The Arrow’s Paradox Or Hitting the Mark

The Barn Swallows fly 

across my porch, before

my kitchen door

and I catch the curve

of their flight trying 

to recall if I’ve seen

one fly in a straight line,

think not.  If the shortest

distance between two

points is a straight line,

what about the curve

of a hip, the slant 

of a shoulder, rounded

breasts¸ asymmetrical lips,

the crooked smile

that leads to heart and 

soul?  The flow of words

that make the riverbeds

of love?  The Barn Swallows

fly across my porch; 

they make sure I notice.

-Byron Hoot

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

 

Hootism:  knowing when to end a piece of writing takes care of knowing how to end it.  When isn’t this true?

Reconciling

 

The dream felt memorable. 

Then I awoke and it was gone.

 

I thought how in hunting the moment

has to be just right to make the shot

 

and thought of dreams and memories

being caught, one so like the other,

 

holding meaning.  If I could

swear in sleep, I would have sworn

 

I was going to catch the dream when

I awoke.  It was gone and what remained

 

was that sense of loss, like a kiss not taken,

a caress not felt, a word not spoken

 

and the lingering regret throughout the day

of “what if?”  as a postscript to every moment.

 

I took small comfort in the faithfulness

of the trees and grass and horses

 

in the pasture, the wind, the sky, 

the clouded sunlight saying,

 

“You do not need to remember us,

we are here.”  Could not reconcile

 

the sense of loss to what was freely given.

                                    

                                     -Byron Hoot

                                    https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Cave Graffiti

Cave man didn't know what he was doing

As his hand sculpted frantic on wet wall,

Stopped, stepped back to view his stone-crafted vision,

Then proceeded through some shallow shadowed hall.

How ironic that a dark dank ancient museum

Should impart art that in earnest is least.

How ironic that the boorish, unknown artist

Should be man with hand and mind of brutish beast.

Cave man didn't know what he was doing

As he labored to a dazzling drafty flame,

Then darted to display for few friendly others

To preview, then proclaim by clan acclaim.

How ironic that a dark dank ancient museum

Should be understood by mere meager men as these.

How ironic to learn literacy's lost, first artist

Should be man that can neither write nor read.

And what future race may find Picasso dangling,

Suspended on some dreary dying wall,

Only to study for years yet never quite reveal

The intended significance of it all?

~ P.S. Colley

      Fall 1974

Too Close Is Too Close Or The Raven By The Side of The Road

The raven was perched on a guardrail 

on the side of a road

looking down a hill 

as if remembering there

was a tree once where 

there were branches 

its talons once clasped.

 

. . . and then it was the next day and I was going 

to Pittsburgh to my daughter’s and the day after

we were going to drive to Morgantown,

my hometown, born and bred – another

two hours away – her, for an appointment,

me for my birth certificate so I could get

a gold star on my driver’s license,

to protect me from what I didn’t know

but felt the sliver of fear added to the growing

despair of, “What-the-fuck-is-happening here?”  

 

and so we left at eight in the morning on a road

I knew to a place I knew and memories started

to stir mile after mile something was recalled.  

But the speed and distance kept things in perspective 

and now never stumbled into then.

Though a couple times it was close

as I sighed deeply as though memories

were just being made but a cough 

or something in my eye kept me from crossing

that border.

 

we ate at a place, Estab. 2006,

which was a far cry from 1956 when I can say

for certain, “I remember when” before 

that uncertainty of then and now gets confused

and how I got to be so old when yesterday

was only a day away.

 

That raven clasping the guardrail,

looking down the hill as if yesterday and today

don’t know the difference between them.

It didn’t move as I went by.

-Byron Hoot

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Taking Words Down

“I have my books and poetry to protect me.”

I had taped to the glass door of a secretariat

in my bedroom around 1966.  I think it had

to do with Dad being gone so much being 

an evangelist and leaving me and Mom

and her doing double duty as mother and father

when he was gone and how I resented a god

of love who took my father away and later 

returned him full of cancer neither drugs 

nor prayers could cure.  I didn’t know the ways

of God as I would.  After I went to college, 

the words remained taped to the glass door.

The song, of course, I Am a Rock; the refrain,

I am a rock I am an island.  And a rock feels

no pain/And an island never cries. 

It took years before I took those words down.

-Byron Hoot

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

Seasons of Love

He did not come cloaked in fresh spring lover's lust

Nor in a summer sky-lit shower of lunar stardust.

And with autumn's pallet of bronze radiant rust,

He painted purity with a winter's wet, white brush.

I found kindness there beneath the rousing rush

Of seasons falling, pouring pure down upon us.

Oh, clean washed heart, how sweet the muse

That teases thoughts and love reproves.

You are all seasons, my reasoned rhyme,

Cherished with tenderness throughout our time.

And through each season of smitten shy smiles,

I pray one more day of my desperate denial.   

-P.S. Colley

 Dec. 2024 

B.B. to the Next Generation

Gen X, Gen Y, and even Gen Z,

Please stop blaming your life on poor B.B.

We didn't invent hate.

We didn't invent war.

Actually, we believed first what you're fighting for.

For peace in a clean world

for us and our kin.

For unity, for harmony,

among all righteous men.

But especially for those

         who bear burdens of woe

To heal sweeter friends,

and forgive bitter foes.

For the enemy one fights is born

and lives deep within,

Falsely blames all others, 

as Mother Earth's nurture spins.

So, hear my advice,

Stand humbly in the rain.

Let disappointment wash away,

And from blame, please refrain.

P.S. Colley

August 2024