L'azul

By Joseph Hesch


There are days when I emerge
from this thicket of self-doubt,
scratched and bleeding from
my mad-eyed crashing about,
searching not for you, but for
the me our story has written I am.
It's a dark hollow into which,
limping, mahogany-eyed and
lashed by the old demons behind me,
I think I see my fate carved into
the walls of this mile-long grave of 
my better judgment and best intentions.
But then I see your smiling face,
like dawn above me,
the lips that mend this broken soul.
And I feel it coming back,
that everyday love
of towering dimension, perhaps
a mountain too high
for this small man to climb.
But you, my spirit guide, turn to me
capturing an image in your polished lapis eyes,
mirrors with which you see me.
"Isn't he grand?" you say.
And I climb.

Lines of Demarcation

By Joseph Hesch

Surrounding us in every direction, limned
in every possible form, these boundaries
and borders, these lines of demarcation.
We can barely step away from them,
they’ve  so entrapped and squeezed our lives.
Do we draw them to keep others away
or to keep our respective enclaves
of body, mind and soul within?

Strokes of natural and man-made
geography, you mountains, oceans,
rivers, borders, colors, words on a page,
the signatures conscribing them against us,
are constructs that have lost their
constricting hold on this lacerated heart,
this freed mind, this scarred but open soul.

Each day, I look into blazing dawn’s

bright smile blurring and erasing
so many margins long marking my reserve,
my captivity. I know I can cross them now,
like they’re maps strewn across the floor,
mere cursive Ts in my notebook.
This syllogism may be false, but I’m a man
of many faults on the run to the next dawn.


We're linking this poem up to dVerse Poets Pub's Open Link Night, hosted by the incomparable Joy Ann Jones (You may know her as @Hedge_witch). Stop by and let Hedge pour you a tall one and mingle with some of the poetic clientele.

The Eve, the Day, the Joy

By Joseph Hesch

On the Eve and Day of Joy,
the presents were covered
in their smooth and sparkling raiment,
as were the trees and roads
in their fresh-snow greeting card grandeur.
Come the gathering, all those wrappings,
of packages and countryside,
were torn by child and adult,
each in their own way—
hand, scissor, sled, SUV. 
The magic was so quickly broken,
And what was smooth wonder
and sparkling mystery
the night before and at dawn,
had been torn, crumpled, stained
and rendered debris and nuisance
to everyone’s continued joy.
Moms and Dads near-curse the mess
of late-day. Kids ignore or revel in its chaos.
On Boxing Day the broken ugliness
of cold fact will be exposed.
Yet all will be forgotten with the advent
of a new year, a new hope,
a new anticipation
for the sleek magic of the Eve and
the Day we came together
and were joyously unbroken.

The Trip In

By Joseph Hesch

In winter, the commute’s the same,
but the trip is so different.
I drive these glazed donut highways,
clogged commuter arteries
that would give me a heart attack
if I let them, or if I had the heart
for all this anymore.
Headed east to work yesterday I could
barely make out the stop-and-go
chain gang of prisoners in our
four-wheel jail cells because of
the low aspect of Warden Winter's
bloodshot eye, with which I played
the staredown game.
blink
Lost again. I always lose.

I could put the car in neutral
and still make it a couple of miles
before I would have to touch the wheel,
change my course from the
unnatural migration of which I am part.
Some birds are just like me,
they don’t migrate from this chill either.
I see them out my driver’s side window,
chains of starlings, shivering wing-to-wing,
stretching pole-to-pole --
roadside rosaries praying
for bread and a compass
that points south.

And now the final snowy flair
to a winter commute begins.
Flakes so big I can hear them
hit the window and so heavy
the trees will bow to their gravity,
their serious intent to remind me
who's really boss on my trip in.
This snow-light December
will turn into a bully soon enough,
snapping me awake to its will
with all the comfort of a white,
wet blanket whipped towel-like
to my bucket-seated backside.


If you know anything about me--real me and poet me--you know I have this love/hate relationship with winter and my workday world. Put them together and you come up with "The Trip In," this week's effort for dVerse Poets Pub's Open Link Night.

Perchance to Dream

By Joseph Hesch

It’s so dark here each night, waiting for
the memorable flight to fantasy,
the fears or thrills that you may have,
but I almost never do. I lay in this bed
with my itinerary made of today’s regrets
and tomorrow’s dread,
dreaming of being able to dream.
It’s like groping in the dark for a shadow,
something I can’t see or feel,
but I know is there, if only I …

I will slip into the black depths of sleep,
a struggling shipwrecked sailor going under,
only to open my eyes to another awakened darkness
hours later, taunted by a clock that shows
I missed rescue once again.
But last night, before I sank back
to the nothing that is my slumber,
this vacuum of fancy, I once more pleaded
with the universe for colorful release.

As I was about to surrender once again
to the vacant sleeping dark, an angel appeared
and beckoned me to join her,
tucking beneath her wing of white .
“Here,” she whispered in my ear,
“hold me and be mindful of now,
not yesterday, not tomorrow. Feel my warmth,
and drop your baggage. You won’t need it
where we’re going.”

I never knew my gloom could transform

into a world of such light and color,
such sound and feeling, such heart-lifting joy.
But it did.
When I awoke, I saw dawn in a light so new,
it might as well be approaching from the west.
Tonight, I will leave the dreary day at the door,
I will root fearsome tomorrow from under my bed,
and I will prepare for my angel to join me
in our dream.

Canadas

By Joseph Hesch

In the chill of the pondside dawn, 
the rushes part and feathered
bundles  trundle ashore.
They’re difficult  to see in the dim light,
given their formal attire of  gray and black,
their great bodies topped like cellos
with long curved necks and headstocks.
They applaud their own entrances
upon the morning stage, great wings
stretching. beating and refolding.
You can hear their humble efforts at
playing like Yo Yo Ma, all squee-unks and chuffs,
yet there’s an enchantment in the echo
and fade of that music.
From each of the itinerant players
comes a greater magic in their voices– 
frosty clouds of white, explicit in their
warmth, greeting, calling, community.
Their morning messages form,
then lift to drift and disappear within
the crystalline cloud that slept with them
on the pond last night.
Shortly, the northbound ensemble shoves
off from its marsh moorings, rising in a
ragged, streamered vee, disappearing into the
newly-risen cloud voices calling it home.

Update (9/19/11): Today I walked past the spot where Mollie and I saw this story unfold and it's messed up with construction equipment and half-built concrete buildings. Sigh. That makes me sad. At least I have the vision of this poem to remind me that once we were a way station for those travelers heading to and from their North and South homes.

Cold Truth

By Joseph Hesch
 
Last night the snow
laid its ghostly hands
upon all the horizontals outside.
Some of the verticals and
in-betweens, too,
felt its curative touch.
Fresh-fallen, so softly
whitening the dark,
smoothing the points and edges,
beautifying the uglies that were
too conspicuous before
the fall after Fall.
But, come windy morning,
that which was covered,
and those sojourners
not long passed
have carved their marks
on the once-immaculate.
And with dawn's rising light
they reveal
Winter’s cold truth.

I wrote this poem back in February, right after I began this journey upon the vast sea of zeroes and ones. I think only a few people other than close friends have actually seen it, what with it being "old" and my being just a funny name when I posted it. So, with a few edits, I'm re-introducing "Cold Truth" to visitors at dVerse Poets Pub for the Dec. 27, 2011 Open Link Night, which I happen to be hosting. I think it's a proper poem for this Winter, to remember the past year and my latest journey, leaving my marks, my truth, on pages both white and virtual.