, of my life, I have made a flop
and in the process, lost little pieces of mu soul,
forever washed away, evaporating into thin air.
What a heart wrenching thing for one to know,  
to believe about his life, to believe it is not fair,
that all they were – those tiny pieces that formally
 fit together and made up the whole – a family
that was my soul, never again for me to know,
for tear drops nourish not, nor will they make grow.
Only lubricate the path, the way of letting go.


B. J. “A ” 2

July 31st 2001


Still another time

There is this killing chill, filling the air
that leaves me in a deep state of despair
as my young, fair haired Daughter,
seems to have forgotten all I had taught her
as she makes a prisoner of my heart and soul,
with her vengeance, caging my spirit in a gaol
of her spite, as the might of her hatred encases,
dictates the course of my life, as it races
towards thoughts of her young son,
my beautiful, second Grandson,
who, like her, is lost to my touch, my embraces
due to the bars she has erected, the distance she places.
Me, my life, they have become the walls she builds
that grow ever thicker, wider, more distant, higher,
an impenetrable wall of searing, blinding fire. 

B. J. “A ” 2

July 31st 2001

And still another

I do not know where it is ?, that I might be
if it were not for my dark haired, lovely, Melanie.
I do not know what it is, that my mind would see ?,
in this life if it was not for my youngest,
thoughtful Daughter, who deserved the best,
deserves much, much better from me.
For now, it seems, she just wants to be free !

B. J. “A ” 2 

July 31st 2001

And yet another

The sleepless dreaming of humankind,
is to leave the waking nightmare behind,
 reach deep down inside, to touch and find,
 all the stuff of its soul. Its heart, its mind
 so that in the end mankind will stand high and shine.
B. J. “A ” 2
July 31st 2001

Gail

My girl child,  a beautiful woman so far away
fills my eyes, fills my thoughts every day.


Her life I left behind, let slip away so long ago.
How she feels ?, who she is ?, so little do I know.


My love for her I try, I hope I do show ?
Does she see?, can she feel it grow and grow ?,


as the years left behind, lost, stow
away, enlighten me one day to all I have missed.


B. J. “A” 2
July 31st 2001

As the son stands

Casting shadows upon this land,
I know not where I stand,
where I might fit in, or who I am.


There is no one to lend a hand
as the cold winds wipe me from the sand.
Not a trace !, find not, I can ?


Do I fly with the sun ?,
from the shadows do I run ?,
or is it ?, with them I walk


passing over others, never to talk.
Or do I stand ?, with the land
as the sun passes over head

The shadows, a blanket for my bed.
Laying there, sleeping is my soul
and in that state of reverie, never to know ?


B. J. “A” 2
 July 31st 2001



 

Sunday, September 15, 2013


Skies and Eyes

The skies have opened up, they keep on falling.
Upon the retina of the mind’s eye, is the calling
back to memory, times, times one keeps recalling.

How did it all come down to this ?,
wondering why ?, so much of life’s journey, one did miss.
Those moments, long gone, sent off with a soulful kiss.
Strolling upon jagged shorelines, of many forgotten seas,
traversing the depths of thought, thought about life’s mysteries,
that in the end, dew drops dissipating into mists of life’s histories.
Back to that state of cosmic consciousness,
far from all that human kind has made a mess,
of which I am one, this I must confess.
 
A journey back to Mother Earth and into the Universe,
many find so hard, so words from this bard, in verse
that should take me, maybe you ?, into life, immerse.
B. J. “A ” 2
September 15th 2013