From an Upper Floor

Thoughts Enroute

Thoughts Enroute

The cliché ‘I am only human’ is a self qualifier and an excuse in case of failure.

Reverse psychology would have humans admitting their divine self and then the Heavens would have reason to shout, ‘Prove it!’ We then might not fall so squarely on our ethics.

The only tool necessary in physical life is a shovel. We should be born with one attached to our navel.

That the sun will rise in the morning is not the miracle. But that our eyes open to view it, is.

The wonder of life is that there is as much agreement as there is without constant collision of realities.

When our journey is completed we will not be asked what did you do but what did you think?

Thinking is an art form.

To connect the dots and worry is advanced thinking. Not everyone is equipped to do it. In fact the worrier is criticized as not having faith. The truth is that the worrier has knowledge.

The amount of energy we endow our illusions will determine their reality.

It does no good to see all sides of an issue when the heart is concerned with only one side.

We may not have signed up for the class, but it seems the obstacles we face have us in training for sainthood. Conscience limits our options.

The continuity of life is the only view worth harboring.

art by Claudia Hallissey

October 14, 2014

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 All Things

In All Things

In all things,
the wheat will be gathered
and the chaff discarded.
The kernel bears the fruit
but the husk in its time
will yield its stuff.

It will be found worthy
by those in search of husks.
And then the chaff discarded
will be left to kernel another time.

The lilies will be beautiful
and the mustard will yield a seed
to carpet all of the world.
We will one day bless
the utility of it all.

So when we prepare our truth
for another world,
where the kernel is cherished,
we will again be refined
for another world and time.

Ponder a mystery.
How to judge the wheat and
by what method dismiss the chaff?
Except we lament the errors
and rectify promises not kept?
Falling upon another time,
those will carpet the world.

And I, with honed thought
and justified motive,
will follow them, each.
And when they stumble
with foot unsure,

I will bend and pick them up,
for they bear my name.

poem from The Last Bird Sings
Art by Claudia Hallissey

October 10, 2014

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.
Beginnings

Beginnings

We began in universal waters
as particles of nonsense,
showing no discernment.
We collided and combusted
when two immutable pieces united.
We formed an eye of calm
in the maelstrom and grew.
Spongy surfaces clung to us and
weedlike trails spun from us.

With no conscious knowledge we grew
and yielded a vitrum that put forth ague.
Our disposition was entrusted
to a holier source than we.
For as we spun our sugars an Other
spun for us.

In collusion, we engendered knowledge,
fraught with growing pains.
Our positions were tortured
by a history of emotions and
tattered memories surfacing.
We danced on hot rocks.
We slept in cold places.
We loved in silence and cried out loud.
We became Man when we dreamed
the earth into being.

Even now we dream of universal glory,
charting the voyage through universal seas.
We will become a particle in an Other’s dream,

whose discernment only now begins.

Poem from Kiss The Moon
photo by Joshua Hallissey

October 6, 2014

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.
Memory Quilt

Memory Quilt

When it is time
I will draw high
my memory quilt,
to cover shivering bones.

Pictured will be events
richly patterned
and pleasing
to the soul.

Astonishing not to recall
emotions pressed beyond belief,
battles fought
to frightful finishes.

Left like barnacles
clinging to a disabled craft,
slippery in substance,
suitable only for discard.

When it is time,
the memory quilt drawn
will show kaleidoscopic events
lending warmth to fragile skin,

haunting in their beauty
remembered,
while I take flight

in triumph, warmed.

Poem from Kiss The Moon
artwork by Claudia Hallissey

October 1, 2014

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.
Pieces Of The Rock

Pieces Of The Rock

Destiny causes us to pursue what is inherently ours, pleads our cause and then the ethers guard jealously the petitions.

The intangibles provide the greater obstacles in life.

The storm is the whirlwind but what follows is gentle on the brow.

If your batteries need recharging, how will you light up the world?

When the heart takes a sabbatical, more than a transplant is needed.

Easy to be philosophical on a full stomach? Physical hunger is only one of many hungers and the easiest to satisfy.

If one can afford it, a blank check can be written to feed the world’s physical hunger. No amount of money can touch spiritual hunger.

We tire eventually of depending on sheer endurance.

Solitary communion feeds.

September 27, 2014

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.
Don’t Stare At The Moon

Don’t Stare At The Moon

Any farmer knows
you don’t stare at the moon too long.
You get a little soft in the head, they say.

What they really mean
is that magic overtakes you
and carries you to the place of green fields,
of orchards heavy with fruit
and cucumbers cultivated straight
as a shot of rye whiskey.

What they really mean is that the magic
will make you see fields to be seeded
and calves to be born
and worlds to be peopled.

What they really mean
is that you will fall in love
with your earth
and in awe watch the wheat weave its gold mat
right over your eyes.

It is a softness of the heart man fears,
for the myth must enforce
the hard head to blunt

the pain of life everlasting.

art by Claudia Hallissey

September 24, 2014

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.
Our Sacred Source

In rereading some of my blog beginning material, I found posts that I felt should be repeated.   Many of my newest readers may not be familiar with my work with situations that have become more important as time elapses. This is one of them concerning my beloved Earth schoolroom.   I present it again and hope it may bring discussion to the dinner table.

Our Sacred Source

I heard a grandchild say at a very young age, ‘when mamma is happy the whole family is happy.’   I have seen when a family is in turmoil, in sickness, and the hot water tank springs a leak, the washing machine stops that mama says, this we can handle, even when we are out of bread, out of milk with no cereal in the cupboards.   I have also seen things go right when a family is working in harmony under adverse conditions because the parent gods work to make it so.

A young friend says to me that she hates what cloudy weather does to her and is it ever going to stop raining? We give credence to all these feelings.   One day I said to another friend, ‘ how are you treating the world?’   ‘Don’t you mean how is the world treating me?’ he asks.   I assure him I meant what I asked.

It is not a far stretch to see that our Mother Earth reacts the same way.   Our Earth reacts to human trauma.   It reacts to human turmoil and human agonies. There are those who say that earthquakes and tornadoes and other tragedies are part of Nature and because we have such high tech systems, we learn of them more quickly.   But we are now a planet of greater numbers and we live in each others’ pockets.   We no longer have large expanses of lands and waters that can absorb Nature’s hiccups.   A tsunami is not a hiccup anymore when thousands of people are running for their lives while water is pushing new beaches where beaches never were before.

When the Earth splits in two and hundreds are swallowed in another earthquake while the other side of the world moans in pain as markets react and jobs and economies are torn asunder, this tells us we are of one brotherhood. We are as natural to our planet as all other species and events. Thoughts carry power as strong as Nature itself. Thoughts and emotions weigh heavily and will have their aftermath somewhere.

We cannot separate Nature’s events from the emotions that view them. We rise from the same bed. Let us respect and pay homage to our Sacred Source.

photo by John Holmes

September 20, 2014

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.
Angels We Have Heard

Angels We Have Heard

He came up quietly and stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I put my book down and waited for him to speak. Can we go, he asked, to see the lady with the blue cloths? Is there a reason you want to go, I asked. And he said I need answer to question.

Okay, I said, we can do that. I can be ready in a few minutes. And he ran to get himself together and we were good to go. We chattered about many things on the way to the place with the lady with the blue cloths. There was no mention of the things that needed answers. I asked if I could be with him while he talked to her. Always, he said, he wanted me to be part of the answers. I not like secrets, he said, just regular stuffs that he had been thinking about.

So we entered the place and were welcomed with hugs. He said he needed to ask some things and she was the one who would be able to answer him. We went to a small table where she did her work and she made us comfortable. Ask me what you need to know, she said. And the young one looked at her and said in a firm voice, I don’t want to forget where I come from, he said, and I afraid I won’t ‘member and how can I ‘member when my friends say it is baby stuff I talk about. Yet my friends who not seen, are part of that other place. I not want to forget them ‘cause they say things that are ‘portant. How can I ‘member when here friends don’t talk?

The hardest part, she said, is for you to want to remember. You must do the remembering and see how everything connects. It will be hard for you and they will make fun of you. But the here friends are afraid to be different. And only when you remember from where you have come can you make life better and make a difference. You may not see the difference you make, but from another place, it is a big difference. It hurts when they laugh and you wonder especially if it is important. But it is, it is. And good friends will want to be with you. Because they know you are special. She had put her hand over his on the table and he curled his fingers around hers.

He stood up and said, I ‘member. You help me to ‘member. Yes, she said, you will. You will. He took my hand and we thanked her. She nodded and whispered it begins and I bless.

September 15, 2014

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.
Where Are You Going, Absalom?

Where Are You Going, Absalom?

‘to where the moon
can melt the sun,
the cactus blooms
at high noon
and the darkness
bids good morning. . . . .

where cowled thoughts
and taut skin
need never cover
hot bones
and the cactus
no longer pricks . . . .

to fly wingless
to the mind’s ankh,
taking only me, only me
and find that I
suffice.

I’ve been before
to Paradise,
but forgot.
Reaching in,
I reach out,
touching my own
nimbus.
I’ll not be gone long.’

David wept.

Photo by John Holmes

September 12, 2014

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.
Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

Under adverse conditions,   we become more of what we are.

It is easy to kiss a sleeping child. The saddest part is that this kiss is not a memory maker for the sleeping child.

Humans are born with clenched fists.   Pray their god a someone in their life to unclench them.

Conflicting signals paralyze the child.   The healthy child is in jeopardy when he no longer can trust those in authority and must place trust in himself whom he has been taught not to trust.

To strip a child of trust puts him in a state of unbelief about what he sees and hears and largely what he thinks.

To close the mind of the child is an unpardonable offense.   The fear in the guardian is not sufficient excuse.

You will effectively give birth to the physically mature man-child who stammers ‘who am I to know?’ as opposed to the trusting child who shouts ‘I know that I know!’

Children come in all sizes.   Some too large to sit on your lap but not too large to sit on your heart.

In retrospect, life is a collection of miracles called coincidences.

September 8, 2014

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.