From an Upper Floor

When The Call Is Heard

What would you do?

We often hear a young person say that they have a call upon their soul to do certain things. Certain career choices are often made that way. To be a doctor, to follow their God whatever the religion of choice, or often a teacher or a farmer.   There is a definite something that transpires within the hearts and minds of individuals that starts them on their life’s work.   They may be simple words or long mind dialogues with their soul’s mentor.   I include this brief advance explanation to my poem to show that even the elderly were young once with directives given to their lives.   The following was taken from a journal entry in the summer of 1966.   Many of you were not born then, but there was a generation of us tramping through rough bush so that our children might have smoother paths.   I offer a question.   What would you do when the call is made upon your soul? What would you do?

When The Call Is Heard

I wondered when the call
upon my soul was made,
what would I do?
When I heard the words ‘come follow me’. . .
I walked into the room
of our youngest one,
sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
He was sprawled with hands
unclenched and his face at rest
and through the window
the street lamp’s globe
had his face in bas relief.
And I knew, no matter the good
I might do in the world at large,
I could not do, if the ones I grew
beneath my heart were crippled
by my neglect.   No matter. . . .
He had said, did he not,
what good to save the world
when your own house falls apart.
I left the sleeping ones and
sought my bed and slept.
I did not fault myself.
There was much to do where I stood
and I began with the log in my eye.
Forgiveness of others was a stumbling block
only until I realized my need of it.
The independent study consumed my life
and revealed a hidden mentor.
A half century later my answer does not differ
and my regrets are few.

Commitments lessen the number of options.   Even now.

November 4, 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.
The Idea Called Earth

Idea

An idea took form
and manifested
and was called Earth.

Its essence rests unsoiled,
untarnished and floats also
in a Sea of Tranquility.

The green forests are lavish,
unspoiled and
the blue waters clear.

Farther yet from mind
is the essence called man;
his essence greater by far
than what he manifests.

Surrealistic in form,
tangible to the unstructured eye,
it all takes shape for the initiate

struggling to place
the elusive content called self
in a world he himself designed.

Beautiful lord of creation,
there will be worlds yet

that will fit the Idea.

October 31, 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.
The Best Of All Worlds

The Best Of All Worlds

It was said before
in this best of all possible worlds. . .
that we will surely miss this.
It has to do
with the sweet ways of greeting
to demonstrate love and
of mostly handling the common place.
There are those worlds
of which we speak
where frame of mind cannot compare
with our range of emotions.
How like us that is. . . .
We boast of our capacity to love
and honor each other through all life. . .
and then raise arms in combat.
Why I ask does it pain me so
to leave it all behind
when emotion has blinded me
and handicapped you
from peacefully coexisting?
Too much, I think,
my heart needs a quiet time.
One to stand (beside) aside,
to heal my heart and simply Be. . .

in the next of all possible worlds.

Art by Claudia Hallissey

October 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.
A Heralded Future

A Heralded Future

Psychic experience is labeled as phenomena because it is not sufficiently understood. It is called paranormal because it is outside the average person’s experience. What it is, is memory. Having lifetimes behind them and coming into this world with open or partially opened heads and talents that moth and rust do not destroy, it is a wonder that we don’t have more people with more than the usual five senses. Believers and Christians alike who take as an authority the New Testament Jesus, have him telling us to put our time and effort into those things that moth and rust do not destroy. And why? Because these talents then are ours. Forever.

One talent more than the usual five may just mean 2 percent more than the average person, but a 2 percent increase in brain cognizance makes the one seated next to you very different. And when we were told that my father’s house has many rooms, we know on this calendar date that there are worlds outside of us as well as penetrating and interpenetrating where different senses are used.

Three quarters of the world believe we have lived before. Books by the dozens in libraries around the world have proven data of prior existence. Have evidence to prove that there was no false information given. We call these people psychic when in actuality their heads are more open than the average person. Of course we would have other senses refined in other worlds carried by those who have lived many lives and have much in memory that the science doctors call imagination. Where is this imagination located? In the DNA of course and places like the heart and mind. Yes, we would have talents and extra senses. And for whatever reason, by birth, by shock or trauma as is often the case, or simply by intent and motive to make a difference, these senses are called phenomena.

In the course of human life, in wars and religions and institutions of various orders, we have done disastrous things to the soul and hearts of people. Religions have penalized their congregants who demonstrate unusual talents when compared to others who have the recognized five. Remember the witch hunts. Instead of being the safety net and loving arms beneath those who already are bullied by families or on the playground or in the marketplace, they are further dismissed by the medical people who do not know how to help those distressed in a world unaccepting of psychic differences.

One world at a time is enough to handle for the average person. But there is much we can learn from the child or adult who has access to worlds beyond ours. That one you just dismissed may actually be the angel unaware of a much needed and heralded future. Our loss is vast. We have no tools to measure this loss.

Photo by Veronica

October 23, 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.
The Chime Clock

The Chime Clock

It is far past the hour
when the bell chimes
and I know when the hour
will strike again.

Many times we’ve heard
the bell strike our time
only to ignore the possibility
of a door opening.

We think it closes
forever on us,
yet the motive for its closure
is to ensure its opening.

Perhaps on a possibility
not thought of
or perhaps not ours before
this particular chime

declares us to our world and time.

Photo by Joshua Hallissey

October 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.
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.