Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poetry

  • A Complicated Death (Poem)

    How to mourn you?

    Only with detachment can I find room

    For kindness and compassion towards you.

    You struggled just as all do,

    And I wish to think you did your best.

    Some of your actions and words still linger with gray-tinged hurt,

    But now I can feel sorrow over these rather than resentment.

    When I speak at your service,

    I will recount one of the few memories I have

    That cast you in your best light.

    May you find in this death peace from suffering,

    An end to chasing illusory dreams, and the fade of your red anger.

    I laid down the burden of these long ago.

    Now may you do the same.

  • Elegy (Poem)

    What makes a life well-lived?

    We see but the observable evidence

    In the actions and words that the departed left behind.

    Thus we judge accordingly.

    The landscape of their inner life remains their private domain,

    Albeit hinted at in the detritus that remains.

    We make our surmise from these scattered sherds,

    With knowledge that this reflects more our experience.

    We hope that those who’ve gone did have these:

    Joy and love and happiness and peace.

    Let us grant them that as we lay them to rest

    Using our memories of them for the healing of the world.

  • Transmutation (Poem)

    I stand in the storm and raise my face to the sky.

    One quick shiver, and I deliquesce.

    Not disappearance but metamorphosis.

    I swirl into the clouds to join the downpour.

    There is rain, and there are tears.

    I fall as both, to water the ground

    And touch your dreams with sorrow.

  • Precarious Ground (Poem)

    Right now I walk so uncertainly

    With little knowledge of what will cause me to fall.

    I can talk to a stranger with ease

    But then a smile makes me flee to cry in shadows.

    How to navigate this mercurial terrain baffles me.

    The world shifts without warning,

    While so also does my ability to adapt.

    I had the illusory notion I could cope well.

    This has fled, as I struggle once more.

    How do I give thanks for this reminder of impermanence,

    When I feel thrown back into depression’s embrace?

    Surely some of my study and practice will stay

    To provide a steadying influence while I falter through my day.

  • Cry Sorrow, Sorrow, Yet Let Good Prevail (Poem)

    I do not fear the monsters of this world.

    I have long familiarity with these.

    Depression, anxiety, and their coterie

    Have almost been my family.

    I dwell in comfort with such dark beasts.

    What has the ability to undo me entirely are the beings of light:

    Kindness, consideration, and their kin.

    The afflictive malfeasants offer predictable torment

    That at times seems almost a shelter.

    I can hide with them from myself and the world.

    Venturing into lambency that flickers with uncertainty

    I find an often frightening task.

    To see others is one thing;

    To be seen in turn unsettles me in the extreme.

    Still I take up this challenge,

    With the words of Aeschylus giving me strength.

    And the company of monsters ever at hand.

  • Where I Am (Poem)

    If I truly wish for all beings to be happy and free from suffering,

    I must apply this also to myself.

    At the moment, with my physical being wracked by pain

    And my mind clouded by bleak depression,

    I find this to be a difficult task.

    Equanimity towards my own state is a struggle.

    Occasionally I relax into spaciousness and acceptance.

    But old patterns return again and again

    To obscure my view and murk the light.

    Sometimes I can see that these are illusion and let them go;

    Other times I grasp them tightly as old familiar friends.

    Indeed, they once were ropes that tethered me in safety.

    So rather than judging them (and myself for holding on to such),

    Let me honor their place, grant them gratitude,

    And treat them gently with kindness.

    I walk the path I do in knowledge that it looks the same

    But, like everything, is always changing.

    I still stumble and even fall. The rocks that bruise me

    Appear like the stones from yesterday and before, even unto the distant past.

    Yet when I pause to see, after the pain of impact, they are not.

    I take hold again of my stick, pull myself up, and even take in

    The glorious colors of the trees and sky and listen to the wind.

    I walk on with my usual unsteady gait until the next halt.

    This is where I am.

  • The Illusion of A Chair (Poem)

    Consider this wooden object.

    This is a chair. You say.

    But is it? I ask. What makes it so?

    This! And you sit upon it.

    Ah, I see. But please arise.

    I place my tea cup and notebook upon it.

    Now, still a chair? Or has it transformed into a table?

    I remove them.

    Would you please retrieve that book from a high shelf?

    You then stand upon the sturdy item.

    It has become a stepladder.

    What magic is this?

    Thus is all.

  • Rocks On The Path (Poem)

    I am grateful for all I encounter in this life

    But I bow in most gratitude to the difficulties.

    Like stumbling upon a rock on a path,

    They cause me to stop and pay attention.

    Look, they say. Open your eyes and see what is here.

    Then I remember to do so.

    Oh, my walk is like this now?

    I smile, breathe, and continue on.

  • Flight (Poem)

    I open the door and step out.

    I walk among fantastical beasts of rainbow hues

    That dance in flight and shimmer with the sun.

    I reach up to seize a passing cloud and ascend into the sky-held throng.

    My many wings unfurl with grace and soar me into the air.

    I am not bound by all you thought you knew of me

    Or even by what I considered of myself.

    I am magical indeed with chimerical form and abilities untold.

    As are you and you and you; as are we all.

    Blink your many arcane eyes and enter the revelry!

  • Cataclysm (Poem)

    How do I construct a world?

    The very sky is ever-shifting with shadow and light.

    The earth beneath moves and trembles.

    The lines of existence are in flux.

    Dreams fly apart and come together in unrecognizable forms.

    Past and present spiral and flow in mutable streams.

    Any certainty slips through my hands like liquid sand.

    But glorious songs weave through the cracks in hope.

    So I celebrate nonetheless.