Hallowed

Fall melancholy pushes past
The beaded curtain of the soul.
Incense-burning
       crystal-gazing
            palm-reading
                  gray-sky blessings
Watch with deep eyes and open hands
As home-starved spirits venture forth
From the long shadows of a harvest moon.

- by Cynthia J. McGean

Going To Meet the Whales

My heart is full of endings, and I'm going to meet the whales.
At the ocean's surfing edge, children tickle the toes of God,
While in the mist, world-weary elders breathe in heaven's peace,
And in the crashing storms behold
Old Testament fury.
Beyond the shore, below the waves, lie unfathomed depths,
Too broad to compass, too vast to hold, a surging, eternal will.
My heart is full of endings, and I'm going to meet the whales.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

I whistle past the graveyard
of my own expectations
Hoping to get lucky
and raise the dead
Disassembled skeletons
Of plans abandoned
And spectre-thin wisps
of dreams unsaid.

What Used To Be Here?

Look at this corner -
My God! It's changed!
What used to be here?

A theater, wasn't it?
No - bakery, I think -
Hot cross buns and almond cookies.
No, no - a florist -
That one with the orchids -
Remember?
The doorway where we shared our first kiss -
The jazz club where I looked into your eyes and saw
The future?

Anyway, it's a gravel pit now,
A concrete hole,
A project,
A scaffold,
Construction zone.
Destruction home.
Bulldozed block.

Tearing down
Making way
Wiping out memory
     and stories
         and time.
Putting up
Walls.

They're building the future.

Future banks, 

Future lofts,

Future over-priced world, 

Future new, 

Future hip,

Future meaningless shit

To us.

What used to be here,
Before it was razed to the ground?
Laughter, desire and broken heart-shards?
What was this once,
Before now plowed it away?
It was our youth,
Our courtship:
Romance,
Idealism,
Hope.

It was us -
Young and wide-eyed, all roads open.
It was us -
Talking of our future
    over wine and ravioli
         and shrimp salad sandwiches.
It was us.
It was then.
Wasn't it?

Waste Not

Waste not
       this day
           this hour
                this moment
In withering worry and aching agenda,
Weighing worth on human scales
      of fame and fortune,
            bytes and stats,
                 and cruelly quantified commodity.

You cannot graph eternity
Nor calculate serenity.











Count what matters -
The sudden flutter of a monarch's wings,
The lone chirp of a lark on high,
The scent of jasmine in a city park,
The taste of lemons, lavender and laughter,
Bright breezes,
Sun-parched skin,
Drumming hearts,
The silence of being.

Waste not
     this day
          this hour
                this moment.

Lost In Thought

My mind is a forest.
On lazy Sundays
I leave a trail of breadcrumbs
To find my way back home.
The better worn pathways
Skirt safely about the edges.
Delve deeper
And they all disappear
Into overgrown, tangled
Life -
Dark and thick, dense and wild,
Utterly under-explored.
I follow a flash of feathers and fur,
A birdcall,
The sound of cataracts and wind tunnels,
Until I am lost.

Dogs Know

Every new piece of human research shows

just how smart dogs are.

This dog is not impressed.

In a new study published in a human journal, Animal Cognition

Researches have “discovered” we know how humans feel

It’s news apparently,

that we read facial expressions, can sense

when a human is untrustworthy.

Remember that time you promised a treat?

Fido sat quietly, for an entire hour

So you could work.
You forgot.

Fido remembered.

We remember your little lies.

We’ve been onto you all long.

Scientists at the Kyoto University

Promised food.

Didn’t deliver.

Noted that we didn’t respond to the third round of broken promises.

It seems, amazingly, we can tell if people are reliable or just

lying liars.

We had to evolve in our long history with humans.

We know too much

to be your best friend.