THE GREAT SCHEME OF THINGS for Professor Lance Strate

The Great Scheme of Things



Words don't fail him but sometimes thoughts
Are suspended in his head like helium balloons
Full of ideas, hopes, wishes, prayers
They pop in out of the ethereal
Out of the indigo blue and with a certainty
That almost frightens.

The world speaks to him in quiet voices
Unknown tongues that are somehow familiar
Pleas rise up to his ears from the forests
The green grass calls his name
As though he were a friend
And the rivers pay respect.

This land he exists in, survives in, lives in
Is a precious commodity to his soul
Sometimes it's easy to forget
With all the clamoring chatter of technology
Just where you came from
Until clear reality slaps you in the face.

But in his dreams, he sees the new born mountains
Hears the eagle's cry and rushing waters
Feels the breath of morning wind
Wash his face as innocent
As his beloved baby boy
And he remembers what is real.

Education is a wonderful thing, he thinks
But what really matters
Is the freedom to think in the silence of peace
Turn off the world, turn off the phone, turn off the news
And bask in the wonder of a rainbow filled sky
To gather his family in the ark of his arms.

The world has come so far!
And has so far to go!
He wonders if he'll see it come to it's fruition
Whatever that may be.........
But in the meantime, there are plans to be made
Work to be done, bridges to build.

Friends to be met, songs to be sung
Poetry to be written and dreams to be dreamed
What really matters cannot be found within four walls
Inside a box of computer chips, cell phones, fibre optics
Virtual reality, nanotechnology, holograms and milligrams
In the great scheme of things, those things matter little.

He knows what matters
He sees it in his children's faces
The smile on the lips of his wife
The giggles, the fun, the yelp of the dog
The laughter that makes the sun
At the end of a rainy day.

Life is hard
But life
Can be beautiful
If you make it so
And he makes it so
He makes it so.

©By Voo
September 23, 07
For Professor Lance Strate
As promised.

WARRIORS OF THE WAY Episode One serial story to be made into movie

WARRIORS OF THE WAY EPISODE 1 
                     
A story started on an online website and working toward it's finish. Populated with the names

and characters of my many online friends...................
I have written many chapters already. If interest is shown, I will post more,

PLEASE READ AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK..........YOU MAY END UP IN THE BOOK, SCREENPLAY AND MOVIE

                                                    
WARRIORS OF THE WAY, EPISODE ONE

BY VOO JULY 27, 2005

STARSHINE IS LOST TO ME

      I awoke to find a flower crushed underneath my cheek. I had not noticed it when I lay down the night before but then I had been too tired and too grief stricken to notice anything but the aching in my heart. I had walked for many miles, having lost my horse to the bite of a viper on the hillside far behind me. Starshine. Black as midnight with a white star shaped mark on his neck and star shaped sprays of white on his two front legs. A magnificent horse, my childhood companion, my best friend.

 His death had come as a great shock and one that I wondered in my loneliness if I would ever overcome. How had I been so careless? How had he? We both had ears and eyes like hawks and had never been attacked unawares in all our years together. Perhaps in our weariness of long journeying we had become fatigued and let down our guards, having taken our protection for granted much too long. How could I ever forgive myself? 

     The viper had appeared out of nowhere, long and fat and golden hued, like no snake I had ever seen. I had dismounted Starshine and was climbing to the top of a tree to scan the horizon when it happened. The horse made no sound, gave no cry for help, raised no alarm. When I had made my way back down the tree, taking my time and humming a melody I had heard in the last village we had passed through, I jumped down laughing and shouted, "Starshine, my friend! I have spotted a lush green field for thou to graze ......."

And there I saw him, still as death itself, his sweet eyes closed and no breath coming from his nostrils. Lying on his sleek, black rump, there coiled the viper, it's cold, intelligent eyes looking at my expression, almost, it seemed, in mocking amusement. I felt a tremor go through my body as I stood frozen in disbelief and anguish.

 "Hh..h.how?" I gasped in a tiny whisper of voice, feeling for the first time in years like a helpless child. The viper stretched out to it's full length and struck Starshine behind his unhearing ear as if to answer then turned his yellow eyes back to me and disappeared from sight. Finding my feet and voice, I sank to my knees beside my faithful friend and sobbed until I could sob no more. I wept until his silky mane was soaked with tears and I had caressed his beautiful face and flanks a thousand times. I had never felt so alone. 

     I didn't know how to say goodbye. I refused to say goodbye. The morning with it's azure skies and golden sun so full of promise became my heart's saddest day. I hated the tree I had climbed, the hill on which it stood, the land in which it grew. But most of all and more than anything I had ever experienced, I hated that viper! I swore vengeance on the creature and made no apology for it. Fury flowed through my veins like lava, shut down my mind and took my soul on a journey I had never made before: to the dark side of myself. 

                                   

    During that journey, I would learn to distrust, to fear, to question all that I had been taught. To walk alone, to love and to know a different, more terrifying kind of heartbreak. I would lose my faith and find it again in strangers and places I did not know existed. Worst of all, I would learn that I could not trust my own eyes or ears or heart. For, from that day forward, nothing would ever be as it appeared. Nothing. Not even the person that I had always imagined myself  to be. Everything changed after the encounter with the snake. Light became dark, the familiar became strange, the tangible, intangible and the road I traveled on, a seemingly never ending quest to find understanding of the mysteries. But the world would never be the same. Everything changed for me at the tree.

TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE TWO....................

WOUNDED PARADISE

Wounded Paradise

Drunk on love,

Can hardly walk

With my eyes full of the sun.....

Stumbling down this hard dirt road

Like an outlaw on the run.

I didn't see it coming

I didn't know it's name

I didn't see what's left of me

Would never be the same.

Hard to know

When love is real

And when it's just real bad....

So worldly when it comes to that

So worldly, but so sad.

Her face was full of danger

Her lips were wet with dew

Her dark eyes told me silently

"I've been waiting here for you."

And so I fell into her arms

Her wounded Paradise.....

Drank until I'd had my fill

Of the sweetness of her lies.

Like an madness in the midnight

Like a dream about to end

Like a dying bird that's dropping

In a sea of drowning men.

She loved me

And she healed me

With a love I've never touched.....

Then she kissed me and she killed me

With a death I loved so much.

She's an angel and a devil

She's a heart about to break

She's a cool, cool drink of water

To a man with thirst to slake.

But when morning came,

She said to me

As the sun rose in the sky......

"You cannot stay, be on your way."

And she didn't say goodbye.

My heart filled with rejection

My eyes, with unshed tears

Once more a little boy unloved

Like I'd been for countless years.

I tipped my hat,

Walked out her door

Staggered by it all......

Walking, turning, hoping, hoping

But I never heard her call.

©by Voo

July 10, 2010

10:31 p.m.

FOUND ON A BLUE GREEN SEA

https://soundcloud.com/user-780266601/foundon-a-blue-green-sea-best-0

Voo reading the poem on soundcloud

Found On A Blue-Green Sea

We sailed upon a blue-green sea

My love and I, that night

Beneath a moon of solid gold

And stars, silent and bright.

We clung to love with wanting arms

And spoke of things to come

Of fire and cold and growing old

And paths that lead to home.

We drank the night like it was wine

And whispered in the wind

Laughed at all the lonely years

And what almost could have been.

We'd found the faces we could love

In crowds of loveless hearts

And made our pact, no going back

To romantic stops and starts.

(Maybe love is magic

And maybe love is glue

And only love can mend the seams

Of a life that's torn in two.)

But in that lovely little ship

Beneath those stars so bright

We solved the mysteries of our lives

As we sailed into the light.

Sometimes we don't know who we are

Till in a lover's eyes we see

All we ever hoped and dreamed

And all that we could be.

We nestled down in harboring hearts

Like treasures found and kept

While wind and sea carried us to shore

And in arms of love, we slept.

painting of Voo by M. Adams

©by Voo

Dec 1, 07

11:11 p.m.

The Promise by Secret Garden..................the most beautiful melody I ever heard

I NEVER LOST YOU

I Never Lost You

I never lost you

In the sea or sand

In the sky as clouds rolled by

Letting go my hand.

I never lost you

In the dusk or dawn

In the dark or daydream

Noticing you'd gone.

I never lost you

In a crowded place

In a dim lit restaurant

With shadows on your face.

I never lost you

On a moonlight swim

Watching waves take you away

Held prisoner at their whim.

I never lost you

On a busy street

Walking fast ahead of me

With others yet to meet.

I never lost you

In the shining snow

Clutching love tight to my heart

Not wanting to let go.

I never lost you

In sheets of dreamless sleep

Watching your back turned from me

With no love left to keep.

I never lost you

Your dark eyes gave no sign

And though your body sleeps by me still,

You were never mine.

©by Voo

March 7, 2011

1:59 a.m.

                                                          You Were Never Mine
                                                                           by
                                                                       Janiva Magness