inflicted by their ignorance “
*Rap generated using a poem and AI @
https://suno.com/song/be6d4b23-c073-45b0-84c9-8431fa8d50b2?sh=mhfSTqiUfisq6kPq
Dark Horse brings Poets and Artists together to further encourage Poetry and the Arts in the Appalachian region (and beyond) and to support Coal River Mountain Watch. For electronic publication information contact studioappal@gmail.com
inflicted by their ignorance “
*Rap generated using a poem and AI @
https://suno.com/song/be6d4b23-c073-45b0-84c9-8431fa8d50b2?sh=mhfSTqiUfisq6kPq
I listen to the blues as though I’m
in church. Something sacred about
broken hearts seeking what
has been lost, the promise of music
to guide the soul like Virgil guiding
Dante. I am not musically inclined
but I’m inclined to hear the hybrid
harmony of the human and divine,
each knowing the despair of the other,
the unspoken promise grief holds.
The fact that music can be made
from stories of our broken hearts.
The fact the river of love never runs dry.
-Byron Hoot
As I am dying, day by day, always
a subtraction of living added to memory,
the dreams of my youth, the same dreams
nightly still given to me, as I approach
the uncertainty with certain steps and breath,
I greet the day with that cry that feels more
like prayer – “It is a good day to die!”
in the holy language of what is true needing
no divine inspiration for its holiness.
My heart and soul open, my eyes, too, trying
to catch by sight the seen and the unseen
complete in the prism of sunlight, rainbow
of delight after storms have passed.
It is nearly spring, so easy to believe
in resurrections without being dead
forever, three nights will do and hearing
angels sing, “He’s not here” in perfect
harmony in some hybrid of hymns
and blues as I dance just on the other
side of the graveyard just out of view
forever, forever, and forever whispering,
“You come, too.”
-Byron Hoot
https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/
It is almost overwhelming,
especially at the end of winter,
the beginning of the mud season
when endings and beginnings are
not far apart and the roads and
streets hold memories as if
they are waiting for me to drive
on them, look and see what time
has done. I drive on them now
and again, take in a deep breath,
let out a deeper sigh. Remember what
turns to make so I don’t get lost.
-Byron Hoot
Winter Sequence
1
I saw nine deer on a hillside,
as if in a still-life painting,
move as if a murmuration
of starlings.
2
One bird the day before,
two yesterday on roads
I drive regularly.
A change is coming.
3
I drive on tire tracks
in the snow on the road
that takes me home
as if the snowplow can do nothing.
4
The tracks in the snow
before my porch. . .
deer, coyote, feral cat
nighttime visits.
5
I am in the dark waiting
for sunrise. A daily ritual.
It’s taken the place of prayer –
an answer always comes.
6
I wish I could read the tracks
across my heart as easily
as the tracks in the snow –
winter’s gift.
7
I am seeing ghosts almost
as easily as I see shadows.
One often blending into
the other – dreams, memories, desires.
8
I consider the best way
to keep warm in winter.
My heart scoffs, says,
“Don’t forget me."
-Byron Hoot
Fresh red roses gifted crisp in a shiny crystal vase,
Deflated balloon danced gaily on its bobbing string,
Yet, spent no time or change for late night dates
Or other stale, male-female things.
Dry- bent stems flatter-chattered their small talk cheap.
Eyes saddened dull cried their cruel half-truth lies.
Stare-glare glances pierced hearts drowned in trance-deep sleep
As tender petals withered brittle, tumbled pity-parched to dry .
Gripping death shriveled crippled, dripping its unfelt cold,
Against a strain-wrinkled, pain-crinkled face,
As pink waned to brown, bitter romance waxed old,
Mere dead rose tokens in a broken, ring stained vase.
~P.S. Colley
April 1989
Rev. Dec. 2024
Love
isn't
energy
spent carelessly
Living
ignorant
effortless
shallow fantasies.
Love
is
encouragement and
security.
Isn't it ?
~P.S. Colley
April 1989
Revised: Nov. 2024
Cries of the Unheard
Pity the Antichrist's duped followers as they lift the Antichrist to power once again, pulled by lies that hook their hate-disposed hearts, their reason put to sleep, the harm to the world inflicted by their folly invisible to them through the waving of their desecrated flags and empty crosses as they elect their deceivers' ill conceived chaos in service of the greed of billionaires, as they share images of the Prince of Peace sportin' an AK with zero reflection of God off its dull black finish, as they defecate on the American dream of the Founding Fathers, blind to proven crimes done before their eyes, swearing to accelerate the destruction wrought by greed's foul reign, oblivious to the nature of evil, as they supplant any connection to God they might have had with adulation of their deceiver, never feeling the shame in their incomprehensible self-betrayal, as they ignore all reports of their exploitation, ignore the suffering of human beings, ignore the destruction of their very air, ignore the cries of warning in their public squares drowned by the high tide of blind hatred in their misappropriated hearts stoked by their deceivers' lies. Now this legion of duped minions is poised to bury truth and attack the truthful at the bidding of their deceiver, poised to end history with lies, poised to extinguish anything and anyone resembling the Messiah, as their deceiver leads them toward suffering. Pity them. Pity us all for the hell they blindly bring.
-Will Found
"Pity the champions of the idiot-antichrist for lifting greed's puppet to power once again, pulled by lies that hook their hate-dis...