A Good Harbor

swings wide the doors of refuge.
will share only with one other
this time of lament.
her eyes haze with mist
as she is forced to take another look.
their knowledge is still impervious
to the real
of what life is,
the shape-shadow of death.
hands shove that thought backward
refuse to acknowledge the feel,
the existence, of anything
seemingly so alien
to this curious world.
nostrils quiver as they imagine
a new aroma
on my clothes
on my flesh
in my hair
as I do also, and will, until
the heavy veil falls
and love notes emerge to become
once again
the warmth of a newer reality,
stair steps to climb later, for
renewal, without the turmoil
which seethes within the quiet tomb
of this rumpus room
today

–Joyce Metzger

Do Not Go–Easy Into the Night

someone once wrote, and whispered,
as perhaps a warning
to wet eyes left behind.
why not? I mutter.
why not?
I know three who did,
without fuss or turmoil,
and now, their arms
are linked
as they casually saunter,
side by side,
toward a distant light.
as their voices fade away
I know
the outdoorsman is talking about
hunting and fishing,
the world traveling poet
is telling again
about the pitfalls of humanity
vs. the environment,
and the city man entrepreneur
chuckles as he shares
another risque joke for
male ears,
unscrubbed, unfettered,
and all totally free
of last minute things to do

–Joyce Metzger

Hello, Jack
(Jack Kerouac)

Still reading your word abundance,
and note your photograph tucked
into odd niches, dark eyes staring
from tattered posters
taped to obscure bookstore
windows.
Sad eyes. Haunted.
Canuck eyes which understood
no other could comprehend
who you were, where you had
been, where you were headed,
or believed you wanted
to go. Dislocated poets
slip from place, feel alone
in people filled rooms.
Ginsberg enjoyed that spotlight;
you didn’t, unless fired
by drugs or drink. Corso
and Burroughs could not relieve
hidden pressures. No one could.
Women weren’t the answer. Mamere
wasn’t your salvation. Inner
conflict rots cores, Jack.
You felt clawing inside your bones.
“On The Road” wasn’t a maverick
song, an anthem to ignite, nor was
it a fresh beginning, Jack.
In some mysterious way, it was
your signature song, that lonesome
wail of troubled soul, the beginning
of the end.

–Joyce Metzger

Shale Hill

this shortcut lies beyond
the mucky black water,
once the way to the victory gardens
when legs still held energy
didn’t grow too heavy to climb
over the flat uncertain rocks
which could tip and shift
instantly,
to get to another path
which wanders between the
pines where the owls roost
calling out messages of gloom–
youth refuses to believe in
collapsed balloons,
will only accept ritz crackers,
rocky road ice cream and
soft, oven warm, crusty bread.
a creek gurgles near the pig sty
where fatness indicates days of
satiated wealth accumulated from
an abundance of collard greens and
citrons that mimic small watermelons
but are inedible except for hogs.
the rhode island red rooster
chases the clucking, white leghorn hens,
and we took for granted the abundance
of snow-white eggs, never imagined
someday the nests would
lie forgotten,
dusty and emptied of their gifts

–Joyce Metzger

Laughter Matters

and he did that a lot,
with chuckles to touch the edge
of reality, keep sanity in place,
and wolves at bay,
even when he sensed
the supreme ice-cream stand
had been emptied, then abandoned;
even then–
and when the hungry maggots chewed
each still green apple,
but not when the city fenced
off the blackberries–
then his eyes changed from Nordic
to glacier blue
as thoughts recalled
the way it had been in his youth
with stretching space
for legs to roam to explore,
with no granite stones
or thin-skinny houses
to block good views,
and clean air to suck deeply into
lungs, fish swimming lazily in the
lake, gravenstein apples to take
away the hollow ache when times
were lean and tough.
no stones to imagine then,
pale pink and paler gray,
sharp-cornered and bald
sparkling in the sunlight caught
within the framework
of a darkened alley
few want to imagine, talk about,
and certainly refuse to name

–Joyce Metzger