Slippin’

So easy to slip from hymns to blues.

and back again.  I do it all the time.

It makes sense how something high

can become something low,

how love can be lost and the hope

of love regained echoing in refrains 

of deprivation and despair.  And a love

that’s tough enough to create resurrections

lingers in the air, the heart and soul and body.

I know those who hate sin but where would

all the saints be, the ones who know all 

the blues, all the hymns, the refrains 

that get confused?  Who has not been singing

a hymn and started to hum the blues?

-Byron Hoot

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

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

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

No Difference

It is another rain day in December,

ten days from the winter solstice.

The beauty of snow and cold

like a passionate, unfaithful lover

who cannot be denied.  The jeweled 

word, “Hope” hangs from every 

branch like icicles from a Christmas 

tree.  As if that word sustains the barren

beauty of the season, the dreams that 

turn the eyes to the horizon each morning,

the sighs the heart and soul give to one

another like gifts.  I think of winter as cold

and snow but am beginning to believe

its essence is its seduction of bareness

to a fullness that lies hidden.  Outside,

inside . . . there is no difference.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Salvation

Weary, I meander whispering, on rambled wasteland trails

haunted by hard-hearted

         and hateful half-truths

that stealthily stalk the unhealthy soul.

I perch on silent tiptoe's hope,

teeter on restless terrains,

to wrestle sanity and regain

some  solid ground of peace.

Trial's tumultuous tirade,

tantrum of a demonic whirlwind,

spins a myriad of shadowy sins,

to tempt and lead away

brainchildren born to be orphaned

by some stoic, egoic maniac.

In man's world,

I can only mope, hoping to somehow miraculously cope

with some pretend savior that shall 

eventually forsake me.

Teary, my eyes trickle onto paths of woeful wanderings 

and bleed their unhealed sorrow

undaunted by lean, mean, 

feigned-pain smiles. 

Ripped with fright ,

into nightmare screams,

that seek for rescue's  slumber,

and lumber midst the lonely.

Compassion's heavenly healing,

like light, white feathery angelic wings  

wraps my dozen, dazzling dreams,

to protect those long gone away

brainchildren born of cosmic logic 

within some distant, omniscient consciousness.

In God's world,

I can only grow , knowing how to  somehow miraculously flow

with my true Savior that shall 

never forsake me.

~P.S. Colley

Dec. 2024

Cries of the Unheard Collection