The darkest hour

Hope blossoms

Even in the darkest hour

For those who retain faith

Walking the walk

The righteous walk

Not talk

Deeds done for decent purpose

The flick of switch

Never matters

Only an illusion of illumination

Easily put on or taken off

Always a slight of hand

Wool pulled down

To leave us blind

When real illumination

Even illuminates

In this our darkest hour

When the world would blind us

Bind us and abandon us

We are not abandoned

We who see through this darkness

To what is always true

Skin Deep

I drink Sambuca and Southern Comfort

And wonder why I’m drunk

My fortune cookie tells me I can

Make diamonds out of cola

Even though my emotions are

All skin deep,

And I look up; and see stars
in a sky so cloudy
I wonder if I’m going blind again

Love crazed at the thought of you

Diamonds in my imaginary sky

My fortune cooks telling me

I’m destined for fortune

Even as I take another sip

Of which ever bottle I have

Anything left in to drink from

Not yet drunk enough to

Deal with the emotions

My fortune cook tells me

Are only skin deep,

when I know better,

feeling each all the way

down to the root of me

no matter how much

I drink.

That silly speck of dust

If only you could see it

This speck of dust: love

I eek out with pen and paper

Hardly the stuff of Shakespeare’s ink

Running line after line in eloquent rime

There are  no rimes in mine

Only dust and desire

a finger drawn “I love you”

on a direct card windshield.

Secret messages

That even you don’t know

I have no courage to tell you

Or to sneak them out of my room

To slip under your door

A greeting card would do better

Impersonal, the knowledge that

A millions other eyes

Translate those lines

In the same exact way,

“I love you – you – YOU – YOU,”

How foolish a sound that makes

In my lonely room

Snapping back at me

From four blank walls

“I love you – you – YOU – YOU,”

As if you might hear it through the wall

And understand that it is more

Than dust seeping down

Out of the cracks.

Hidden glen

 It’s like a scene from a tourist’s post card

A pond, a field, grass blowing hard

A line of trees that curves so wide

As to make this place seem like country side

A huge oak sits on top of a hill

And geese gorge fish until they’re filled

Near at hand traffic buzzes

Trucks bang and beeping cars and busses

Billboards decorate the highway sides

Power jets rip across a bright blue sky

No one but a handful note this place

Joggers hardly even slacken their pace

They follow black asphalt paths

Sneakers pounding out the latest fads

As a few poor fools still try to stroll

On linger upon some grassy knoll

Lovers walk here hand in hand

Or slowly ease down to the edge of sand

As gulls swerve above and cry

Or stirred by noise start to fly

I walk this place out of my youth
A tongue in  searche for a missing tooth

Aching again for what once was

And know that much has turned to dust

Meaning in the leaves

Fall comes with a stiff breeze

Swooping across the lawn

Of this remote park,

Blowing dry leaves

Around my ankles

As I walk

The asphalt path

Wind scattering these

Leaves again

And again,

A confusion of feelings

Remixed into new

Configurations

I cannot always

Sort out,

New meanings

Too much of a chore

To figure out,

Only to find

No meaning in them

But what meaning

I brought,

Me, hoping some spirit

Will inspire me

And give meaning

To what has no meaning

Feeling to what

I desperately need

To feel

Fall falling over me

With each step

I take.

The irritation of oysters

We ate oysters

Each time we met
and I could think of little

except for pearls,

The glitter in your eyes

And how a small irritation

Forces an oyster

To defend itself

Spinning until he makes

Smooth the grain

That causes him such injury,

And keeps him spinning

Even after the pearl is made

because he can’t

Spit it out,

He keeps spinning

The gem growing larger

and more painful

over time,

Until someone

With a knife

Cuts it out

We watched the necklace break

A cheap set of potato pearls

Unknotted so that each gem

Scattered across the cobble stones

At our feet

Seeking cracks or drains

From which we could not

recover them all

leaving a lost treasure

For the sweeper to find,

A smooth piece of beauty

Glittering among candy wrappers

And cigarette butts

No irritation now

But a glittering stone

So smooth between his fingers

so delightful to touch,

So precious he might

Never give it up.

Al Sullivan's Website

Willow

(from Slow Drowning in a Fast River)

I see her slender fingers touch

The surface of the river face

Gold reflected in brown mush

Leaved arms as fine as lace

She is the only permanent resident here

A dancer I have seen always

Hiding in her slender arms the silent deer

From drunken hunting crazed

I always thought of her as alone

A woman morning a lost lover

Or a guilt-ridden soul to atone

From a hurt she cannot recover

Crazy kids still run through sweeping arms

The way I did when I was their age

Her touch could never cause them harm

Yet somehow modifies their rage

And me returning to this water side

Feel against as I once did

Running under her arms to hide

Just as I did when I was a kid

Her kiss, my first kiss, always cherish

Her touch, my last touch, to which I perish.

Al Sullivan's webpage