ON HEARTSONGS

Remembering Philip Church & Mattie Stepanek

Thank you Jeni Smith Stepanek for reposting this poem

ON HEARTSONGS

Dedicated to Poet Mattie J. T. Stepanek

PHILIP KENT CHURCH

~

There’s a wondrous place, when seen in context,

Which exists and then passes, before the speaking of a word,

It lies just beyond what’s occurred, and what happens next,

And if one listens carefully – it’s where ‘heartsongs’ are heard.

The notions of past and future are merely what we insist,

Both the last moment and the next are beyond our affect,

The truth is, this moment is the only time we actually exist.

And only have the here and now where we can have effect.

Vain-glorious pursuits can become so self-defeating.

When a heart’s songs are recorded, be wise as sages,

Bearing in mind - both riches and fame are fleeting.

Heartsongs must be inscribed to stand the test of ages.

Be still and listen in your heart for the echo from above,

Listening close in a peaceful moment of no fear or panic,

You can hear the heartsongs - recognized for their love,

And join the ranks of ‘peace-makers’ –

Like MATTIE STEPANEK!

https://www.facebook.com/Philip-Kent-Church-1409887615889348/

On a Curve

Once and only once, on a road I

drive with a certain frequency,

and I am surprised that the coincidence

has not repeated but what do I know,

a beautiful woman sat on the steps 

of a porch in need of paint, her long 

legs almost reaching the sidewalk,

a rendition of Rodin’s The Thinker,

relaxed, the house on a curve close 

to the road beside a bar where it’s said 

David Allen Coe once played.  Her beauty

in sharp contrast to everything around.

Her presence, her beauty, 

ordered that place and time,

embedded the moment in me

like a glimpse into eternity.

Maybe I didn’t know how great the contrast

was, her dreams of leaving or staying 

in a different way, the grace that emanated 

from the moment I passed by and she

caught my eye, she neither young nor

old the way beauty sometimes teeters 

in time.  Yesterday, I passed that curve,

that house, that bar, that porch empty. 

-Byron Hoot

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

Black mouth Prophet

Black mouth prophet growls vaguely

in the languishing silence,

destroying the peace

of a sleeping homeless person.

 

He conceiving a grudge against sparrows,

an old assessor of a million city,

shoots a passer – by’s dog by eye.

***

A prickly scout

in search of forest truth

glistened with little eyes,

He raises a sharp nose.

 

Having limped on the dorsal spears

of red – cheeked apple prey,

the prickly animal disappeared from the horizon.

-Vyacheslav (Slava) Konoval

Radio

She searches the radio
for a night song
a blend of Texas and new age
her room lit up by holographic bingo lights

she plays dice
emptying her woe out the window
singing along:

“Be kind to your disguises
Be kind to your sins
Be kind to each other...Amen.”

-Nancy Pontius

https://soundcloud.com/ketogah

Earthbound

It may be smoke from a wood stove

inside the house across the road

on the other side of the pasture

lingering in the air like prayer 

incense not certain how high it 

wants to rise, as if there are some

prayers only the earth can answer.

I like the way smoke or fog or mist

gets caught in the tops of trees

like Eros grasping after Psyche,

clutching the edges of the cloak

saying, “Stay.  Please stay.”

So I think of the prayers I have

wasted offering them to heaven

when they wanted to be earthbound,

the answers before my eyes, under

my feet, already in my heart.

-Byron Hoot

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

No Reply

My body knows the lullaby of eight hours.

Less or more shows in the waking,

the tone and tenor of the day,

the accord or discord.

Which brings me to how does the body

know what the mind can’t seem

to grasp?  This quickly replacing 

any other koans I know.  

Which draws out the question 

of spirit.  That place of other 

sense, of where logic lies 

gasping for breath.  Where words

dissolve into laughter.

I don’t even know the words 

to the lullaby.  My mind asks, 

“What are you doing?”

I reply. “What are you doing?”

No reply.  And that tells me something.

 

Hootism:  you can’t deny where you’re from and still be who you are.

-Byron Hoot

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

Art by Eleph Myrrh

 

Art by Eleph Myrrh  https://eleph-myrrh.mailchimpsites.com/painings 

Pity The Champions by 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-disposed hearts, their reason put to sleep, the harm to the world inflicted by their ignorance inflicted by their ignorance  

inflicted by their ignorance “

*Rap generated using a poem and AI @

https://suno.com/song/be6d4b23-c073-45b0-84c9-8431fa8d50b2?sh=mhfSTqiUfisq6kPq

A Sacred Promise

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

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

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/

Art by Amy K.

Art by Amy K. @ https://www.instagram.com/picsbyamynow/