From an Upper Floor

The Ruler. . .

The Ruler . . .

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 Childlike awe and wonder is never out of date; childishness only appropriate under 5 years.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.

April 13, 2018

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 Cost Of War?. .don’t get me started. . . .

The Cost Of War. . .Knotted Family Ties. . .

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.

April 11, 2018

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.
Cost Commensurate. . .

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

April 10, 2018

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.
We Can Always Say. . . not ready. . . .

On What We Build Our Lives. . .

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)

April 8, 2018

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.
Emma E. . . A song of joy. . . and Magic. . .

Song of Joy. . .

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.

April 6, 2018

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.
Dreamed Into Being. . .

Physical and mental boundaries are not finite. We often speak of primitive religions disparagingly. It does not take a genius mentality to see that in this tech world we have lost the spiritual connection to the cosmic populace.

We speak of life everlasting yet are afraid to die. We speak of resurrection and buy cemetery plots to make it easy to put us back together? Come again?

We are creators of the worlds we inhabit as I write so many times. Individually and en masse we create the climate for what happens. The book by Robert Nozick called The Examined Life (written while on sabbatical from Harvard) announces that perhaps we are in the creation business as apprentices. Perhaps we will be in charge of something else anon?

Mental boundaries no longer exist. There is a spirit afoot (always was) to those whose ears and hearts are open to hear and will have courage to speak of this. There are those whose brains are open albeit a tiny percentage more than the average and are given ideas that will find grounding in this world. And to those whose eyes are open will see and be able to interpret the writing on the wall.

The science gods tell us that we use just 5 percent of our brains. Why has evolution stagnated? Why are we so narrowly focused and why has our Earth become such a playground for the privileged?

These ideas are not new. I try to make them understandable. All life is simultaneous. Quantum Physics teaches this. When man appeared on Earth, Eden was everywhere. Maverick thinking? I think not. My scope had to broaden to contain my commitments. Whether my lifetime bears me out, I leave to the heavens. They still hold the sparklers.

Dreamed Into Being. . .

I love this Earth Planet she said,
it is a place of verdant lands
and high thoughts. . .

It is a place where images send
these thoughts aloft and tie me
to that place of love.

We walked it many times of course,
she said, but now the choice
is mine again. . .

How to stay and finish a work
the Master said was needed even
by one such as me?

I hold the only authority that counts.
No letters can give me that
which is already mine.

I claimed that on the day I said, I AM
and chose to BE. . . .were her words.
Simple as that and as hard. . .

I finish my work and then go home,
to the ‘old country’ that holds for me
she said, all that I cherish.

It is a dream I dreamed
and called into Being. . .
that is how

new worlds are born. . . . .

June, 2015

art by Claudia Hallissey

April 5, 2018

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.
Prayer In Concert. . .

In Conference. . .

I was a young girl when the priest came to our home and my mother saying. ‘I don’t know who teaches her because I don’t. I don’t know where she gets her ideas.’ Years of criticism for my different ideas but my work habits were praised. I was diligent, thorough and needing praise for a starving heart.

On my road to Damascus experiences when my world crashed in my mid thirties, I could not believe good intentions and love were so easily crushed. With the help of a good doctor and my belief that I was still choice goods, rebuilding began. Not easy to do when one’s only bastion of strength was in thought and thinking. And one’s reason for being were three young sons who needed their mother at home.

Some call it prayer, others call it meditation. I called it duelogues because oh my I argued. I seldom carried it out loud because of setting off unrest in others I learned, hence the duelogues. I crashed the gates of heaven because how could what was taught in church school and on Sundays be so wrong when I worked so hard to do everything right by the church, by the book, by heart and even invented.

If it could not work where I was, then it was a lie and I wanted no part of it. Heaven convinced me that it could work and did and then we began our work. And work it has been. 24/7.

Then over the years dialogues and then In Conference. The poetry was continuing along with the journals when I found myself scribing. I typed hard copy because of my need to see in print what I heard was psychologically sound and philosophically palatable. It had to make sense. And my life had to show it. It has and I continue to work it.

To make my work understandable, the small voice within, god within, comforter, or the smooth pipe that Emerson called it that the angels or the muses speak through, works at one with me. I hope this post makes my work easier to understand. I am unable to explain the thought processes. But it has been a lifetime of mutual trust. (I enclose an excerpt from July 1, 2015 journal and also a poem for that day. Sometimes they coincide and this day is one. It will make the poem easier to understand. Some editing was done as I pick up the words)

From the Teachers . . .much will jar the houseboats of peoples and they will look again at the justice and injustices of partnerships whether in the same house or not. We know the intricacy of such matters. We know your penchant to keep words to a minimum. The aim is to get as many as possible to the table and to think. Eat and think. One and the same. What is being fed will make its way to the minds of men and there will be growth and there will be a road that has been scythed for travel. We will have a striving for peace. People will realize that the difference they make within themselves will be the greatest difference they can possibly make.

Prayer In Concert. . . from the other side. . .

It was prayer you held in concert
with the Great One who marked
your presence on his counter of beads.

Talks, mostly dialogues, it seems,
and held court with sages long asleep
on couches too soft for too long. . .

Rise! You shouted and they, appalled
at the sight of woman,
rose and were rightly chastised.

They had forgotten the bread lines
and the penniless people and
children’s bellies bloated from hunger.

You brought them to shame and now
they remember how the ivory towers
separated their lives from the
grime in the streets below.

Now you tell them in languages understood
how deep the hunger for knowledge
can be as if for bread; to keep alive
a mind from sleep; (like scourge
it contaminates all minds of men).

We wake them up and put to work
the fathers of the children forever seeded

with memory from a place the angels tread.

April 4, 2018

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.
Dear Emma E. . .

Dear Emma E.. . .

We know each other although we haven’t put our arms around each other yet. But we know the shape of our hearts. And that is most important no matter what world we are in.

I am a big person, but if I were little like you, I would want a teddy bear who sings from her heart. I would put the bear nearby and before I would go to sleep, I would wind up her tummy and listen to the music that came from her heart. And in the music, my heart would answer and we both would be happy.

It would be a party in my most secret place and when I was lonely or unhappy, I would remember this music. That would make me happy again.

I hope you get to know this teddy bear as a warm friend. She is sent with much love and a happy heart. We are never too big for a heart that sings. We both know that.

I have loved you since before the world ever was and will continue to love you forever.

Your Grandmother Great. . . . .

April 2, 2018

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 Invited Guest. . . .

We have those things that comfort and reassures us. It can be a photograph or a painting or something bringing to mind a feeling. It takes us to the place where we were all of a piece and peace. I have many such things and one of them is wood.

My woodworking days were of such quality that when I finished a project, having carved or sawed and sanded and then waxed and polished, I would with great love bend my face to it. Feel and smell the earth I love in it and know I will cherish this scent forever.

What world taught this now female person to be a carpenter with so much love that when I picked up wood and saw and file I knew what to do? Where to begin and how to proceed? I loved those years of woodworking. Humbling an idea and creating a something.

I do not remember the lifetime but there was a teacher who gave me tools. Those tools were courage to try and confidence to do, so the means manifested. I learned ‘do and you will be shown how.’ The intensity of purpose was the prime ingredient. The invited guest became my Mentor.

The Invited Guest. . .

I once knew a good carpenter
who, with hammer and saw
and wood and file,
showed me how to build a chair.

I did and sat on it and
then decided I needed a table.
With hammer and saw and
wood and file,
I built a table and sat at it.

I knew I needed another chair
for an Other to sit on.
So with hammer and saw
and wood and file, I built it.

I then invited the carpenter
to join me at the table.
We lit a candle and talked
and a new world was born.
How did I know

I first needed to learn how to build?

photo by John Holmes

March 30, 2018

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 Heart’s Excess . . .

‘The circles she made in the air went round and round and she said The Teachers are telling me that the only way to get off is to step off. And we can get back on again. And this was the Earth she talked of. She made circles with her hand while she lay in the bed, as white as the sheets she lay on.’ From the prose poem ‘at her bedside.’

The Heart’s Spillage. . .

It is the medicine talking! His exasperated whisper may as well have been shouted in the hospital room. Let her talk, I angrily answered. She is speaking truth. And our mother in her near death experience proceeded to tell us what was going on and who she was talking to.

My brother left and the next day his wife asked what went on because he was an emotional mess. He didn’t hear what would have confirmed his cherished belief that open arms of his god were ready. At nearing ninety mother instead held herself accountable.

We have heard people say it is the alcohol talking, or drugs or anger talking. And I say it is a truth they are saying, when it is the spillage of the heart. When we hear adults speaking gutter language, or calling it locker room talk, it also is the heart’s excess with an insufferable wound.

I had six brothers with many friends and never heard language as on television with youngsters mouthing things with gestures we thought halted in preschool. Want to know the far influence of thoughtless or gutter spillage of bathroom behavior? Listen to the children who have television as their baby sitter.

I hung up the phone and my in law mother asked what did I find to talk about with our sons. I said there are not enough hours in the day for all to be said. I mentioned this to our eldest who answered, but we have been practicing all our lives! And we had. When did it stop? At what point did we become tongue tied or embarrassed or insufficient to thoughtful conversation?

The book which sits for everyone to see and no one reads says the word is god. The word. What we speak, our language is holy, sacred, what we use to connect our minds, our hearts, our souls, in speech, in thought with what ties us to one another and our Source, our highest and best. Thoughtful consideration, who stole it or did we give it away?

Did I think, I scribed one day, that people would clean up their thinking if they believed that heaven would find their views worthy of consideration?

I ask, would it be worth the work? 24/7? To find it the elixir of life? Would you?

March 27, 2018

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.