Message in the Sand

Endless, timeless, barren, desolate desert,

Void of dewdrops precious minute blessings:

Our world, or His? It matters not.

As thirst's dry draughts tempt strangest thoughts

To wither; wishful, meager unseen visions.

Promises of tomorrow's rain smolder in sundrenched air,

Wisped away until they are and care no more.

So cruel crossing that bleak demon of a land,

Falling, Crawling, sifting momentary sands

Through hateful outstretched, tight clenched, hand;

One heavier foot tromping, mercilessly following another

Into that hopeless, helpless emptiness.

Now we become bleached, baked carcasses

Weak, weather-worn to leather. 

Can there be pain where there is no feeling?

Yet hearts still beat each bead of salty sweet sweat,

Regret no solitary tear left to shed.

Together tired, trudging toward illusively

Faint, fragrant horizons of faux fantasy mirages.

Is there sanity in seeking, in searching wanton, wild wilderness

Until all hope's lost?  Wandering aimlessly,

Stumbling upon one living, eluding treasure.

One pure pleasure amidst the fatal doom,

A Mojave painted cactus, bright with bloom.

Some slight strength surges, as a happier hope emerges,

Drawn Deep into parched earth, roots shoot

Down to drown in life's clean, clear blood.

Hastily hand in sand scrawls each awkward word:

"I go ahead to seek an oasis."

-P.S. Colley

Rev. Nov. 2024

Mother Nature's Lullaby

Mother Nature's lullaby sings to me of earth and sky,

Forest floors alive with creatures,

Creep, eat, sleep midst timeless features

Like cracks and crevices, wrinkled, poxed.

Huge stacks of heavy, solemn rocks

Lie afoot grasses, bushes, then tree

Roots searching, reaching to grow free.

Their withering branches, slithering vines

Criss-cross the mossy tall tree lines

Where squirrels and owls on boughs alone

Find nests full, restful, peaceful homes.

Twirping, chirping, shrill, trill birds,

Join frog choirs, cricket underworlds.

Melodic chants of plants and beasts

Hum alive to spy poor moonlight feasts. 

Strange things with wings that rustle nights

Cruise o'er and soar such hush still flights.

Fair firelight flickers fanned by breezes,

Embers fade and shadow teases

Low tired eyes that droop, dawn deep......

Mother Nature lulls me to sleep.

 

P.S. Colley

May 1989

Potts Creek Retreat

Rev. Nov. 2024

Songs of Appalachia

Suddenness Is a Gradual Process

For over an hour, I’ve been watching

the sun arrive at its height of suddenness.

How gradually that summit is achieved.

How constant the sun in its cornucopia nuances

of dawn.  Maybe the first and last sermon 

we see, the fumbling after words a kind 

of incantation the day accepts as a prayer,

the night hymn forming in the west.

"And now we wait.”

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Early

The death of my father is nearly a month

away – 31 years.  The haunting of longing

has begun.  The end of his life was nothing

like the fullness of it.  How apropos he

died in the fall, his favorite time of the year.

What do I miss most?   Perhaps the way he clasped

his hands together after the good-bye hug and kiss 

on our necks as if another victory – a triumph of love –

had been won.  The visitation this year, early, has begun.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Ghost-walking

It is fall and ghosts walk 

in the wind among fallen

leaves, mist, and fog more

easily than any other time

of the year -- the season 

of visitation of the dead:

people, desires, dreams, 

the what-if conclusions

never realized.  In any given

moment, a ghost can brush

a heart as it passes by.

That which never dies walks

upon the earth September, 

October, and November

and then the winter dreams.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

ACROPOLIS MUSEUM, ATHENS, GREECE

Because men send their daughters away to marry great men

I never see Athena

But ancient Athens, galleries of sculpted busts 

a looming view of the Parthenon

twenty-first-century glass and steel, 

all architectural monuments that bow to corruption.

So does the entry canopy

a protruding trapezoid

itself lifted from the earth

a gem not pilfered.

The interior of the building left hollow

what's beneath this ground

the excavated remains on display

that lend truth to the myths.

The ancient goddess finds her way to the surface

face skyward to the open, airy heaven path

body trapped in a past, an unpredictable future.

Excavation proves centuries 

fixed as modern-day life moves.

Greek relics connect 

the once living stories 

with the here and now.

This museum is an inversion; the question, 

the inside of reason taken from the Acropolis

mounted by fluted stainless columns 

the carved marble metope stories

a young woman taking the virgin procession

moving with her peers toward a staged performance

honoring deities at their feet

catching a glimpse into the foothold.

-Kellie Cole

Kellie Cole is a licensed architect practicing in West Virginia who teaches architecture at Fairmont State University. Kellie's poetry has been published in Whetstone, Fairmont State University's publication, Voices From the Attic, and River and Stone Anthology of Short Stories.

Right Before

The wind among the trees,

the birds flying leaving 

and taking their shadows, 

here and now trying to keep

at bay there and then 

and the mystery how the two

need each other.  How I am 

nothing without you, you 

nothing without me,

how two make one,

the paradox of time

and eternity.  Suspect

the prayer – “Not my will

but thine” – has nothing 

to do with surrender but 

is a battle cry right

before a victory.

The way two make one

and nothing’s lost.

 

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

A Sunday Morning

That trap__

Shouldn’t have 

Checked it before heading 

Off to church, but we did.

No groundhog but worse,

A skunk, hind leg clasped

Firmly, stared with beady eyes

As we approached garden’s edge

Standing there in our wool

Suits knowing it inhumane 

To wait, Uncle Ralph said,

Sam, get the gun.

Meaning, of course,

An old Remington 22

By the fireplace_

The double barrel 

Was fetched instead.

Uncle Ralph glanced at his watch,

Shrugged his shoulders,

Reluctantly accepted the shotgun,

Turned, aimed and fired,

We’ll take care of it when we get back

For one eternal hour

Seated in the pews

Of that small church

An uncomfortable congregation 

Imagined the sulfurous 

Stench of hell was upon them….

We feigned innocence,

Knowing it was really upon us.

-Wayne H. Swanger

The Day The Aurora High School Burned Down

midnight sweat 

midnight vomit 

crying and clutching the trash can

no school for me

mother’s blanket-wrapped sadness 

predawn on the front porch

watching the school burn 

four fire departments couldn’t stop the blaze 

what could a woman in a blanket hope to do 

that they couldn’t?

“good news,” she whispers

smoothing back my tangled hair

wiping the fever away with a cool cloth

“no school for anyone”

-Melissa Reynolds

Where I’m From

I am from plant-scented candles

From yarn made for crocheting and jars of stored food

I am from a mix of red bricks and  tan parts etched into thick walls

With creaky halls moving on their own

I am from a quiet yet loud house echoing with sounds all too familiar

the old trees that don't go on for long 

Whose long-gone limbs I remember 

As if they were my own

I’m from modified passed-down recipes and dark-ish hair 

From Meghan, Evan, Rachel, Melissa, and Gorman 

I’m from overly cold rooms cold as a rainy autumn mornings

and messy closets brimming with random junk

And from skipping breakfasts 

I’m from stories told years later and the “scribble monster”

 and “beans beans The more you eat the more you toot” and patty cake

I’m from nothing specific 

I’m from Charleston, West Virginia and Cincinnati 

And skyline chili and sweet pepper-filled spaghetti

From my dad's first fight

ending with him crashing into a dumpster

with a bloody nose and a loud bang still going through his head

Magnets collected over the years some having family photos 

and others with small pretty rocks attached

Stuck to the side of the fridge 

By Iva Reynolds   Sep 15, 2023

There Are Reasons

Occasionally I get Fig Newtons.

Not too often because they take

me back to what is only a memory

of when the dead in my life were

alive, when I was a boy,

when Mrs. Heinz – who didn’t 

have two dimes to rub together –

would have a box when Dad

and Mom would make a call,

park the car on this side of the wooden

bridge that crossed the stream 

to get to her house and life.

I should relish such memories,

the near resurrection of memory,

the dead nearly alive.  I have 

to say the longing for the dead

to rise again fills me with deep

sorrow, that melancholy joy 

for what has been not to be again

and say sometimes when I take 

a bite in a voice barely audible to me,

“This is the day the Lord has made.

Rejoice.”  And can barely swallow.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com