a flicker of lamplight on the avenue of hope
we drive over backroads
as the sun sets over the town
that raised us,
over the same streets
we first found love and
felt our hearts break in,
the same streets we
sweated in and puked in,
one hundred times or more.
the same streets where
the days, the weeks, the months,
and the years formed into chains upon
chains and continued on and on like a factory
assembly line of marriages, deaths,
suicides, divorces, births, cancers, eating
disorders, alcoholism, diseases,
drug abuses, and all things between
that are hidden from sunlight.
we only know what we know.
we hide behind closed curtains
and bedroom doors, hide behind
masks of pain and loneliness,
we desecrate intimacy as an
act of defense, we are scared and
confused and hurt, and we cry at
the heaviness of it all.
but sometimes, somewhere, somehow
there are ways around it all, small
secret passages along the length
of life, found in songbirds or house cats,
or cemeteries with no vacancies,
or distant mountains or passing people.
found when dejected and cast out,
found when watering a garden,
found in a grocery store parking lot,
found under sunrays and moonbeams,
found in a warm hospital bed,
found outside a church,
found inside a dark bar,
found in a stranger with an unfamiliar face,
found without reason and found without
explanation.
these backroads, these streets find ways,
they shine a flicker of lamplight
on the avenue of hope
where nothing else remains
and everything else seems lost.
stay within the light,
stay within the light,
stay within the light.
yellowgreen autumn morning sun
i like the sun best
on autumn mornings
after nightwinds
shake changing leaves
to the ground
covering most of earth
in a blanket of colorful decay
the morning autumn sun
casts a yellowgreen
tint upon the world
capable of erasing
the previous evening fight
the midnight heartache
the tremendous absence
of feeling
the yellowgreen autumn morning sun
is hope
it is enough air
for a dying light
to burn bright
Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 18 chapbooks and 2 collections. He runs Between Shadows Press.
INSTAGRAM: @flexyourhead
FACEBOOK: Tohm Bakelas
WEBSITE: - http://tohmbakelaspoetry.wordpress.com
we drive over backroads
as the sun sets over the town
that raised us,
over the same streets
we first found love and
felt our hearts break in,
the same streets we
sweated in and puked in,
one hundred times or more.
the same streets where
the days, the weeks, the months,
and the years formed into chains upon
chains and continued on and on like a factory
assembly line of marriages, deaths,
suicides, divorces, births, cancers, eating
disorders, alcoholism, diseases,
drug abuses, and all things between
that are hidden from sunlight.
we only know what we know.
we hide behind closed curtains
and bedroom doors, hide behind
masks of pain and loneliness,
we desecrate intimacy as an
act of defense, we are scared and
confused and hurt, and we cry at
the heaviness of it all.
but sometimes, somewhere, somehow
there are ways around it all, small
secret passages along the length
of life, found in songbirds or house cats,
or cemeteries with no vacancies,
or distant mountains or passing people.
found when dejected and cast out,
found when watering a garden,
found in a grocery store parking lot,
found under sunrays and moonbeams,
found in a warm hospital bed,
found outside a church,
found inside a dark bar,
found in a stranger with an unfamiliar face,
found without reason and found without
explanation.
these backroads, these streets find ways,
they shine a flicker of lamplight
on the avenue of hope
where nothing else remains
and everything else seems lost.
stay within the light,
stay within the light,
stay within the light.
yellowgreen autumn morning sun
i like the sun best
on autumn mornings
after nightwinds
shake changing leaves
to the ground
covering most of earth
in a blanket of colorful decay
the morning autumn sun
casts a yellowgreen
tint upon the world
capable of erasing
the previous evening fight
the midnight heartache
the tremendous absence
of feeling
the yellowgreen autumn morning sun
is hope
it is enough air
for a dying light
to burn bright
Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 18 chapbooks and 2 collections. He runs Between Shadows Press.
INSTAGRAM: @flexyourhead
FACEBOOK: Tohm Bakelas
WEBSITE: - http://tohmbakelaspoetry.wordpress.com