Disconnected Profundity

I posted these little poems together because they are related...half-siblings with shared alleles from the same frustrated donor. Although I know Facebook , Twitter, etc. are social media watering holes, I cannot help but be reminded of my days on the playground, trying to get the attention of my friends, my teachers, or even my parents by shouting the loudest, waving my arms, or falling off the jungle gym. The competition for attention, interest, and response was challenging. The noise level was deafening. The visual impact was akin to a hundred TV commercials running simultaneously.

Eventually, even falling off the jungle gym garnered no attention, because two other kids just fell off the slide and one did a swan dive from a swing in mid-flight. I remember feeling isolated and disconnected amidst the cacophony, adrift on a sea of noise; invisible in the bright light of frenetic activity. The roar receded and deafened by the clamor, I went about my business of playing -- in a cocoon of my own construction. I could shout that my left foot was on fire or that a chunk of the sky just descended upon my aching head with a Martian martini attached to it, and no one would ever know. I could dance in the daylight, sing of long-lost sunny days, and utter the most profound wisdom available to a first grader -- all without worry of rebuke or even recognition. The only danger was that, occasionally, someone else noticed and then a chain reaction faster than light speed focused all attention on my imaginary flaming left foot.

You know, I miss the quiet pleasure of getting a letter...

Mick


Disconnected

Two fellows stood, with megaphones in hands,
Up on their rooftops, straddling the peak --
Voicing their opinions, making demands,
Reveling in their certain right to speak.
Soon, all their neighbors had joined in the fun,
Armed with megaphones, signs, and flashing lights.
Each competing to be the loudest one,
Or have the most compelling sounds and sights.
The media sensation quickly grew,
Spreading like a virus across the land.
They all broadcasted everything they knew --
Shouting until hoarse, till they could not stand.
The grand cacophony would not abate,
Even though they could not communicate.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Profundity

My message said I stayed up late,
While trying to communicate,
My thoughts, profound and wise.
I posted them for all to see,
I shared the very core of me,
In front of all their eyes.

I thought, perhaps, a small response,
Would justify, upon the nonce,
My self-effacing boast.
But, hours later, all I read:
That you had risen from your bed...
And you were making toast.

Affronted by this simple snub,
I poured hot water in my tub;
I sat and had a soak.
And later, when I mentioned it,
My tub-soak posting was a hit!
Please tell me that's a joke...

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Ancestors

At crossroads, we are taught to look all ways before moving forward -- primarily to avoid being hit by a great purple bus that somehow avoided detection. At our critical, mystical crossroads, the turning points in our lives, we also look all ways -- especially backwards to see if our ancestors left any helpful life-lessons lying about on the roadway from our past. For so many years, I could depend on whispers from mother and father, echoing across the years since they departed, giving me advice on each new step along the road. However, as the road has lengthened, their voices have become stretched until they are mostly no longer detectable without a special effort on my part to seek them out.

However, as the voices drift ever onward toward silence, misty and hazy images from long ago come into ever sharper focus, as though vision were compensating for loss of sound. Memories of family reunions, weddings, funerals, and anniversaries flood my mind with images that are missing both the soundtrack and the cast list. I can see their smiles, but I cannot tell if they are laughing with me, or at me...

Mick

Ancestors

My mind reaches back to touch your spirit,
And breaching the rift between now and then,
Senses your voice, though I cannot hear it
As once I did, but can't remember when...
I resonate with your silent heartbeat,
Calm reassurance that memory brings,
Of feeling a circle closing, complete
At remembered family gatherings:
Swift visions of those faces and voices,
So long divorced from relation or name,
Leave me to search unlimited choices,
That slowly converge till all look the same.
Facing the past, I stand tiptoe to see,
All my ancestors, smiling back at me.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Reasons

I've always considered myself a reasonable, rational, reasoning being. Like everyone, I want my world to make sense and to offer a measure of comfort and security. With each news broadcast and with each article I read, I am given reasons to worry, reasons to fear, reasons to run and hide from all the chaos and from the chorus of angry voices. The negativity, anger, and evil are overwhelming if taken at face value, if accepted as the only reality of our age.

Each day, as I review the litany of loss before my eyes and in my ears, I consider the results of blind acceptance and reject those results as not certain...as a self-defeating prophesy. I remember that prophets of doom have always been with us, and despite their despite, the power that created all continues and the love that made us lives on, in us and all around us.

Mick

Reasons

There's a thousand good reasons to be sad,
Sit and cry...
Every one of them is wrong,
For they only bring sad endings to our song.

There's a million good reasons to be mad,
Can't deny...
And yet none of them are right,
For they only cause the best of us to fight.

There's a billion good reasons to be bad,
Want to die...
Not a single one is true,
For they only keep us all from loving You.

My world is not a simple place,
The tides of my future shift and slide,
But with a measure of Your grace,
I'll have no reasons left to want to hide!

There's only one good reason to be glad,
It's no lie...
And it's the truth everywhere,
Our world exists because Your love is there.

And that is my simple morning prayer.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Death of a Generous Spirit

There are times I can hardly recognize the old man in the mirror. Just six short months of searching for work and finding only souls more worried than I am about the future, have left an empty cavern, deep inside, where a generous spirit once burned brightly. The once nearly weightless responsibility for supporting my family, so easily borne and haughtily carried, has become a dread companion, a shadowy reminder of arrogantly sunny days gone dark with the threat of misfortune and lack.

As I struggle to meet each new day with a smile on my face and to keep hope alive and faith burning somewhere in the deep -- a silent prayer for freedom from the fear of failure -- I still feel the vast emptiness where a once generous (if a bit thrifty) spirit dwelled in uneasy harmony with my more practical Scottish heritage. I mourn its demise and I pray for its rebirth.

Mick

Death of a Generous Spirit

What happened to my old impulse to share?
I looked, and I can't find it anywhere...
When fortunes changed, and abundance drifted
Away on the tides, my outlook shifted
From focus on bounty to fear of dearth,
Giving Dicken's old Scrooge a second birth --
Tipping the balance to hoard each penny,
Spend only for me, and not share any.
It hurts me almost more than I can bear,
Each time that I bypass a chance to share;
Dark shadows cry constantly in my head,
That the times are tough and sharing is dead.
My heart grieves so, I can't bear to hear it,
For the death of a generous spirit.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

August Eaves

It's morning, or at least I think it is morning. The almost-frigid fingers of the late-August wind touch my face, seem to promise the long twilight of autumn that leads only to the longer sleep ahead. It seems too soon to be feeling this chill touch and hearing the earthy song of summer's end. Our dusty, haughty, distant summer sun did little to warm old bones nor did bright summer clouds do much to soak the parched soil with the nectar of the sky. Yet, here at the peak, when summer's reign should be supreme, the northern winds cry bitter tears upon the leaves and on the roof, to drip steadily from astonished August eaves...


Mick

August Eaves

Rivulets run from the edge of the eaves,
Splash on the puddles and soak falling leaves.
Cold-shower breezes move curtains aside,
Probe with cold fingers from which I can't hide.
Summer's warm voice is nowhere to be found,
And rich with the loamy smell of the ground,
Autumn's dark baritone whispers its song -
Barely heard now, for it does not belong
In Summer's not yet defeated domain,
Should not be hiding in soft summer rain,
Or whispering down from gray leaden skies -
Chanting its promises, secrets, and lies.
Silent remain till it colors the leaves,
And let the summer rain drip from the eaves...


Mick McKellar
August 2009

Nightsong

Do the stars sing? I swear that on winter evenings, calm and clear, a crystal whisper echoes in my ear and I can hear the song of the stars across the barren blackness. Angel voices have been heard from the midnight skies by many who search the heavens for wisdom, or insight, or just reassurance that in all that expanse of shadow and stardust, their tiny flame burns brightly enough to be noticed and treasured.

I have tried to reach out with my spirit, aflame with the need to touch the abyss and know it is not empty, and to hear the nightsong once again — the crystal chorus that ties me to the burning giant, tiny specks of light, twinkling in the night...

Mick

Nightsong

The cry my heart screams, roars in silent tears —
A sigh of fire for scores of silent years.
My thoughts explode, a stabbing brilliant light,
A nova bright, unnoticed in the night.
None come near me, for they can sense the beat
Of heart-fired bellows, generating heat
That thousand suns, in universal fear
Of death of light, can't bring the nightsong near
To where I stand. And silently, I cry —
For upturned eyes search countless halls of sky,
To find the meaning, find the whispered song,
And, in the dark, my heart can sing along.

I seek the nightsong, the music of the air;
The Muse's voice upon the wind up there.
An ancient music — echoes in the mind,
An ageless music lovers sometimes find,
When in the arms of soft and shadowed night,
They dance the dream of their pure love's delight.
And, on occasion, writ in star-lit skies,
The dream appears before the poet's eyes.
But, not tonight — I shall not get my chance,
To race the light and dance the dreamer's dance.
I burn too brightly, seething with the flame
That seeks the nightsong, calls its ancient name...

Perhaps tomorrow's nightly dew and damp,
Will quench my fire and shade my fiery lamp,
And far from TV, game shows, cars and bars —
I'll hear the nightsong music of the stars!


Mick McKellar
August 2009