Character

There is a secret
no one talks about;
one that we have mystified
and camouflaged.

Simply put
it begins with
the Morning Test,

which is
no one but you
can get out of bed.

That you have to do
for your self.

Others may call;
alarms may ring;
but in the end

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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The Einstein Man

'Sorrow, ' she said 'sticks to me like flypaper
follows me around, covers everything I try to do,
makes me cry into my beer.'

He said:
Now that don't seem true to me from here where I sit.'

She looked at him sideways and said:
'And how would you know that, seeing as how you don't even know me? '

'A man got instincts for these things, at least some of us do.'
'Men, ' she snorted, 'got instincts and its all below the waist, all.' she said.

He continued ignoring her, And you don't have to teach a bee how to like honey.'

She smiled at him, looking him over.

'What your name honey? '

She looked at him wide eyed and said:

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Poets of The Electron Dream

There is a single factum
for the current century
which has
All Meaning
for Poetry.

The Physicists
have
since the 1920's
told us that electrons
can be in two different places
simultaneously.

The Principle of Uncertainty.

They have finally caught up with
Poets who
have long
argued that
Poetry comes

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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The Cemetery of Hearts

It was a Cemetery of Hearts
laid out in neat rectangular squares
tombstone engravings of individual stories;
of loves lost and betrayed,
tear-ravaged love trysts.
love cuts, severed
or grief-laden,
all buried in Innocent's Ground
from whence they came.

I peered at the writing on first tombstone and then some others:

'He led me on and then made love to my mother
all this to me unknown.' one said

'I died in childbirth alone after having been exiled
from my home to a nunnery.'

'She plotted against me with my best friend.'

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Grandma Dances

It's not that I don't know how;
it's not that I don't know why;
it's just that you're leaving me
and it don't matter no how.

It's not just that love is lost
it's just that I have
a music call-
for me that's enough.

You and me were not
what we seemed.

It's not just that I was joy-prone
It's that I was never seen,
and won't be missed at all.

No one will pitch no fits
'cause I was nice as I was,
no impact

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Carried Water

I have carried water in buckets for many,

a bucket that leaked.

I have caught tears

before they fell to dead ground.

I've held hands,

cut my own hand reaching out;

felled those who would harm

and saved many who knew nothing of me;

helped the foolish,

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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The Holidays

Why are they called holidays? '
she said
'they never are;
more like feeling someone
is destroying the road behind you
as you walk toward the sunset;
or like having the past be a dark shroud
thrown over you as you journey to a past
you left or didn't like.

How can I long for my childhood and still be a grownup?
How to wring from the holiday meal
love, respect, revenge all these things
from a repast?
And how quickly the past returns
when it was the past you wanted most to outrun?
How quickly the old relationships re-establish
just like they had never gone.
Change and no-change sit to eat
yet neither adequately reflect the truths we all live.

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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A Cupid's Arrow

The scab where Cupid's arrow had entered
had barely healed, leaving just a wisp of a scar
evident there; but the inner pain remained.

The sounds of its shaft, its purple burning shaft
is still present
to my muffled memory
which flinches from its approaching sound
its whoosh, its dull thud
piercing a heart valve,
denying blood to my feverished brain
which sounded the alarm that love
seen by many as Cupids blessing
but for me it was an arrow emptying out
my life's blood
outside and down, plunging
drawn by gravity
falling onto the maroon carpeting
invisible almost
while all around me urged that I celebrate

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Dawning

Each morning he would take a pick-ax to the Dawn, machete strokes anchored from the Decending Sickle Moon he, like Night, would show up with blood-red streaks on his ax and hack away at carving another day from a reluctant horizon, which flattened itself away trying not give him another day, trying indeed to conceal, Light and Hope from him.

All he had had to be fought for, pick-axed from scrabble ground and each day the sweaty effort his efforts had to be breach-born into the Light from the Dark.

Till that day, pick-ax in hand, he failed.

He failed to bring even a meager dawn and he sat despondent thinking this was the end, the end of all had come to this.

Sitting at his side Despair whispered to him, 'Are you seeing that this is end? Are you willing to embrace me, kiss me on the mouth? '

Despair was beautiful and a part of him loved her so. Some many times he had lain with her, no wallowed in her arms and found comfort there.

Here she was again, at his side, telling him to lay his head in her lap, take some comfort there and once again some part him asked 'What is the use?
Depression and Despair twin sisters these two were more familiar to him than his own family who for the most part were unaware of his turmoil, his daily travals, his agonies.

And he took a deep breath ready to succumb when music came. Some one was playing music. He looked up to see the twins wide-eyed, their eyes betraying fear, and yes, Despair.

He looked around to see who was making the music when suddenly it stopped as she rose from the Pick-Ax Dawn walking, no floating toward them, a slight musical strain in the air as Despair and Depresson stared at her apparition waning in the growing light each looking from him to her, both finally saying as they left, 'We'll be near if you need us.'

She of the dawning light drew nearer and stopped twenty feet in front of him falling silent.

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Loving You Is Far Too Dangerous

It came with a hollow crack-
a widening wedge-
the fearful peering
at Hope's Edge;

at the pitifully small;
the fearful offering,
the tiny tiniest etch of a smile;
of the looking away
of the not wanting to see
or relate
to what was happening
when Love's Mote
pushes open

my Hope's creaky door
long closed;
isolated;
remote;

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poem by Lonnie Hicks
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