February 5, 2010 – 10:11 pm
Secret Companions
Despair is a companion
I’ve known well,
it almost seems that he is a part of me…
We’ve had a unique relationship
few would understand -
it was our intention -
we invented our own language.
Since he came back,
we have been talking endlessly,
we have so much catching up
to do.
There’s no time to think of anything else
these days…
Words, I cannot express
to anyone else
he understands -
I’d only be angry if I tried
to explain to anyone else
what I’m feeling…
there’s that disconnection.
It’s amazing the things
we find to discuss,
despair and I.
He tells me he has a sister
and how perfect
she would be for me…
I dream of her,
of resting in her arms
and a final serenity.
February 1, 2010 – 10:13 pm
The Best Thing I’ve Ever Done
I forget how it happened,
was a kneeling?
Doesn’t matter.
It wasn’t a surprise.
She picked it out.
Had no doubt I was going
to get it.
While it is true
that many other details
around this event
have faded
over the years,
I do remember,
that though there was
no surprise surrounding
this event,
she had tears in her eyes
when she held the ring.
I made her happy…
I think that’s got to be
the most right
and best thing
I’ve ever done
in my life.
Bruce Whealton
February 1, 2010 – 10:02 pm
Show me how you see me – Three Poems, Three Parts
Poem I.
Part I.
She asked,
“show me how
you see me.”
I said I cannot draw or paint.
So, I tried to paint
a picture
of her
with words -
a poem
to serve
as a painting
of what I saw
when I saw her.
Part II.
My challenge was
to convey something
beyond
what mere descriptive words
can do -
my desire/challenge
was to show her
or any reader
what I alone
was seeing (or feeling),
to convey something
of the nature of
an impression.
Part III.
What I saw…
She stood just over
five feet,
so very thin
and delicate.
I remember her falling
and I was so afraid
that if I were to
pick her up
I might break something…
and what I felt,
was something soft.
I’d imagine my arms
wrapped in pillows
so I both could hold her
closely, feel her touch
and hold her softly.
February 1, 2010 – 9:51 pm
Advice to those wanting publication
Tell your stories,
paint your pictures
in verse…
be concise,
add passion
use vivid imagery
paint your reader
a picture
with words.
January 24, 2010 – 10:11 pm
The Dark
There is a place
in the bedroom
that’s so much darker
than the rest of the room
and there is something there
you’ve known it,
sensed it’s presence…
your mind tells you to deny
it’s existence…
you feel childish
for believing in it.
You rationalize,
that in all these years
that I’ve noticed its
presence, or thought I had,
if there was something there
something intending harm
why would it have not acted?
Why does it wait?
Maybe, it draws energy
or finds some demon pleasure
in our fear.
Maybe it puts thoughts in our minds
and nightmares -
showing us what it wants to do…
to move out of
the corner
or the closet
and make us one with itself,
one with the darkness
wrapping us in it’s veil
or shroud of darkness,
forever.
I think we survive
and cope
through rational denial,
or by pretending it’s not real
or not really there
in the dark.
January 24, 2010
Bruce Whealton
January 22, 2010 – 9:35 pm
Silent deserted
beach walk
alone
January 16, 2010 – 1:48 am
Uncle Demos
Uncle Demos
Who were you?
Brother of my great-great-Grandfather Stephen.
I found your grave
in the dark -
I think that was yours.
It says you died 55 years ago.
It was rather serendipitous
that I found your grave…
The cemetery on Cemetary Road -
(yep, they spelled the road wrong)
isn’t marked.
There isn’t even a headstone for you,
just a flat to the ground, overgrown marker
etched with your name –
our name.
The sun had gone down,
it was dark,
when I found your grave marker.
I know so little about you,
just a few facts.
I don’t know why I came here.
This doesn’t add anything
to my understanding of my family history
(or my understanding of me)
or my understanding of you.
Maybe a name
carved in stone
imparts truth
and meaning…
I wonder if decades after
my death
someone will remember me
and wonder
who I was
and want to see
the mark I left behind.
January 16, 2010 – 1:47 am
Genealogy
(This was in the anthology “Simple Vows” put out by St. Andrews Press)
Self history in quest of
self knowledge brought me
today
to this
church cemetery.
A certain history
made visible to me today.
I saw my last name – Whealton -
etched on so many stones…
markers of my heritage…
written here
and here and on a stone next to this one,
and over there, and there and there and
there…
Why were my ancestors put into the ground,
like plants?
From dust thou art -
it says in the bible,
and to dust one must return…
but there is no such thing as death.
I see my ancestors
immortalized on tombstones
with the marker Whealton – the name I share.
Will I live on as well, through
my writing? I wonder.
This road I traveled…
this land I’ve seen
- as I sought to discover this place-
seems too quiet – too deserted…
a town of ghosts, but here
my ghosts tell me nothing.
I imagine I’ve found a ghost town.
Up front, within the church that my
great-great grandfather built
I observe
signs – pictures – of recent visitations.
Names, and faces in picture albums
found inside the doorway…
descendants of those names
on the stones.
What did I come to find?
A place holding clues to my heritage?
or something more,
something I could touch
and see…
a certain hard stone’s proof.
(proof of what?)
Stones that need for nothing,
not sun or food,
nor water
to hold their forms
and their names.
All I found was dust – along
the roads and among the stone markers.
January 16, 2010 – 1:45 am
I started this blog about my family history, my search for meaning, connection, and something more… though I don’t yet fully understand what that something more is. The blog, my new family history blog is here: http://whealton.info/myHistory/
Recently, I went home to Wilmington, NC and had a chance to travel again to that area where my ancestors lived. It was an area north of Wilmington, up the coast, some 2-3 hours. They had lived in communities, small towns in Pamlico and Beaufort County, NC.
I had come to Wilmington in 92 for a job. It was not far from this area. In fact, I can honestly say that there was no choice on my part to choose North Carolina that had anything to do with my history, my past, my families past. It was just chance that brought me here. Of all the states along the east coast to which I could have come, I came to NC… and lived so close to ancestors and a part of my family that I knew so little about…
Isn’t it interesting what inspires us to seek out our roots? Our family history… It’s about realizing that we are a part of something larger than ourselves. Does that really matter? I hope it does. In my next post, I’ll share that poem again.
