Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • As The Branches Bare (Poem)

    shadows in the trails now discard their secrets

    ones they’ve gathered from migrating birds

    industrious squirrels, and scurrying insects too small to see

    these fall to rest in colorful array among leaves

    there to slip into stories of unsuspecting travelers

    walkers, through-hikers, and bikers on their way too quickly

    so that when they next talk in casual conversation

    or even engage in discourse profound

    their speech will be changed by the lives of others

    intangible subtle different threads

    memories woven together with those of spiders

  • The Mirror (Poem)

    look across the span of time

    back at the child you think you were

    a memory that walks beside you

    a song you heard sung every day

    a breakfast you ate each morning

    there was a boy, a girl, a youth once

    a song and a favored food

    how do you know that one was you

    how do you know what happened

    you have never seen your own face

  • For L In These Early Days (Poem)

    your heart, so full of love, so full of grief

    cannot prepare for absence

    will not allow to you to sit at the table

    alone and say, she will not sit here again

    it insists that this cannot be so, this void

    looks away determined that she waits

    one footstep away from entering the room

    and if only you look at just the right moment

    she’ll walk in to pull out her chair

    the fullness of this daily act so simple, so dear

    that without it, the silence swallows all

    still you hear your overflowing heart, your stubborn heart

    crack and crack and crack

  • Can You Be Happy In The Rain? (Poem)

    not the light mist that conjures rainbows

    not the dancing shower that spaces the drops

    but the hard rain that buckets from gray clouds

    so that a creek flows over your boots in the street

    the wind gusts water through any attempted cover

    you arrive home clothes heavy with water

    hair wetted to your head glasses useless from fog and smear

    then there are these

    a gardener rejoicing over his drenched hay

    hay that is filled with thirsty seeds

    a new owner’s excitement over his pizza

    with imported flour, cheese, and imaginative flair

    the glances on the sidewalk between hurrying strangers

    momentarily connected by sodden condition

    my several mishaps have been greatly outweighed

    I was happy in the rain

  • Meditation, A Dream

    unsteady girders, beams askew

    held together with rusting bolts

    the enclosing shroud of night

    I place my feet carefully

    feeling the structure’s sway, the swing

    the innate tremble of existence itself

    no end no beginning just each step

    one breath and the stars above

  • Autumn (Poem)

    broken sodden things, these leaves

    discarded dreams of what might have been

    sunsets we failed to see because we did not look

    another chance given in red and gold debris

    still we must choose to see

    else walk heedlessly as in the midday heat

    taking for granted the moment offered

    a season so brief, this pause before winter

    a caesura if at all

  • What Catches The Eye (Poem)

    a bird perched on a limb seeks to attract

    with gaudy-hued feathers and bright orange beak

    taking wing after a quick scold with beady-eyed glance

    look at me look at me look at me

    his showy antics and plumage implore

    but my attention is caught

    by one wild strawberry so red it cannot hide

    though it tries, self-effacing and humble

    alone on the the embankment sloping to the road

  • What Once Was Home (Poem)

    though I know ghost roads of this town

    stories of hidden bones

    burnt ruins of forgotten churches

    bloodied shame of certain corner lots

    I am once again a stranger here

    warily walk unfamiliar ways

    finding small welcome or recognition

    not significant enough to be granted

    even a visitors pass

  • Family Property (Poem)

    a statue in the overgrown yard

    hard blank eyes staring into the trees

    wind-blown leaves drifting like easy lies

    fallen arm half-buried by the plinth

    rough at the break but hand intact

    ants crawling over the fist still clenched to hit

    once monumental now barely noticed

    time relentlessly consequential

    savaging statues and makers alike

  • What Brings Us Home (Poem)

    on the train through the mountains, I leaned my head

    to watch the window fill with autumn color

    blue grays of rocky outcrops and infinitely variable skies

    greens browns and brilliant golds of turning trees

    but what caught my attention most and snagged into my heart

    an unwitting hook that would bring me back

    were slender fiery-hued leaves, living tongues of flame

    they burned like words I would one day remember

    finally I speak them because I am home

    I see these leaves now in the fields where I walk

    hooks no more, but warm familiar friends