Author: Tom (Page 26 of 71)

Tom is a stroke survivor, a seeker, a meditator, a veteran firefighter and rescue tech, a motivational speaker, a poet, and a blogger (new site) & author. He is also the father of three and as their student and teacher, has found applying spiritual practices to all aspects of life provides a vast amount of possibility and abundance. Tom has discovered that true forgiveness is the key to a pure heart, and a pure heart can lead us to wondrous experiences.

You can also connect with tom on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Tomgwriter55/".

What if? (A possibly fictitious love letter to a potentially made up fantasy)

March 26, 2018 / Tom

I am…serious.

What if I just dropped everything and came to you? You know, dropped the veils, dropped the uncertainty, dropped the crazed notion that life is somehow safer this way? Let’s be a torch united, and burn those fucking veils to the ashes there were meant to be. Let’s forget this safe place we like to dream about and jump forever into the midst of unsafety and let’s become notorious!

What if I simply proved that these words I share are nothing compared to the truth behind them? They are but minuscule, small, compared to the reality that stirs within me. There is in here the raw power of a divine sea, where the waves are restrained not by some act of strength by me, but by an act of mercy towards me. The tranquil sounds of love belay a raging torrent of passion where there is no respite from the truth. Each moment I hide, each moment I hold back, each moment I am apart from you is an offering of love to the most beautiful soul I’ve ever felt. I am besieged by desire and hope, pure truth and moments of intense fantasy all at the very same time. What a beautiful discomfort this is, this delightful torture a man who wishes to scream your name from the mountaintops must hold sacred in his torturous oath of silence.

What if we simply fell? Fell in love. Fell into each other. Fell into eternity. You know, like two thawing cubes of ice suddenly transformed into one puddle on the floor? Yes, that. We find ourselves in the sweat pooled to form one outline of passion on the bed we shared, in the salty taste of a morning-after kiss. I never want your taste to leave my lips, and I want my skin beneath your nails. I want to feel that marks on my skin left by the holy union we both know must come. Together we fall, and in doing so there are no clouds that could hold us. No heaven shall exist for me where you are not, forever shall I be tied to the moment you fell, and finally caught up with me.

What if we found our eternity? Imagine the notion of forever without a vow that is based on something more solid than a stroke of some man’s pen. Renewed in each moment is love two souls have found, and precious is the way those rare gems are honored and kept in a way few can hold. Each kiss a testament to our unique and destined connection. Each embrace becomes a story of its own written under the auspices of truth two people share. Each moan and sweet arrival sings a renewal of vows proven unnecessary between two kindreds. What would heaven be if not an eternal echo of this love?

This is what we both have been looking for. This is what we have lived and died for. We’ve both succumbed to the weight of the crosses we’ve shouldered along the way, and risen to stand tall among the dusty remnants of lives we once considered ours. We’ve given up only to find renewed strength in our endeavors. We’ve struck out on paths unfamiliar and easily criticized, only to find ourselves right where we belong. We are, if nothing else, blessed to have found each other. Do we dare, now, let this sweet juice spill without first quenching our thirst? Pass me your chalice, for I wish to take a sip.

Or two.

Or three.

Or more.

Or more. I like the sound of that one. Many more. Millions and millions more. One sip for each star in the sky. Perhaps then I will find some solace from my thirst for you.

Perhaps I am but a dreamer. I don’t think so. I think I read your mind and your heart, and spill that truth we share all over the fields we dream of playing in. I think together we see the flowers sprouting and see the potential of such wonderful blooming in that field, and we only need to let our sweat rain down upon this fertile soil to unlock the secret of its loving potential.

Until then, at that moment when we tear away the shrouds we use to hide the inevitable, I remain in your steadfast seeker asking what if in every breath, in every intention, and in every way until you finally answer. That future awaits us both.

I See You There (A Poem)

March 23, 2018 / Tom

I see you there, swimming in the rear,

A sense of light cascading from your crown,

Love, I’ve been looking for you,

Yet it seems we are swimming in vastly different seas.

Where will the current take you?

Are you floating, or willing to swim along the tides,

To find a place of your own liking,

Where there is always a comfortable place to land?

Those of us who trust the sea,

Who bask in the ebb and flow of this reality,

Know the power of the current’s push,

Even absence our ability to swim.

We see the light that flickers through our ocean’s depth,

And find ourselves lost in a myriad of things,

Blindly feeling our way through the darkness,

Seeking out those things that the current shall provide.

I have, it seems,

Seen you in the distance,

A loving ray of light in the dimness that abounds,

A willing soul in the sea we know too well.

Yet what to do with such a memory?

Seeking your warm embrace in the frigid sea,

A prayer uttered in the chill,

That we may one day see the power of our shared inflection.

I hear that voice that gets my heart to skipping,

How do I get to you, or you to me?

Fuck…the way this ocean rips at tides and mixes in the depths,

Has left me uncertain of a surface.

I do so wish, though,

To drown in your emotion, to be reborn to your flesh,

To prove that though there be many stars up in the sky,

It is you that guides me to the air to breathe.

To show that nothing but truth resides here in this unholy man,

That though I swim to you beyond all reason,

I just wish…

That you could hear those echoes of my heart.

Still, I am a beast that hears those echoes in all I do,

To share this space would be a wonder,

And yet, I wait, for the current to send me to that paradise,

Where truth, and love, reside.

Dearest Adrian

March 21, 2018 / Tom

Dearest Adrian,

So many things I wish to say to you…

Like a manless beast that honors the night’s whim,

I pray to thee.

Howling at the moon, stalking my heart’s sweet prey,

I dream of summer nights just holding you by the river,

Kissing your neck, teasing the parts of you that beg for more.

I wish to love you…

More than any man has loved a woman,

I give myself to thee.

Standing bravely against the winds of fear and insecurity,

Holding you tightly against my chest,

Feeling you beat there, giving life to star-lit skies.

I long to touch you…

Find myself so deep within you that you feel me in your bones,

I honor thee.

And when the echoes ring within your mind,

And the song of something only we can see is sung,

You will know that you need never sing alone.

For there is you…

Even as the moments flash before my eyes,

Like a dream.

There is nothing more this man can do,

For in his soul he only hears your name,

And in his breath, he can only taste the sweetness of your kiss.

Please, come to me…

Show me that the journey has not been for naught,

And that in the swirl of wicked winds,

The embers of our truth burn brightly for this moment,

When we embrace, and we kiss,

And we never lose ourselves again.

Sailors

March 21, 2018 / Tom

Alone, tattered, cut and bruised,

The Sailor has lost his sea,

The winds and storms of happenstance,

Have set this sailor free.

And though alone and cast aside,

Within, an honest voice,

It’s where he finds in simple things,

A love in every choice.

For in this desert, virgin wind,

A smile is what he’d choose,

In each grain of weathered sand,

He finds the truth that is his muse.

Her smile, her voice, her beating heart,

His mountain view under the Sun,

Are theirs to share along the trail,

If she chooses to be the One.

Sometimes a man will find himself,

Cast beaten along the shore,

And sometimes he will find his heart,

If he chooses to seek more.

With no ship, no port, no open sea,

What is he to call his home?

With no pen, no sheet, no words at all,

What is he to call his tome?

It’s then that we will find our way,

When our way is all we own,

Courage becomes the only choice,

When we are on the beach alone.

One day, perhaps, under this Sun,

A shadow will blind his eyes,

And in that blindness, a beauty comes,

Meaning of words arise.

For he chose her, and she chose him,

Together, they are needing nothing more,

Two sailors lost at sea have met,

On this lonely, distant shore.

What was lost will then be found,

Two doubters now believe,

For in each kiss and sweet embrace,

They find their heart’s reprieve.

No more to fret or worry them,

Two lovers now are free,

No longer needing ship or port,

Or the languid, open sea.

And though alone and cast aside,

They walk their path with grace,

There is no sunrise that could match their love,

Or the smile upon their face.

When we lose the biggest part of us,

There’s no telling what we’ll find,

If we let that wondrous, open space,

Be filled with open hearts in kind.

If your ship does run aground someday,

When you’re walking weary in the sand,

Know the winds cannot lie at all,

And just open up your hand.

Then one day she’ll come and say,

“Thought I’d lost my way as well,

Perhaps I wasn’t lost at all,

There is a heaven in that hell.”

Her open hand will take your own,

The path with then be clear,

And you’ll reply, “I know, my love,

I’m glad you’re finally here.”

Two Sailors without a ship to board,

Or a port to call their own,

Realize it’s best to test their fate,

Together and not alone.

An Ode of God to Thee

March 12, 2018 / Tom

Carefree runner of the wilderness,

Heed my voice, and see me through the fog!

Remember when you ran with reckless abandon,

When you bathed in the mud just to get one moment with a rose,

And how you were mesmerized by eternity.

Remember when you fell?

How the blood trickled from your wounds,

Painting the whitened sands on which you fell,

Darkening the turquoise waters in which you bathed,

The crimson flow forever staining the clouds on which you gaze.

Return to the days of old, to the sanctuary of childhood,

When you ran carefree through the forest,

Making fun of shadows cast by the wisest trees,

When you dared not trample the seedlings and their birthright,

And instead choose to call this place “home”.

Carefree owner of simplicity,

Can you remember when you heard me at daybreak?

You called me “joy”, and I did not seek to argue,

You called me “love”, and I found your ecstasy paradise,

Now, you cannot utter my name through the noise in your mind.

How do you silence the chorus of your own construction?

Life’s daring marvel of divinity soured places where you nectar flows,

Choose to seek the devil in your own pungency,

And a heaven in the remnants of rotting fruit,

For the tree discards all it cannot sustain.

How can you swim with the burden you have placed upon your chest?

Heartfelt anguish in the quickening,

As you sink beyond where the Sun can touch you,

Where the silence because Death incarnate,

As the eyes become absorbed in the fields of darkness where you are.

Know that I am the surface,

Come let the air fill your lungs and the light bathe your naked breast.

Feel my hand snatch you from the echoes of that night,

Caress you into a river of your own,

As we tear the shackles now tied tightly to your soul.

For once we are awakened to the truth,

The chains we wear we have freely placed upon ourselves,

We sink or swim to the pleasure of our minds,

Gone is the testament of our childness, our wondrous curiosity,

Replaced with the burdens we shroud ourselves within.

Silenced once I will return again someday,

Maybe you will hear me singing in the bubbling of a stream

Or in the story a songbird writes upon a dying tree.

Perhaps you will feel my touch as a tear draws lines upon your skin,

And remember how I loved you so.

Then, I pray, you will stand,

And see the abyss where you are drowning,

Was only waist deep.

I will smile as you walk to the nearby shore,

And kiss the earth that was always waiting for your lips.

Love yourself as I have loved you so,

And then your neighbor, your friend, your enemy as well.

You are all of these things and more to me,

My love, I breathe your name in this holy truth,

Be still, and know me that my name belongs to you.

What This Is, Is Beautiful.

March 9, 2018 / Tom

This is no mistake, no fluke, no common misconception.

What this is, is beautiful, a mixture of experience and desire born from a lifetime of seeking what we have discovered. At the moment when two hearts hewn from a search divine meet somewhere, that which was becomes that which is, and that which is turns into that which can become. True, conscious love draws two, conscious souls toward one another in an outward burst of pure energy and that which could becomes that which is, and that which is becomes that which always was.

The cycle becomes complete. The pieces fit. Fear loses its grip on the heart, and wings are spread to catch the open air. Lovers, you and I, fly forever bound to a truth we’ve felt but remained undiscovered. In the beauty of your eyes, and in mine that beholds them, the discovery has been made, a layer peeled, a veil dropped into the fire. May we stand naked in the orange flicker of our union, hand in hand, lips to lips, and chest to chest. May our hungry hands devour each other, pulling us closer until we’ve squeezed out every ounce of space between us. May there be no gap, even as we dance to different songs in different ways as a celebration of love’s sweet liberation. May our sweat mix in pools beneath us each and every time we honor the gods that brought us together, a truth we can taste in eternity.

Once, you were a distant star flickering in the evening sky. Once, you seemed just a figment of some wild fantasy, and the Sun would rise and you’d be gone. Once, you were admired so quietly from afar, and left be as a testament to what seemed so impossible. Now you are in my heart with no other, as we breathe the same air, think the same thoughts, dream the same dreams. Now you are a light I can feel as close as my own heart, and it is as if I am holding the Sun herself as we circle the sky together. What is left to do besides ride this cloud together?

In the moments where there are fears, let love shine. In the moments when the voice of doubt rises, hear my voice above all others. In the moments when you are unsure, hold my hand and feel the ground become sure under our feet. You are not alone, ever, as the love you give is the love you shall receive. Enjoy your moments of solitude knowing I am not that far away. Enjoy your flight in the sky knowing I am soaring, too. Enjoy our moments when we lay, together, sharing our view of heaven and our hopes for days to come.

There, in that space where the interchangeable artist and muse are united, caress my soul as we gently kiss those tender places we have collected on our journey. Bare me your soul and let me kiss you until the Sun rises or sets, whichever may come last. Take me into you, softly and with purpose, and hold me there until the oceans dry and the sky fades to distant memory. You are so loved, and so loved shall you be.

Know, my love, it is true. In moments we are shaky and unsure, we can be sure of one thing. This is no mistake, no fluke, no misconception. What this is, is beautiful.

The Story of Us

March 8, 2018 / Tom

There, right there, I feel you. Somewhere just before my eyes first open and that first movement of the day, there you are. Whispering things in my ear, taunting me with your absence, let knowing me I am alive in the absolute presence of you. Like a drowning man I breathe, and like a man who has broken through the surface I bask in the simplicity of the air that sustains me. It’s the smallest things that matter when you’ve faced the enormity of life’s end.

So rare are the moments of pure clarity in this man’s life that those short gasps of clean air become all that is. To know an angel’s touch, to hear her song being sung high upon a mountain trail, becomes a great gift. To feel the truth course through your Soul is to live without remorse, and without need save her kiss. To know the simple life is to watch everything crumble into dust but know you have it all when her lips touch yours. A man of awareness knows this love, a man of experience never takes it for granted.

It took me so long to find myself and my purpose, to put the lessons of a wonderful life into play. Once like a ship without a compass, I had wandered aimlessly from storm to storm. Nothing can prepare you for the viciousness of near-disaster save the experience of that near-disaster, but in the end you either choose to stand or fade into the ether like some salty statue of Gomorrah. I choose to stand, hearing your voice through the brutal winds, knowing that no matter how strong those winds might be, they were no match for a man in love with living.

Despite it all, I am here on the verge of something wonderful. A compass discovered in the ashes has provided a new direction. Mast unfurled, anchors finally lifted, the seas call out to me in love’s sweet siren song. I hear her, beckoning me out of port without effort, my heart pushing me onward to outward toward a horizon where, I am sure, she is waiting. There are no stars marking that course. She is the star, and I am but this gravity’s humble servant.

Like all truth, she knows. Though the fog of fear may sometimes lay close to the water’s edge, the course is set and the promise of adventure assured. She has been waiting for her entire life for the kiss I’ve been waiting to give her. Nothing, not storms, not waves, not beasts of the sea, will stop our lips from meeting. On that glorious day we will find that line the separates the past from the future, and we will live in it.

Thus begins the Story of Us which did, of course, begin before the “us” ever was. Our story begins without a kiss but ends with one that never stops. Our story begins without a warm embrace but ends with one eternal. Our story begins before our sun cracked the night’s tight grip, but ended with a day renewed and hearts forever bound. After all, the best part of falling to your knees is discovering what awaits you when you pick yourself back up. What I found was her, which meant the fall was something wonderful itself.

Demons of the Night (A Poem)

March 2, 2018 / Tom

I sit in still reflection,
Watching the space within,
Not sure of any difference,
Between the sinner and the sin.

With the fire deep inside me,
Burning strong and bright,
I can withdraw from all the games we play,
With the demons of the night.

There is nothing they can do to me,
Though I’m certain they will try,
For it is my strength to pick and choose,
What I will and won’t deny.

It is in our silent absence,
Amidst the demons that we blame,
That the warrior within you,
Will light that fighter’s flame.

The rock once hewn through misery,
The heart once cracked in kind,
Will stare the demons in their eyes,
And drive them from my mind.

Alone I’m meant to face the world,
In life, and death, the same,
Yet in the end an utterance,
I will whisper out your name.

There are no fairy tales in life it seems,
No storied, joyful ends,
It’s just the way we see the world,
As the hourglass descends.

No guarantees I have today,
Just a will to stand and fight,
And love the world through strength and truth,
Despite the demons of the night.

TG (2018)

You and I (A Poem)

February 28, 2018 / Tom

We both dance under the same blue sky,

You and I,

We walk the same roadways,

Though on different lands,

We swim the same seas,

Though on different worlds,

Yet when we rise from the depths,

And our feet feel the sand,

We are together in the spirit for which we were born.

We sing the same songs,

You and I,

We hum the same tunes,

Though in different keys,

We sway to the same rhythm,

Though in different directions,

Yet when we move in our own intention,

And the purpose of our hearts is revealed,

We are united in the singular force that we have uncovered.

Love is like that, for those who see,

Like you and I,

The grammar is not always perfect,

The words are not always spoken,

But the truth remains the same.

In the end the days may fade away,

The clock may strike its final call,

And those who thought us weird, or reckless,

Or strange in our devotion,

Will know our truth as real.

There are no chains that could hold,

You and I,

This love is like a wind that the eagles use to soar,

Like a rain that washes the mud away,

Leaving diamonds to glitter in our evening sky.

There are no mountains too high,

For you and I,

When we make love you will know my truth,

As my skin falls away, leaving my heart bared to no one but you,

Our souls embracing in solemn harmony.

You shall see, my great love,

That as the Sun sets on another day,

There was nothing we need do but surrender.

Surrender to the truth,

To the echoes the gods have spoken in our souls,

As nightmares are forgotten by the dreams our bodies share,

Give it all up to love,

To the great possibility we have remembered and know so well.

Out beyond that final day,

There will still be you and I,

I will love you beyond my mortal bounds,

You will hear me whisper in the rays of sunlight that caress your tender skin,

You will feel me in the dew that washes your tired feet,

And your ecstasy will rise once again,

To meet me somewhere between our heaven and our hell.

This much I am sure,

That though you may be still a figment of a figment of a dream,

I love you.

And though you may yet an unwritten poem in the heart of a dreamer like me,

I love you.

You reside in the feeling that cascades over my entirety,

That rattles me to the very core of who I am,

Shakes my bones until they nearly turn to dust,

And awakens me from the deepest sleep as if to say,

“’Tis not your time to dream.”

That is what we are,

You and I.

In the tears that stream down my face,

Your image appears.

In the dreams of a soul yet to surrender to the thought of us,

My voice resounds.

And together shall we be, even if only as a dream,

In every breeze, in every moonlit winter’s night,

In every breath we breathe.

It’s always

You and I.

Surrender, He Once Said to Her (A Poem)

February 27, 2018 / Tom

Unfettered, I wonder where she’d go,
Which cloud she would kiss,
Which dream she would chase,
If she’d fly to the Sunset, or the Sunrise.

Shadows play tricks on the ones who look behind,
Reliving tantrums of time that scarred the mind,
Playing in the mud that lay before the crimson fields,
Telling tales that mimic some misshapen lunacy.

Lovers snap their fingers to awaken others from a dream,
Tantric songs play in the unseen mist,
Sounds of ecstasy echo all around but yet,
Those focused on the darkness cannot hear, deafened are they so.

Sweat pours from my anticipating brow,
Chasing butterflies through the snow,
Falling aimlessly through the muck that others leave behind,
Chilled to the bone in the puddles of piss left strewn throughout the field.

I don’t know which way I am going,
The compass unseen still points in her direction,
Lost, yet forging onward on the path my heart screams for me to take,
Found, I wish she’d make this journey easy.

Smile before you kiss me – my prayer,
Tease me with your eyes before you cast me aside – my fear,
Whisper something sweet to me before the silence comes,
For I know my place among the stars, a spec hidden by the darkness.

Heaven plays its tricks on those of us who pray,
Strong, I have no need for such misplaced and sullen waste.
A lone wolf, I hasten passion upon the landscape,
You may sense that there is something coming in the rain.

Nothing, though, moves this wolf like her howls begging in the moonlight.
It pushes me onward, beyond my own perceived limitations,
The body would nearly die for a single embrace,
The soul would not know life if not for knowing her.

But alas, time moves on even if the wolf remains alone,
Graying hair, crusted with the ice of his own experience,
He needs nothing in return,
Not even a passing glance.

Though he loves her so, it is unfettered he’d rather see her,
It is the clouds where she belongs, even as his feet grace the snows of his own destiny,
Both betrothed to the places they have chosen,
Knowing eternity in their moments quicken moans of certain ecstasy.

Stoic as he is, he cannot be burdened by her choices,
The demons he has faced have made him strong beyond his fears,
No sorrow, nor loss of sight, has caused him to stray from his own path,
And so he honors hers with equal ferocity.

Tonight, he may not live to see the Sunrise,
But today, he lives like there may be no end in sight.
He shall forget his mortality to live among some other gods,
And strive for her affection as if she was the very air he breathed.

In the end the story shall be told,
Forgotten shards of broken dreams will no longer be a testimony.
How he lived and found her love shall be recited in the heavens,
How she remembered him shall be the things of lore.

“Surrender,” he once said to her,
A plea of pleas certain to heighten her arousal,
Meant to be nothing but a vow,
She would never need search again.

Did she hear him?
That is a story to be written,
Would she come?
That is a song yet to be sung.

Write they will.
Sing they must.
In Love, they have no other choice.