Hallway to Nowhere

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  • 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?