Hallway to Nowhere

Poems

Blog

  • Nolichucky (Poem)

    will you mourn if you kill a river

    the murder of water is no small thing

    money and war do not sustain life

    when you were a child thirsty from the noon day heat

    did you drink down a glass of clanking coins

    when you washed your hands dirty from grime

    did you run them under a show of force

    when you grew your fields green with food

    did you irrigate them with destructive toys

    perhaps you do fill your cup with dollar bills

    pile your plates with war planes and bombs

    making yourself gaunt withered unaware

    when you are dying and long for one last cooling sip

    you’ll moisten your parched throat

    with the only thing left to flow

    poison that will kill us all

  • Dwells In The Heart (Poem)

    a shadow passing over the moon

    one cast by radiance from the sun

    the shining joy of constant regard

    and each orb’s glow is ever seen

    as night follows day and back again

    what we know is not obscured

    sorrow not to be eschewed

    treasure it as reminder

    remember always remember love

  • Look For These (Poem)

    shadows stretched so far by the light

    become broken into pieces

    dark fragments picked up by crows

    tool makers, thieves of secrets, and other corvids

    stolen wisdom hidden

    in the shatters and tatters of shade

    these slipped between bricks in the sidewalk

    stones in the walls, cracks in the street

    find one and take it home to the night

    who knows what reward you will find in a dream

  • This is What It Means (Poem)

    to be here, to walk the cold streets

    to enter a busy shop, to sit at the windswept market

    kindness a delicate net fashioned with intent

    to hold the butterfly of a smile

    there it is, just now, and as you walk away

    you feel the brush of wings upon your heavy heart

    and let it open like a child’s outstretched hand

    ready with wonder for what alights

  • What You Thought Lost Returns (Poem)

    this happens at any age

    some do not live to be older

    you lift a cup to your mouth

    but it is now filled with these

    a jagged brown capybara tooth

    your grandmother’s pocket knife

    an arcade token for the pinball machine

    a handkerchief that still smells of pomade

    you pour them out onto the table

    run the memories through your fingers

    then realize you’ve been lost in time

    your hands are wet with tea

    your face wet with tears

    the sound of the falling rain

    washes through the night

  • Layered Tegmen (Poem)

    darkness moved upon my skin

    quick as the eyes of the birds that waited

    perched above me in the dripping trees

    fluid as the fast moving snakes that swam

    to keep me company in the estuarial brine

    I left my childhood on those banks

    draped careless as a wornout shirt

    then walked away with this unseen coating

    that called out wherever I lived

    the rich soil of the Delta answered

    by offering the hardworn notes of the blues

    those sank into my veins along with Sh’ma Yisroel

    that hung in air like candle flame in the hot humid night

    the mountains also gave their response

    skies so lowering and gray with rain

    like night itself had come to drench me with bits of coal

    grimed this textured tattoo

    with the wail of a fiddle wrapped around it

    barbed and rusty as old fence wire

    older now I wonder what next

    my adamantine sediment will attract

    some silver flecks to shine like laughter

    some precious gems to recall love

  • 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