Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • That Scented Candle Burns Down The World (Poem)

    What do you expect?

    Niceties and pretty words

    Tied round into a neat bouquet,

    Bound with sweet sentiment?

    Look elsewhere then.

    You can find this with ease

    On shop placards and inspirational clothing.

    I do not provide that facile comfort

    Or join my voice to the specious clamor.

    Only seek my work if you care to find

    The hidden barb that wakes us in the night,

    The grinning skull that lives within our mirror,

    The sharp dagger we carry behind our backs.

    Kindness, beauty, and truth dance around us,

    Held in the cries of dying children,

    The perfumed stench of garbage mounds,

    And the glint of light off the barrel of a gun.

    We turn back to our familiar dramas, our distracting entertainments,

    our serious gardening, our daily concerns.

    We forget, forget, and forget again.

    Of course we do, in our commonplace struggles.

    Still this knowledge remains.

    I won’t write it away.

    Not even for your smile.

  • How We Go Then, You And I (Poem)

    No pair of ragged jagged claws

    No scuttling across the ocean’s floor

    But this

    A handful of brilliant stars

    Flung against the dark expanse

    Only for one moment

    But that moment forces to no crisis

    A brief nothing yet everything

    Glittering web of emptiness

    Oh there will be time, there is no time

    No decisions no revisions

    This breath that pauses the sole measure

    It is now it is now it is now

    So dare to ask any question

    The universe is not disturbed

  • Journey Home (Poem)

    I walked with the night’s darkness

    Draped on my shoulders.

    It hung with ragged edges

    And glimmers of stars.

    I chewed on their bitter words,

    Spitting out the husks of judgement

    And swallowing the knowledge

    Of my own harsh disdain.

    Such a winding trail I followed,

    Marked by obscured delineation and forgotten counsel

    Lured by whispers of elegiac chorus.

    With each step I crushed the bones underfoot

    And they laughed as they fragmented

    Into the minutiae of lives past, present, and future.

    So familiar, for they were mine.

  • The Bridge (Poem)

    Building bridges is all well and good.

    But now I stand on my carefully constructed arch.

    I’ve posted signs with arrows:

    This way! Cross the river here!

    And I wait. Day turns to night turns back to day.

    No travelers approach; no farmers with laden carts;

    Not even a wandering dog.

    My bridge becomes a meaningless edifice,

    Born of futile hopes for utility and community aid.

    I spent a considerable portion of life’s time and energy

    To its design, placement, and function.

    Sadly I arise, glance backwards once, and depart.

    Perhaps someday someone will find it of use.

  • Anomie (Poem)

    This is what happened.

    I went to cross the street.

    I took one step off the curb.

    I was in a different country.

    I did not know the people.

    I could not understand them.

    I read their kindness in their eyes.

    I hope they saw the same in mine.

    I wandered lost on empty streets.

    I listened to hear familiar birdsong.

    No avail, no avail.

    I turned to see a passing train.

    I crossed the tracks.

    I stumbled on the uneven road.

    I was once again on familiar ground.

    Nothing had changed.

    Except me.

    I am a stranger now.

    Unseen, unheard.

    My footprints disappear in the grass.

  • The Slave Laughs At The King’s Jewels (Poem)

    and in your time of glory,

    be it a public triumph with roaring crowds

    or a small glance at a crafted ring,

    where do you go?

    dip deeply into life’s pleasures and sorrows,

    seeking to outrun the whisper of mortality?

    memento mori, so live to the limits?

    measure your days with careful judgement and thoughtful speech,

    the better to hold lightly to this life?

    gam zeh yaavor, so consider consequences?

    either way, you die.

    /

  • Cart (Poem)

    I come now to the end.

    The harness that binds me fast to the cart

    Of this changing world has loosened.

    I glance backwards once

    To glimpse the detritus of my life lived:

    The tattered loves, shopworn dreams, and bitter hopes.

    Turning, I shrug off the fraying bonds

    And step away from all I’ve held, such a dear heavy burden.

    Lighter and with an easier breath,

    I laugh, snap my fingers, and disappear.

  • A Mother’s Love (Poem)

    There might have been love.

    Silent, hidden, uncommunicated.

    When I searched your face,

    I found disapproval and disdain.

    Shyly I brought you such treasures as I could find:

    Brilliantly-hued leaves, pearlescent shells, and velvety feathers.

    But they did not suffice your attention,

    Swept aside in heedless abandonment.

    Shamed by this, I tried anew with wondrous stories,

    Carefully crafted to hold your presence.

    Even if just for a minute.

    These too passed unnoticed and unheard.

    Despairing, I had little left to offer.

    In grief I gave the last remaining gift:

    My life poured out, so to remove my offending presence.

    Perhaps you felt a brief fleeting warmth

    As you burned me to the ground.

  • Asphalt and Agamemnon (Poem)

    Again I walk the loneliest streets,

    Stumbling over the rough pavement

    Or perhaps my own grief.

    I listen to the clangor

    Of the railroad being rebuilt

    And wonder if I could do that

    With the worn out structure of my heart.

    I shake my head at this and say no.

    Now I’m drinking black coffee in a bare room,

    Reading the savage words of Aeschylus

    And occasionally pausing to look out the window

    At the vast indifferent city night.

    This is where I’ve always lived.

    This is where I’ll die.

  • Solace In Desuetude (Poem)

    I walk on crumbling pavement in derelict streets

    To gaze upon abandoned buildings with boarded doors

    And dusty signs that advertise sorrow for closure.

    I travel to the overgrown fields

    To visit wakes of vultures with avid mien

    And clamorous geese that fly overhead to nowhere.

    The lowering skies and threatening clouds provide refuge

    For a journeyer such as I, hooded in gray and solitary.

    When all ground is unsteady and every kindness a threat,

    I take comfort in the evidence of decay.

    With knowledge of such dark glory, can misery abide?