The Garden of Our Youth

Where have the flowers of spring gone?
Those were the days of our youth.
Spent in the hope of something better. Only to be wasted by those who did not understand their value.

The Prince’s First Muster

The Prince’s First Muster

Another Wakeful Dream

I’ve been here before…

This same dust filled room.

I have sat there in the same worn, mildewed, moth eaten chair, and watched the silent currents blow the cobwebs into movement.

I have watched the micro world’s blown about as dust in the light of each passing day.

There every page of life is written, collected, and bound. The work of a legion of unseen hands.

Every letter, every mark upon the page, created by a host of beings.

Beings that etch their knowledge simultaneously into the condensed lines of unreadable script.

My tired eyes have long ago grown accustomed to the wording.

Upon a shelf of magnitude…

There sits the great library.

Each volume a collection of time. Each traced letter a forgotten second remembered, recorded, and shared…

And each night I close my eyes…

Each mid day nap I close my eyes…

Each careless blinking of the eye…

Another leaf, another chapter, another book is added.

They lay scattered, disheveled from there proper place…

For but a short time.

Until leathery, age worn hands, once more lifts them into their place.

I know. I have been here before.

I will be again.

Loosing The War


Late nights all alone

Staring out into dark places

Listening more to forgotten voices

Than a person should

Shadowy death clouds the sight

Some nostalgic musings

Remembering long walks in open woods

The distances between school and home

Forgotten rides to and from

Sudden rains and freezing cold

The wants of being needy

All those hand-me-downs

Ill fitting shoes from musty closets 

Going without and not knowing it

Growing up

Wanting to give what I didn’t have

Finding out you can never give enough

To wipe away childhood things

Unable to change any of that

Staring out into dark places

Remembering you use to call it home

Broken Mirrors

There are things you’re not supposed to say

Emotions that you’re expected to suppress and hide

There are moments you are supposed to not make eye contact and if by chance you accidentally do 

You pretend you didn’t and quickly turn away

Change the subject

Quit reading because that shit bothers you

And if you don’t

If you have the courage to get all sucked into that drama

You somehow manage to pull someone back from off that ledge

Hell…

I reckon that makes you a hero

The world needs more of you.

A Sunday Morning ConfessionDirect from the Book of Pat

When I was a kid. I wore hand-me-down shoes a lot of the time until my feet grew bigger than everyone else.
Then I got one pair of shoes.
You’d think as an old man I’d buy more shoes but instead I find that I now just don’t throw old pairs away.
I set them by the door and try using them until one day glue and plastic bags no longer work to hold them together. Then I toss them in the garbage.

There are some days I get in a hurry and forget to take off my good pair.
I feed the chickens and ducks getting muck and gunk caked into the soles and tread. Large sticky mats of hay, feather, and bird poop clumping up usually in the arch and flicking onto the laces.
It’s horrible.

On Sunday morning as I prepare for church I inspect those shoes.
I see how well I did in keeping them clean during the week deciding on just how much effort it’s going to be to wash them clean.
Sometimes I can do it in the bathroom sink where under the bright lights every little speck can be seen clearly. Most times it’s so bad that I have to stand over the kitchen garbage can and scrape off the “shit”. (I tried not to say shit but it is what it is.) Then moving to the kitchen sink I use an old worn toothbrush and wooden toothpick to scrub with detergent and pick out the treads all the filth I managed to pick up through the week. Then when I think I’m satisfied I go to the bathroom, under the bright lights to see the grit and stains left behind.

If you skipped the body of my true story, just reading paragraph speaking points, what I’m saying is this…

All week we/I try very hard to respect the foundations your/my parents taught you/me. To cherish and value what you/I have. To worship God and follow His commandments as best as we/I know how.


Many days, weeks, months I do him honor and keep myself worthy to walk into his house. Yet it takes but one unconscious decision for me to fail for there is no righteous man who walks upon this earth that does not sin.
No matter how often I wash those shoes clean, I’ll get dirt on them as I walk through the churches parking lot.
I’m glad God understands and forgives.

… sometimes I just take my shoes off at the door and go barefoot because I know I am walking upon Holy Ground.

Praise God, Praise His Holy Name!

Another Page from the Book of Pat 04/16/24

It’s the Bureaucrats, the unelected rule makers that secretly and publicly siphon off your life through penalties and taxes.  Like maggots feasting upon your bloated corpse they destroy the healthy flesh just to recreate reality for themselves.

The politicians are just failed individual meat puppets for that machine. The living Ken and Barbie targets for the sheep to worship and hate. Destroy them if you must just never look beyond them into the dark.

It’s when you look beyond that you can see the evil as it truly is. Do you not feel the revulsive gag reflex swelling up and overflowing, as the ooze covered rot seeks to overcome your last defenses of sanity.

Accept the truth. This is the parasite that has eaten into your Constitution and remade sections slowly over time to suit their purpose. It’s time to carve away the blight and cauterize the wound. If you don’t the infection will never heal.

Fading the Day

Walking away
Into shades of grey
Walking away
Light fades to night
I imagine you there
Never turning to see
Even as the horizon
Blends earth and sky
A dream was all we had
And now even that has been taken from us
Nothing is real
Not earth or sky
The nothing is real
Not you or I
Nothing I feel
Makes any sense
The nothing I feel
Brings back the light

I remember the days before

I remember the days before pouring through the breach from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
Months sitting idle standing guard, repairing equipment, training over the same lessons.

The season changed but the looming doubt and fear never did. Each day built upon itself like the ever growing dunes that piled up at the tent flaps.

On occasion some other units would become fully activated and ready. The dynamics of our purpose would change. Tents would be pulled down, moved a few hundred miles, then once again assembled. Each time the burm would not be built up so high or as wide. Each trench dug a little shallower and shorter.

We knew. Soon those protections against the world would only be a hindrance in the final day before the breach.

Live or die, most were ready for what outcome there was to be.
You see, those enlightened few had already experienced death, that blissful adrenaline rush over the edge of reality, and now only moved by muscle memory. We knew what we were to do.

Kill and die, live or die, stand up, move again, rinse, repeat. Everyday was the same day. The only difference was the sand and dirt that piled up at the door.

Soon it will be time for those that don’t know to shake back your own tent flaps. Step out into the reality of an endless day, and fight a war you did not prepare for. Those people will believe in Hell that day…

And us devils who know will be there to show you the way.