ELSEWHERE

Not much elsewhere to go
Monday as it fades and dies
in the midst of other
thoughts about children
going somewhere different
than expectations would

What to say escapes
even the messages written inside
when mouths dumb with fear
parental and most wrong
or is it?
kick the stomach full of fire
and sleep hides
in a small place
nudging off instinct
making hard the process
of fatherly protection

Was there someone then
who said to be of calm
even now though wrong is born
in this home
where once safety slept
till I found
not much elsewhere to go

S. Roehr 1/11/99





WHISPERS

I was there
when the trees were blowing
and the branches brushed the sky
with that strange, turbulent sound.

And I thought of how our love was
And I thought of where you were right now.....

Then, from beyond the painted landscape
sounds decayed to loving whispers
playing on the frosty air.
I felt myself shudder,
and found myself alone.
The wind fell....
I heard you....
I cried....

From Nervous Hands © by Steven Roehr

UNREQUITED CLOUD

The sound....the touch
The music of good dreams
and always the memory of love gone dreamless.
Chilled in the blank thoughts
that pass like obscure scenes
from movies I never took the time to view.

There I was, standing at the turnstyle.
The train pulled away and the snow
piled high on the track.
With great reluctance, I pulled back a tear
that would otherwise freeze
on the snow.

Reflections.....Abberations....
the laughter of madmen,
and always the fear I won't touch you again.
Slowly I turn to an empty, cold morning
and watch as the fog rolls away
through the sky.

In one broken cloud, I thought I saw you.
Smiling and blowing in an autumn breeze.
You gazed on, and noticed that I was intense...
and I never saw you again.

From Nervous Hands© by Steven Roehr

WINE

Sometimes it touches you...
and fucking well means it.

From Nervous Hands© by Steven Roehr

CHILD IN THE RAIN

Was that you child, I saw in the rain
or just the shadow of dreams gone rusty?
where you stood...

caped and hooded,

crying a river of yesterday's gone.....

And was that your face, grey and cold

through the cloudburst,

or the meaning of emptiness taking on form?
where you kneeled....

at the gravesite,

and prayed in wet darkness for a spirit long gone.....

It was you that I saw, and the chill grips my marrow,
or perhaps, I was just shaking rust from my clothes.
And, oh, stranger still was the realization...
my past buried before you....
I cried till I saw,
the dreams and the childhood,
that I lost in drugged nightmares
sleep softly in waiting....
like a child in the rain.

From Nervous Hands© by Steven Roehr

CAUGHT

Caught within the moment
stretching on to a point which is smaller than
we are mortal
I engage myself in stealth reflection
on the soul which passes and yet, somehow remains....
Stung and battered in temporal existence,
where tears ebb and subside only...
when the debarkation point alas insinuates itself,
beckoning that we go along.
And we must,
go then,
without question...

One shining moment
one point..

in the circle of time..

© 1996 Steve Roehr
8/8/96 San Diego



THE THINGS WHICH CAN NOT BE SPOKEN

There are words which need to be spoken,
And times when spoken words fail.
When only the heart and the soul know the depth,
and only the music of the earth is enough......