Photograph by Greg Clary

Photograph by Greg Clary 2020

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 The Champions Of The Idiot Antichrist

Pity the champions of the idiot antichrist 

for lifting greed's puppet 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 ignorance invisible to them through the waving of their desecrated flags and empty crosses, 
having elected their deceivers' ill conceived chaos in service of the greed of billionaires.

Pity the champions of the idiot antichrist as they share images of the Prince of Peace aiming an AK  with zero reflection of love in its dull finish, 
forgetting and forgoing 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 replace any connection to God they claim with adulation for their deceiver.

Pity the champions of the idiot antichrist for never feeling shame in their incomprehensible self-betrayal, 
as they ignore all reports of their exploitation, ignore the suffering of human beings, 
ignore the destruction of the very air, ignore the cries of warning in the public squares 
drowned out by the high tide of blind hatred in their hearts, stoked by their deceivers' lies. 

Pity the champions of the idiot antichrist, this legion of duped minions 
who bury truth with an avalanche of lies and attack the truthful at the bidding of their deceiver,  trying to end history, trying to extinguish anything and anyone resembling salvation, salvation from their folly, as their deceiver leads them toward suffering. 

Pity the champions of the idiot antichrist. Pity us all for the hell they bring, 

and VOTE them the HELL OUT.

-Will Found

https://blundervan.bandcamp.com/track/pity-the-champions-of-the-idiot-antichrist

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

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

The Monarchical Confederate

From Tudor’s blood,

the son of God appeared

when the crown was torn to pieces,

a regent limped in the rear.

 

Under the crown with Jacob

went Frederica’s daughter,

and Jacob created the church,

forty – year peace finally reigned in the state.

 

The duels quickly stopped,

the plebs reconciled with the baron,

justices of the peace appeared,

the stronghold of small landowners prevailed.

 

From lethargic sleep

The Royal Customs Service came to life,

The Hebrides islands first saw people

in time when white smoke was coming from the factory.

Canadian land will know «Nova Scotia»

the colonists swear for Irish fields,

Macdonald’s mutiny sank suddenly.

-Vyacheslav (Slava) Konoval

Conjuring

The wind moves the leaves.

The sun rises.

A scout crow caws.

A bluejay squawks.

I am trying to conjure

up a deer in my heart

to put before my eyes

so I can take a shot

but I think the pauses

between the words

of the incantation

are too short, do not

allow for the elongation

of meaning to seduce

the moment in its fullness.

My shaman says, “One

incantation a day.  Tomorrow’s

another day.” Grins. 

And I sit in a natural

blind starlings overhead 

in the branches, know 

sometimes the magic

works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Think I may be caught 

in some other incantation

the way I’m so hesitant 

to leave the spot I’m in.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Redemption

The first felt air on the body

is a baptism, the way the sky,

foregrounded by horizons –

north, east, south, and west –  

is holy communion, the whispered

urgency – “Take me as I am or lose

me forever!” the holiest of holy language.

The world and time are sacred

and we are in both offered

the only salvation that makes 

any sense -- Nature never saying, “Guilty”

but only, “Come unto me.”

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Long Past Recess

I go out and I take in

the funny and clever words

in rooms full of people

not even trying to hide

the schoolyard arrogance

that nobody ever grows out of

not even a schoolyard outsider 

climbing in the trees

beyond the monkey bars

long past recess

-Will Found

August 2024

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

Shamans

I don’t know if it’s one or two shamans,

dream and sleep, holding that silver needle

and golden thread that closes wounds 

to the heart and soul and mind with that 

cross-stitch that leaves a thin golden line 

that says, “In remembrance. . .” and my thumb

rubs over the scar holding time and experience,

some type of wisdom as the shamans

sing what Crazy Jane said to the bishop,

“For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.” and I start to sing along.

-Byron Hoot 

visit hootnhowlpoetry.com  

It Doesn’t Take Much To Make a Pulpit

The sparrow is on the pulpit of a small branch

which curves up slightly at its end.

I saw it fly and land and survey what it saw

including me looking out the screen door,

caught by its flight and landing,

its sense of not staying too long.

Now, a robin walks beneath the empty

pulpit and likewise is gone as if the sermon

of the day has something to do with impermanence,

how a moment can fit together and disappear

without that sense of loss, of bowing at what’s

been given however briefly forever lasts.   

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com