From an Upper Floor

Excerpt From The Last Bird Sings. . . . . . . .

Excerpt from The Last Bird Sings. . . .

The one who chooses to come with an open head is the miracle among men.   Are not all babies born this way and we masterfully close them up?

                                    The Teacher

It is not the happy child who upsets the apple cart of the adult content with his satisfying existence.   It is the contrary one, the one who cannot find a putting place for too many memories for a short life who discharges his anger on those who should have some of life’s answers.   To find one’s parents, one’s only gods in flesh not equal to the task is a hard morsel to swallow. It is still another event without a putting place.

It was a cold day when I was excused from school for religion class. My walk to the church found me pushing open the heavy door to the basement with shouts telling me to keep the door closed! There was an acrid odor to the room, part from the wood burning furnace and the clothes from the children hanging damp and smelly. The smell of the candles drifted down from the sanctuary and the toilets never functioned properly.   It was a potpourri of habitation.

I scrambled to my seat and sat. My hands were cold and I sat on my hands with bitten finger nails so no one would see how weak willed I was. My parents were more concerned about putting food on the table and not worried why I bit my nails.   The priest stood directly in front of the class and right next to my desk.   His hands were wrapped inside his sleeves in the chilly room.   His crucifix dangled a breath away from my face.   My bitten nails were evidence of my sins.   The priest smelled heavenly. Neither my brothers nor my father smelled like him.   I thought he must have hot water all the time to smell like this. He was clean shaven and his backward collar was like poster board around his neck.   He wore his shiny black biretta with a tassel.

“Class, take out your books!”   An imperative.

He did not move an inch.   I sat there on my hands and started to sweat in that cold room. I finally reached for my book. The catechism began:

Question:         Who made the world?

Answer:           (in unison)   God made the world.

Question:         Who is God?

Answer:           (in unison)   God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things.

And we continued. I sat there and answered with part of my mind and did not believe one word.   I knew better.   I knew because I knew. Big people with big bodies did not know.   They told lies to cover up what they did not know.   This priest in his three cornered hat did not know. He carried his swinging crucifix that frightened small people. He was not saying what I knew because I was closer to that place of beginning than he was. Already I could figure this out because I could count on my fingers. I knew because I knew.   There was not one person who could convince me that I did not.

“Veronica”, he asked “do you not know the lesson?”

“I know the lesson, Father, but I do not believe it.”

The buzz around the room would not stop.   The priest rapped his crucifix on the table and shouted for quiet.   I had started something and the end was just beginning. I felt heat rising in my body and my face getting red and my skin felt slippery.   I was going to burn up and fry to a crisp.

“Why do you not believe this lesson? It is the holy word and Christians believe.   What is it that offends you?”

And the child that I was answered,   “because it is not true.   It is not what I remember.   And it is not true.   I don’t know for sure everything, but these words are not true.”

And in the smallest whisper, the whisper that no child in the room heard, I mouthed these words to the priest.

“There is no one God. There is All God.”

His face grew white and his jaw shook. I heard his teeth click. And I became sick.   I ran to the lavatory and I vomited all my distress with the world that only added to the smell already there.   I finally wiped my face with toilet tissue and made my way out. Everyone had been dismissed.   No one was about.   I tied my hood on my head and put on my blue coat with the little fur collar. I put on my boots and went up the stairs through the door that did not swing shut.

I trudged on home and knew I would hear about this day.   My brother was there and would tell in detail what went on.   And my mother would be embarrassed over and over.   I wished there would be a whipping because a tongue lashing would last forever.

“Just who do you think you are?” would be voiced over and over.   And no answer to that but I am who I am.   I don’t remember exactly what happened but I do remember the priest visiting and my mother bidding him welcome when he said I come in the name of Christ.   They talked and I heard my mother say over and over that she did not know where I heard these things nor who taught me. Not from her she said, not from her.

I was left to ponder for the rest of my life where these thoughts did come from and what I was going to do with them. I would be hearing over again, you think too much. And somewhere on the way to growing old I finally answered with the phrase, “what’s a mind for?”

The Rabbi Teacher said it. “Knock and the door shall be opened. Ask and you shall receive.” But be prepared for truth for it will roll like thunder.

March 15, 2015

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.
Worth Thinking About

Worth Thinking About

One would think that for human progress to have been more rapid, a sledge hammer rather than a quill should have been used.

Unless emotional garbage is released, it will continue to be contagious.

The mind set to turn a particular way is already bent.

The split in man is so dichotomous that his life is one mass of contradictions.

What man dresses himself in, his idea of himself, may indeed be all that he is.

Only the individual can judge himself. Only he knows what is his own best effort.

Everyone thinks of himself to be of royal descent. They are above the dailyness of the kind of work that deserves a shovel at best.

He who drinks the wine of the publicans, though no alcohol touches him becomes as intoxicated as if he did.

Each man thinks he is an individualist and yet marches in unison to a step someone says is the only and proper one.

In playthings man finds his surcease.

In playthings, gods hide the lessons.

There is a difference between sight and vision. Vision is what makes the difference between looking and seeing.

March 11, 2015

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.
Paper Money

Paper Money

I throw the covers back
to the still and chilly air
and feel my way along the wall
to the patio doors.

Slowly I check the catch
to find the door unlocked.
I alarm each door
to keep the burglars out.
Funny I think that even now
I check doors and windows
to make work for the burglar
intending to rob me of my treasures.

These can always be replaced but
the real ones I trust only to my god,
having worked in places
long and hard within my heart.
Their value, trust me,
would not be worth much
on the open market.
They are earned by pick and shovel
lodged by birth in every bosom.

The ones old farmers used
in days long gone,
found only in one intent
on finding his way back home.
It is on a map long forgotten,
deep in memory scavenged by years
and covered by locusts meaning
for it to stay buried.

The true journeyman works
the long way home,
straight to the coast of gold.
Burglars know the paper money
is in the safe behind the clock.
There is no gold in the vault to back it.

The real treasure cannot be touched. It is earned.

March 7, 2015

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.
Grace To Be Trusted

Grace To Be Trusted

It is impossible to live or continue to live with a philosophy that covers personal life and not one’s public life. To have it cover one and not the other is asking the observer to believe one portion and to close out the other as not applicable..   The dichotomy will rear itself.   It is illogical to say that one’s philosophy applies to one aspect of one’s life and no other. It is impossible to continue to live outside one’s root assumption.

Hiding beneath the obligatory assumptions is the aphorism which tells the child to do as I say and not as I do.   It is excusing oneself as the human being and expecting the children to assume divine obligations.   It is a humungous lie and ought to drive the parent, the politician, the teacher, the one in power positions to one’s knees to ask forgiveness.   There is not one among the huge numbers of peoples who has not been pressed against the wall, to demand of one’s self behavior of a higher moral order.   It is not that we know what not to do it is telling those trusting us that better behavior is expected.

There will be times when pressures will be hard driven upon us where we know our behavior will be questionable and we will tell ourselves that for the greater good we are doing whatever we must.   How to face the child or student when questioned that hopefully in the future explanations of this nature will not stand to be looked upon as the best that the human could deliver.

Do we expect more of our leaders, of our parent gods, or our teachers?   We do.   And we must.   We must have the perfection of individuals to push against.   We must have our goads so that we will test ourselves against what we know will be testing us at some future point.   We may be too young in chronological years to form this thought, but intuitively we know that at some point we too will be pressed to show our divine nature as opposed to our very human one.   And we will have been shown how to discipline ourselves to deserve the vote of promise that we receive.   We will have demonstrated the spinal fortitude that holds us upright and shows those who have placed their trust in us that we deserve their confidence.   Because we have chosen to fight the battle on the same ground as they have we will show

that the Grace that upholds us all is to be trusted.

March 3, 2015

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.
Who Will Teach The Children?

The Teacher (The Socratic Departure)

I will drink this cup of gall,
swallowing the bitterness
setting fire to earth’s waste.

But first I caress this chalice.
Its depth mirrors my heart,
shaking the foundations
of my very own selves.

Now splendid trepidatons
challenge the ultimatums
by which the earth rocks.

Challenge me, o gods,
not to see the outside
that has no bounds,
nor the inside that does not
set feel to the outside,
nor the depth
which encapsules other worlds.

Winds that know me by my name,
sunlight that weeps with my tears
and the night sky which covers
my brittle bones with the white moon
will continue to call me . . .and remember.

I will drink of this cup and
set loose the forces
that muddle the minds of men.

In chaos they will seek order . . .and there is none.
In the written word
they will seek understanding. . .
and there is none.
In the marriage bed they will seek delight. . .
and there is none.

Cross the stars. Challenge the arch angels.
Banish the gods. And quickly I will drink of this cup.
But tell me. . . . .

Who will teach the children?

February 28, 2015

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.
You Must Not Think

You Must Not Think

You must not think
it’s useless to have trudged
the overgrown path
to make a road
easier for the one to follow.

We must grow up
and put on training pants.
It is time.
We must develop discipline
to house the night’s pleasures
and discipline
to work our days.

Evolution is what the name
of the game is
but it really is life;
a way station only to the stars,

on the way home.

February 24, 2015

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.
Consider These. . . . . .

Consider these. . . . .

The Knowledge says that let this pass if it is Thy will.   The heavens say to look beyond the light into the face of the morning sun and see that the light beckons and extends.   It would grant you peace should you let it.   It will grant you life, should you welcome it.

The memory bank is filled with uncashed checks.   Is not the resolving of the unresolves where the real money is?

If one sees a problem, make certain the individual concerned views it as a problem also.   Otherwise you will work the blind alley and nothing will be resolved.   In this case the old expression for the people involved and not concerned is ‘leave them to their own gods.’

We are now knowing what the high cost is of the sins of the father’s bigotry on their progeny if only connected by centuries of indirect descent.

The kinds of bigotry caused by preferred prejudices are shadows moving on a wall that keeps moving.   It is very slippery. It leaves soil on generations that even bleach cannot reach.

Because of the sheer devastation of persons, the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip was right.   The gods should be worshipping man trying to clear up the ancestors’ unresolves.   The devastation pollutes the air and pollutes the heart.

When memory is finally restored of many lives and many loves,   will we find the worst bigots to be those most recently freed?

photo by John Hallissey

February 22, 2015

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.
Life Everlasting

Life Everlasting

Without ears to hear, he hears.
Without eyes to see, he sees.

With heart he understands
the small musings
of this limited mind.

I can see, I say
for this is mine. . .
only with how I perceive
this limited existence.

Fair enough,
for this time, I think,
but only for this time.
There will be other times
when it will not be enough. . . .

And then I grow
unto his splendor. . .
I will be guided
unto his doorway and
I will be led. . . .

And again, I will find
my way home.
Again, I will be led
and there will never be
a final time. . . .

It only begins, here and now
and again it will be

time to move on.

February 19, 2015

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.
Choice Goods

Choice Goods

I would like to live long enough to see the children who are born with more than the usual five senses come out of the closet of mind so they will be asked what they see, hear, think and what they remember. And be looked upon as someone highly gifted and of high caliber.   And there will be a time when being however different will be accepted and not something to be shucked away as an embarrassment.

It generally happens at a family gathering when a younger participates innocently in the conversation by announcing that they met Uncle David or Aunt Susie before they were born and proceeds to describe them accurately.   Silence follows this revelation and someone hurriedly changes the topic.   Again the embarrassment is not lost on the younger.

To be held up as an example of ridicule from the time one becomes a subject of reason is not easy.   To need to monitor oneself from the time of kindergarten, always told to watch what one says destroys any spontaneity.   To be different than one’s siblings already puts the different child on the outside looking in. The isolation of such a one is abhorrent.

We in the western world have a history of brutal force used to show what dancing with spirits was all about.   In this country we have a sordid past from the time in Salem, Massachusetts which is still alive in many, many people.   They make circles with their fingers in the air when showing their unmerciful disdain for those who walk with one foot in other worlds.   Their palpable fear is employed dramatically in the removal of those who harbor any form of uncommon thought.   The devil for them is at their heels when one of these uncommon differences happens in their family. They become stone faced and do not stop at whatever means necessary to remove the offending behavior or even the person.

With a hundred billion planets floating about, how long will it take for people to yield to the fact that intelligence also lives on a planet or two or maybe all surrounding us?   That maybe we can exchange hello’s, just maybe? And perhaps those about who have more than the usual five senses and whose heads and hearts are open to unknown worlds may teach us something?

We ask the question when a beloved hovers near their final breath and we hope there is a something beyond.   We should have been researching the first question which was from where do we come? Even in the Nag Hammadi texts Jesus is asked by a disciple where it is we go when we die and he answered why worry where you go when you never asked from where you come. A bit slow we are it seems.

Look to the child who asks the why’s and has invisible friends as he plays on the floor with his legos.   Or the daughter who serves tea to her dolls with significant names and converses with them in grown up language. Children come with a sacred permit. These children are choice goods.   They will one day create the world we hoped we would inherit.   They deserve our support.

And it is our sacred obligation to do so.

February 16, 2015

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.
You Washed The World

You Washed The World

You washed the world
with my love
and took it and made
a valentine of my heart.

You washed the world
with a blanket of snow
and lace formed on my eyebrows
and made my lashes
heavy with snow.

You threw me down
and I made an angel
with wings outstretched
and I stood in my finery

and it never faded nor melted.

February 13, 2015

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.