Now talk to me,
and tell me what you think.
I want to know the conclusions
you have reached.
Tell me what you know,
not what others have said.
I can read what they have said
about any number of topics.
I want to hear your thoughts,
and how you come by them.
What does this say to you
about how you arrive at this place
in time?
I tire of hearing what the talking heads
have read and tire of hearing variances
of the same story.
I want no quotes. I want your thought.
You have lived long enough
to have a say, to know your gut feeling.
No time is right anymore for talk.
The devices tell with a click what is
the current thinking. Of everyone.
I want to know why your heart keeps beating
and you keep on keeping on
when our country totters amidst
constitutional crisis. And morality changes.
And the Earth’s countries are slugging it out.
But most of all why you think
it is worth a tinker’s damn to care about.
I realize I am only an audience of one,
but I want to know what you know.
I want to burglarize your mental house.
So tell me. Your thoughts will be original to me
and I will be the richer for them.
I will happily walk to the Memory Bank with them.
It is there I have an open account.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
Can One Be a Better Anything Than One Is a Person?
Many times, even vehemently, it has been stated that one cannot be a better anything than one is a person. And the lesson is one well taken. It would seem that more work is needed in the moral posturing of would be leaders. Lessons learned are not the ones they would be most proud of. And the big lesson here is that there are many who feel that as long as they pay their bills and do good, nothing else should be questioned.
All who aspire to leadership of the common man, the average man needing the guidance of astute leaders wish to see those portions of one’s life one wants to hide, remain hidden. But is it fair to place a man in leadership where when the big issues are approached one questions the integrity of the person?
Again we are at the basic assumption of whether one can be a better anything than one is a person. What about one’s commitments, one’s honor, one’s word? What about these values which have built people’s lives into civilized containers that have led many toward better health and quality lives?
In teaching morality to the young, for they will again need to be taught, is it the proper response to a biological function to say wear a condom or to say the highest of all human emotions regarding the sanctity of life needs to be placed in the highest category and not relegated to minute entertainment?
We have more than moral integrity on the line. Should we also ask the aspiring candidates for medical tests to ensure that their tour of duty will not be interrupted by a social disease?
We ask that the nation united behind a leader who asks that one give his life in war noting that the issue is argued in good conscience by objectors of war. And that same individual will unaccountably say that he could not commit himself to the marriage union without straying but in that case it was all right for only his near ones were involved.
The arbitrary disposition of such procedures still must be argued. The arbitrary compulsiveness when the individual has no control over his own body yet wishes to control all bodies of all persons makes little sense. Into whose hands does the common, average person place his conscience?
What one does behind closed door will be argued as private. Yet war is not private but public, for all to participate in, to maim and kill and honor and dishonor one another. It would seem fruitless to go further. It would seem not a cogent nor coherent thing to do to espouse maturity in judgment concerning matters of state when matters of personal discipline are questionable.
It would seem to an enlightened electorate that what is evidenced and is not questionable due to personal motives, be the guideline where the very large issue of personal integrity is at stake. It would seem that perhaps all issues which neither fit nor are comfortable for the human be disregarded. And should that be the case, what would be substituted as guidelines for those looking for direction on what to do?
We could dissolve into a sensual state where the pleasures of the body rule. Where when one is at a loss in the face of large issues, one buries oneself in the momentary oblivion of the physical. Perhaps that is the direction humanity wishes to go. It would be far easier and soon there would be chaos in the streets where rape and pillage would not be an issue but a norm.
Perhaps it is carried to an extreme with this analogy. But what we see when man reaches the age of reason, whatever that means in terms of legality, there must also come a discipline which is self imposed. Perhaps there must be a waiting time for what is most desired.
Perhaps there must be new priorities set upon those common things of marriage and children. But there must be education. And there must be direction that will give the young avenues upon which their raging hormones can be vented in good use. Not in the making of more babies and not in the promiscuous behavior which is given clemency in everyone’s mind.
Strange, isn’t it? That the kind of behavior we espouse is behavior which in other times and places was simply called decent; the proper thing to do. But obviously not in these times and this place.
In accordance with today’s mores, today’s values, and the statistics on the spread of diseases which can affect even the most productive life, of need will be a new adaptation of what it is the human body can withstand. It would seem child’s play in retrospect to rediscover that education and an adherence to Victorian attitudes is in order. But not with the ancient embarrassment attached to the human body.
With an attitude of understanding that the human body is vulnerable and the human psyche not equal to healing as quickly as one would suppose. Even with death as a specter, reason should tell us that the human being is of quality as to be revered. Not a conquest of the adolescent but to be honored and revered in direct proportion vulnerable as is one’s own life.
A thorough understanding of what human life is all about is in order. A better understanding of what the fallout of promiscuous behavior has on the young should be apparent to all. Lessons we teach are often not the lessons we wish to teach. It would seem obvious to the thinker that lines of discipline are instituted for the just purpose of preserving life. The thinking one knows this.
Those bent on shaking and moving must also be taught that discipline becomes the first one, and that is the individual. Then the example will be the best teacher. One has listened to the old adage ‘do as I say and not as I do.’ And yet when the authority figure in question sets examples that may lead to debility if practiced by another, one should first of all question the authority and wonder the example he sets.
There are those who argue for the privacy of the individual to do what he or she pleases behind closed doors. Contagious diseases are not silent. They ride rampant and they maim.
In these days where nothing is private, it best behooves the individuals running for highest offices in the land, offices that yearn to set an example for the commoner as well as the foreigner, or the office that wishes to unite the world in peace and brotherhood, be above reproach.
The kinds of issues that are brought up with the undisciplined individual are many. We started off with the undisciplined in body. The body is what we try to master first. If we are not able to master the body’s rage and desires, how then can we even begin to give appetite to others’ lives?
The individual who loves plants and wishes to water and feed them, knowing what is required, will be a good tenderer. The individual who wishes to be a physician will know how important it is to be first a doctor. The individual who wishes to be an educator must at first be a good teacher.
There are differences attached but the each must first be developed a discipline. And discipline ranges the professions in the same measure as ranges within the individual.
In the outward things, man does not appear to have difficulty, assuming as he does that the work will be affected by the effort. So in the human condition. The individual will be affected with the results of undisciplined behavior. It cannot be stressed too highly how the undisciplined, whether in private life or public life will have an effect upon those they wish to reach. And the lessons we teach might be those we wish we had not.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
What I found in the sanctuary of my yard, a church if you will, and still do, is a pull, albeit a magnetic one, to a something that transcends the physical. I function in the physical, but never seeing it in just a single dimension. There is a height, a depth and an all embracing width that I try to gather into my arms. You are in that embrace.
I have written where I see in a glance the essence as well as the result, the consequence. It is admiring the garden and appreciating the gardener, seated at banquet and knowing its intricate preparation and thanking the farmer. It takes away the spontaneity and surprise; both a curse and a blessing. What it gives is a first rate conscience and sense of responsibility. It has you working till you drop but chalking few regrets with gratitude for life and thanking the giver for it.
You might ask, who cares? What difference does it make? One day you will care and to you it will make a big difference. You are its prayer, its question and its answer. In you are the answers to what your life means. There are no other answers. You are the answer. You are the unsuspecting shoulders upon whom the answer rests. You will be the answer to who cares. And you will care a lot.
Our Hearts Speak. . .
As we enjoin the universal spirit
to entrust us with another spring,
another resurrection,
awaken within us the desire
to nurture the world
that has nurtured us.
Let our hearts lead us
to that place where
we intuitively cherish the mother
who feeds and clothes us and
gives us sustenance.
Let us not forsake our responsibilities
to those yet unborn but whose futures
we have already mortgaged.
Blessed Spirit, enliven our curiousity
about our daily world, remind us
that the bird’s song needs our
acknowledgement and praise,
that the sun needs our greeting
and the night wishes it bid good.
As we nourish those of our commitment,
speak to us of our commitment
to the home we know, our planet Earth.
Let our love guide us to make beautiful,
to make secure and to guard diligently
what has so faithfully harbored us.
In love we pray, Amen, amen. {scribed April 5, 1991}
artwork by Claudia Hallissey
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
The words to each will mean something different. They will root in the heart, in the mind and have a life of their own with you. At some time I hope, they will mean a something that answers what is now a question.
Our Time Is Now. . .
Listen to the peoples, listen
to the peoples.
One learns what the silence
is shouting.
One learns what is not said
when words spilling forth
are not true.
One learns of love
by the strength of the arms about
that do not lie. I know, I know
it to be a sign that cannot be hid.
And by the evenness of the voice
that sings in the air
and the throat
that does not gargle its sounds.
No matter how smooth
is learned the persuasion,
how smooth.
Come, sit with me.
It is our time and it is now.
No matter the wait
for time impends its weight
and our time is now. Now.
{painting was a gift of
my granddaughter Jessica,
who knows her grandmother well }
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
The Teachers Speak. . . Every so often, out of one’s domain, there is an isolation that swamps one. It is difficult to shake, and yet there it is, evidence that this is not home. There is a portion or many portions appealing to one, yet basically, the at home feeling begins to leave. This is when one digs in and brings to light all those things that brighten the soul. Dig into your handiwork, give yourself some leeway but stay with the program, stay with the route. You will find that the isolation will fade somewhat and again you will regain your sense of belonging. But do not distress yourself about it. It is a pure longing for the home of one’s soul. It will come about in its own good time and the journey will have been worth the while. And what is gained along the way will add simply more weight to the gems in your pockets. (scribed November of ’94)
Across the Mind’s Eye. . .
Laying like whipped icing
on the wedding cake,
the drifts of snow across the mind’s eye
left a clear path to the heart’s memory
of the other winters when love
closed the doors of the world
and cherished me.
What were the winters like
when the snow stood high
and like lover’s swords sliced a path
and found where I was?
poem written Nov , 2011
Deep within are memories brought forth for a reason indecipherable. Simply as the poem says, across the mind’s eye. Yet sweeping the body, finds the knees weak and my heart laboring. One wonders then from where comes the love, the cherishing. It is deep within but the source cannot be brought to mind. Still the feeling is unmistakable. And the knowledge stays that somewhere that world is intact. And a matter of time only, time as it is known where I am, folds unto itself and puts me back into the ‘old country.’
One then does not argue with this because it is not belief, but knowledge. And it was yesterday though a lifetime has been lived since. Puzzle? No, because we learn that linear time belongs to Earth but confirming that all time is simultaneous. (April, 2018)
photo by Joe Hallissey sr.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
Do not chop me up in little pieces.
I hate the sight of what I see
when I see me through your eyes.
I strive to be perfect
and in doing so find me
killing my very self.
By whose yardstick
am I measured that I
should fall so short?
An unguarded moment
can make or break a world.
Today I find mine broken.
Should I expect you to build me a new one?
Recent Journal entry April 2018. . . They have written and they ask why they fall so short when they try so hard. And this failure levels them to the degree that all desire for advancement leaves them in the dirt and in the dirt they are stepped on.
Lost in a world of numbers and competition for place in family, in life, notably already feeling unnoticed, has put many walking out on talents enormously needed.
We come into the world unique and yet this uniqueness is not appreciated but considered undesirable differences. Those who want to be a presence in new life as well as those who wish to find their own centers of substance, are in need and they are neither female nor male specifically but human beings essentially.
And to be different is not appreciated. When striving to do better to please also brings forth intelligence which has an inner glow. And again forces more separation because one appears then better than they who originally found the difference threatening.
We wish a way to avoid curtailing a person’s growth crucial to their evolution, and growth possible to those whose own sense of failure results in stepping on the heads of others, especially children. The mother gods and father gods desire to hold their positions forever it seems lest they go down with the proverbial glub.
Who has the courage to see their progeny outstrip them in intelligence and maturity? Yet the purpose of life is growth and promoting the potential of everyone. To grow and become accountable was held a priority.
The intent has always been that emotional growth would be commensurate with chronological aging. That when behavior was appropriate to the age, the emotions would match. Such has not been the case.
Adults go their graves clutching the child within to their bosoms. Childlike awe and wonder is never out of date; childishness only appropriate under 5 years.
It is time to grow up. Lest the devices deemed to amuse today’s world become weapons of war.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
She was little more than a toddler. She was plain, even mousy by standards of beauty deemed for the very few. Stringy hair, hazel eyes with poor sight even and not the porcelain English complexion esteemed by her heritage. Left with her brother in Scotland while her mother set out for Canada to set up housekeeping for a husband wounded in the first world war and sent to a Toronto hospital for care. Left too long for the toddler, for when she and her brother were sent to travel the ocean with hired friends, she arrived to find herself no longer the center of interest.
Arriving to find a new sister, with blue eyes, curly blond locks and a porcelain skin already called ‘doll’ because of her exquisite English heritage. Welcomed the first sister was with acknowledgment that she was a big sister to look out for the ‘doll’. Her cry was ‘I’m little, too!’ and would be for almost a hundred years.
Heartbreaking, but pathetic also, to the generations listening powerless to untie the knots that were tied by circumstances only those who tied them could untie. To hear an octogenarian begin every explanation of her life with those words, ‘I’m little, too!’ and need to be parented by everyone regardless of age was an uncomfortable position for everyone. Requiring always to be center, even when birthing an only child and stealing from the father’s child the parental love and caring necessary for his growth.
The girl toddler grown aged never made peace even with her own progeny. Always displaced she was, shunted aside for every newly minted child coming into the family. Hers was a life of pampering the aging psyche forever the child by a husband who could care for only one. He learned too late for him with no time left, the unhealthy conditions for everyone. And how what was not done left the shouldering of burdens on the unsuspecting coming into the family.
We learn ‘suffer the little children’ with the words taking root and no one thinking that the conditions of the beatitude would take forever to unearth. No one thought we would perpetrate upon our progeny burdens that would make leaden their feet and prevent growth. We would fertilize beliefs that we must assuage the anguish of the ancestors and give them what was owed. Hence we prepare the ground for more bloodshed.
Do circumstances of our lives provide the fodder for weapons of war and peace and goodwill are the two weeks of grace given as reward at the end of the year? I don’t think that was the intent when the prophecy was fulfilled. We have to grow up sometime. Else the stagnation persists and evolution is halted. Think on it. This small instance of one little girl is multiplied forever anon. The cost of war? Don’t get me started.. . .
Excerpt from the Knotted Family Ties. . .
I close the shutters and pull up the steps. I learn to live in my own house. I stay my time and do what is mine.
Jesus, it hurts to watch and be able to do nothing.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
What can be born and be borne? Knowledge is that all reality is a preferential viewpoint. That the dream is born and in it will be the lesson plans inherent. That with the lesson plans will be what we need to learn and they will be borne within the dream’s boundaries and the lessons will be carried. We will be equal to their weight and profit from them. And we will grow and mature and do good and the dream will be a success for this time and place. We will do what we can do.
It Comes With Cost. . .
It comes with a cost.
Learning can rip the heart.
Let the words be carried
to the Ethers and
wrung dry of your tears.
You shout a language foreign
to the ears of him. You live
nowhere but in your heart and
nowhere but in your mind.
It is time to go to that
small place and bless who you are.
Tears of anguish ask for
acknowledgement. The words are
lost on the south wind which carry
them north and lost on the north wind
as it brings them south again.
Your heart is tapped deeply
revealing the Source of who man is.
It is time. It is time.
It is time he knows this.
art by Claudia Hallissey
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
The construction is still in process, but we are nesting! I am not sure it is Maudie, but surely a younger. No doubt word was given that if babies are on the agenda, ‘this place is one we know and trust. And they talk to you with real words, all of them do. They keep tabs on you and watch the watch as all of us wish.’
I was surprised to see the doves begin building their nest. Certainly with the construction going on in the back of the house, there were splinters and broken by the wind leaves and branches. The two birds carried the pieces, one splint at a time, up to the nest. I watched for some time and wondered if they would soon figure an easier way to do it. It seemed to take at least two days, but then sitting on the nest was mama. We didn’t think there were eggs yet, but she sat and is still sitting. I will note the calendar.
When sleep eludes, the backyard offers privacy to hold the Newfie along with Maudie again and of course the (invisible) Sages In Conference. I am at home with all this and know how fortunate I am. In February I journaled that as I was sitting resting my arms on bent knees, I felt what I thought a hand on my back. It was a loving touch and I thought son John had come through the patio door.
I lifted my head and a bird flew over from my back. I thought oh my, he walked up my back and I felt his weight. What trust! The connection I feel with Nature assures me my presence is welcome and my words to life are understood. When we lose that connection to Nature, we soon lose it with persons and it becomes non existent with the cosmic world.
We count on devices to tell us we are liked and ignore the human next to us. Who will catch us as we draw our last breath and watch the world calmly folding itself unto itself as the illusion it is? On what have we built our lives? What has been our focus?. . . .
As I Watched. . .
Part of a whole, yet wholly here.
Slowly as I watched
the silence was encompassing.
Piece by blessed piece, each tree,
each entity slowly folded upon itself
and laid itself down.
The screen protecting vanished
as it bent itself into nothing,
a wisp of an idea no longer useful.
Trees, one by one bent over themselves
and laid themselves down and
disappeared onto the forest floor.
And I thought now neat!
No evidence, no residue of debris
to litter the surroundings.
I murmured his name as I watched
the scene disappear and he said, don’t move.
And time collapsed for me again
into the frame of reference I know as mine.
And again the journey continued and
I sit and wonder and marvel at
this multifaceted existence I know as life.
(poem written March, 2017)
photo today April 8, 2018
by John Stanley Hallissey)
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
My joy is great in presenting this heartfelt bundle in her run for the roses. She does nicely with wonderful parents and grandparents ready with arms open. And uncles and aunts by relation and a hundred cousins and others by adoption.
She has reason to smile broadly and wink in secret. She knows, of course, she knows what the secret is and who holds the keys. We all wish we had arrived with such welcome and so much love. We think what wonders could have been wrought, but we know now what we can give to each other.
And with open arms greet each other to assure a welcome when we meet. Emma E. has already taught us all much. She knows who holds the sparklers and knows also, in her heart, that she is one of the ones who holds that bit of magic out to us.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.