Thoughts Have Hands

Old people sit like everywhere is home, tired of pretense,Settled into clothes worn to comfort 

Enjoying habits practiced past all thinking. 
Anytime breakfast-time places,

Arrange memories on walls for them,

Along with quaint stone fireplaces, mantle clocks,

And the ubiquitous frontier rifle 

Assuring a perfect synchronicity of space and time.
A picture of sentiments serve the marketplace of the mind.

Reveries fixed with coffee, bacon, grits and gravy.
Each customer a connoisseur of the way things were suppose to be,

Nodding appreciation to the lost cornucopia of yesterday, 

Recognizing what they thought they knew so well, truths saluted,

The American way carefully on display,

Drawing the road weary traveler to home away from home. 
Memories baked in a savory mix of old time kitsch, 

Leave them staring fondly through windows of time,

Thirsting for more than water

Praying wilted dreams would flower again.
THH 

August 29, 2015

A Wedding blessing
May the happy exhaustion young lovers know, 

encircle you with bliss. 
May the spirit of hospitality conquer all the quarrels and struggles of life.
May your evenings be like purple violets, soft and delicate to the touch. 

And your mornings fill your senses with the smell of fresh coffee, warm bread and tender understandings. 
May you dance joyfully together the tango of life,

leaning in close to catch the rhythm of the other’s soul,

but spin freely on your own two feet. 
May your relationship become like the grape vine, 

binding your hearts into one, 

bursting with spring fruit, 

and the good rich wine of summer. 
May the laughter of children, bless you.
May the bright colors of the autumn to come, 

comfort you with happy detachment.
And the winter snows draw you before warm fires of memory and grace. 
And may the spirit of love that plays hide and seek with us all, catch and hold you from this day forward and evermore. THH 

PS Written sometime ago, posted by Tom Hardin, Sept. 7, 2015. 

Fear rises up on the wings of imagination,

A dragon that fans the hot air of emotion. 

Its spiked tale drags the improbable into vaunted plausibility.

Its ragged edge draws back the curtain of reason, 

Revealing bloody dramas, and a discordant chorus of enemy chants,

familiar or not.

Dragon breath churns disbelief, 

And our point of view into fiery chaos,

Leaving dead bodies back stage, 

As disturbing reminders that our nightmare scenario continues.

chew at the brain like a zombie feast. 

And we hesitate even to leave home after dark,

Or go out armed, suspicious of strangers, 

And ready to fight.

Warily, we hurry home with ready made purchases,

And settle back into our reserved seats,

To watch another well rehearsed installment of the chills and thrills,

Paid for by the fox and hounds of imminent destruction.

Such lives are like the friendly dog gnawing

contentedly on a favorite bone,

Trusted implicitly, ignorant of the possible,

Until that day you return to find her panting and pawing

Over the remnants of favorite pillows and quilt, strewn haphazardly 

across your bedroom floor.

You dive head first into the implausible loss,

Swim furiously against a current of rage,

gasp at what had been, or should be, 

until exhausted and in tears, 

you sink to the floor, and

gaze distractedly over a disordered world.

Numb but still under the magic spell of the dragon’s scary tale.

 
THH By Tom Hardin, Sept. 7, 2015