Displaying 1 To 30 Of 37 Comments Haiku I hate going home, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On August 3, 2018 @ 7:09 am That Breezy Day We were lucky that day, “Blessed are…” And there was Matthew, “Blessed are…,” » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On July 25, 2018 @ 9:00 am I wonder if you know » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On July 16, 2018 @ 5:23 am $200 an hour She had failed in the worst way, they say, “I went about it all wrong…. ” Do you deserve to be loved?” “Deserve?? Mystery solved … » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On June 2, 2018 @ 1:39 pm Rt 126 First thing, she pulled me down. We agreed to McKenzie left me kissed at Clear Lake » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On May 24, 2018 @ 7:11 pm Negentropic Me I love to see » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On May 16, 2018 @ 3:01 pm The Second Time I Knew Myself Going down But drowning goes on and on » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On May 9, 2018 @ 4:59 pm We Only Spoke Briefly She says she fears She wants to play » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On May 3, 2018 @ 6:38 am A Visit Crossing the summer sky, “Hey, Hey, Look out! Sky-borne again, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On April 28, 2018 @ 4:02 pm Taking New Orleans Seriously That other world, This is where that other world lives, That other world wonders, is worth saving, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On April 19, 2018 @ 5:55 am Haiku Kind reinforcement » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On April 12, 2018 @ 8:39 am Open Mic Come to the High Note! » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On April 7, 2018 @ 2:08 pm Undertaker Bees Here they come, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On April 2, 2018 @ 1:47 pm Afternoon Encounter Ice eyed dragonfly, He struts and stills me Dragonfly moves aside. He calls me out; A warning caw » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On March 22, 2018 @ 10:29 am Particle and Wave Maybe time won’t tell… What if time doesn’t know Doesn’t ever crawl, Time must ignore the insult Maybe it labors, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On March 14, 2018 @ 11:45 am The word: Heartless | Ice Cream Thanks, Martin. I am committed to some kind of response every time, regardless of how stumped I feel at first. I think stumpedness results in a product that is loose, which is good for me. » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On March 13, 2018 @ 12:44 pm Too Much Everyone says I need more. Saint Mark says “worry about I worry about Even ice cream Have you heard of too much? » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On March 9, 2018 @ 4:40 am Cascade Time Be willing This is your home, From here, you might live forever, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On March 3, 2018 @ 8:44 am Sitting With Brian Even cells have to decide Stop it! bulging for more and more That’s my brother! Poison-drinking I’ve seen Leave him alone! That wide mouth tumor I want him back! I want an explanation, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On February 22, 2018 @ 5:57 am Starmony Join the bats when daylight sinks Listen to » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On February 14, 2018 @ 9:39 pm Over The Pass The road has a way of climbing By then you are Everyone downshifts, Rest now if you like » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On February 8, 2018 @ 3:14 pm Yarns I watched closely. alongside her mother’s She is ancient, It’s a soft breeze drifting » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On February 2, 2018 @ 1:09 pm Flowery Lane He claimed it the oldest A map He was seen It can only wait He claims it the youngest » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On January 28, 2018 @ 10:41 am Disabled with a Dog I am But he is calm. We wear down the day He shows no conscience » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On January 18, 2018 @ 7:44 pm Dinner, On the Road If it was me out there, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On January 14, 2018 @ 10:10 am I Belong to the North The Canadian sky » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On January 5, 2018 @ 5:18 am Longest study ever “Correlations suggested no significant stability of personality characteristics over a 63-year interval,” wrote the researchers. Personality…. » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On December 31, 2017 @ 10:30 am Creamy Irish charm antiquarian brogue and then the whistling. “A nice whistle” said I “That whistle was “I hope it’s both” “Then I’ll loan you a whistle” » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On December 21, 2017 @ 12:26 pm Leaving I saw the last chapter start, » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On December 13, 2017 @ 2:49 pm The Sunday Visit Meet the waiting Not today. » Posted By Kevin Geraghty On December 7, 2017 @ 6:42 amComments Posted By Kevin Geraghty
climbing through discarded bones
looking for a seat
jostled by each other,
half-blind in the sun.
Lucky that Matthew was downwind
ready to run
after the words.
Stunning words, but only air
thrown against a breeze,
blown all round the mountain,
even back at Jesus.
might have been enough to hear…
that someone could be good,
that anyone could be good enough,
after centuries of sorrow.
on fire, he thought,
chasing the words
with eyes, then feet, then hands.
Caressing each one, even while scanning
for the next.
He imagined them doves,
was surprised to be pecked and scratched.
Not someday, Matthew,
This morning!
Right now!
Blessed are the dove chasers
who love even this
scratch and peck world.
this spot.
We didn’t really travel here
as much as it came up on us
ankle grabbing
undertowing
we followed without fight,
heard there was a light
waiting to shine.
So we waited too.
Waited as if
that was enough to do
with a life,
never knew we had to be
the shining.
We are children
We flip on the sun, don’t we?
that a woman can fail, …
unloved.
He asked
“Do you deserve to be loved?”
Life isn’t fair…
I expect too much…
It’s never too late….
I’ve made bad choices…
I’m looking for my Dad
Which one do you like?”
love is a miracle,
not a contest.
Does anyone DESERVE a miracle?
Did Lazarus rise because he deserved it?
I’d rather be chasing a miracle
than think I deserve one, and screwed it up.
I want to be grateful for all the love
that still happens in this world…
deserved or not.”
It was self-esteem
that killed gratitude….
In the therapy office…
With a blunt discourse.
I couldn’t know if I was
deaf, or drowned
in the McKenzie.
glide green, read
each leaf and needle flash,
watch azaleas sing out in
pink purple white.
We paused for
red rhododendron riots
and young goats, popped
in a rash across
pasture and barnyard.
Eggs for sale, cheese, butter,
belts, saddles,
carvings meant
for totems, aside
painless homes with palm prints
on the wooden screen door.
Homes of grandmothers
who go fishing like it matters,
read a book like it doesn’t.
to face Santiam pass.
She wonders
what the mountains keep out,
and why she can’t know
even if I tell her.
diversity
in my dinner salad
or fish tank.
Diversity for my pleasure,
a smiling black man
at my bank.
He might teach me a dance,
we’ll nod to the rants
of men from a hood
I’ll never see
And when I tire
I’ll offer thanks
to sleep above the ranks
of entropic diversity
in grey quarry water,
afraid of drowning without fight
in sight of the prairie,
and bubbling devotion …
“Reach me Lord, with a dazzling stroke.
Blind the world
to the sight of this shame.
I’ll tell the lies
we’ll remember me by,
Amen”
until you learn.
Underwater life
offers no edge,
you have only tiny
silver scales
to catch the current
and glide
as if you know how to stop.
her future,
sometimes missing words
she knew
she had packed.
Her sense of humor
often sat
in the dark part
of her father’s shadow.
He spoke once of sadness,
once of fear
and disappeared.
her life away
before experience peels
from understanding.
Even more,
she wants
to pour
kindness
like sticky syrup,
over all her days.
ungracefully connected
by cackle speech,
shake-a-pepper crows
land
hop
poke,
scratch their initials
all over pink geraniums.
Gimme that! … Watch it!
Wake up! … Back off!
I got your mother nature right here!”
the black aerial circus
moves on,
popping
every sleepy bubble
on the block.
the one that plays
peek a boo
with your serious life,
rides in and out the wormhole,
clarinet in hand.
You might see it through the
stained glass of St Stephens,
stopping for jokes and
a sip of holy water
to ease the way down
Napoleon boulevard.
mowing the lawn,
fixing the screen door
dreaming lottery numbers
until the music starts
and plays the long night down.
when it’s time to leave,
If serious life
with those storms
coming year after year.
won’t fool my dog Finn, smelling
the enforcer’s will.
Stay to hear
silverware back-sounds
fade away, to
silently say
the world is ready
for those ephemeral sheets
of you,
finally escaping their
dusty home.
Each poem,
a fireworks show,
lit and lobbed
overhead,
so briefly bright, moonlight
starlight, maybe a flashlight
that points your way
to the backseat
of your Dad’s car,
Into the box of
your Mom’s secret letters,
Across the threshold of
that dark room,
where you can finally
enter,
now that your words have been heard.
You will be moved, shaken
by echoes that don’t even
sound like you,
can’t be contained
in any of your old ways.
You’ll be ready
to live both these lives at once,
screaming and holding your ears
at the same time.
Let them fight for you if they will.
dancing,
their bee arms entangled with
their dead.
Undertakers
struggle bodies out the door
try to let go,
but the dead forget
to cooperate.
They grab and hold,
the partners roll,
flip, lie on the carcass pile
slowly pry free the
small hooks and hairs
of their shared lives.
Quixotic drones
stopped flying,
eating, working,
but never stop belonging.
silent motor spinning,
watches the crow,
watching me…
curiouser, curiouser,
more abrupt
than a beat cop.
in raspy call.
“C’mon, C’mon”
I’m ordered to
dance my understanding,
show my ID,
hope for the best.
The cop with steady eyes,
beak and claw
waits for the mistake
that always comes
in time for dinner.
“someone new…
soft-skinned,
weak eyed,
phony feathered,
No Food!”
from the cop who knew
I was only pretending
to belong.
And even if it did tell,
would it tell the truth?
Many regrets are polished
into pretty beach stones.
a single thing about flying?
or stand still?
of ferns, tulips, sunflowers
who still refuse
anything more routine than
light and dark.
deep into the starlit hours,
repairing railroad watches,
glorified, in that golden filigree.
your camel’s fat ass,
the needle’s thin eye.”
Too much sunshine
Too much ocean
Too much meat,
not enough motion
has learned to scream
about too much fat,
heartless lactose attacks
It’s everywhere I go,
stuff I don’t know,
too much,
everywhere.
to crawl through mud
if it takes you
to that spot
where the earth finally speaks.
Listen with forbearance to
granite, basalt, piney loam.
Even the owls
have been too hurried
to hear their thoughts.
concrete, fieldstone, timbers
that witness
your stormy dream,
your family of twisted shoots, limbs,
needles and leaves.
fed to the babies of your babies,
and theirs.
Your name, spoken in a toast,
and in outrage or laughter,
remembered, at least,
by cognizant mud and stone,
still in the middle of
saying hello.
about selfishness.
tumor.
Lymph-eating
puss glutton
savages!
half-lived lives
flash goodbye,
fireflies trapped
deep in that membrane.
has his body, and all he knows,
swallowed whole.
I want an apology
for hanging his star
in some other sky.
among Ponderosas.
Watch that black tide rise
up the trunk
erasing red-brown bark and
viridescent limbs.
moonlessness howl at you
and the coyotes.
Learn to use peripheral vision.
Stars may be as far as they say,
but the light,
the light will be right on your face.
Sing starmony until the moon returns.
before your eyes notice
the uphill tilt
the wider spacing
the more and more glinting rock
where the sky opens
and curves tighten up.
part of something
you have no choice about,
even though you could pull over
or should have, when you were only
tilting a bit.
steers with both hands,
you know you will, too.
The climb is the inspiration,
It’s all you want to do
until you summit yourself.
take in the view
pat your dashboard with thanks,
no matter what you do
you will soon be on your way,
pumping the brakes
undoing yourself.
She was knitting in silence,
fingers so focused,
her head slightly cocked,
eyes watching nothing
she lightly rocked
mother’s mother and
the sheepherders,
the giving sheep, the goats
and llamas
who warm the infant feet of each family,
who shield seamen and captain
for the cold chase of cod.
grateful,
open to voices
who speak without doubt
about
who she can be,
how to catch fish,
what the gravy needs
to make her father smile.
from ear to ear,
knowing the world consists
of puzzle pieces
that take years
to find their spots.
bridge in the country,
while we travelled
the wagon road from Plymouth.
from his pocket
showed where the stranger lived
last October,
when the Goldens got soft
beyond anything but sauce.
throwing those rotters
from the new freeway bridge,
contracted for forty years
of white silence.
for brown apple mush,
or the red- blooded last second
of rabbit life.
bridge to learn how
concrete groans
before the first
Nor’easter cleans
it’s brutal skin.
a mobster of omission,
my fedora, sharp enough
to cut his witness throat.
Nothing to witness,
nothing to fret.
He likes to say..
“Doing nothing is
a hard crime to prove.”
together,
leaving only
the impossible repair of
unfaithful muscle,
broken promises.
about days of nothing,
pretends to sleep
through my apologies,
having leaned faithfulness
generations ago.
I’d keep eyes on the squirrel,
not the cars.
Jump
some plump part,
search
bloody fur for a grip
Stay
in position to
Listen
for traffic.
Dodge
that pick-up,
Pull
meat and bone
toward the roadside weeds
Hope
my beak
has the lift it needs
to free organs from asphalt.
Our voyage can’t wait,
it’s time to
Swallow
that small smashed life
into mine.
Communion,
then flight.
becomes unframed
east of Calgary,
a full generosity of blue
stretches
roundly north
and only north.
My own eyes
feel the muscular pull.
East and west slant downhill
and the green muddy south becomes
only that land behind me.
I’ll follow prairie to tundra,
to ice that joins sky
the way an ocean can do
when the shore slides from view.
Today, I’ll find that place where
God’s lips inflate
the white world
with blue blessings.
What if…
“There is growing neuroscience research that suggests that our notion of a stable “self” is nothing more than an illusion,” wrote the researchers.
What if…
the cash cow concept
may be running dry.
And who says a stable self,
a personality,
was ever our notion?
Your tool
Your weapon
Your way to fool us
into shrinking.
We are so used to
life in tiny boxes
we might not ever
stretch
Or ask
What if…
makes the rounds,
wafts the terminal…
my father’s before me”
said he.
“And is it a visit to Ireland
or a coming home
that you’re about?”
pieces of us
coming apart
your coat peeling off
with your heart
still in it.
I couldn’t feel happiness
in your skin.
I waited
…but you slept.
Every inch of thigh
of you
every too-large dream
of you
all the storm that
is you
was perfect
in fading light.
I wanted only to fade
that gently.
«« Back To Stats Page
the wounded
their rubber-tipped props,
broken histories
have stopped.
“Mother is coming today”
“Help me find the way”
Missed buses,
missing spouses,
estranged shirt buttons,
they refuse
crestfallen mortality.
“Can’t you stay?”
“Let’s go home”
