Gabriel’s Oboe __________________________________________

Melodies for a Rainy Day

From a Collection

By J R Simone

Smoke over the Paris Railway

________________________________

By J R Simone

Lunch at the Ritz Studios Publication

New York, London, United States

Copyright, 2012

By Lunch at the Ritz Studios Publication

Previous Page

“Nareina in Paris”

All paintings are original works

By J R Simone

INDEX

1. Song for Nareina……………………… Page 5 2. Gabriel’s Oboe …………………….….…Page 6 3. Meditation from Thais ………………Page 4 4. Conversations in the Rain………..…Page 6 5. Turning Pages ………………………..…Page 8. 6. The Boy who Dreamed

Of Women…………………………...Page 11 7. What She Left for Me to Find…..…Page 14

Snow on the Elegant 8. Northern Pines………….......................Page 16 9. Black Swan ………………………….…...Page 18 10. The Journey to Life ………….……..…Page 20 11. The Firefly and Young Child……….Page 24 12. Brief Interlude……………………..……Page 26 13. A Letter to a Friend, Ageless……….Page 28 14. Art in Central Park……………………Page 30 15. Last Night at the Opera………………Page 33 16. The Morning Song……………………...Page 35 17. The Decision………………………………Page 36 18. The Artist Who Spoke

to the Trees………………………… .Page 37 19. Children of a Lesser God…………..…Page 38 20. Transitions……………………………...…Page 40 21. The Old Barn Swallow………………..Page 45 22. Reflections…………………………………Page 47 23. The Ballerina……………………………...Page 49 24. Denial………………………………..………Page 51 25. The Gallery …………………………….….Page 53 26. Being Aware of Life without

Living it……………………………….Page 56 27. Waiting………………………………………Page 58 28. In a Moment Before Time,

She Came……………………………………Page 61

29. If We Remove ……………………………..Page 61

A SONG FOR NAREINA

What gift, this,

We have in separate worlds that join

By the mereness with a

Desperate reach

Do we need more or do more

Than in this one soliloquy

Unrepeated dancing

In our minds

From step to step

One tree by another

One stone by another

One smile near another

Mine and yours

For in the changing

Scenes the stage

Lies empty and no actors to pretend

A whisper is loud enough

Reach me

Dare me as I have dared you

In the briefness

Of one moment

Forever is everything

Play that song one more time before I go

GABRIEL’S OBOE

From the moment I saw you

I had already felt your presence

Not alone

But always alone

Life but a short walk

From the rise to the setting

In a sequential gathering of

All we knew and all we loved

A light fawn in the breathless fear

Of its mother

Lies near her

The passiveness release

Unfearing for life unfolding

There in the symphonies idle

Call

The winds chaffing demise

The snow building

Coveting each

In that world where

Presence is known before

Sight

Where hearts are one

Where the fallow fields

Burst into measures rhyme

The orchestra throws itself

In simple cadence

From the moment I saw what I knew

Heard what I had heard

Felt what I felt

You appeared

In that brief fleeting

Field

That broken cold stream

That shallow bed

That fawn near its mother

Complete and finally

Alone in one

I hear the symphony

Come with me and hear it too

For it is time

It is time

Gabriel’s Oboe

Nareina

TURNING THE PAGES

I held my mother’s breast

In my mouth until I came of age

To hear the sounds of life

Like the rustling hurried thunder

Clapping over head

I reached for the window, the paper

Printed in squares and black ink

Before I left the door open

In the room above the unheated garage

Where the music of hurricanes

Was recorded

They named me after the saints

Regarding the nature and stature that would

Endure the wrath of life

Until the womb gave forth

I was clear and sane

Then the white dust gave me this life

I held my mother late in life as her

Breath faded like sullen musical notes

Softer and softer with a halo

Until she sunk into my arms

And I gave back to her

my life

She gave me

Gone in a wisp

She took the person I was

Too

MEDITATION FROM THAIS

My heart is my enemy

Emotionally deteriorates

As it drives

My mind to elope

To gather fragments

A letter here

A poem there

A faint smell of

Perfume left on an envelop

Hers or mine

The pages of the book torn and

Embedded with

Small tear stains

For me or for her

Does it matter

In the selfishness I exhibit

Does it matter in the brief moments

At a table, a small cup of café,

A small lip, a word, a smile

A departure

No anecdotes

The window foggy and impure

Cluttered to half way

Curtains soiled letting only one ray

Of light to penetrate

And the floor frocked with stains and

Old, weathered in time as I

As you

Waiting here

The rain torrential keeps me from seeing you

And then across the boulevard

The red umbrella

The tan coat, the hair

The movement

There across the street

You

And then

In a quiet freeze of love

You are sitting with me

Near me

Around me

At that small table

In the café

For one more morning

For one more evening

CONVERSATIONS IN THE RAIN

Mixed emotions that reach toward

The sky dust whose fur like the

Trampled skirts that hid us

Awake like the startled ghost

Caught in the act

sombering

A magical guest, a flute, the

Honor of coming back to your side

Each time the gentle flow

Of your whisper, your curls,

Your unfathomable smile

Your warm ebbing that came from the

Inner reaches

Sit with me for I am alone

Sit with me for you comfort

Sit with me until the sky parts

And I see the goldenness of your hair

Again like I saw before

Sit with me here near the streets

That echo like canyons calling

Sit here until the sky dust

Glitters and fades

I know you are well with me

Mixed emotions die for they

Can’t believe that in all the

Stilled restlessness

I talk as the water of God

Pours around me

And you touch

From a petal throne

Sit with me as you did

And all the tragedies of life

Go away

THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF WOMEN

Stilled by the torment’s rage

Quiet fires that kindle

Into a bloom

As the canopy

Shrouds the muted

Eyes

Empty scenes

Where the edge

Becomes the center

I have but fond

Memories of

The home that sat

Beneath the elms

Lulling me away into

Adolescence

Untouched by the

Endeavors of life

Optimistic

Assured

A lone fabric

Woven tightly

Restrained by the

Duty and formality

A family holds the

Endearments like a warm

Sea against the stone clouds

Vibrant plumes

That reach beyond a mind

Empty and yet longing

For the wonders

As a small fragment

Breaks away and streaks

Toward the sun

The earth as a cone

The lofty spirit

A young man

A lonely woman

Growing into the

Bedlam and belief

Optimistic

Through the offspring

No lullaby

In the journey

Until the sea touches

The shore and sand floats into your body

Renewed like the vase

Of crystal

Pure and beholden

Then scattered

Coming to knowledge

By instinct alone

What SHE LEFT

FOR ME TO FIND

The nostalgic eeriness

Of the papers and small books

Exquisitely written

Each name and number

Guided in perfectness

The harmony

Your writings and

Thoughts embedded for

A purpose

The lingering knowledge

Your rapture

In a quiet disarray

Agile and serene

I hesitate, tentatively

Before dawn can own me or I

Despise it, another

Preclusion, a day

In discord

I found your

Phone book, small and fragile,

As you, from when we met thirty years ago

And like the yester eves of

Our mating time

The nostalgic warm eeriness of

Your touch still

Is sensed

Sleep has found you but not me yet

And in that small book I see

Your work which I have caught

Suspended as if that moment

We saw each other

Wound up in eternity

SNOW ON THE ELEGANT

NORTHERN PINES

The slant of the roof

Curling in the lost winds

Enduring

As the ageless journeys

Come to a cease

Amidst the slow howls deep in the

Sturdy northern pines

The break of silence

The deadening sifting of the snow,

Unfurling along the lonely spindly fingered branches

Bending

Would these own the day in the mid air

Of Winter

As if not

Desolate, alone

Biding their time

Until the season expressed its will

On them curing them of this burden

Are they gay in the delight of frisky play

The sliding shapes of snow dunes

The melting balls of ice that roll

Into the still meandering chill waters of the

Hudson Falls

Witness the years that pass

Those who have grown and left

The children now who remember in the

Late years

If this Winter the bending branches

Can hold the new storm

If the frost will spare them

If they shall enjoy the gaiety

Of the new silence

The new young

The new season

THE BLACK SWAN

In that indignity

Defying the expected

Under the closing umbrella

Her movements

Glass over the

Silence

The thorns of music

Wandering the shore

Rapture abundant

Grasping onto the

Known

Stares of regret

Solace

One melody distinct

A yellow pine tree

A green rock

Umber sky

In the whispers they heard

In the glare they knew

In the emptiness

They gathered again and again

One alone

One word

One echo

One cello vibrates

One bird in flight

One rainbow

One world

One universe

Distinct

THE JOURNEY TO LIFE

The journey to life

The eyes weepish and closed

In the narrow passage

Time relinquishes its hold

In the clusters of

Love that

Seeps into the cell

Without the blemish

The thoughtless purity

Of her hands guiding themselves

Over the inner horizon where

The giving becomes the gift

Of the spirit in the domed

Chalice slowly emerging

And in the tone of light

That evaporates

The tiny fragility of

A beginning nestles its way

To a smiling exodus

Entering this domain for the first time

With fists closed

Anticipation and darkened stares

To hear and then to feel

The warmth of milk in the pulsating

Mouths

Across the universe

The signals abound

This cherished

Coming out to the

Chariots born and

Without notice

The journey begins

Where it began

And the kingdom

Comes to observe

In filmy particles shimmering in the

Dawn and tides

Carrying us away

MY GRANDFATHER’S

ATTIC ROOM

I remember my grandfather’s attic room

Where the musk of the wood and the

Smell of his age

Merged

And I could not tell the difference

Where through the glassless glare

From an unsuned room

He would stand

Drapped in an old sweater

That he had worn for over fifty years

Cold and sullen and yet

Fitting him as it should

In him,

Me

And in us,

We

Stood together for such a brief time

And I knew what he had to say

Years passed and he came from that

Room often to sit in the sun, in the garden

By the table

The vine and his pipe near by

And where he grew things that we ate

And told stories that we loved

My grandfather was a simple man

And yet he made the earth his homeland

His life ours to keep

I remember him in that attic room

And the smell of his two worlds

I think,

Are grandfathers relegated to this

As they age

Small mementos, small fragments of an entire

Life all on one dresser

One table

In one drawer

With a picture of my grandmother

Near his bed

He died a happy man

With his heart and hands open

And his world still intact

THE FIREFLY AND

YOUNG CHILD

You fade and drift Like the spark of

A fire fly That lifts up

Over the small hand Holding the jar

The child of destined

Promises Smiling

Alert and captivated

Wipe away the tragic tears That engulf your

Small face

Take the fire fly and watch Its glow

Then like the fury of Rain

Let it go

t is not lost Like you

Lifting as it

Drifts toward Another heart

Lift with it child

For you too Are the world

You both are one

BRIEF INTERLUDE

Leave me here Near the water’s edge

Near its heart Near the reflections

Of my long ago Where the subtle beat

Of the pebbles soothed me

Leave me here near the fading Glow of tall grass

As it Grows into the age of

A season’s end

Leave me here near the Forgiving voices of nature

Calling tunes That made me warm When days were lost

Leave me here For it is the cello’s rapture

That holds me Wanting to hear its

Chords played over and over

Leave me here now for the time In this quarter

Has shortly passed And I must lift above

The sensible

A LETTER TO A FRIEND,

AGELESS

It took time to uncover the deadness of

The letter as it sat Stoic at first

In hand Blemished like the

Frown of fall New and old Continuing

What could be left

After the early hours Responding in anecdotes

No ascension No briefing No pause

Til the pesky sun’s penchant For shadows

Brushed wide across the Desk

Filled now with Anger

Hate and fortitude On paper scraps

Between the journeys end and the

Shipping carts The fragile signs that

Lit the way To the tower

And then the corn fields strewn like Straw

For a time when the Last red dust settles and

The last steam blows An engine winding

Through the bending rocks

By the time you receive This in disarray

Things will be different and The seasons tide

Will erupt and

Under the narrow light of a sky’s Dark prism

We will sit next to Each other

Til dawn and break down And away as we did

in this ageless season

ART IN CENTRAL PARK

The last chapter was

Insufficient

Insignificant to those

Around me

The wounded peril

Taking comfort as it prowled

Throughout the night

Beside me

As fiction in these

Depths

Not far from the lurid wall and

Hung flawlessly, works of art

Your finished product

like

the images on night snow

the dark blue crystals

stalled

absorbing the

nights flow

the soot dampened sides

of the park

the horse carriages bundled

for the cold chills

vapors rise so slow now

across Central Park

gaps in the wind

tugging aimless

the streets tuned finely

no humming

along the narrow and high black

marauding fence, stacked like

the ancient Gods

beckoning

to the truth in art

young your fancy

hearts racing toward the

moon

in the chilled ringing of

bells from the church

looking to see

your lights

your hand guiding mine

sweeping past the faces

so late to call you

but vaguely knowing

here somewhere in envy

in my sense

before the dead dream

stalking

quiet in the lone art

displayed with precision in the hall

on the second floor

under the gold chime clock

one last time

before the ending fades

LAST NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Her shoulders fell in

Proportion

The black laces on her

Boots

The slinkiness of her

Silk dress

Touching and

Smoothing the

Weariness

The arrogant smell of

The cologne

Strange and new

For the moments

Under time

Taking away the fullness of

The games in tragedy and drama

In my arms

Her spirit

Like the litheness

I remember

The dimming shadows

speak to the walls

Empty now

Without a façade to hide them

Without the envy

The pain and torment

On the floor brocaded

Tarnished like pewter

Near the small well

Cupped in the wall

Rushed cold from the

Nights long journey

Fingers grapple

Emptiness sits like a friend

And unlike the Park

Rising high with the first of

Early December snow

The long

Unpathed walk

At dawn’s arrival

The long black coat

Inside me without the

Daring comments

All forgotten

And it being too late

THE MORNING SONG

Many nights swollen with envy and

Concern, I approached sleep

less

My eyes would not close, at my bedside

They came in irregular patterns,

Reaching, touching, tormenting

Displeased with my lack of

Capacity to see the synergy,

The last composite requiem for their deeds

Or to touch me in reassurance

Familiarity is not my pedigree

Startled in deep fear

Only to assess the presence

Knowing more than I, wanting to

Tell me somehow, in some way,

That childhood was not wrong

To be afraid of things

We don’t know

The day brings less appearances

THE DECISION

And in the end, who shall

carry the last rock,

bury the last dead,

carry the last letter

send the last email, spend the last dollar,

Call out the last name, carry the last soul,

Celebrate the last birthday,

Reflecting back

In these final moments what can I say

Is death like rejection or is it curative

Is everything we do the last thing we do

Or does age make that big a difference

Do they listen to the old

Do they find us profound, do they look at us with lust

Or do they fear we are where they will be

Do we hasten their time, do they reject our words

of wisdom as faint memories

Fury bent the laws of the sea

Facing the storm in torments path

Lazy the mind that refuses

No tests, no signs, no warnings, no matter

All depends on the least of what we do and

No beginning can predict the end

Fatal our thoughts more than our actions

THE ARTIST WHO SPOKE

TO THE TREES

In the stormy stormy woods of winter

drenched in the

desolate fractions of ice and snow

Heavy to burden, glimpse of the shallow clouds graying

in our midst

Somewhere across the northeast near the collision of

Vermont and New Hampshire

The woods expanding, dripping the sweet sap

of the trees as if they are

Whispering to us things they heard,

things they know, things that were done

From a poet or artist who would sit

in stormy woods bending tree limbs

and touching the veined

Outline of the maple and oak,

birch and elm leafs

He would sit each day

talking and listening and responding

Solitary in the face of splintered

limbs that stretched and yawned

To the canvas bound,

Remembering the voice, knowing the sounds

he sang to the tunes of words and

Paint the joyful bliss of agonizing

separateness to nature born

Like a trilogy of life or the

equally perrenialness of the seasons

Adorn the outline feeble noting the

characters come forth

What youth in life was born here

at the fallen break of streams and fields

Beauty of the soul confided,

inspiring the domain to come back

As we do

Out on the last corn field road that

backs up to the early hills that rise

Near Canada is the sparking click

of rapid winds that tender

The harvest of art and the artist

Sitting in between the tallness of bark and

bridges lofting high over the falls

Near Hudson Falls Gorge

Who spoke in these woods

for us to hear and listen

For they do remember

and with our thirst unquenched

Will tell us things we need

to know and listen for our very soul to

Uncover itself in bestowing

the secrets held deeply in

The stormy woods

CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD

From the northside of the canal

The greenish brown water

Separated us

As twins of doubt

You with the wealth of

Manmade

I the prince of

Poor things begotten

Fragments of learning

Are we the disciples

Of a new age

Or the remnants of

History

Weary the longboards

That jut out

Across the pier and over the

Reeds

Hiding the fox and hawk and heron

I saw you on a throne

With the hair of a child

And the face of a steel

Door

Hands that held the reins

Of the largest steed

And at Christmas we watched

The ornaments float around your yard

And the clamor of bells and

Riddles

Woke us in the early morning

The years that grew the heart

Have broken the dreams

Adrift

In spiraling cities

Separated by

A Nation

A continent

A world

Now that we have no

Paths left to wander

Holding in the

Gifts we gave

You the queen

I the pauper

Together

Above the canal

Across the reeds

Near the blue heron

THE OLD BARN SWALLOW

Restless wings settling near the last rafter

perched with

Siblings working

In and out

Funnel nests, the sticks, the

Swathing wrapped neatly

Like an old aunt would do

patiently

the torrential rain kept them inside

like small children

In the school yard

There was work to be done

Episodic ventures

Rehearsing the plan

Quietly hushing away

Til there was a sign, a signal

And releasing

the feeble voice

Peaked efficiently

It seemed every morning

arising with artistry and me

they

Gathered along the ridge line and then the

Broken trench wire

Then to the posts and then into the highest part of the

Old barn

With regularity

One could only imagine

Their choice

Raising families

Protecting their small

Possessions

Saturday morning was colder

I was desperate

The week would soon be here

There in custodial splendor

Were chores to be kept

The quiet rituals

Were embedded now and with reluctance

There were no sounds

In a cavernous outpouring

Judgmental

And there on a small twig

Lay the swallow with its head gently

Resting on the leaf

Eyes closed

And even I knew

REFLECTIONS

What drives us to be human

The parallels in the cosmos the

Heart that strings along in a wild gallop

To catch a small glimpse of Him

The natural boundaries that we post

What drives us to misunderstand the valor The courage, the sanity

As we become tightened in a continual Bond, a rewinding circle whose end

Touches us first and then lets us go

What drives us to quest for meaning and not hope

Where two worlds would try to thrive in one

When two worlds don’t really exist Beyond the bottomless and utter ridiculousness

What drives us disturbs us and we carry on

In order that sense can be made from inner limits

Why do we turn from the sun and move inward

Why do we reach up and beyond when all of it Is deep within the corpus of who we are

In essence

In challenges

In doubts

What drives us away from who we are and to what we should be

Perhaps the never ending ritual of discovery

That takes us from that small step into the

World and that slow and methodical exit out of it Where in the substances in between

We change our course and find the path generous

What drives us

Perhaps that in the mastery, the plan

The sequence

He created a small part of the Universe so that It could learn, watch and see and study the rest of itself

What drives us is what preserves us

THE BALLERINA

Its been a while

We haven’t spoken Or seen each other

Like the canvas in my studio Empty but alive, filled

And waiting for life In the blossoming

Rage

The frequent laughs The utter silence

The dead awakening in the Morning after our night

Eyes closed near your

Side Warming

And feeling the guardian fox Standing near the

Chamber

The clicking sound Do you hear it

As I Ticking away the minutes and hours of each

Day

You are in middle stage Then stage left

Until your arms cloud the imagination You command the piper

and full ensemble Beckoning to your movement

Floating like the queen The archaic master

Of the flow

Dance until the narrow floor beneath Reasons you to be the work of art

I have long pursued

DENIAL

Once again in a dark room,

Looking for a black purse that isn’t there

Still

Tormented day after day

Like frogs on a dry beach

Dead to the sun, sparrows gulping

Down the after glow

Turning page after page beginning

With the middle letters of the

Alphabet, skimming

Ruthlessly without

Any purpose, functioning

Now as if you were in the room with me

Together lost, combining our insanity

aimlessly groping for answers

selecting syllables carefully

holding hands

both looking through the phone book for one

person who could tell us

if we are here or not

have we come to the bridge where the road turns

slightly to the south

are we skeptics now

you are not in the room

I continue to search

til I can’t find what I lost

or can’t remember

your name or the city you were born in

Like vulturing retreats

Scouring the high skies

Until night falls and I am relieved

Briefly by a flicker from the prism ghost

An opal earring lies dormant near the door jam,

Imbedded with gold leaf with a dark brown

Wire loop threading its way up

THE GALLERY

The journey short on life’s court

Perceptual indignities by rank and honour

Adoring fans like thistles torn from branch to ground

In utterancelessness

Tongues twisted rebukes from critics in tails

Awkward at first

I caught your eye all wrapped up in matrimony

But glancing at everyone

Doubt or sinister you the tall limbed ambassador of

Lust

Is Madison and Fifth still quaint with subdued floral plates

Garnishing the windows

Are men at rest digging their graves

Sipping their lattes

Are the women frizzed to hell with rambunctious tights

Throbbing breasts, canned heat, the gallery was lit well and

Reprised of such avant garde etchings and ink stained frameless sheets

The danger we face in the holocaust of immorality

Seethes in a tender heart, that innocent well

Deep and burrowed below the sands

Arresting and quiet

The perennials are coming back aren’t they

If you have to ask, you don’t understand art

Drawing dainty, scapes like fawns under the mother’s womb

Lambasted for perculiarity, loved for its color

Its my work, by hand, by subdued light, in early morning

Between love and coffee,

Bands and listlessness, the sounds of sex or the sounds of

The palette, to me neither is better, both equal

Weekends dumped and lost

After hours in stench soothed upper hallways

Windows create the look of the canvas only to

Threaten my own belief, day after day selling not me but my talent

Refused to gloat, but willing to satirize myself

The fear of anticipating rejection at the hands of the callous

Bones trickling through their hair, frost bitten contempt

For my work, hung with care, the light is such

They show too well

A damn good place in the scorned ferocity of city life

Competitively drowning by frame and dust, squander and

Penance

Did I pay my dues or do you just dislike my

Interpretation

Tomorrow again and next week again

Is the approval acceptance in the domain without

Precedence or just acceptance without reward for

Skill

You don’t love them but they are mine

The only thing I own is owed respect

Look with your own eyes and flourish praise on the rainbowed curtain

But never glance at me

For I am hidden in my work

Where I belong and want to be

Don’t ask me back again

BEING AWARE OF LIFE

WHILE NOT LIVING IT

We awake like parables

Prepared to enlighten and cause concern

To be read as an example of a good life

Learning and noticing

With books tightly clenched in our

Hands

We are friends aren’t we

Stilled by the varnish drying on the newly

Finished table I did for you

Or the rows of yellow and orange

Flowers that were planted like

Alphabetical chimes

We go to work, come home, sleep before the kids,

Do Sundays where we have more belief than the rest

Of the week, read and live our lives

In what we think is the modality of acceptance

But what of our hearts and dreams of magnificence

Of the detour you and I took years ago

All suspended

For us to live and raise our family

I was idle as you cherished

I was lonely while you were fulfilled

I was unnoticing while you were taking care of

The world we created

The latitudes don’t change, we do

The longitudes don’t change, we do

The course was set and has been

Listen to me now

When we walk alone

On either side of the long arched roads

Those trees we saw as green and took for granted

Are in their Autumn and will begin

Anew like us

In time

As we pass this season and look to another

WAITING

The world misjudged me

Or just forgot about me

Not knowing a thing about me

Or the pain

As we suffer -- mostly alone

Varieties of things mostly found

Lost again,

change

Unnoticed, impersonal

A silent disaster

Without a path to share

Like prisms without the sun

Chairs without legs

Roofs without walls

Roots without trees

Meaningless

Overcome by some strange distance

As if not connected to the world

You are your own beacon on an empty

Landscape

Reaching for the hand

The heart

The face

The voice

Listen well for in the ravages of storm days

Comes the ebb and the flow

Coasting in the meander

Adrift with a purpose of no purpose

Until the land appears once again

Judging from an open sea

IN A MOMENT BEFORE

TIME SHE CAME

The wind that swept by me before

Has swept me into it now

Unlike the quickness of a fleeting rain drop

Or the cunning of the flake of snow

But the glimpse here and then gone

Of a note played gently

On the instrument

In the field where nature plays

No sung has been sung

No poem written

No work of art painted

No story told

That can truly explain what

Things are left in me

In an old school yard

Where she played and I saw her

Or in the street when she crossed

In a hurried dash to catch a

Train

Or in a room with another

In my place and

Never knowing that my eyes had

Already seen her

Quietly

No world has been created

No language spoken

No life planned

Until this becomes

The story unfolding in her arms

And then mine

Toward that which we reach

Beyond where we are

I can do more than love you

But I can t love you more than I do

TRANSITIONS

If you the flower,

I the bee;

If you the shore,

I the Sea;

If you the tree,

I the leaves;

If you the locked door,

I

The keys

IF WE REMOVE

If we remove the time that

Surrounds each of us

We are left to devise in our way the

Nature of our lives in a compass

Passing through and passing on we

Become the fragile beauty

That lifts a sky or

Settles a storm

That flies away on the

Little children at curiosity

If we remove the bright aura

That quietly surrounds us

We see the inner glow of rapture

The serenity of so many generations

If we remove the facades

And the clutter from the high roof gutters

Where has been collected a lifetime of

Understandings

We remove the uncertainty

And follow the only

Path there

If we choose as we can

Then we remove the doubt

And start believing in that

Child again

Who sat so alone

And wondered

About his life

Just before it began

Two paths led into the wood Each took the same the best they could

Until one day when they were done They saw that two paths

Now were one

“When You Love, You Live:

When You Live, You Love”

About the Author

J R Simone is both an accomplished writer and Internationally known artist. He has

painted over 300 works and written more than 250 Poems, prose and short stories in his varied career

spanning forty years. He was a former partner of the late Lena Spencer, founder of the oldest

Sustaining coffee house in America that gave stage to such illuminaries as; Bob Dylan, Arlo Gurthrie, Tom Paxton, (Peter, Paul and Mary) Don McLean, Asleep at the Wheel,

Bucky Pizzereli,Emmy Lou Harris, Balfa Frere, Dave Van Ronk ( Bob Dylan’s mentor in NYC),The world famous

composer David Amram, Bobby Hacket, Robert Klein, Fireside Theatre, to name a few. Simone makes

his presence known in New York, Washington, DC, London and Virginia

He lives alone..