Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • Walking Shiva (Poem)

    In the early morning I walk,

    The streets still and dark before sunrise,

    The thud of footsteps audible as a heart beat,

    The plume of breath clouding briefly.

    I leave thoughts behind,

    No need of them during this short journey,

    And carry only grief as silent companion.

    A poor substitute indeed, for she would run down the hill,

    Fast and lithe as liquid joy, dancing until I caught up.

    Grief slows me, this knowledge

    That her dying body weighed so heavy.

    Perhaps that was just the fall of my heart-

    I had thought it hollowed- as it died with her.

    I return to the warmth of the apartment,

    And I am alone.

  • Because She Died On A Late Winter’s Noon (Poem)

    I won’t throw sorrow to the winter yet, to have

    Grief blown in gusts through chimney smoke

    Tears mingled with drizzle down window panes

    Loss fractured like hard rime on the windward ridge.

    I keep it close as I would keep her,

    In full knowledge that this mourning cloak

    Provides no warmth with its cold black folds.

    I will let it go in time

    That time when I no longer fear

    That without its harsh comfort I would shatter.

  • The Fact Of Your Absence (Poem)

    I know and I don’t

    I cannot catch up

    My mind stutters

    My heart falters

    My body seizes

    I leave but look back

    I can see you

    Just beyond the reach of my eye

    When I return

    Hand on the door to open

    Each beat of my heart

    Each breath that I take

    Says only

    Be there

    Be there

    Be there

    My tears know

    My tears are wisest

    My tears grant my forgetful entirety

    The bitter sting of kindness

    The salty reminder of grief

  • Relapse (Poem)

    Grief hits in so many ways.

    Today her cries of pain and the fall to the floor

    Have transformed me anew again.

    I am become a solid wooden thing,

    Heavy and stiff-moving yet somehow

    Still possessing a heart.

    This heart sounds like a paper ripped in half as it breaks.

    This heart feels like a knife stab in my chest as it beats.

    I want so much to ease your suffering,

    Would happily gather it into my body,

    But I can’t.

    So I’ll not let you see my distress

    But do what little, what pitifully little, I can.

    O my love, my dearest one,

    I’ll never regret you and our life together.

    But love can ask of us a terrible price,

    And mine to pay is the witness, the wait, and the question in your eyes.

    Please give me a little longer, I ask.

    I don’t know how to answer.

  • A New Year Perhaps (Poem)

    I can say nothing about a new year.

    When did it begin, and how did we know?

    I look back over the past few days,

    Seeking to recall that liminal space that others must have entered.

    I never was there, stood on no threshold,

    Took no step that had such transformative power.

    I attended a party organized to announce this event

    But must have glanced away during the crucial moment.

    My days look no different when I awaken;

    The sounds of the night hold no strange new tones.

    But that evening a stranger on an unfamiliar motorcycle

    Pulled in the driveway, met my eyes briefly, and then departed.

    Perhaps he was the transitionary herald, signaling change with a wave of his hand,

    Leaving nothing but the faintest slick of an oily rainbow

    To glisten on the cold pavement under the moon.

  • What Lies Underneath The Historic Brick Sidewalks (Poem)

    Walking is always a dangerous thing, and the local deities must have their due.

    We offer them pain and loss of face and hope they’ll be satisfied with scraped skin, blood, and shame.

    Sometimes they demand broken bones and suffering prolonged.

    Sometimes they ask for more, and the night fills with sirens and terrible grief.

    Visitors stride hand-in-hand, often conversing or gazing around.

    Residents tread with more guarded mien, knowing the area’s capricious cast.

    We bedeck the streets with flowers hung; place propitiatory wreaths on front doors.

    This illusion appeases us and thus we forget

    That hungry gods must always be fed and so presume to calculate our loss.

    We never think, “It will be my son. My mother. My dearest friend.”

    We never think, “It will be me.” We never think, “It will be all of us.”

    We never hear how the mountains shudder when death plays jigs

    On a cadaverous fiddle and laughs and laughs and laughs.

  • Why I Will Not Sleep (Poem)

    I want to sleep

    Eyes made heavy by the afternoon sky

    Gray clouds pregnant fat with snow or rain or both

    Hanging so low they scrape the trees

    Get caught on vines and utility wires

    That droop further from their weight

    I want to sleep

    Sink into the weariness of the year’s end

    Surrender stubborn wakefulness to winter’s sway

    Not think of anything needful for an hour or so

    Join her in a warm bed and rest

    The beat of her heart gets ever louder.

    Her breathing ever more labored.

    I listen and I listen and I listen.

    What I fear now is silence.

    I will not sleep.

  • Taking Temporary Refuge in Sextus Empiricus (Poem)

    Wearied by these discussions of things I cannot affect

    Storms darken the skies over mountains coasts plains deserts

    Bombs fall upon the helpless here and here and here

    Parties await the change of the year in metropolei cities towns villages

    Babies get born die people get sick die some recover all eventually die

    All sometimes just too much and I want to say stop of course nothing stops

    My primeval self-concept urges flight back to measured tranquility

    Suspension of belief wants immersion again in Skeptical therapeutics

    Indeed this provides a temporary respite but only that

    Now a different path engages me

    With this world other worlds the endless arguments that give them form.

  • The Chance To Sit Down (Poem)

    Because I’ve known hunger

    Been among those who go to eat among strangers

    Taking whatever food was offered and the chance to sit down

    Because I’ve known hunger

    Been among those who walk the streets in thrift-store coats

    Wishing desperately for a cup of hot coffee and the chance to sit down

    Because I’ve known hunger

    Been among those who get blamed for this and all our other lacks

    Wanting to tell our stories and the chance to sit down

    An empty belly gnaws at your hope in the future.

    The hard trudge through wintry streets lacerates your ability to breathe here and now.

    The dirty shame impoverishes your cling to self-worth.

    What price do you pay, and it’s harder than ever.

    I’d put benches everywhere. For a start.

  • The Lladro Bar Mitzvah Boy (Poem)

    For years I had a Lladro Bar Mitzvah Boy porcelain,

    Elongated, in gorgeous muted blue and cream.

    With each move I would wrap it carefully in newspaper and cloth

    And place it gently in its own separate box.

    Aside from its beauty that soothed my heart,

    It represented something might have been,

    Were I born to an earlier generation and a boy.

    Perhaps I would have worn a somber threadbare suit and yarmulke,

    A thin yeshiva bochur, always with my nose in a book.

    After one difficult transition I opened the box

    To find that it had finally cracked into several pieces,

    Too delicate to bear so many travels.

    Sometimes on a rainy winter’s day, I remember my Lladro

    And can almost hear the murmured thrum within the beit midrash

    As I study with others in the fading December light.