Forgotten Hallway

[Doreen Peri]

"Forgotten Hallway" – Photo by Kari Gunderson. Her Studio Eight screen name is Glorious Amok.

[hester_prynne]

Look closely.
I'm in here.
A memory,
haunting ivy walls.

That pile of rocks,
a path unmade.
Left behind long ago,
in trade, for you.

Light at the end,
used to be bigger,
brighter,
dazzlinger.

Dishwater dark now.
Winsome. Losesome.
Sparkling gray,
like my hair.

[stilltrucking]

I climbed the stairs at the end of the hall
up out of the darkness into light
first I had to descend
as if into my grave
to face childhood fears.

From the womb.
Where darkness was my friend.
To the grave where my fears did abide
and back again
all is well

a long trip around the galactic swirl
a billion billion years ago
we passed this way before.
My long term memory improves
I just can't remember yesterday

[panta rhei]

we fear each other
because we cannot trust
the amorphous being
the unfathomable thought
the incomprehensable idea
that pulses beyond our own form

we judge each other
to give us names and shapes
to file us into categories
to store us safely
in cages
among pigeons
that don't dare to fly
anymore

we face each other
with eyes half closed
afraid to look beyond
the filter of our lashes

we cower in the pigeonholes
others have created
we squat down and
wish for comrades

so we carfeully carve more caves
for each other
to crouch into

we are ducking neighbours in holes
among our own excrements and feathers.


occasionally,
we find a dove that
still dares to fly.

[stilltrucking]

a dove who dares to fly is a fierce bird
especially true for night birds.
Birds of a feather

My night vision is pretty far gone these days
But inside I am still the man who loved night drivig

Owl Eyes

I have spent a lifetime staring into the darkness, and I remember my childhood nightmares. And now they light my way. But the stench of dead rats with maggots lingers. I recycle my memory of my mother's perfume, yeah mother mary comes to me...

baltimore
orleans and forest streets
at the foot of the viaduct
stood a house with a large strore front window. Outside the window was a gas street lamp. Inside the window was a wooden floor with a trap door.

At night after the lamp lighter had made his rounds, the street lamp cast a rectangle of light on the trap door. When the trapdoor was open the dark rectange beneath it takes bocomes an open grave, with steps leading down.

version one
spontaneous jib

[panta rhei]

white owls
come flying with easy grace
gleaming waves in the moonlight

night fowls
in the sanctity of space
keep balance in a stormnight

dream visions of another time
lost in a barren sky
where past and future coil and twine
night birds come flying by

owls watch with unshut eye

[jimboloco]

my safe place
here at the hearth
the wolves howling
inside my head
the dread that endures
and yet i smile,
the light beyond the stairs,
an old haunted passage,
dusty, forgotten,
left to be alone
in retirement,
now art,
if only i'd remember
soft edges
weathered hues
silence
the sow outbreath
and walk on
into the hallway,
up the stairs, and beyond.
mind the light.