Category Archives: poetry

Hero

A scene of old develops and sharpens.
It’s the start of some chapter
in a boy’s learning.

This memory is of being ten.
It has cold misty rains at a train station.
The buying of a ticket
with nickels and quarters and wide eyes.

He is going to see El Cid in Montreal
by himself, with given permission,
maybe implied good riddance,
and certainly a flight to something
contrived, but noble.

It’s a way to forestall fear for the future.
To puzzle out why close people fight
and bury the fallout;
to feel the budding of self-assurance
and, finally, to admire a hero
whom all would love and despair.

Yes, he wanted to be
someone’s hero.

Cubbyhole

There’s a place of peace and rest, I think.
In daydreams there are hints.
But lost they are in just a wink,
and leave no fingerprints.

My valley is of rolling green,
with castles in the mist,
and starry glitter nightly seen
as by the heavens kissed.

At torment’s end, forgiveness.
Release from worldly cares.
A pardon’s leave to live in this-
a rarity of airs.

Though just a dream, I hold it fast,
abandoning it never.
In days of present, future, past,
it holds me close, forever.