unmixed regrets that I use our summers depart
it takes with it many things that are rejoiced yet it leaves
leisure for the other dull enraptured parts that are well worthy
of lovin’ consideration not only does the autumn call us home
again from our O so many destinations but it brings us back
to such affections of ye o’l home sites where awakens
afresh so many appreciations like mama’s
familiar comforts a satisfaction
of her most dearest arts
begotten where
a suns always
grinning most the
times of days forgotten
flowers cover most every grave
smelling lazily sweet on breezes softly
blowin’ beneath wisdoms southern sea while
there be so many places you may prefer than of your
‘ol sweet home howbeit though when ‘ol night winds howl
and you dream alone whilst the east wind rolls your eaves like
trees & there’s a reelin’ of death decayin’ in yer bones blowing
soft through breezes burying all certain feelings the best music
that any can offer is dé o’l tasty sing of “home sweet home”
and da finest scenery is dat of dé o’l fireside cracklin’
and da good ‘ol heavenly warmin’ country
laughter
Jesus... can we please go
home now..?
* * *
Aching Rivers
the suns
blood trickles down through earths open
pores like ice sickles of water from dripping spouts
pain flowers kaleidoscoping colours drop to puddles of
oiled regret why is it now too late for our ever turning
back too the right fades from lack of light and you
still drowning in your tranquility my heart
gently wept cold dark rivers
icy aching.
* * *
Atmospheres
Atmospheres were incredibly
thick on the day of her departure yet a pure
warm caressing gentleness in the sun lit the way from
drear and doubtless forgiven impressions from youths
‘scribable effects forever colouring the stains of past
which did wrought even now we’d returned
here more than once a year or so
only again to find ourselves
shedding another tear
wandering supple as candor
and ignorance were simple then abandoning
self's entity and moving back to the reclusive which
ere cradles in finite serenity synchronized with a gentle
peace flowing freely around and through as spirits never
touching sounds opening hearts in purity loving the
one who’s given me no heart is ever happy
quite yet many try many fight
the night.
* * *
I Beg Your Pardon
There comes a time in life
when your mother isn’t any more and
whether single or not your still expected to open
doors you have associate dealings with whom you must
get ‘long and you find something missing from days long
sense gone your prose isn’t as scintillating as it had been
just days before you wonder how that death can tear
you down so low you wonder why you wake
up to face another day my mother, wife,
and child are gone is there
something left to
say..?
* * *
De Undertaken
He understood
that the meaning of life was adjacent
inextricably to the definition of death and that
mourning was only a romance in reverse of living
if you love you grieve and there are no exceptions
which can be heard only of those who do it well
and of those who don’t and it’s a powerful
intimate lesson to learn of life given
its unique perspective.
* * *
Drifting
away a little at a
time he doesn’t quite remember
my name or why I have come to see him but
he hugs me just the same and asks if I know him yes
daddy I know you you are my heart and soul my smile
and now my tears your blue eyes and blond hair that’s
turned to white all of my memories are coming to
a place of those I’ve lost oh daddy they are
such good ones too you made so
many of them all come true
yes it was your laugh and
your proper ways your faith
in God and your wife the many
ways you loved us all so much through
all our lives that I never ever doubted it it was
so peaceful sitting close to you in church on Sunday
sometimes before you came to Sunday school to hear me
sing “Did you see me daddy..?” with all of those tiny off
keyed moppets ring “that was my way of finding out
if you knew I could really sing” and are you
glad to see me I came to visit and
see you but you cried
daddy those hugs
you gave were always
the best the very very best
I can still hear your laugh and I
remember the way you sighed how I
love that sound yes daddy I know you
I’m your daughter daddy I love you
oh so much inside but as I drove
away I had to park and cry.
* * *
Faery’s Daze
steamy faery’s
incentive goal resigning yawns briefly
forth in sundry longing springs may break and
soon be saying gird thy loins and quit your whining
look! cherry’s in leaf blossomed dress spent what
times could in idleness praying quietly but
today she will spend in meditating
ponderous conceptions
around how
from soul
to heart ‘tis reeling
down aft from heaven blurred by
words and deception this spring was
placed ne’er for stealing silence
etiquette takes her spirit a
wandering while
yet today she
does obey a
yearning ever
praying thymes for
heavens sake who will
take the tempest from
her wondering
daze.
* * *
Hello ‘ol friend
hello old friend
it’s been awhile, fine how ‘bout
you I’m not sure yet though if I thought about
it maybe I’d say today is still a blur but yesterday’s
clear now that it’s o’er and through I heard solidarities
cohesion speaking in the night again it was a dream I
had already read and every time it’s touched my
inner being I didn’t feel so steady in
my head you know... such
castles and things
and a lonely king
wandering through the
echoes surrounding the barren
halls nothing to do but feather dust old
pictures on the walls and again almost tripping on
the same ancient throw lying on the floor stopping by
the vestibule I straighten the old dried flowers there
still wandering on up the long oval stairs to
rest and ponder questioning
how this came to
be ours.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
I Don’t hate your guts Daddy
her little hands
straightened a wrinkled tablecloth
I remember many things I said I should’ve not
playing and saying how she must hate my guts as
much as I’d like to forget but there her memories
and all that I’ve got yet I do recall how too in
urgent grievance she’d innocently protest
“I do too love your guts daddy..!”
these days
tired eyes swollen
thoughts look o’er the things all my hands
have built the old Cherry table where she leaned on ‘tis
faded and gone the only things left are her memories young
planted in a weary mind they never move on the old cedar
fence where she played behind her slender little hands
and mine never to touch yet ironically a stone
somewhere phrased "God's chosen" oh
what throes for lucky how did my
favorite dream come to this
everything that mattered
that was good died in
a wisp here is raised
our memories and
in time here we’ll
bury our others
crying eyes filled
with tears all the pain
all the years my thoughts
quiver in madness a world
of goodness has turned
to sadness.
* * *
Laid Asunder
Silence hangs in the
winter’s icy chill morning mist lies
so bleak and still silence quiet like a scepter
reigns footprints are left where a snow remains
several scrawny high wheat flask cuddle two
together stung by the wicked winter’s
hoar frost where scores of icy
winds greet their frosted
boughs suspended
between the earth
and heavens host
lingering like kindred
apparitions ghost somewhat
parallel to that of snows who hovering
over lonesome prairies roads mingled with
fog and cold their mourning lingers destitute
of apparent reasons lament in seasons for a
time mourners stay alone in grief
combined there under while
white calloused clouds
gather in anguish
hands she’s
laid
asunder.
* * *
Mama..! Mama..!
The excited voice of my six year old
daughter reaches me, echoing around the stacks
of boxes and off the barren walls. I’m over here,” I
answer. She rushes in, eyes sparkling, disheaveled
pigtails bouncing. Her face is smudged with
dirt and her grubby hands cradle
some thing with youthful.
tenderness “Look Mama,
a bird’s nest..! I found it under
the big tree. Maybe the bird family is
moving too.” She carefully deposits the
treasure of grass and fibers in my hands,
plants a kiss on my cheek, and skips
back outside. “I’m going to see if
I can find anything else,”
she calls over her
shoulder.“Will
you keep it for me..?”
I sit in the rocker and examine
the nest. The movers are due in
about an hour and there
isn’t anything else
to be done.
The house is
stripped of curtains
and rugs. Dishes, toys, and
books are all packed in boxes
funiture waits to be loaded on
to the trucks. The first time
in weeks, it seems, I
have time to
just sit.
I still live there today
I still pray they’ll find her
I still rock in that rocker wishing
I hadn’t taken a rest sitting and every
so carefully holding and turning that
tiny little birds nest over and over
she’d be ten today.
* * *
Mother
was “the_keeper” she was
accused of keeping everything she kept
our pictures birth certificates and all those things
we’d later need but the most important thing she ever
kept for me was a guitar and taught me how to sing I
can say that because I’m her brightest son or so I
was lead to believe I remember her patiently
teaching me each and every string
and so in the nature of
keeping things I
came nearer
loving
her
than
any of
my siblings and
too much purer than they
could ever persuade now that she is
gone I’m only an alteration an anomaly of
what should have been while lonely guitar
weeps in a corner my heart cries gently
from within like a long suffering
virgin shielding everything
in place I even dress
my windows in
mother’s
curtain
lace.
* * *
Oh To Be
home now that March’s here and goin’
if I woke in the morning there I’d still feel so unaware
I’ve been way to long away canceled on a shelf just a nocturnal
cynewulf in another’s life engulfed how could I have lost just now
where I put myself and after March there follows April showers
and poets are eager to get the worm while a rainbows blue
still wanders round while waiting May’s flowering
bloom the chickadee’s all chatter in a Cherry
tower while this Finch tries to find a
lover on a somewhat lower
bough there my
Gaussian
soul
glows leaning
o’er the grove and scatters
life on clover below a white picket
fence sending blossoms and drops of
dew mingled in lament on by gone
days lent to sparkling mint.
* * *
Perhaps
tentatively I read
into you wrongly or at least
differently than others I don't see
beauty in your world though you use
such phrases flowing and placed just so
in watered vases and though I see many
petals falling wasted I see indeed with
depth of sadness few people like
to caliber I probe heart's
travailing pains
I
hear
pounding fists
clenched in rage and
laughter all so silent sadness
though unspoken yet screaming out
through a melding of whispered phrases
broken... where is the love... where is
the care... what is it we’ve e’er
mistaken..?
* * *
Sing Me To
O come sing me in
to poetry in this limber heartfelt day
something to soothe my anxious afternoon
and dispel these tears away please no ballads
with plural endings suggesting endless toils
and testing as thoughts longed for little
resting maybe a smooth
sonnets flurry
with a life budding
a new some humbler poet
where tears of eyelids haven’t yet
the needs of blessing... I need a useful
salutary song with a cadence to keep
me limber &... whao, whao, who..!
excuse me sir..! this is what..?
the wrong time of year..!
I’m sorry... I didn’t
remember
do any
of you
have the time.
* * *
Southern Winds
a small flame
in the window glows a lamp upon
her desk the oil burns long into the night and
the darkness brings no rest no joyful sound flows
from inside this year save the scratching of a dog
in its pen only silence lingers where songs
once had been on new years eve’s
an eden of old turning new
it begs to her hearing
sing again with
southern winds
to dry away the tears
blow hard south winds breathe true
and free blow my love back to me but
only silence for tonight no dislodging
these lonesome tears from sight yet
the south winds only cold
blew and bleu.
* * *
The Empty Frame
There’s something so
wonderfully winsome thoughtful and
transient about her series of pastel thoughts
projected over these many years and vividly
painted on her infinite domicile walls as
though it's not enough to be lived
but as surely must of
caught such
awesome
depths of
such tepid lonely
hearts filled with rainy
daz consolations the closest
any could find to paradise yet it’s
still an empty frame but she fills daily with
dreams & never any the same yet why is it that
certain chosen ponder at such little she’s got so
admit it you must be jealous of her empty ‘lil
frame filled with the many dreams I can
almost meet them now dashing
from the walls dancing
across the floor
I’d love to
tell you
more
you
see... but she
lives a life recluse
and prays they’ve
all forgotten.
