Natural Art

The sky was the back of a sheep,

a burning pink fleece

the sun ignited.  By chance 

or invocation I saw what didn’t 

last too long – now the clouds 

are grey-blue-white with

the baby blue sky behind.  In 

that moment the dawn did what

all art does – it made me stop,

take in, consider what is beyond

words but not experience, not

beyond feeling.  That beauty

Nature possesses, gives we translate

into grace  by the way we see ourselves,

treat others.  Like all art

it made room for another moment

even as the memory etched onto

my heart mixing now and forever.

-Byron Hoot

-hootnnhowlpoetry.cOm."

On the Edge

The leaf on the edge 

of the porch is 

a gentle reminder 

how seasons change,

how one form morphs

into another,

how beauty doesn’t 

always dance in the wind,

how the leaf says, “I am you,

you are me.”  How I have

to agree.

 

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com

Two Meditations on Fall

                   I

The blood-red fallen maple leaves

looked as alive on the ground 

as they had on the trees.

 

 If “the past is never past,”

then the dead are never dead –

now is forever in a moment.

 

Hence the admonition, “Pay

attention” spoken through all

time, in all cultures makes sense.

 

There are verities no ideas, dogmas

can dislodge and life-in-death

and death-in-life is one of them.

 

The truth is I love the leaves

on the trees, I love the leaves

on the ground – both beautiful.

 

            II

The furnace running 

is a sure sign fall

is here as well as 

the frost, the fallen,

falling turned leaves,

the days one minute 

shorter from one 

to the other.  And that 

melancholy of the heart,

that sweet sorrow 

for remembered time,

that sweet longing 

for dreams to come true,

that fall into the paradise

of joy and sorrow, 

stories to be told.

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com.  

Mist of Gold

The atmosphere was the thinnest cheesecloth

filtering the light into a fine mist of gold

dust and the sky held dark, massive, aggressive

gray clouds with the whitest white billowing 

clouds next to them as if they knew

alone their beauty and terrible majesty incomplete

but side-by-side a beauty and awe to be remembered.

There was a shimmering of houses, the woods,

the fields of corn with the green, now golden green, 

swathes cut in-between.  I thought how beauty and art

arises from the right combination of parts the heart 

grasps immediately and thought again why we are given

such scenes if not to take them in and be moved by them, 

to create in our lives such a beautiful, terrifying, seductive art

that can change everything.

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com

Blue Ridge January Morn/A Tear In The Sea/Of Vain Poetry

Blue Ridge January Morn
Free Verse # 2

By: Philip Kent Church




Wintry morning in mountain woods,

The icy white tangles suspended in mist;

With crisp, crystalline branches drooping,

Over little snowy-ridged chevrons below.

Glaring, gray light diffused throughout,

A shadow-less white opaqued withal,

Glinting tiny rainbows sparkling on,

Twisting, snow-crowned stems fading,

Into the bright-foggy, blank nothing.

Muffled, cold-silence blanketed wood,

All nestled in a softly-stilled forest dawn.

There, frozen-quiet spirits rest beneath,

Game-trails ill-defined by snowy drifts.

Meandering into pale, oblivious shallows,

Where the quiet earth breathes to the sky.






A Tear In The Sea
An English Quintain

By: Philip Kent Church





When I think of all that’s real, my life seems so small.

Like dust trapped in Sun beams, the years float, then flee.

So where am I in the deal, where’s destiny’s call? 

When I think of my dreams; all that may, or never be.

All my life really seems, just like a tear in the sea.
















Of Vain Poetry
An Ottava Rima


By: Philip Kent Church




Poems bear heart’s love, joy or pain,  

Artful constructs of mind; 

The syntax of thoughtful gleaning.  

The impact not in kind.  

Is poetry inscribed in vain,  

Obscuring wisdom shined? 
In vanity there’s no meaning,  

The blind leading the blind.  

Express soul in a way that’s sane; 

Revelations to find.

As something lost, found while cleaning,  

Offer nuggets for gain. 

Planted seed within others lain,  

To grow, mind-milled to grind,  

And bend to some human leaning:  

Not empty words, which feign.

Hugging My Dog at Night in Winter

How can we live in peace

when nails of sleet tap war on our window?

 

Looking out

was I a fool to think we were ever safe, ever could be?

 

The walking dead of nuclear winter

a creature of the night all those years, lying in wait

 

alarming us with a sneeze

What does one say to a demon when it sneezes?

 

I hug my dog

Listen to our breath, the night, clock, ice maker, tinnitus

 

The silence of bodies in a ditch

— By Girard Tournesol

Daffodils Where a House Used to Be

 

 

Every hour of every day there is love in grass

Why else would deer graze so hungrily?

 

A Cape Cod, white with blue dormers where the kids once slept

Family sit-down dinners, birthdays, holidays—now all grass 

 

A porch swing complete with voo-doo flyswatter to hit an AM radio 

when the Yankees hit a home run

 

Nights filled with stars 

and frogs and crickets and the rising mist 

 

Once a week or so that whole house would worry 

enough to make the grass quiver every minute that car was late

 

That house could stuff dandelions with dreams and good soup 

but the girls would safely marry well, yes of course

 

and the savings bonds would be more than enough, plenty

Grandsons would go to work in flying cars 

 

that ran on rainwater

each generation better and better

 

Progress

 

The grass, knee-high on a deer is really the perfect lawn 

as immaculate as any garden

 

“You can’t have The King’s lawn 

without The Queen’s garden,” an echo in my head said

 

all this today, an epilogue to dreams too bitter for deer

whizzing by the smoked-glass windows of my truck

 

row upon row of daffodils waving at me in the breeze 

little yellow flowers with broad shoulders

— By Girard Tournesol

Breaker-Breaker ONE- Niner

Good Ole’Buddy Bob can I get a skywave skip 

off’a these-here gray thunder clappers?

 

It’s been too long in miles Bob, Good Buddy

since Go-Go Juice was a dolla-sumthin

 

when the posted limit was 55-saves-lives

all things seemed slow-mo in the window

 

and we liked yellow, now yellow was respectable

the color a’chew spit like country was country

 

Slow like life back then Good Buddy and how ya sold me 

on this here million-mile single side-bander

 

Shut up old man! 

Bob an nat Stop been closed!

 

— dumb damn dead foo — for Got knows how long!

Got-damn foo been tawking the dead a hundret got-damn miles!

 

They ain’t so po-lite as we used to be back in the day Bob

Good Buddy, Bob — Breaker-Breaker, ONE-niner, come again Bob?

 

Times were good back when the smell’a diesel and black coffee 

and fried eggs and biscuits-n-gravy 

 

from in at Ethel’s gridle kepus going better than any methsmoke

Times have changed, Bob

 

people have changed

and the weeds have grown long in my life

 

It’s time to pull over

— By Girard Tournesol

Water Boy

Every morning before I 

walked to the bus stop,

crossed State Route 119

then listened for the bus

to crest the hill,

I drew water from the well.

It was the cooking and drinking

water for the house.  Five gallons

to begin the day.  No letting 

go of the handle; a slow steady

winding up.  The well door opened,

the galvanized bucket, then the trigger

release on the slender cylinder.

Repositioning that, tying off

the rope.  Closing the door,

the walk back, then lifting 

the bucket to the kitchen counter

by the sink. Books tied with a bungee

cord, paper bag lunch, a dime for milk.

Then off to catch the bus.

I’ve been drawing water all my life.

-Byron Hoot

http://hootnhowlpoetry.com/