No Step

I usually think I know where I am going. But, I've discovered that it can be an illusion brought on by staring too closely at the rungs of life's ladder and not looking down or up to see what is above and below.

When folks talk about hitting the bottom, it's not the bottom of a pit with no way out. It's the bottom of your ladder. Sometimes, I'm climing my ladder to get a better look over the top of the wall, and sometimes, I slide down that ladder to get out of the cold winter wind howling across the top of that very tall wall. It can be sunny and warm sitting on top of the wall, but the weather changes. I've been to the bottom of my ladder a few times, and in my journeys down into the darkness, I found that the solid ground that supposedly awaits the descender is a myth. The ladder just ends and then you fall.

I believe most people are somewhere on their ladders, descending, climbing, or just hanging on for dear life. Watch your step...

Mick

No Step

You ever feel that life's a long ladder
And you're standing on the very last rung?
The dirge of your days is even sadder
And your song isn't even half-way sung?
Look down and see where you wanted to go:
It's a summer place, once filled with warm day;
But the weather's changed, it's covered with snow,
And it seems a very long way away.
Then you wonder how you'll get out of there;
The bottom's a windy, cold, lonely place
Where you hang suspended in frigid air.
The short answer slaps you right in the face -
Cold as the snow, with exquisite timing -
The only way up is to start climbing...

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Early to Bed

Sometimes, I feel like the green plant in the winter window. Outside, the season is all wrong. It’s gray and white, not sunny and bright green – yet I struggle to show my summer best greenery in full view of winter’s fury and within ear-shot of its frozen roar. I want to sleep, because most plants want to sleep the long sleep of winter’s cold dream, but the touch of warmth and the occasional summer sun encourages life, if not growth. The stress of seasonal change will sometimes produce just stress and sometimes will cause one to bloom – much as the persistent prompting of my muse will prop my eyelids open and force another verse or two to bloom in the dark and the snow…

Here I am, abed – but not asleep – and this is my poem…

Mick

Early to Bed

Because my mind was in a sorry state,
I thought that I would go to bed early -
Instead of staying up so very late,
And writing introspective poetry.
I considered the coming of the dawn,
But I didn’t want to get off the track.
Instead, I pondered darkness with a yawn,
I stretched a mile, and I had to walk back
Till I found my way to our quiet room -
With fuzzy eyes and blurry, tired sight -
And I could not avoid the poet's doom…
I'm destined to write, even late at night.
I got the new poem out of my head,
But I had to write poetry…abed.


Mick McKellar
November 2007

Turkey Coma

It was a long weekend, and I spent it in close proximity with far too much far too good food. I've been fighting the battle of the bulge for nearly a year now, and have had some minor success, but Thanksgiving is a tough holiday for those watching closely what passes the portal of the palate.

There is a hidden danger in all that pleasing provender, causing a silent, slumberous somnolence leading one down the drowsy path, toward unconscious eating and carbohydrate addiction to steal the soul of the most dedicated calorie counter. Beware the bane of the bird! Beware the dreaded turkey coma!

Mick

Turkey Coma

Longing for goodies I haven't tasted
In nearly a year could drive me crazy,
So I spent the weekend getting wasted
On so many foods, my memory's hazy
About all the treats that by-passed by lips.
Remote-controlled, gut-bomb, high-fat missiles,
To torture my tummy, inflate my hips -
As saccharin-laced as love epistles,
The love-starved, lonely, lost heart indulges.
I fed my face with rich gravy and pies,
Until I remembered last year's bulges,
And started telling myself the old lies.
But did my psycho damage my soma?
It's hard to tell in a turkey coma...

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Winter Rose

Some call them pretty poison and others just the Christmas flower. An urban legend tells of a two-year old child dying in agony after eating a single Poinsettia leaf. There are also tales of its status as a death blossom for pets and other animals. In truth, it's not really good for you, and can make you very ill if you have an allergy to latex, but it is not deadly poison. They grow wild in the tropical forests of Mexico, and like so many people I know, who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, they don't do well when the temperature drops below 50 degrees...

According to legend, a little Mexican girl called Pepita assembled a bouquet of common roadside weeds and offered them at her church's nativity scene, because she had been told that even the most humble gift, given in love, is acceptable in God's eyes. When she placed the weed bouquet at the foot of the nativity scene, it instantly blossomed into brilliant red flowers. The astonished witnesses called them Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night. The were Poinsettias, the most popular Christmas flower, sometimes known as the Winter Rose...

Mick


Winter Rose

Although the Aztecs called it purity,
A symbol that the ancients highly prized,
The rumor of its great toxicity
Has grown through time, and lingers super-sized.
And yet, unless you have an allergy,
It's safe to eat a leaf, not that you should -
For though it might just upset your tummy,
I've heard that it does not taste very good!
The legend says a child, humble and poor,
Picked weeds to bring to church on Christmas Eve.
They blossomed when she brought them through the door:
A Christmas miracle, they all believe.
A wild Poinsettia was what she chose,
The Christmas Star, the velvet Winter Rose.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Pleasant Moments

I was considering how often I say, "Happy Thanksgiving!" without considering what I'm thankful for. Like "Good Morning," "Good Night," and "How are you?" -- the words just roll past my lips without careful consideration of what I'm saying or asking. If you think this is not the case, the next time someone asks how you are, tell them. Give them the litany of your day's travails and blessings. They won't be expecting it, for their words are automatic, part of a standard greeting. They may never ask again...

Put to the test, I wonder how many folks can say what the Thanksgiving holiday celebrates? As an American, I have so many blessings, they are impossible to count, and Thanksgiving makes me think of freedom, family, friends, football, and food. For me, it's a quiet day, filled with precious memories and pleasant moments.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Mick


Pleasant Moments

Can we in conscience, silently conspire
To let a festive holiday slide past,
Without a little spark, a little fire
Of passionate desire to break the fast?
And though we often travel many miles,
Arriving tired, rump-sore, and quite spent,
Familiar faces bring forth quiet smiles,
And make us very thankful that we went.
We leave behind the bustle and the stress,
Journey through the winter's advent weather,
And while we all try to forget the mess,
Spend a little pleasant time together.
For after all there's nothing quite as good,
As moments spent with fam'ly, friends, and food.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Ice in My Veins

I know that, when I got up this morning, I had hands and feet. Yet, I swear they had an out-of-body experience several times today, for although I could see them on the ends of my arms and legs, I could not feel their usual steadfast, functional presence. There just seems to be something about November weather that penetrates the best defenses, searching so deep, I swear ice forms on the bones from Carpals and Tarsals to Phalanges at all points of the human compass.

I’ve heard that fear can make your “blood run cold,” but does slush have to form in the plasma? When I was a young man, I went most of the winter without gloves. Now, I need choppers to look for ice cream in the freezer. If only I could have saved up that miserable heat from the dog days of summer, so that I could raid the account for the dark days of early winter. If I seem to be moving slowly today, it’s not sand in my shoes, it’s ice in my veins…

Mick

Ice in My Veins

I cannot say that it’s cold this morning,
However, not because it isn’t cold;
Perhaps the goose bumps are early warning,
Perhaps they’re just a sign of getting old.
Though I complained about the summer’s heat,
Disgruntled, with sweat running down my back,
Now that I cannot even feel my feet,
I wish I had a little of it back!
I know there is heat, somewhere deep inside,
That never reaches my extremities.
I don’t understand, why it has to hide
Above my elbows and north of my knees.
I cannot blame it on my aches and pains,
If my blood’s sluggish, there’s ice in my veins…


Mick McKellar
November 2007

Corner of My Eye

Maybe it’s too much coffee. Maybe it’s too many years hanging around academics. Maybe my scalp is too tight. Whatever the cause, when I put digits to keyboard tonight, the first paragraph that came out is the following…

“Poets often become platitudinarians of the highest order -- proselytizing primitive proverbs and antediluvian anecdotes until the cows come home. Avoiding these timeworn traps and venerable, antiquated aphorisms and adages is the daily trial of those who seek to tell a story without mumbling maxims and mouthing mottos.”

AAARRGHHH! Eschew Obfuscation indeed! I looked in a mirror, grimaced (as usual), and asked myself, “What can I do…what is the solution to this alliterative, yet cloyingly troublesome claptrap?

Answer: Write about small stuff and ordinary occurrences, everyday episodes, and funny phenomena, because it’s hard to wax pompous about pot-roast and even harder to be haughty about hamburgers, hangnails, and hairy knuckles. And, so, I write about sofas and shadows, funny friends and imaginary fantasy folk (like Footsore Fox and Ribald Rabbit), light and dark, love and loss, and things seen only in the Corner of My Eye…

Mick

Corner of My Eye

I looked out my window,
In the yard I saw a shadow fly.
Why then, I do not know,
But this time they caught my eye.

Creatures tiny and swift,
Often scamper over rocks and leaves.
Bandits crossed a snow drift:
Teeny-weeny, furtive thieves!

Burglars taking at need,
Things that they store in an old wood pile;
Robbers at hyper-speed,
Whose antics can make me smile...

Chipmunks, gophers, and mice,
Are considered pests and hence, destroyed.
And it's hard to be nice,
When their pranks leave me annoyed.

Long as they stay outside,
And live their lives under open sky,
They can run, live, and hide -
In the corner of my eye.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

It Just Makes Sense

Life should be about "giving to" not "taking from." Yet, each year, when Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas role around, fewer and fewer people are willing to wish me a Merry Christmas or a even a Happy Thanksgiving. I believe political correctness has gone awry. May as well tell me I cannot show friends a picture of my beatiful grandchild because someone with poor eyesight (or who hates children) cannot or will not look at it. May as well tell me I cannot raise my voice in song, because someone with poor hearing or who hates music (or my voice) cannot or will not listen to the song. Now they tell me that, because someone may not like the Christian color of my light, we all should sit in the dark - because the dark is so "inclusive." The dark is also dark...

I do not apologize that my poems rhyme and adopt forms more popular in the late 19th Century than in the early 21st. I will not apologize for writing about feeling the touch of the Creator, when I walk on a snowy evening and shiver at the delicate phantom touch of snowflakes on my upturned face, or as I savor the rich green shadows of the ancient Estivant pines on a sultry summer afternoon. The universe of those who believe this world just happened by chance must be empty indeed, and cold because all is ruled by the tossing of dice. There is an icy beauty in the concept of a universe driven by probability, but it cannot compare to a universe designed by a loving and powerful Creator. I love a mystery, and there is none greater.

I want to than Martha Dobbs for the beautiful image I used on the page with this poem. Then I want to thank her for reminding me that, politically correct or not, the world is too beautiful to have simply happened. It was created - it just makes sense...

Mick

It Just Makes Sense

His message comes through clearly,
If you listen with your eyes,
To children cared-for dearly,
And to brilliant sun-drenched skies.

His voice is all-surrounding,
If you watch with loving ears.
It's filled with love abounding,
And a light that calms your fears.

Just taste His wondrous incense,
All afloat on spirit breeze,
And smell flavor so intense,
It will bring you to your knees!

See and smell and taste and hear
Life, you love so very much,
And know He is very near,
When you feel His loving touch.

Human senses let you pray,
So very many ways, and
Savor each and ev'ry day,
That you dwell within His hand.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Gray Man

I wonder how normal it is to feel as if you're fading away? I know how it is to feel invisible. I've been to gatherings and parties where I don't fit in, where I feel like a hole in the air - only noticeable when someone tries to walk through me. Ever leave a gathering and have no one notice you've gone? Fortunately, it is a rare occurrence (at least in my life) and it happens about as often as those rare times that I have been the center of attention. During those invisible times, when I have faded from view, I think of myself as a gray man.

As I've grown older, I've noticed that I can choose to become a gray man, simply by distancing myself from everything. As I begin to not feel, I also begin to fade - as the bright dawn dies into a gray winter's day. I blamed everyone else for not paying attention to me, and yet the truth was much more under my control. I faded from their view because I chose not to be affected by others and the life going on around them. It is a dangerous choice, for one can choose to become too gray, and simply fade away...

Mick

Gray Man

Am I the gray man when the fires of dawn,
Bring naught from me but stifled yawn?
I wonder where my heart has gone?
My heart has gone.
It's gone.

Am I the gray man when a wondrous song,
Cannot stir me to sing along?
It feels as if it's very wrong.
It's very wrong.
It's wrong.

Am I the gray man when a lover's touch,
Cannot somehow be felt as such?
It doesn't stir me very much.
It's very much.
It's much.

Am I the gray man when an old friend's voice,
Is just a part of background noise?
I wonder if it's just a choice?
It's just a choice.
It's choice.

Am I the gray man when the death of dawn,
Moves me no more than a chess pawn?
It matters not if I am gone.
If I am gone?
I'm gone...

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Shuttered

Do the freedom and "connectivity" of electronic communication have a dark side? Although the Internet revolution has done much to connect our minds across vast distances, it has done much to help dig deeper the abyssal separating us, soul from soul. The advertisements say to "reach out and touch someone." Maybe they're right, in a way -- it is possible to touch someone in a spiritual sense -- but not in the immediate, personal, frighteningly physical contact so much a part of what connects us to our lives and our reality.

Maybe it's the lack of this contact, this sharing of physical space, which cuts off so many of us from our humanity. Maybe it's the lack of presence that allows some of us to dispassionately harm those we cannot know as fellow travelers and companions on life's journey. Perhaps, it is the doom and bane of prophets, pariahs, and poets to always remain apart from the vision viewed distant and hazy through the veil. Perhaps what frees the spirit imprisons the soul.

Mick

Shuttered

A prophet sitting in darkness arrayed,
A denizen bathed in silence and gloom,
I foresee a bright future, but afraid
Of life, I cannot leave the shuttered room.
I've lived long alone in quiet despair,
Fear my companion, both frigid and fierce;
A knife in my heart with each look out there,
Dying a little with each poignant pierce.
I see you distant - a welcoming sight,
Shining like silver in deepest shadow,
A light blazing bright in the velvet night,
And painful, as only shuttered souls know.
I understand that you might give a damn,
But I cannot let you see who I am.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Inside the Silence

I have often wanted to ask others, "Where do you go, when you wake in the morning?" Oh, I'm sure the question would elicit blank stares and quizzical knotting of eyebrows at first, but it is a valid question. Upon waking from the world of dreams, we all must travel from that warm and protected realm to the challenging and even harsh realities of making a living and living a life. I wonder, however, how many travel instantly to the plastered, polluted, and polyestered planet on which we make our daily journey, and how many find a quieter path to the doorway to each day.

For me, I abhor sudden immersion in the work-a-day challenges and battles, the siren sounds and chaotic claxons, the negatives and negotiations of life among my fellow travelers. I get up early enough to ease past the transition by walking slowly inward, to revisit my silent redoubt, a day's dawn reminder that there is sweet peace to be found in the heart of my mind. The dawn's pledge to chase away the shadows of night, leaps to light in my morning sight, and I find the will to move ahead, waiting for me, inside the silence...

Mick

Inside the Silence

The chilly gray dawn and the morning air,
Cradle my waking in silence and peace.
The day's certain chaos is not yet there;
No payment yet due on sanity's lease.
As my eyes caress the still, silent dawn,
And consciousness willingly wanders out,
Pondering tiny footprints on the lawn -
Traced in the snow blanket scattered about.
It's then I open my heart to the day,
Accepting the pledge of new risen light,
That whatever problems may come my way,
I've a haven from the shadows of night:
The infinite world of peace that I find,
Inside the sweet, silent heart of my mind.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Touch of Frost

Gothic, monolithic, and gaunt - the stately old sandstone buildings of the Keweenaw stand resolute against spring's thaw, summer's sun, autumn's rain, and winter's chill. Harsh and violent, soft and deadly the elements seek to etch away the facade of each building - cracking ancient paint, chipping stone, splitting the strongest wood by action of wind and water. Stained stone joined to advanced craquelure and laced with lichen's fairy dance, the weathered and unbeaten faces of our buildings endure the scrutiny of passing travelers - faces at once handsome and austere, distinguished with just a touch of white...

Could they speak, what might they tell us of their fear, their future, and their fate?

Mick

Touch of Frost

My bones are tough as iron and hard as stone,
And I have weathered many winter gales
Both fierce and adamant; I stand alone
As chronicler of lonely winter tales.
Though sun and ice and rain my stone may etch,
And cause my very skin to flake away -
As sun and dark contract my bones, and stretch
My joints until they leave me ashen gray;
Though spring's upheavals shake me to my roots,
And I get burned by summer's fiery ball -
The autumn's windy hands my treasure loots,
And winter is the cruelest time of all:
Allergic to the faintest touch of frost,
I quietly endure, and count the cost...

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Frosting

Maybe it explains why I tend to gain weight in the winter. I looked out my window and groaned - white here, white there, white, white everywhere! The first snow of the season touches that tiny fear of winter's cold breath searching out every crack in my house and turning my floors into icy paths for bare morning feet. It is the season of the long, cold sleep and longer, colder, darker -- seemingly endless nights.

But for some reason, it also stirs images of frosted cakes and gingerbread houses covered in white icing, whipped cream drifts, and soft powdered sugar. Who would have thought Jack Frost had a sweet-tooth?

Mick

Frosting

Marshmallow drifts softly melted on stones,
Slowly cover grass, wherever they can.
Blanketed cars become white-dusted scones,
Parked near buildings bright-trimmed in marzipan.
Dancing trees shake thick white frosting from limbs,
Sweetening layers of ice cream below;
Shimmering winds singing soft winter hymns,
Scatter the translucent, crystalline snow.
Though reds and golds are now covered with white,
And chilly wind fingers are so unkind,
I'm wondering why the cold wintry sight,
Brings such sweet confections springing to mind -
Once the warm caramel winds of July,
Blow confectioners sugar from the sky.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Timelord: Unstuck

I'm only guessing, but I believe that we all, from time to time, think of ourselves as masters of our domains and lords of our time. In that secret place of mirrored walls, soft shadows, and rose-washed illumination; that private redoubt of personal power wherein we feel both large and in-charge; we each rule supreme and stand alone, arms akimbo and locks flowing in the winds of self-assurance. There each can feel free and able to reach out from the center of that personal universe to guarantee peace, truth, justice, and the American way...

Truth be told, none of us stands completely alone. We all work for someone, or answer to some higher authority for our actions or inactions. Our connection to others is what holds us in place and keeps us so fortunately stuck in time...

Mick

Timelord: Unstuck

I like to believe I'm Lord of my time,
And that I hold sway over what I do.
Yet, I wouldn't earn a dollar or dime,
Should I others' needs and orders eschew.
"We all work for someone," a wise one said.
Even the richest man in the world,
Depends on others to help earn his bread.
Without them, his flag cannot be unfurled,
And he remains quite unknown and alone...
A leader sans followers cannot lead -
Like a muscle without tendon or bone -
Cannot achieve what he may want or need:
A timelord who's disconnected, unstuck;
Out of time, out of power, out of luck.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

Downloaded...

At one time or another, we all live vicariously. Sometimes, it's just a flight of fancy, or identification with the hero in a favorite movie. Sometimes, it's watching children and grandchildren experience the rigors and wonders of growing and learning about life. But I wonder about the possibility of getting lost in a virtual world.

I work in an office, sometimes. I work at home, sometimes. However, I spend the majority of my working hours immersed in the flickering light of a computer screen, my thoughts traveling at incredible speeds across a network unimaginable when I was growing up. I dawned on me, as I was waiting for my e-mail to download, that I spend a lot of time waiting for information to download to my screen and then (sometimes longer) for it to download to my brain. Often it's as though I were afloat on an ocean of information (often only an inch deep) in a paper boat full of matches. At other times, however, I ponder getting lost out there, left behind in a dark place, waiting because I lost the connection to my life...

Mick


Downloaded

In the daily online commuter race,
I'm often the first one out of the gate.
If I don't win, I at least show, or place,
Unless an unforeseen crash makes me late.
But is this a life, this online struggle?
Am I living, here on the Internet?
Is there a warm place out here to snuggle?
Or will I finish angry and upset,
Found stranded alone in the online night -
On an isolated unmarked byway;
A block and a half, just past the stoplight,
Off the information superhighway?
I feel I'm stuck at the side of the road,
While I'm waiting for my life to download.

Mick McKellar
November 2007

The Secret of Snow

Soon, there will be layers of white wool covering the hills and filling the valleys of the Keweenaw. The sharp angles of the land and the complex tangle of the forest will soften, perhaps even disappear under a deep blanket of silent white. Winter's bite is sharp and her teeth are long and cold. Her touch can be death to those who walk warm in the sun - a frightening thought for all save those who know that the little death of winter is the wellspring of summer's riot of life.

The soft, white secret of snow's place in the passionate cycle of life is a silent shadow in the dark thoughts of those who live in warmer climes. A poet's soul, touched by the cold fingers of winter's white hand, instinctively senses the secret garden of life, sleeping under the season's silent white blanket...

Mick

The Secret of Snow

A northern winter's a season of death,
For those blinded by an unseeing heart;
Feeling only the north wind's icy breath,
As the warm colors of Autumn depart.
Gray clouds scud past when November winds blow,
Gathering moisture when crossing the lake;
Carrying water of life, and below -
Leaving white petals afloat in their wake.
Soft falling snow has a silent power,
Whispering white of the seeds of green spring.
It accumulates hour by quiet hour,
Wherein distant echoes of summer sing;
In a private place only poets know -
A secret garden of life in the snow.

Mick McKellar
November 2007