From an Upper Floor

Forever Stilled

Forever Stilled

Hear the bird sing.

Singing with

the guttural sound

because the ethers

are not light enough

to carry her notes.

She swallows her song

and it is forever stilled.

October 7, 2011

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.
In The Morning

                        In The Morning

                        Today is the day

                                    I will preen my feathers,

                                    open my wings and fly.

                        Today is the day

                                    I will breathe the elixir

                                    of rarefied air

                        and bring to me

                                    All That Is

                                    into a heart grown weary.

                        And then I will find

                                    the power to change

                                    the course of mighty rivers

                        and give impetus

                                    to dreaming children

                                    who are content to sleepwalk.

                        In all this,

                                    I will find the

                                    crystalline gestures exquisite.

                        And dawn will break the crystals

                                    and the children

                                    will pick them up

                        astonished.

October 7, 2011

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.
Bless The Experience

            I learned something. I learned to ’bless the experience’.

           For if the experience has been a negative one,

           has left me with a hurt so deep, has filled me with anger,

            then I must bless it. For in the blessing I remove

           its power to hurt me again. I leave it impotent, unable.

            I’ve taken the wind out of its sails and

            there it sits, blessed for the teaching,

            but unable to wield power over me again.

            If the experience is a positive one, I bless it.

           In like manner, it will remain powerful and upon recall,

            able to confer its goodness time and again.

           In my thinking happily on it,

            I will automatically bless it again.

            Life is a blessed experience, all of it.

            Bless it generously and gratefully.

            It teaches us magnificently and impartially.

            These are the magic words. For in the unhappy experience

            we are taught swiftly and surely and must bless the lesson.

           In the happier one our pleasurable memory is our

            reward. In blessing all of it, we make our truce with life

            and secure our place in it forever.

September 25, 2011

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.
Observations

If you do not intend to look back,

it’s best to remember to lift the plow.

Wishes are as potent a force

as fishes swimming in live water.

Under adverse conditions, we become

more of what we are.

To think is a holy obligation.

Nothing gets done in this world unless a somebody’s

back breaks, a somebody’s legs ache and at least a

somebody’s mind splinters and a heart rips apart.

The world no longer tolerates the thinkers. They have

become recluses in ribbons of concrete.

The thoughtful ones cannot find a place to be asked a question

requiring the time to raise their eyes unto the hills and back for

a reflective answer.

The visionary has the look of one used to focusing on

the horizon. I would place my life in the hands of a visionary.

He /she will be around for the long haul as a participant in the vision.

September 11, 2011

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.
NOBLE VIGILS

                        In its lucent light,

                        riding high in orbit,

                        the moon casts spears

                        arching toward the groves

                        of evergreens,

                        trading their veracity

                        for a moment of magic.

                        The night dissolves

                        the shaded parts into blackness.

                        My eyes linger

                        on the luminescence,

                        on the silent sterling

                        of those branches

                        lifted to catch the light.

                        And remind me

                        of the noble vigil

                        of the humble dusty miller

                        on a hot August night.

August 30, 2011

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.
No Lost Causes

A one sided effort does bring results.   Even when it appears to be a lost cause, it is not. That someone cares enough to do what needs to be done is never a lost cause. There cannot ever be a lost effort to do good in the universe.   That would be an oxymoron, a contradiction.   The ability to see this is paramount.   Even when no words are spoken there needs to be someone who cares enough to help expedite matters. If there is not, it is a fruitless life. But should there be caring, there is hope and a chance for life again.

Even those of lesser stuffs, those stuffs are only lesser because of the parameters set by others.   Take the parameters away and there are no limits for good. And that is what good is all about, what gods are all about.   Within the person there are no limits for good. What is life sustaining and life giving wherever the need is, is good.

When we wander through the mental houses of those we care about or are responsible for and find much that we would like to help with and then decide not to, the ‘then not’ means we wash our hands of the matter. To wash one’s hands of the matter is to relegate all to the dung heap. If the one who can do something about anything finds the matter too sticky, the flies will be attracted and the matter will deteriorate and rot. The purpose of keeping on, keeping on means that the people are still worth the effort. As long as a some one cares, there is hope.   Just one to care is needed.    Just one.

And often we are that just one someone.

August 20, 2011

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.
War No More

In my mind I am still in the midst of the Big War as my generation called it.   I am collecting my belongings, gathering them closely under my long, big black coat and huddling close to vacant buildings. The snow is dirty with footprints and other soot beneath my feet and I long to have it disappear so I will not be so apparent in contrast. Across my head mortar fire pierces the cold night and I stumble. I think I am dead. My possessions are scattered and there is no life without them. They exemplified my personhood and now I am not even an idea.

Again, there is another skirmish, still from another time. A speaker stands among the multitudes and is giving forth an idea to clothe man’s mortality, he says. ‘I give to you Spirit, for without its recognition you continue to think you are nothing.’ My life is just fine I think and my catcalls and railing against him yields only to my spatting at him and running him through the village. I followed him and made his life miserable till we both died.

I stood watching my young son in a high collared uniform one day at smokey tracks as the long train waited for the boys to board.   I stood by impotent with grief as he gazed into the face of his young love who held her upturned face with a hand firm on her straw bonnet. The pain etched in both faces stays with me still.   Too old to battle that war, I battled others.

In triplicate sometimes. A young man waged stop-gap measures in a series of events with eyes that held pain written before this century began to fulfill itself and thought only this life brought insurmountable problems. Others in great numbers have incurred wounds that modern medicine with all its magic cannot even begin to heal. And others whose mail is addressed to places I cannot pronounce leaves no recourse but to worry about the uneasy state of affairs.   But I know war and you know war, too.

But I do not worry unduly.   There are places in my memory box which are unleashed and in dreams I am enmeshed in wars which only the history books have access to.   My age precludes my participation in the earliest skirmishes, we are taught.   But I have the details written in my genes. I have the human interest stories etched on my heart because I was there. And you were, too.   We have fought the enemy and continue to fight him. He is our kin.   He is our brother. He is us. I am he.

August 6, 2011

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.
Paradigms

        Negotiating earth oceans is not the same as navigating

        universal seas.

        Nature is such that never is a dream dreamed without

        the dreamer being given the ability to make it manifest.

        Dream your dreams for if you do not dream them

        they will go begging.

        The highest framework we can choose is one by

         which the heart is healed.

Find the bread for the day and you will

be able to provide the butter.

In the beginning we were before we are.

Slowly we shake their cocoons

and the butter- flies.

July 27, 2011

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.
Fine Wine

Fine Wine

   We have bound and gagged the bird

   who would carry the olive branch

   to the heads of state

             guarding vehemently their fragile egos.

             Guarding so that the horrors

             of retaliation would not

             devastate their souls

             for stealing the young sons

             who had no knowledge and no chance.

             Where is the king

             who would avow his peace

             that others would live symbolically

             in love with the dove?

             Now. . . . here is the chance

             and the time where love

             cancels the errors and begs

             unconditionally for forgiveness.

             We've taken what was most cherished

             and crushed to death

             what would have been fine wine.

July 12, 2011

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.
Even If

            Even If . . . . .

              If you sing this song with me,

then follow the words

    for they are gentle

    and full of meaning.

   They will take you to places

              far from here

              and show you your heart's yearnings

              and help you to understand

              the 'why' that plagues

              your days and nights.

               So sing this song

               even if the words

               are slow in coming

               and even if the melody

               is new and different.

               For in the difference

               you will find a new world

               taking shape

               and in the harmony of it all

               you will find your place.

July 8, 2011

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.