Alone in the Dark

By Joseph Hesch

It’s pitch black where I sleep.
I'm okay with it that way, just me,
my breath and the dreams
we create with open eyes,
even though no one’s there
to say they’re not.

It’s lonely where I sleep.
I don’t really like it that way
but those near-sleep dreams
have comforted me for years
even though they can’t hold me
and I have trouble holding them.

Someday, I hope to find a place
to sleep where someone will
hold me and I can close my eyes
and dream the colors I can’t see here
where it’s pitch black and lonely and
closed eyes snuff what little light's left in me.

Sparkle

By Joseph Hesch

When the wires shed their ice skins,

between midnight and dawn,

it was as if Nature knew

her pretty party was through.

She dropped the gelid husks,

now turned to jewels in the scatter

of headlights and the barroom's neon glare.

Or maybe she just tossed her

empty Corona bottles from on high.


I'm pretty sure we're getting close to the end of rough winter just about everywhere in the US. Up here in the Northeast we've had as much snow and cold as I can remember since I was a youngster (during the Ice Age, you know).  But I believe it's almost over because we're getting more sleet and freezing rain of the type that makes tree limbs and powerlines sag like teenagers' jeans. Once that ice breaks, we get buoyed by those hopes for rainy old April and the green of spring. Wait, did you just hear that crack? I choose to think it wasn't the ice on the Hudson or Mohawk breaking up. I'll make believe it's the sound of a baseball meeting a wooden bat. I remember those, too.

Lip Service

By Joseph Hesch

Did I smile last night?
It was dark and warm and I was
with you,so there’s a good chance I did. 
But I can’t be sure.
See, my lips are numb from too many years
of frowning and using them for little but
mumbling glib insincerity.
Maybe if I could press them to your lips
you could teach them to shape a smile again. 
A beautiful smile like yours.
And, while they’re there, perhaps
you could help me learn how to use them
to make you smile, too.
So tell me, did I smile?
Because, even if I did, I’m pretty sure
we can make a better one.

Hearts and Glowers

“Arrested Creative Development”

By Joseph Hesch

“What the heck is this?”

I heard her shout behind me, shattering

the silent glow of my nascent creative self.

She caught me just as I closed

the right-ventricle point of the heart

I drew with a purple crayon

on the wall in the family room.

“But, Mommy,” four-year old me said,

“don't you think it's pretty?”

She didn’t see the need to make the beige wall

not such a bore

anymore.

I guess because her life had become

beige, too.

After Mom marched me to my room,

I wiped my nose and 
was glad I never completed

this artistic tribute.

She'll be sorry, I thought.

I never got the chance

to write inside my heart,

in red this time,

“MoMMy.”

It's an unfortunate truth, I've learned from both sides of the story, that overwrought and under-rested parents don’t have the time, patience, or insight to factor their child’s need to make their own mark on life, to begin the growing up by being independently creative. Honest, if this story was true, it was not a case of being a sinner or saint.

It was just me learning to be me.

False Spring

“False Spring”

By Joseph Hesch

The sun is hanging higher, longer

each day, and I am again craving

the warm light of love I feared

lost over the near-death of our winter.

Encouraged by the shining face she

showed me, I ventured into the field,

its winter-woven cover frayed to vapor,

the dry warp of autumn left behind.

Looking into her hazy brilliance,

I shivered in chill despair

and watched her once again run away

from arms that coveted her light and warmth.

Lowering my eyes, I dropped my gaze

to the ground and saw it land, freezing,

on the first thread of vernal weft–

its hope, as mine, stillborn by false spring.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

“Cold Comfort”

Ruddy-faced, the ragged wanderer wraps his

coffee cup and his smoke in one hand.

His other hand he keeps in the

pocket of his third-hand Mets jacket.

Whether he’s grasping something within

or he's just trying to keep it warm

is a mystery.  Chances are 4-to-1

no cash shares those five fingers' holey berth.

Joyous, head high, the urban drifter

throws smiles like sunbeams right into the

faces of these straight-life, shivering souls

with whom he coasts starkly bright morning streets.

Their eyes are up, too, but they focus

past the no one, the nothing, that drifts near them,

seeing instead only the faces in the

steamed-up coffee-shop window.

That’s the one framing the same

familiar frowning reflections as yesterday.

 

Impatient Harbinger

"Impatient Harbinger"
By Joseph Hesch

It's March 1 and a tiny
crimson pennant flies atop
the evergreen flagpole out back
signaling All-Clear
for Spring to return from
Winter quarters.
I hear a song I recognize
from it's loud chorus:
"something, something,
bweep, bweep, bweep."
Around these parts,
that's the equivalent of sounding
reveille at 3:30 AM.
You're painfully premature,
but I admire your enthusiasm,
little cardinal.
I've been humming that tune
since mid-January.
Sing on.