True Love of Coffee

She said it wasn’t easy

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Dedicated Poems, Friendship

She said it wasn’t easy
To write and tell people of the thoughts
I keep in my head
She made me wonder how distraught I was

To believe
In a moment, for a second
That I could share my heart

With one person
Another caring soul
Who could understand me

Someone who cared
About the things I believe
Who could dare to see

She said it wasn’t easy
To lose yourself in turmoil
And find meaning in the emotion you dare to feel
Yet I thought, in a moment, this very second

That I could share the feeling
The need I heard, the caring words inside
That wanted to be heard, to be simply written
In black and white

That they could be shared
Relayed, communicated, transcribed, and translated
Into a few letters, that formed basic words
And simple sentence that made a story so true

That one could believe
In a moment, this very second
One could relay a moment of thought
And realize there was heartfelt meaning

By Herself

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Inquisitive, Loss

She was tormented

Afraid of herself feeling

Feeling alone in fear

Never holding anyone dear

I see her dreaming each night

And I hear the screaming

But what is this meaning

Of the feeling she was needing

The Candle

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Mystery

In the absence of darkness

I stand almost unnoticed

A shadow of hope

Cast aside by society

Until I am needed

Barely holding myself
As I am cold and hidden in view

But when I am whole with purpose

I shine with everything ounce I am

Flickering against the night

Caring for a world I cannot see

A world that hardly knows me

Touching it with my every effort
Wanted only for what I give

As I burn, trying to survive

Yet I let my life slowly fade away

Giving myself to everyone but me

Sometimes lit simply to help them believe

The Lessons We Learn in Life

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Friendship

When I was a kid my dreams were so vivid
I could taste them on my lips, like sweet water
Breathe the scent of ambrosia drifting in my mind
They felt complete as if I had imagined this place a thousand times over

Yet my mind was hardly calm
It mirrored my life with a reflection of things I did throughout my day
I could see myself casually glancing, sometimes staring so deeply
That I could witness ripples in the pond as I threw mental pebbles

I remember days when my life was like a red balloon
It was cheerful and everything else seemed irrelevant
Even when it was raining, I was perfectly happy
But sometimes I learned happiness had a tendency to float away

There were times when I jumped so high
Playing so hard I fell down in the mud, covered from head to toe
Usually I brushed it off and laughed, sometimes I was hurt and cried
But I was usually the only one around to pick myself up

I recall a day when the bully at school punched me in the face
It hurt, not so much that I wouldn’t fight
But because I learned that day some friends weren’t standing with me
It was really the first time I experienced how hard it was to fight alone

I remember when I was growing up
A dog bit me in the leg, yet he wasn’t a strange animal
I thought he was my best friend in life
Until I accidentally stepped on his foot and broke it

I remember those days, everyday
When I walk across the street and look both ways
as I share myself and the things I love
The lessons we learn in life, are simply amazing

The Lady

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two

As I walked out of the café

I passed a woman

My elbow casually brushed her arm

And she glanced at me with heartfelt eyes

 

I asked her to please pardon me

Yet she smiled and replied ‘no pardon needed’

My feet stopped along with my thought

As I smiled back to correct her mistake

 

Dear lady, I must tell you how necessary it is
How incredibly meaningful such basic words are

And while I do not know you, I must simply say it again

Dear lady “pardon me”

 

She looked puzzled as if I was insane

I was, but no more than most

My intent was merely to help someone who believed in not being seen

It was a belief I could feel in her eyes, if not her heart

 

Dear mam, as I believe that you truly are a lady

I must beg your pardon as I open a door or accidentally interrupt you’re day

I cannot defer, nor can I deny
I can only try to treat you, as if I was being treated

 

I cannot dismiss my casual or coincidental mishap

With rudeness or inappropriate ignorance

I can only, with sincere meaning and innocent purpose

Ask for your pardon, as I may not give such pardon to myself

 

If for no other reason

I ask this of you

Not to request forgiveness of this chance moment

But to declare yourself someone of my respect

The River and the Rock

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Defiant

A beautiful sun
With light glistening off the water
as the tide beat against the shore
Of a place I called home

It was here I defined my destiny
A place I had found life
During a thousands moments only I pondered
On a chance thought that gave me strength

I wondered
Was love worth the life I had
Did the hope I poured into my action
Create a reason to be someone special

Or was I merely unique
Enough to be alone as I glance across a river
Realizing that it moves so quickly I cannot dare enter
Trying so hard to witness desire floating by

My heart beat within my chest
I could feel the surge of hope rampage through my body
Trying to feel its way through me
Like a lost soul being drawn under by powerful current

I could feel loss from being adrift
Yet I felt my feet securely holding my stance
I knew that I had cast aside part of who I was
and it was sacred to who I needed to be

I do not know if I called out from the shore
or whether I was drowning beneath the tide
as my lungs tried gasping for air
from being so alone as I pass downstream

My life had become two parts
One safe in knowing, one lost in seeking
A fork dividing my soul into trying to save myself
and feigning the difference of knowing who I was

One poignant watcher believing it was strong
Standing upon earth so secure it would never falter
But being scared of losing itself to the motion it could not control
Forever being terrified that it had only one vantage to gaze from

The other adventurer risking itself by defiantly braving unknown danger
And every person it loved seeing freedom and recklessness
In a spirit so artistic you could see life in trying to survive
Yet hopelessly lost to a force it did not control

Yet I found myself as my feet slipped and I fell into the river
And as the river threw me onto the rocks of undiscovered hope
The strongest part of me accidentally becoming fluid once again
While the adventurer stopped and rescued it’s own soul

Christopher Adams

Posted by Barry Hurd in Creative Writing, Loss, Regret

This started as a poetry piece that quickly developed into a larger creative story this afternoon. It is a character development item for a story I am working on, and some readers have said it is somewhat disturbing. In any case, rip it apart.

**************************************************

Christopher Adams

It was a quiet autumn day. Birds were singing in the distance, the trees whistled gently in the breeze, and the sun gently hid behind crimson clouds floating in the sky. The laughter of children could be heard nearby as they played on the shore of the lake skipping rocks off the calm serenity of the water, beckoning the geese to flutter from place to place. It was perfect. A calm peaceful day.

The clap of thunder sounded once without a sign of storm clouds above. Then again and again. The children’s laughter turned into frantic screaming of nightmarish intensity and I swore the balance of nature itself froze for a moment, then came crashing down in the opposite direction. The thunder came closer and closer, then stopped. The sky turned gray, the trees froze in place, and there was nothing but horrifying silence.

I stood at the water’s edge gazing out to lake and saw a lone man standing ankle deep in the water, he was wearing a fine gray business suit and holding a pistol down at his side. His body shifted as he viewed the nearby park, and my inquisitive nature was shocked to view what he was looking at. His work, the chaotic dream of urban security being shattered by a lunatic with a gun. Around him were the bodies of too many to count. They all seemed lifeless from where I was. Yet one small boy struggled with his own mortality and drew the painful attention of the man who would soon be known as Christopher Adams.

I screamed at the man from two hundred yards as he calmly walked towards the boy of only eight or nine years. I could barely hear the boy’s frantic cry for help as Christopher approached. My voice carried clear and far enough to reach the other shore, but the man who held the gun simply looked at me and smiled. I begged him to stop, I begged someone to help, but today my role could only be that of a witness.

Christopher Adams raised his arm, loaded a single round into his gun, aimed the pistol at the boy and gazed over his shoulder into my eyes. He grinned, and at that exact moment in time I looked into the eyes of someone that defied my belief. I saw what true evil was as the cry of the boy’s last moments were engulfed in the sound of deafening reality.

He turned towards me and I swore his laughter carried across the water as if the devil had found a home here on earth. He pulled one last bullet from his pocket, loaded it into his pistol, and ended his own life.

That would be the tale of a story I would never forget. It would lead to a name the news agencies would make me regret I had ever heard. Christopher Adams. That name would be remembered in the history of this city like a child’s nightmare story. It would find a home in the heart, born from a terror and fear that everyone could relate to, but a terror and fear that only I would have looked into.

As an old man I would dare remember the eyes I stared into that day and they would define the opposite in life I would fight against with all my strength. I would learn to question the world, the frailty of childlike hope, and the safety of my own thoughts would become a commodity that was more precious than anything else I would ever know.

Yet Christopher Adams would not be the name that would burn itself into my memory.

Instead of only remembering the name of a human devil I would instead choose to covet the name Brett Donnely, the name of the small boy I was helpless to save that warm autumn day. His name would inspire each day I helped another soul, his name would be the one I held in regard, and his name would give hope to the thousands of souls that I had the opportunity to touch in my life using the wisdom his life gave me.

Another smile

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Dedicated Poems, Friendship

Dear Lady,

I met you in the most strange place

Under the invite a friend that had invited me to play with them

And I thought to myself, why should I not act as a child

If for but one brief moment in my life

I had no conception that I would be changing my world

As the sun crept overhead and signaled a bright day

And the trees surrounding us laughed gently in the breeze

If for but one brief moment, it was a perfect day

My friend was there, as expected

They were laughing and joking with me, with everyone

I took a sip of ice cold water and as it touched my tongue

My spirit came to accept how refreshing this day was

I meandered through a crowd of unknown faces

Bumping casually around them as I wandered through the park

As I allowed myself to fall into the moment of life happening here and now

and without realization of how amazing a chance, I stumbled upon you

You were smiling, a remarkable smile

I could tell you had been laughing just a moment before

And you were doing something amazing

You were living that moment a thousand times over

Or at least, that is what I thought

I wondered to myself how incredible your talent was

To smile, such a beautiful smile, a thousand times a day

And faithfully find yourself in a moment that defined everything else

Without a word, you had given me a gift

A simple and honest present that exceeded any value

One that I could barely comprehend, and that you probably didn’t even realize

As I thought deeply, pondering the exact nature of what is was

Dear Lady, for a moment

You gave me the inspiration, no, the courage to find myself letting go

To remember that this moment could hold such wondrous instances

And without a second of hesitation find myself smiling again

My life

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Inquisitive

These words were not something I had imagined
No, just mere fallacy of belief I had as a child
Words that carried through to my life as an adult

I could hope to remember one part
And I would often refer to it as being the best detail of a fundamental story
I could hope to believe that my actions added to the plot
And I would often regard myself as blinding leading in a story called my life

My Addiction to Coffee

Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee, Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Lust

I thought for a brief moment
about the taste on my lips, the lingering memory
of such tense emotions glancing off my most tender smile
I sigh, trying to breathe in the luscious aroma
as each second stretches into a thought of simple perfection
and my mind becomes lost in the innocence of my desire

The devil I think
could make only such enticing flavour, to make me so helpless
as my body yearns to consume it every waking hour
So wanting it penetrates my dreams and floods my gleeful slumber
with a desire so corrupting that I cannot discern
whether or not my mind is my own, or simply a victim to greed

Jealousy takes my hunger
and brushes it aside as my tongue lavishes itself in a feeling
that rides such a fine line between pain and perfection
as it burns my mouth, my tongue
yet it warms me down to the farthest reaches of my body
to the depth of my soul, it fills me with a flavour I cannot describe

I hold the thought, losing myself in the absence of clear logic
as the caffeine surges through me
and brings my body to life
as the rich mixture of addiction drips into my blood
to provide fuel for my chaotic desecration
and sinful yearning for more