Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • The Photograph ( #4 PouncePunk25)

    the fire sped through with efficient speed

    taking everything in its hot maw

    leaving the only fallen bricks of the wall

    and this on the ashy floor beneath a dirty boot print

    a black and white photograph, torn at one edge

    taken of the house just after it was built

    empty yet of anything but anticipation for years ahead

    constructed by a frame of dreams and hopes

    those laid waste and now in charred ruin

    though the scent of burnt memories still hung in the air

    as I picked it up, I silently asked it

    did you know somehow what lay ahead

  • Frantic (#3 PouncePunk25)

    though certain events press us to be frantic

    and the marketplace is busy with worry

    remember this is always so

    and likewise there is always an antidote at hand

    let the winter season that rests the field rest your mind

    since you must walk with care, pay even closer attention

    each step its own journey, a remarkable gift

    stop for a moment, let your eyes gaze with new sight

    open your ears to hear without immediate judgement

    feel how you occupy that particular space

    you might find the fence post or street corner

    changed because you changed

    in such small ways do we transform the world

    peace by peace by peace

  • Crystalline ( #2 PouncePunk25)

    and let the rain fall from the sky

    run down my face to hide my tears

    these so concentrate with sorrow

    they drop to the ground as glistening gems

    each one shot through with silken filaments

    fissures of experienced compassion

    that fractured open my heart’s facade

    these rise around me a crystalline mountain

    shining to return light wherever it be found

    and the flowing streams around this calm

    radiance dancing from surface to surface

    even the weighted lowering clouds gain relief

    their burden thereby transformed

  • Fight (Pouncepunk 25)

    I was never to his war

    bloodied land, rubbled homes, shrieking wounded

    but he brought it home to me upon my doorstep

    the ugly desperation of those who returned

    so haunted by not dying that death trailed them

    whispering constantly names of the killed

    it’s only the wind I told him again and again

    he could not hear me through the endless moan

    until one night I learned how heavy a gun can be

    when you remove it from a limp hand

    how futile comfort offered seemed

    against the stark reality of a bullet casing

    I never heard the shot

    how do I say he lived, when he never left the fight?

  • The Dead (Poem)

    do not tell me the dead do not change – they do, for I have seen this myself

    they morph and writhe just as the living, and just as seldom rest in peace

    we hold them tethered here in loving bonds or bitter chains

    we do not let them go beyond

    those who lay beneath the ground, burn into smoke and ash

    have their bones picked clean by birds

    but leave behind no one to grieve, they moved in such silent ways

    though they might have done inestimable good

    these will be the truly free

  • Beautiful Poisons (Poem)

    but look! there upon the shelves in bottles of iridescent glass

    are arrayed the beautiful poisons, there displayed to dazzle the attention

    five lustrous containers, their very appearance preoccupies

    I remove one to drink my fill, then heady with ignorance I reel and fall

    to find myself within the calm eye of the storm hearing the destructive winds turn into laughter

    with a snap of my fingers this disappears, and I return the vessel to the shelf

    I am neither a dot nor an enclosing line but both and space itself

    poisons, like demons, are not to be feared

    befriend them, for they are more helpful than gods

    remember what treasures they are

  • Time In January (Poem)

    though I would like to hold time in my hands

    cradled to gaze into its prismed fragile depths

    I would be shattered by what I would see

    the ordinary moments with the power to undo

    the icy fragment of morning slicking the pavement

    the juddering echoes of the bone white moon

    the sharp blink of a crow’s eye destroying across January’s eons

    the sudden crack of a gunshot felling one hapless deer

    and somewhere else men are falling dead

    these passing brief are already too hard to know

    I cannot repair with my current meager tools

    myself being in constant dissolution and dissolve

    unbecoming and mostly not there

  • Quandary and Answer (Poem)

    as a child, I often considered where to place my grief

    if I buried it deep in the ground, I feared what might arise in season

    a poisonous plant, a nest of spiders, a revenant with sightless eyes

    if I threw it into the sea, I knew it would wash ashore somewhere

    a killing algal bloom, a stinging jelly, a jagged sharp of broken glass

    if I sent it upward into the sky, I thought of all that could already destroy

    a hurricane, a flooding rain, toxic smoke from nearby mills

    and could not add to these because I knew what it was not to be able to breathe

    in the end I decided best to keep my sorrow and make it a friend

    the world had woe enough

  • The Vixen’s Stay (Poem)

    and when sorrow comes unbidden

    makes herself a nest inside your day

    a dolorous vixen in her natal den

    ready to birth more woe

    allow her a resting place

    a brief tender acknowledgment

    grief ignored has sharp teeth

    will bite to remind you she’s there

    you do not have to make her your own

    she arrived so likewise can leave

    you gave gracious shelter without offer of harm

    bid farewell and let her depart

    watchful for the next to arrive

  • Callie’s Gift (Poem)

    in those first months in a glassine box

    tethered to life by tubing machines

    I lived, died, returned over, over, and yet again

    what brought me back so many times

    determined to breathe with half-formed lungs

    and one day open my eyes

    your hand gentle , your voice soft

    your constant abiding for a stranger’s child

    all these were reason enough, a precious gift

    I have carried with me through the years

    your example of vast expansive love

    I hope I share it well