Hallway to Nowhere

  • For The Bereaved-And We All Sorrow (Poem)

    when the ground shakes in these uncertain times

    when the house no longer shelters from the moment’s storms

    when the heart breaks from all it’s asked to carry

    when tears fall faster than the flooding rain

    I would hold you

    enfolded in the expanse of silent regard

    with spacious kindness for your grief

    be a staff in the fog that surrounds the day

    a gentle warmth in night’s unseasonable chill

    I have mourned so many deaths and died so many times

    that this is now familiar space

    no presumption to guide, no offer but this

    walk beside you at your own pace

  • Where Do We Live Now

    when the simple acts of joy

    the sharing of music

    the announcement for a party

    the laughter over a silly joke

    these have become rebellious acts

    transgressions

    we ourselves have become the violation

    breaking the acceptable boundaries

    by doing nothing else than exist

    and then to be seen finding any happiness

    though it be taken from the slavering maw

    of unreasoning hate

    is met with rage at the sheer effrontery

    this is our fierce defiance

    that we go about our everyday lives

  • Seek Seek Do Not Seek (Poem)

    in one vibrating string hear every song you’ve ever heard

    a first tune softly hummed before you were born

    cryptic whimsy chanted when children play

    a deepening dip and soar as love makes its trek through time

    dolorous somber tones marking the shock of loss and death

    a wavering catch and wail for any lonesome season

    the unaccompanied steady beat beat beat

    when your heart fills the silent hour

    these all forever there-heard or not, it does not matter

    in the movement of that singular string, you can sit within each moment

    within that stillness that underlies

    every shaping sound, each noting measure

    and do nothing then but rest

  • Do Not Ask Where I Find Hope (Poem)

    petals so fragile they bleed from a gaze

    cover the ground as bruised pavement

    their colors darkening with every footstep

    sepia shading recalling other wounds

    those we hurry past and try not to see

    we all have blows we cannot escape

    cuts and marks and tender scars

    some heal and in their repair transform

    a sharpened jag becomes an expansive heart

    so that even the tear-strewn weary earth

    awash with wreckage from violent storms

    is suddenly overrun with flowers

  • Lesson Plan (Poem)

    a stone picked up on a walk

    gravelled bit torn from pavement

    common industrial dirt

    if I throw it into the waterlogged ditch

    what stories will leach into the weeds

    traveled myths rumbled from trucks

    tarsid dreams wiped by ants

    childhood memories slicked from my hand

    or will it sink to the bottom, at home in the tangled slime

    not needing to do anything at all

    let me be like that rock

  • Ignorance Indeed (Poem)

    I thought myself patient and wise, building this sturdy wall

    brick by hardened brick around my fearful precious self

    but that surround is made of glass and guards an empty space

    able to be shattered by any kind word

    every day I am cut by some sharp edge, some jagged self-delusion

    that I still grasp to use as mirror to see my face

    how long before I’ve bled enough to drop these shards

    let go such desperate need and rest

    no sight, no seeing, no being seen

  • I Let All Slip Away (Poem)

    existence itself diaphanous as a fine scarf

    found in an ancient trunk stored in some attic

    translucent as silk passed down through generations

    memento from a faraway war, gift for someone long forgotten

    knowledge made fragile now by weighted time

    one light breath can cause any fray to part

    one wept tear can rupture all the threads

    pieces falling as gently as life’s joys and sorrows

    a heartbreak, a whispered hope, a last daring dream

  • Lest Fireflies Become Extinct (Poem)

    I hold the beauty of your smile

    cupped in my hand, a glowing light

    take it gently into the evening hour

    when the sun begins to fade

    there under the branches of a leafless tree

    I open my fingers to allow it flight

    this other spark of love

    it flickers upwards into the sky

    joining all that star the night

    the kind gazes, the unexpected generous words,

    the endless compassionate acts

  • Then & Now (Poem)

    thought I would walk to the grocery

    the one down the road in the little white building

    might or might not be owned by a cousin

    he claimed to be and had the same name

    doesn’t mean much when you’re in the Deep south

    didn’t know I’d be walking forever

    all older now and slowing down

    oyster shell pavement still rough of an evening

    but where else to buy butter in this small town

    and a can of Rotel spicy of course

    weekend’s coming so cheese grits

    with hot hot tomato gravy

    first you make the roux…

  • Check The Almanac (Poem)

    what do we breathe like water

    gulp down like air

    plunging through catchless sky and seamless waves

    tossed without ceasing by riptides and wind

    each day each moment brings its own weather

    each morning we begin again

    learn to ride the hidden currents

    learn not to throw ourselves against the clouds

    or not, and arrive at night

    drenched and bruised by endless falls