Sweetness Ordained

 

Can you remember

a smell

or only a fact

 

Can a bakery

in passing

free a memory lapsed

 

A sensory

flashback

its sweetness ordained

 

Olfactory joy

surviving time

— and the flame

 

**

 

Breathing Closer

 

Death

I hear thee coming

but still see thee not

Death

your chilling shadow

Atropos casting lots

Death

 breathing closer

inhaling my soul

Death

by day silent

— the darkness extols

 

**

 

Dark Symbiosis

 

You heard me whisper

I heard you cry

You tracked my footsteps

which bade goodbye

 

A star crossed tandem

in shared release

Dark symbiosis

— of love’s retreat

 

**

 

A New Calling

 

Don’t ever let life

deprive you

of what only

death can claim

 

Each day of excuse

and diverted

dreams

will lock your hope in chains

 

Only when final

divinely

inspired

and stepping through the wind

 

Toward a new

calling

and fresh paradigm

— are we blessed to rebegin

 

**

 

 

 

 

 

 

On The Wind

 

Never feeling

more alone

I could taste

the remoteness

As it lingered

on my tongue

Teasing hunger

most tart

 

Never being

more unknown

The detachment

left my senses

As I drifted

on the wind

Like an echo

— in the dark

 

**

 

Ancient Bodies

 

Fixing

what wasn’t broken

My crusade

soldiered on

Past bodies

killed ancient

On battlefields

— long won

 

**

 

Taking My Hand

 

Where does the moon

try to lead me

that orb of reflection

and light

 

Taking my hand

its will to command

time …

 — the servant of night

 

**

 

New Truth

 

Skirting the line

of wrong and right

Scaling the cliffs

of darkness and light

Climbing upward

not one look down

Perched and waiting

  the truth — unfound

 

**

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Loser

 

Successful

at failure

Whose wins

are lost

His battles

ridden

And conquests

gone

 

He tilts at

windmills

Where roads

dead end

All hope

inclement

As tears

— befriend

 

**

 

 

Primal Ordained

 

Looking

into the eyes

of a wolf

Is like staring

into

your soul

 

Not human

or animal

but primal ordained

Releasing

your fear

— his kinship foretold

 

**

 

The Sawtooths

 

The Sky

is the frame

that forever defines us

 

Our peaks

but a silhouette

in the last of its light

 

Horizon

to horizon

we sit at the center

 

Our summit’s

in reverence

— to its shining delight

 

**

 

 

 At The End

 

You can’t manage

what can never be measured

Or hold tight

to what can’t be contained

In the beginning

you never win the race

Only at the end

— victory proclaimed

 

**

 

 

 

The Tribe

Who will lead this Army

Crying for the flame to march

Millions strong

Summoned by the siren of death

Suckled by the breast that eats

Its own children?

Our flags are mottled

No longer red white or blue

Showing we are scattered

And delighting unseen eyes.

Our songs are many

Unsweetened of love’s paeans

Telling now of anger

Lamenting broken dreams

Who will lead this Army

Varicolored through the night

Who will lead us to the doorstep

Of the Gods?

Power Failure

it was like trying to hold oxygen

in my hand.

like someone tilted the floor

& told me to stand

 it was like trying to level a mountain

with a rake

like using a spoon

to empty the lake

like falling forever

in a bottomless gorge

or trying to bend iron

without flame & forge

that’s how it was

my friend

when he died of cancer

we had come to the end

without finding

the answer

Tooly’s Pond

When the rain had ceased

the pond was still

till fresh North winds arrived

to free the trees

of moisture’s burden.

Like a grounded cloud

the mist rolled slow

upon the surface of a mirror

and was gone

making hard to judge

where sky and mountains stopped

and Tooly’s pond began

The fish

emboldened since the rain

leaped high from home and grinned

knowing I came rodless,

the flies were hunted now

where sky and mountains stopped

and Tooly’s pond began

Must there come that day

when metal cat returns

to ravage once again the work

He deemed complete in seven days,

or will the pond prevail

to hold in check

the clanking track of monster

and its master?

If the cat must come

let it be in summer after rain

when we shall see who wins

as sight and purpose falter

where sky and mountains stop

and Tooly’s pond begins

E.J. Hudak ca. 1969

That Moment

 

Amazing the things

that work — and don’t work

 

A love that’s given

and not returned

The time that measures

but never stops

That moment wished for

 forever spurned

One hope that lingers

— forget me not

 

**

 

This Dream

 

My pen is my instrument

the letters my band

the readers my audience

each note to command

 

My prose a piano

my verse in the strings

Percussion conducting

— this dream to begin

 

**

 

The Balance

 

As thoughts and feelings

joined as one

A light went off …

I saw the sun

The balance I had

always craved

Enveloped me

— the debt repaid

 

**

 

 

Thoughts On Trial

 

Academic court-marshal

tenure is lost

Degrees are rescinded

peer reviews squawk

 

Doctorate cancelled

fellowships mired

Theories in limbo

— students on fire

 

**

 

Rejection

 

You can’t cry

anymore …

The past ill-begotten

the present in sin

 

You can’t cry

anymore …

Your tears a confession

— rejected within

 

**

 

Estranged Bedfellows

 

Ten years later

both still proud

Sleeping apart

 saying out loud

Threats

of indictment

Fingers

of blame

Marriage

despondent

Sharing

— a name

 

**

 

Forced Recon

 

Seize every

moment

Or others

will not

Your voice

is the trigger

That fire’s

their lot

 

Give yourself

credit

Where credit

is due

But lead

from the front

Intrepid

— and true

 

**