No Regrets Journal Summer 2017

No Regrets Journal

Summer 2017 Issue 21

No Regrets, a journal of poetry, prose and images about the exploration of being and meaning.

Clayton Medeiros, Editor, Poet, Photographer claymedeiros@aol.com Neil McKay (Johnny Trash), Webmaster Submissions are by invitation of the editor Epublishing http://issuu.com/claymedeiros/docs Facebook page No Regrets Journal, haikus poems and photographs https://www.facebook.com/NoRegretsJournal




Play of Life If we turned it all into acts one two three Would life gracefully cohere Provide a sense of what happened A rationale across disparate scenes Connected by being on the stage Written by...

Acted by...

Directed by...

Produced by...

Included in this year’s best of...

Winner of the award for‌




Sounds Life is filled with sounds Notes of morning noon night Endlessly lost as hours pass Then another day and another With its unique melody Once in awhile rare stillness




To Dream we dissect the day count up what’s owed what’s given what’s received note moments laughter sadness indifference perhaps all days simply bridge one dream to another




Promise Suddenly an unremembered promise Made in the past difficult to recall In this morning’s pale light drizzle Thoughtlessly spoken words with Distant unexpected consequences Said to someone no longer here Whereabouts no longer known Brought to mind from a photograph Found in a long unopened book Left on a shelf until today’s Random look for nothing in particular




Missed Train at some point in his life he missed the train never forgave himself he still doesn’t despite periodic desperate appeals his track record remains abysmal in spite of therapy in spite of jogging In spite of yoga in spite of agape in spite of eros in love out of love lost love for days for weeks for months here and there through the year to no avail




She she was so much herself it was difficult to encompass her if you hadn’t been there at the time if you hadn’t seen what she saw across the checkered years if you hadn’t listened to the stories of her friends from here and there known her with sons and daughters always a careful and intense listener with precisely selected words




Man Of The Street firmly planted in black Wellies oversized gray pants pulled up above the slim waist a well used tweed sport coat holds the damp morning at bay he stares out at the world glances uncertainly here and there as if a vision might suddenly appear explain everything’s seeming confusion




Why Not What if after the second cup of morning coffee a bit of another dimension leaked into the day disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

What if you thought you were dreaming, but the dream became reality the thought became the dream.

What if when morning fog slowly lifts from the bay The island silhouettes were no longer there A distant horizon was all that remained What if the novel you were reading suddenly Stopped mid sentence before the final chapter Would you write your own ending

Numinous If accused of being numinous Could you be esoteric In a hooded cloak Indifferent to Others’ questions Leave them to chose Among possible identities A spirit from a parallel world Disturbing the harmonics Among distant galaxies An oracular prophet Ready to convey Once secret knowledge In a consequential time




Mystery it seemed to start as a day like any other of no particular week month or year a day when the sun rose the sun set but somewhere hidden among the hours a gate purposefully left open someone or something trying to enter this particular space and time 




Yes and No Nothing special just one of those moments Existence erupts into creation stories Collapses into apocalyptic dystopias Once in awhile a simple compatible stasis Of belief in momentary reality Concretized to the science of the day Spiritualized to the faiths of the day As the universe rushes To the edge of time and space




Intergalactic Concerns aliens may know we are here but chose not to interact with our history’s chaos even though they heard the sound of the kiss on the gold record that travels with the twin Voyager Spacecrafts on their journey through the galaxy