Refraction

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/

Right Turns

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

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Inherent Danger

Looking out, it could be any other dawn

but for the frozeness I see and feel.

I am seeing spring grass beneath

the snow, recalling the rains of March.

There is a sense of what is missing 

is what I want though without

the blasphemy of not being where I am

in the only time I have.  Such sacrilege

is dangerous, as if I'm omnipotent

when I have only here and now -- that phrase

a koan of eternity, like the blood and breath

of the divine flowing through you and me.

It is a dawn like any other . . . almost

but for the deep cold, the urgent desire

it creates to hear and see the thunderstorms

of spring, birds landing in trees, their songs

mixing memories and dreams, how one

season longs for another before it's over.

How dangerous it is to be human.

-Byron Hoot

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Winter Sequence

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

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Photograph by Greg Clary

Photograph by Greg Clary 2020

Roses in a Vase

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

Lies

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 Us All

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

https://www.studioappalachia.com/crayonblindspot.html

Morning Love

The white pickup goes by at 7:10

each weekday morning.  

There’s nothing up the road

but where the blacktop turns to dirt,

scattered houses on the mountain, 

deer and chained dogs and feral cats

and posted and no trespassing signs.

I like to imagine a lover’s tryst,

the road going no-where leading

to a waiting heart, eyes looking 

out a window, hoping who has left 

will not return having forgotten 

something – discarded love

a long time ago. . . no memory to draw

him back.  The woman hums Love Lifted Me

as the white pickup pulls around back.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Art by Zach Baker

 

From Artist Zach Baker @https://www.instagram.com/studio.zachlectic/

Red Sky In the Morning

I am trying to understand my parents’

life from their point of view 

and keep overlaying it with my experience.

I am haunted by what they had,

by what I’ve lost and what I’ve found

so similar but for the language I cannot 

speak.  Their causal-serious acceptance

of mystery in all things great and small

and what they grasped from those moments

that could not be held for long never

weakening their grip.  I think of whatever

strength I may have as a gift.  The way 

they thought of life.  The way the red sky

on the horizon is this morning – 

being awake at the right time and place

to see such beauty and natural order.

They lived awake in the dream

of grace and salvation.  I admit to resurrections

in my life; another mystery

they embraced as if breathing.

They are three decades dead.

The hymn, Love Lifted Me, haunts.

The red sky of morning warning is now blue.

It is Sunday morning.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com