"Ex Tempore VII" runner-up in Thynks Publications competition

"Ex Tempore VII" (below) has been chosen as a runner-up in Thynks Publications Limited's Inspirational Poems competition. I was quite pleased when I was told, not only because I submitted it as an entry on a whim but because I wrote it in one night (hence its "ex tempore" title).

This poem, along with prizewinners and other runners-up of the competition, will be published in a small book sometime in 2013.


Ex Tempore VII

For G.

For the music I cannot draw
For the pictures I cannot write
For the sounds I wish I saw
There are those that I might

For the places of which I dream
For the tastes I hope to breathe
For the things I really mean
May rhyme and reason never leave

For the love I long ago lost
For that which did not come
For the paths that did not cross
There is still little and some

For the goals still unreached
For the struggles not yet won
For the walls that sometimes breach
Tomorrow will see a new sun

For the many occasions I reminisce
For what are now but memories
For all the days that I miss
There is still much for me to see

For age that creeps and creeps
For the time that slips away
For mountains now too steep
There will be stories to recount and lay

For the mistakes that I made
For the regret that burns
For the words I mislaid
I can and will always learn

For the fear that restrains
For when around me there are none
For the times ruled by pain
It is I who will overcome

For all this and more
For what will come and what came before
There is me, there is you
And this is all we ever need know

M.M. — November MMXI