2022 · Poems · poetry

“Mountains Misting”

“Misty Mountains” ©️ C.P. Hickey 2022

“Mountains Misting”

Post dawn play awakens

Mountaintops pulling clouds down

Wisps of Wizard’s beards

Spied dancing among the tree line

Sun rays slicing through

Heralding the advance of day

Echoes of busy, travel valleyward

Surrounded by loud quiet

Peaceful energy vibrates

Nature reminds of its stature

Sunlight washes over peaks

Then tumbles down painting fauna

Jagged granite exposed

Playing hide and peak

Shadows finding the best spots

Tippity treetops tease vertigo

And a sky Godly blue reigns

Mountains misting distant points

Mark moments perceived in time

By the ferocious precious of human existence

What is a mountain misting to man?

What is a man to mountains misting?

2022 · Poems · poetry

“Counsel of the Crowd”

“Umbrella Academy” ©️ C.P. Hickey 2022

“Counsel of the Crowd”

Boston Common jury pool

Sitting just to wait

Impaneled peers passing by

Hundreds of thousands of judgments

Rendered unconsciously

The horde wills itself

Despite small protests

Barrister bums profess innocence

Regardless of their guilt

Happy clams waiting to be plucked

Away from an unjust motion

To dismiss outright, doubt

Just is

Thumbs are on the scales

Just is

Only pretending to be blind

Just is

She’s in it for the handicapped placard

Just is

Courting the illusion

Writing to sit

Peers passing disaffected

Pooling common

Just is

2022 · Poems

“Wind Phone”

“Winding Wind” ©️ C.P. Hickey 2020

“Wind Phone”

I had heard tales of a wind phone

Somewhere in Japan

Talk to your dead loved

They said

I bought a plane ticket

I flew on the wind

I found the wind phone

It was somewhere in Japan

I waited in the queue

My turn finally came

I approached the booth with trepidation

It was white

That is to say the booth was dreadful white

And there was a small neatly organized table

Organized in precision in only the way a small Japanese table could be

Upon it was a phone

Black and dull

What was once shiny glossy

Passed through thousands upon thousands of hands

Hand to ear

Mouth to word

Word to air

Not ears…

Wind phone!

Talk to your dead loved

They said

Only, I chose differently

I didn’t talk to my Father

Dead these eight years

I didn’t talk to my Mother

Dead these twelve years

I didn’t even speak to the baby we lost between my first son and my first daughter

Perhaps, his name was Hieronymus

No, I spoke to no dead loved

But, I put my words into the wind phone

Hoping the wind would find the ears of my second son, Paul

He is minimally verbal

But, luckily for us, more verbal than most

I try to persuade the wind with my silver tongue

Persuade it to unlock the mystery of my second son

Who often releases words on the wind,

Hoping those words unlock some type of understanding between us

As I look out over a Japanese valley

The wind carries my words away

Not to be heard,

Nor understood

The wind phone holds me silent

As I wait for a connection

Whether my second son was there

Or ten thousand miles away,

Our words are carried over the wind

And, pass us by.

Blowing fierce into the stratosphere

Carrying our DNA back to the stars that we came from

Out to somewhere where our dead loved

Are rejoined in a Big Bang connection

As I hung up the phone

I looked backward at the queue,

And felt shame for my wind blasphemy

I had to try

Before I myself become dead loved

I hope they can forgive me—

I hope Paul can forgive me—

I then thought to myself…

That maybe sometimes not being able to talk to your dead loved

Is not as bad as not being able to talk to your alive loved

2022 · Poems

“Mother Morrigan”

“Branch” ©️C.P, Hickey 2022

“Mother Morrigan”

Mother Morrigan

I suppose you’re on again

Trimming the fat

And cutting soup larger

Kitchen alchemy

Radish carvery

Sewing needle spool

Return to the larder

Washing clothes

Hanging hose

Displacing mares of the night

Battling gentle

Suppressed elemental

Granted for taken

Reverse, I’m mistaken

Even sleep is far from respite.

2022 · Poems · poetry

“Lines Collecting Lines”

Dear Friends,
Please consider stopping by to support the Malden Arts. There is a certain Poet of medium repute, that may or may not have participated in this project. It would be nice to share how his poem was interpreted by another local artist.
Come see!
Many of my colleagues from The Malden Writers’ Collaborative have also submitted poems for this project.
Lines Connecting Lines Links Poetry and Art
“Lines Connecting Lines” is an exhibit of poetry and visual art charged with enhancing the enjoyment and understanding of both art forms. Poems will hang side by side with paintings, drawings, prints and photographs made in response to area poets’ work. The exhibit at Gallery UMA (145 Pleasant Street, Malden) runs April 7 through June 1, and the public is invited to a reception on Thursday, April 28 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm.
Gallery UMA is hosting this exhibit, which is inspired in part by this year’s Malden Reads poetry book selection. The project was supported, in part, by a grant from the Malden Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
2022 · Poems

Fresh Starts

Image Link

“Fresh Starts”

A canvas stretches out before us

Newly open

Waiting for engagement

The rearview is full of ago

We must forward

Place purpose, then

As the only given moment exists in this small frame

Available, until occupied

The secret, though?

The canvas renews its new each day

Don’t beat your kindness of self upon it

But do bear witness to the truth of self

Create again

You are never what you were, or will be, but simply what you are…

This one and only moment of new

Take a chance

Forge your soul into a becoming warrior

Fight for life

Fight

 

Poems · poetry

“Desitin Daddy”

“Desitin Daddy” ©️C.P. Hickey 2020

“Desitin Daddy”

Desitin Daddy,

Quarantine savvy,

Whittling a day to wit’s end.

Working from home,

Never alone,

Zoom session lagging again.

A virtual classroom,

Diaper fresh ass-wound,

In need of calming cream.

For all of the crying,

Squirming and prying,

Dry bum bum makes him serene.

2021 · Poems · Poemvember 2021 · poetry

“So…ciety”

“Can I Kick the Tires?” ©️C.P. Hickey 2021

“So…ciety”

Society

So…ciety

Lacking propriety

Feeding anxiety

Challenging sobriety

So…ciety

So what about me?

So what?

So inclined to pursue

My interests anew

So what, about you?

I don’t like your views

They make me uncomfortable

You must be normative cisgender racist of no particular color

You fit the profile

We all know what you are

We’ll identify you

So that others can understand your inherent ability to cause discomfort in this space

So what?

So it goes

So on and so forth

So, just so you know

Sobering

Soul

Soulless

Pain numbed

Down dumbed

So, about that thing…

A so called humanity

Discerning who can be or be seen

Relative to hurt feelings

Extreme

So extreme

I’ll Trump your facts with a meme

So important to me

Impacts what I see

Despite reality

It’s all about me

So what about me?

So what about me?

So…ciety

2021 · Poems · Poemvember 2021

“In My View”

“Going Back” ©️C.P. Hickey 2021

“In My View”

In my view

You haven’t seen enough

You’re gaze is fixed on a point that affords no perspective

You look backward

Not forward

And never inward

In my view

You build bivouac biases

That become entrenched

In the shadows of self-validation

Looking for rights instead of right

Seeing the worst in all

In my view

You’re blinded by the rage of ignorance

Led astray by false prophets

Are a sore for sighed I’s

That is to say ego,

Id go as far as impaired

In my view

I see

I saw

I sought