After Dinner

Sometimes, looking back on a few of the details of his life, he realized that somewhere along the line a great deal of his life had not belonged to him. In fact, he couldn’t remember being in control of many of the choices set before him at all. He felt it was like being set down to a table filled with various dishes of food he wasn’t particularly fond of—but had no choice—but to eat them. Of course he thought he could have just refused to eat. But that wasn’t much of a choice was it?

Much of the past that seemed so relevant at the time had vanished into a thick purple haze of blurred details and grease smeared windows, impossible to see through and sticky to the touch. Parts of what he did remember seemed to confuse and depress him, so he felt that the past was better left just that, the past, and he chose not to eat that particular dish.

He thought of his father from time to time. He thought of him a lot. A man he didn’t know. Funny how you can come from a place you know nothing about. There were memories of him in there behind that sticky glass but they were beginning to fall apart, degrade into a soft and mushy version of the previous hard form of reality, so familiar until of late.

He thought of his father often enough to wonder what he must have thought of himself. A man who fought in a war. A man who left Texas with his son and never looked back. A man who appeared in a black and white version of a dreamscape in North Carolina and left as though he were written from the script of a television show. As though the writers simply couldn’t figure out what to do with him. So he stood around smoking cigarettes for a while on the set and then, he didn’t. Gone, as in gone. As in what the heck ever happened to…

His family didn’t leave much behind he knew, just old photographs and boxes filled with trinkets and old clothes. It was as if they were determined to disappear and cover their tracks. He still had his grandmother’s china and he thought it was pretty but he knew it was just cheap old plates printed with a knock off willow leaf pattern that she bought with green stamps at the Winn-Dixie back in the early seventies. What he had of his fathers, he could hold in one hand. It bothered him to the degree of bringing on a periodic depression, and a feeling of utter uselessness from time to time. What kind of a man leaves not a trace but a plastic box behind? Some old boots. A box with a hardware store giveaway screwdriver for your keychain, a broken watch and a cuff link, (yes, a cuff link, not a pair) doesn’t seem like much of a legacy does it?

Well it was pathetic. It made him angry and he wanted to punch out at the world and yell and cuss and fight the very God that created such nonsense. But you couldn’t do that could you? God didn’t fight fair. Never has. Never will. He doesn’t have to. He created the game remember? And on the eighth day God created man’s ability to be absolutely screwed by a world filled with snakes and apples. It seemed to him that God was very much like a child at times. Changing the rules of a game when it seemed to suit him. When the going got tough—so to speak. Erase the board, make smaller creatures.

So he just carried that ridiculous feeling of uselessness around with him and he took it out from time to time and he felt sorry for himself and then he put it away and he got on with his life. He knew there were people out there a whole hell of a lot worse off than he was and he felt sorry for them more than he did himself, and he knew that was a waste of time too, but he did it anyway.
Life was a strange trip indeed and he felt that he possibly never had the proper map on which to set his course. How does one take a trip without the proper course?

Maybe that was the point of it all he thought, we just wander around and look for a way to get out of the woods. Some people were just better at it than others. Some people had a better map, or a better compass, or easier woods. Some people never saw the woods at all. The trees were cut down for them before they got there. Maybe the point of life itself was just seeing how far out of the forest you could get before you started to forget the details. The details that built a life. That string of yesterdays with the choices set before you that you don’t want, but have to eat anyway. Or not. Not much of a choice.

That was it. That was how he saw it and he knew it was stupid to dwell on it but he did. The one thing he knew without a hint of a doubt, was that he would be better off if he stopped dwelling on it. He put his earplugs back in his ears and he turned on the audiobook “No Country For Old Men” and he picked up his chisel and he did. That was enough of that.

There was a legacy out there for him to build that wouldn’t fit into a plastic box. He would make damn sure of that.

Then he realized that he was his father’s legacy. He thought about that for a minute, pausing with his chisel in mid cut. Now that was something to think about. He would get back to that later. After dinner maybe. Somewhere in the next chapter, a little farther out of the woods.

The middle of the story.

Not the end.
Tony Whitford

The Hummingbird

John moved a couple of boxes out of the way and reached in behind the clothes and pulled the battered guitar case out of the closet. He took a minute to read the stickers haphazardly stuck to the surface, the slogans and names of bars long closed, music stores, tattoo parlors and bands from the past. He ran his hands over the battered surface, the vinyl ripped and torn and beautiful in its own way. This case paid its dues, protecting the valuable cargo it carried. He opened the case and took a moment to look at the guitar lying inside. A Gibson Hummingbird, introduced to the world in 1960, Gibson’s first square shouldered dreadnaught. She was a beauty, scars and all. He lifted her out of the case and strummed the strings. The guitar seemed to come to life, waking from her slumber like a princess from a fairytale. He tuned the strings and strummed an E chord, listening to the notes vibrate and hum inside the box, his ear against the mahogany, a lump in his throat, his fingertips resting on the bronze wound strings. The old familiar guitar, covered in a layer of patina from the smoke of a thousand cigarettes and the stains of a drunken man seemed to whisper to him. "You can't go back—but this place ain't so bad. Just let me get warm and I can tell you the story all over again." He closed his eyes and began to play, his fingers stiff at first but he could feel the notes beginning to find their way. He could feel the life begin again.

He played on. The story of love and betrayal, life and death. All of the wrongs and rights, the ups and downs, the lonely nights and hungover mornings rushing back to meet him. A cinematic, fantastic dream of hope and delusion and drive. A song of lost hope, lost love, lost money, and lost faith. He could hear the choirs of angels, and the screams of the demons. All of it was there in the music. The music, the life he lived, the life he left behind, and the pieces he wanted to keep alive.

He opened his eyes and looked at the walls of the room. He spoke to the silence. “Man, I missed you.” The guitar, still vibrating against his chest confirming and affirming the motion and the words.

“Come on girl, to quote a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, I think it’s time for me to move along, I do believe.”

He put the old guitar back in her case and kissed his fingers and placed the kiss on the guitar and closed the case. He stood, his knees popping, lifting the case and turning to leave the room. We’ve been gone too long. Way too long. He walked through the bedroom door, leaving the light on. He grabbed his keys hanging by the door and strolled into the future.

“They call me the breeze. I keep rolling down the road. I ain’t got me nobody, I don’t carry me no load.”

©Tony Whitford 1/6/2017

The lyrics from, I Ain’t The One, where written by Ronnie Van Zant

The lyrics from, Call Me The Breeze belong to John J. Cale

Credit where credit is due. And boy is it due.

Know?

Know?
Just one more word, that’s all he wanted, one word to finish the story. The perfect word. He sat staring at the cursor blinking at the bottom of the page. The story was told. Every other word in place. The last sentence incomplete. He read it again.
Adrianna felt the world would…
Would what?
Would what?
Nothing. Silence. Both good words, but not the right words. First of all they wouldn’t make sense. Second of all in the context of the story they were meaningless. He knew the obvious word would be or should be know.
Adrianna felt the world would know.
He wanted something better though. Something with meaning and style. Pizzazz. The sentence felt more like a question with the word know at the end.
Adrianna felt the world would know? You can’t end the story with a question, can you? He glanced at the email icon on the task bar. The number one superimposed over an envelope.
I have mail.
He clicked the icon, opening Outlook. Ughhh. A letter from his mom.

John,
I’ve been trying to call you. Is your phone on?
(Yes mom my phone is on. I’m ignoring you.)
I just wanted to tell you that your father has a doctor appointment tomorrow. I think he’s nervous about it. He’s been particularly grouchy today. He nearly took my head off when I told him to take his medicine. You know if I don’t tell him to take it he forgets and then his blood pressure goes sky high.
(His blood pressure is sky high because you make him crazy, mom. Just like everybody else in your life because you don’t know when to shut up.)
He tried to cut the grass today but the lawnmower wouldn’t start. I could hear him yelling at it from the bathroom. It’s Tuesday and you know I go to the beauty parlor on Tuesday. Dorothy is coming to pick me up today. She’s using her son’s car. Do you know her son, James? I think you’ve met. Didn’t you play baseball with him? He’s a chiropractor. I don’t trust chiropractors; I’m afraid something will pop out and not pop back in. So I was getting ready and I could actually hear him from the upstairs bathroom yelling at the lawnmower. When I looked out of the window he was kicking the lawnmower and shouting at it. Maureen, you know Maureen our next door neighbor. Her cat has been sneaking over and pooping in the flowerbed. At least I think it’s her cat. The poor thing. I think she forgets to feed it. Anyway. Your father was standing in the middle of the yard kicking the lawnmower, shouting at the top of his lungs. It was so embarrassing. Do you think I should feed the cat? Have you been looking for a job? Please answer your phone.
I love you,
Mom

(God mom, you truly are batshit crazy aren’t you?)
He could picture the scene. His father, sweating, face red, his white tank top stuck to his back, back hair dripping, a wrench in one hand and beer in the other. Maureen clenching her robe tight to her chest, a look of shock on her face. The scrawny cat hiding behind her tree trunk legs.
He started laughing. It started as a small chuckle, a grin spreading across his face. And then it became a genuine laugh. Starting at the bottom of his feet and rolling through his body, shaking his insides. He sat back in his chair and howled with laughter, tears rolling down his cheeks, his knees banging the bottom of his desk.
The laughter rolled away like a summer storm. One minute here and gone the next. He wiped his face. The last vestige of laughter bubbling away to a simmer. He stretched his face, trying to make the goofy grin go away.
Whew!
He closed Outlook and looked the page in front of him, cursor still blinking. He clapped his hands together, the sound of the slap refocusing his thoughts. Okay. Let’s get back to work. He giggled again and shook his head. His dad was a classic. A left over from a dying breed. He could hear one of the ridiculous sayings his father would inadvertently blurt out. A man from a different era, back when the ships were made of wood and the men were made of steel. Something like that anyway. He brought his thoughts back to the story.
Let’s see where were we?
Adrianna felt the world would…

©Tony Whitford 1/1/2017

The Thief

Gray was the day

And all within

Grass dying beneath yellow leaves

Thoughts hang in the mist

Like cartoon balloons

As I read them

They drift and they seek

They gather and touch

They say much too much

Strange gifts are they

Gathered such

Loose words all true

Yet others forget

Move away

As I breathe in the day

Have I lost all relief

Can I bring back the thief

Stolen thoughts

Tethered here

In their grief

Quiet the mist

The surface of each

The shapes and words

Float beneath

The lost

The absurd

What meaning

They serve

I fail to grasp

What they teach

© Tony Whitford 11/29/2016

Life

Its funny how your life becomes the controlling factor in who you are.
I’m not talking about the life within you, your soul or essence, the force of being within you; but rather the life you live every day. The job, the hobbies, the food, the cleaning, the bills, the money or the lack thereof. It has a way of taking over. Then one day you realize there must be more to it. As the lyrics in one of my favorite songs explains, “You run and you run to catch up with the sun that’s sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again.” So you ask yourself, Am I not more than my job and the bills? Am I here - merely to feed the system?
Your life, controlled by credit.
Your life controlled by an overwhelming sense of losing it all.
Your life controlled by money.
Your life controlled by insurance?
Your life controlled by fear.
I shudder to think that’s all there is.
And the fact of the matter is. I believe it isn’t. We are so much more. We are Fathers and Mothers, and Poets and Artists, and Musicians and Chefs, and Writers, and lovers and husbands and wives. We are alive. We live on a big beautiful planet full of wonder and mystery floating in a galaxy of stars. That all by itself is amazing. We are traveling at 108,000 km/h or roughly 67,000 mph which means our planet travels 940 million km during a single orbit around the sun. Mind blown right there. We have numerous opportunities, every day, to learn and create and to tell the people around us how much they mean to us. We have the capacity to love, laugh and fill this world with art and joy.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe we should look at it a different way. Life I mean. Maybe we should try to see each new day as a chance to change it all, our destiny, our perspective, and our world. Teach yourself something new. Google it. Right? You want to know about bees. Then learn about bees. Is space your thing? Art, Music, Food? The world is out there…waiting for you to see it-and learn about it and make it beautiful with your own special stuff. You. Your life. The real you.
The money problems, the insurance, the debt. That is not who and what you are. I fight with it every day. I do not want it to contain me, control me or make me less than I can be. Put your arm around your friends and family and support them. Help them be more. I’m willing to bet they will do the same for you. We all can be more if we stop thinking about the problems and start seeing the solutions. Just a thought…it’s not as easy as it sounds sometimes. But it is what we need, to be more than just - life.
Tony Whitford 10/20/2015

The String

By A.W.Whitford                                                                                                                   

One morning, when I was a little boy, I found a string lying in the grass by a tree. I picked up the end of the string, surprised to find it there. I pulled on the string and watched as it lifted into the air parting the blades of grass, wet with the morning dew. As it rose from the grass droplets of dew sprayed into the air around it turning to mist, creating rainbows that wavered before me in the bright morning light.

I shook the string watching it zigzag through the air and swung it around in circles as if I were playing jump rope with my friends, amazed by the way it stretched across the yard and on into the distance. I pulled on the end of it wanting to gather the string and explore its length. The weight of the string seemed to pull back as if something, or someone on the other end were waiting for me to follow, for surely there was an end somewhere. Had I not already found one of them?

I began to follow the string, pulling on it as I walked across the yard, pretending that I was a mountain climber making my way across a vast mountain range, made up of black crumbling shale cliffs that could break away from under my feet at any moment. I followed it across the backyard, around the garage, past the rusting gardening tools and dry rotting old tires and down to the street running parallel to the small houses placed neatly in a row along its borders.

 I stopped and looked back at my house before following the string across the street, knowing I should not leave the yard. I stood there for a moment, feeling as though I left something important behind, feeling as though there was something I should say—or do. I saw my Grandmother standing at the sink in the kitchen, her silhouette clearly visible through the glass and sun faded curtains and I watched her there cleaning the morning’s dishes. I waved at her—but she did not see me—and so I said goodbye in a small voice heard only by the birds singing in the trees above me, watching with wary eyes and nervous wings. I began to gather the string and follow it, pulling the rough string with my little hands, feeling its fibers vibrate with anticipation each time I let go with one hand and pulled with the other.

 After a short while I turned to see how far I had gone, and the little house, the first one of my memory, began to slip away, becoming smaller and smaller as the string began to pull me along as quickly as I could follow.

I suddenly felt as though the string needed me to see something of great importance. It was as if whatever waiting for me there—on the other end—could not wait for me to arrive. A sense of urgency far too great for me to ignore pressed me onward, moving me toward something that I needed to see, something that needed to see me.

 Hours passed in seconds, weeks passed by in minutes, years passed by in days and I followed the string, looking up occasionally to see a house, or a girl with a beautiful smile, reaching out to me as I walked along with the rough thread sliding through my hands.  Still, I followed, amazed at the prospect of finding the end. For surely there was an end somewhere—wasn’t there?

 Once, when my feet grew tired, my hands grew cold and cracked, and my hunger for rest became more than I could bear, I tried to drop the string and go back home. Finding the end no longer seemed important to me. I wanted to be still and rest. I wanted to enjoy the world around me. I wanted to live in the moment. I began to realize that the world around me passed by as if I did not even exist, as if I were nothing more than a dandelion seed floating in the wind. I had become insignificant, an echo in the void.

 I longed to see the past again and feel the warmth of my small room filled with books, games and toys. When I turned to see where I had been, nothing waited for me there. The past was vanishing behind me as if an eraser of enormous proportions were wiping it from the pages of my life, leaving only blurred images, vague memories, forgotten words and faces.

I decided to let go of the string. I decided I would drop it, turn around, and go home.  No matter how hard I tried to let go—the string stayed in my hands as if it were a part of me. My Destiny, my fate, waited on the other end

 When I stopped walking in revolt against its power, it pulled me along faster causing me to run in an effort to keep up. The world passed by in a blur of noise and confusion. I watched as family and friends disappeared behind me, some said their goodbyes—their voices broken by the wind rushing in my ears. Some simply turned away, as if they never knew I was there.

 Trees grew and fell away; children lived their lives without me. Still, I followed the string, praying that the end was near. My body began to fail, my legs began to shake, no longer capable of supporting the weight and wear required of them. I fell to the ground and stared up at the sky watching in amazement as tattered clouds passed by chasing the Moon. The Sun rose and set bouncing on the horizon like the blinking of a giant bloody eye.

The string pulled me through the dust of time and over the bones of those fallen before me as I watched the stars above, dancing in the blue-black ocean of the night. I prayed to the heavens, to the gods of the Moon and the God of our fathers, pleading with them to let me go home. I closed my eyes and listened to the voices of the past and the voices of my weak and weary heart. I slept and dreamt the dreams of the forgotten.

I dreamt of a father and a little boy. I dreamt of a baseball glove and the smell of the leather and freshly cut grass. I dreamt of a child shouting at his grandmother that he wished he could hurry up and be older, so that he could be free from her rules. I dreamt of my purple spider bike, I dreamt of the huge rough hands of my Father, and the lines burned into the palms of his hands. I dreamt that I held his hands in mine and I rubbed the scars with my thumbs and asked him how he got them. He smiled at me and said, “From following the string that brought me to you.”

I looked up into his hazel eyes and I began to fall. His hands slipped out of mine and I fell through the darkness, flailing my arms, as the string tangled around my legs until I jerked to a stop hanging upside down in the dark, suspended in space. 

I awoke, startled and screaming and opened my eyes to the dazzling sunlight slicing over the rooftop of my childhood home. The sun shining on the wet grass created sparkling diamond reflections in the air around me. I rubbed my eyes with my fists as I rose to my knees in the grass by the tree where I lay—blinking and struggling to make sense of where I was.

Birds sang kindly in the limbs above me, welcoming me to the new day, and the string was gone. I looked at my hands; they were still soft and new, with only the faint wrinkles of life beginning to form in the smooth pink palms.

I stared at my hands opening and closing them, hands that would learn to play a guitar someday, hands that would build sandcastles and bookcases, hands that would pull wriggling fish from the ocean and the hands that would hold the hands of my children. I stood and looked around, I was home again and my heart filled with hope and relief.

I heard the familiar squeaking of the hinges on our screen door and I turned to see my grandmother walking out onto the porch wiping her hands on her apron. I ran to her and hugged her at her waist nearly knocking her down.

"Here now what's this about?" she said, pulling me back and looking at me, surprised by my sudden show of affection.

"I'm just happy to see you that's all," I said.

She looked at me with a question in her eyes, as if she knew something, as if something in my eyes frightened her. She held my face in her hands and smiled. She opened her mouth to ask—but then changed her mind.

"Go eat your breakfast," she said, and opened the screen door. I looked back for a moment, scanning the yard, making a mental note of the bushes and trees, the garage and the fence, the layout of my world, the way I would always remember it. I looked up at her, she smiled and nodded and I went inside. The warmth of the kitchen filling my soul.

©2011

4/28/2011

The Middle of Nowhere

When nowhere looked like a good place to be
I set up shop right there
I hung the sign above the door
And filled the shelves with nothing
Content with my plan
I advertised
To help me spread the word
Television, radio, websites and magazines
The world beat a path to my door
They bought as much as they could carry
And then came back for more
They filled their lives with nothing
They worked both night and day
To fill their homes with more of it
From the ceiling to the floor
What their neighbors bought
They bought as well
To even out the score
Nothing here and nothing there
Nothing in their eyes
Great arguments were lost and won
With nothing to describe
So here in the middle of nowhere
With nothing in their lives
They wonder who they all should be
But there’s nothing there to see.

T. Whitford 2/22/2016

Something to think about.

Something to think about.
As I watched the news this morning with my usual sense of awe and disgust of the irrationalities we as humans seem to impose against one another, I began to voice my opinions to the television, the dog and anyone else that would listen. Or at least pretend to. The dog only looks at me with those sad old eyes, the television certainly could care less and everyone else in the house merely shakes their head in agreement. I am convinced that they aren’t ...really listening anyway. Who wants to listen to the diatribe of a middle aged man first in the morning? I’m not sure I do at this point. I simply can’t help myself. Who doesn’t feel as if they have all of the answers? It certainly is easy, resting in the comfort of my Lazy-Boy Recliner. (Tony Whitford does not receive compensation for this product placement. It should also be said that he would accept compensation if said compensation were offered.) Let’s see where was I?

So let’s say for the sake of…discussion, that you were reading a science fiction novel. In this novel you learn of an advanced life form that rises from the mud of their existence to build sprawling civilizations across the planet they inhabit. They soon begin to question their existence. The meaning of life and the reasons for their morality and mortality, the lack of each and the purpose of their lives. And of course the fear of the unknown. Because of the need for answers they begin to believe that they have tapped into the realm of a supreme being who can answer these questions and give reason to the evil acts of their fellow lifeforms. To fill in the blanks that cannot be explained due to their own unavoidable ignorance so to speak. They call this new Supreme Being Zog.

As time goes by a number of the inhabitants of this world believe that Zog wants them to kill the lifeforms living across the valley (This is a lush, mountainous area, filled with wildlife and beauty) because they worship Zog differently than them. They soon begin to wage war against one another, burning the valley and killing the backwards, wrong believing, Zog loving enemy in an attempt to wipe them from the planet. Of course the lifeforms from across the valley retaliate and vow to see to the destruction of the other wrong believers. This begins an endless cycle of destruction, temple building, and the blowing up of said temples. Of course along the way they build weapons of war far greater and more terrible than any lifeform has ever seen, using all of the resources that help feed and house them. Which as you well know leads to the overall, ridiculous and inevitable collapse of their world.

How does that sound to you? Stupid? Absurd? Guess what? Yeah that’s right, you guessed it. You live across the valley. What do you say we leave Zog out of it and learn to live on this rock without the hatred, war, starvation, should I go on? Or maybe it’s just a novel and there are no similarities to us. You decide.
Tony Whitford
1/8/2016

The Door

The Door

He opened his eyes and looked at the clock. Something from a dream had woke him and something about the dream seemed to have opened a door, a door he closed again with the idea of possibly nailing it shut. This door, the door to his father’s room contained the memories of his fathers words and actions, his very essence, everything he could remember. He kept these items of the past locked away in a safe place to protect them. Hell who was he fooling? He kept them there to protect himself.

He touched the lamp by the bed, washing the table and floor with yellow light, and he turned off the alarm and he swung around and placed his feet on the floor, reaching back to scratch his neck at the base of his hairline.

His father held a persistent place in his memories. Floating through his days and his thoughts like an insolent ghost who cannot stay out of the places he does not belong. He sat looking at the floor, feeling the age in his back, feeling the years in his eyes and he tried to shake the thought of his father from his mind.

There were times when he still couldn’t actually believe he was gone, which was a foolish thought indeed—considering he’d been dead for forty six years.

He really didn’t know much about him. The kinds of conversations they had were of a parental nature and that of a father to his inquisitive young son. And most of the words were blurred like grease on a window, still there but unintelligible at best. He did know that he smoked, and drank. He knew that he fought in a war, and he knew that he loved several women. He knew that he played golf. He knew that he wasn’t very good at it—but he played anyway. He knew that he could play the piano but he never heard him play. And he knew that the he remembered the smile that brought tears to his eyes when he thought of it, just because he missed it so much.

Thoughts like these were something he’d grown used to. They came and went like a foggy mist, and burned away again when the son found the strength to shine. He looked at the tangle of covers beside him and he glanced at the man looking back at him reflected in the mirror hanging on the closet door.

He thought about how long it had been since he put the lock on the door of his father’s room hoping  to keep the memories hidden. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and instead of locking the door again, he pushed the door open in his mind as far as it would go, the door knob banging against the plaster with a satisfying thud.

He opened his eyes and he gathered up his clothes, his socks and shoes and cell phone and he said to himself, loud enough for his father to hear. Come on Dad, we gotta get ready to go to work, you’re making me late again.

He could feel the smile glowing behind him as he started down the stairs.

Tony Whitford

12/29/2015

Red White and Blue Son

I fought for this corner

Splitting my take was unacceptable

So I fought for the right to own it

And won

So now I keep it all

For me and mine

Food for my thoughts

You have more

You worked for it

But I work for mine too

 

Flying a cardboard flag

One arm makes it harder to hold

Harder to fold

I tried to keep a job

Though sometimes I see things

That make it hard to do

But I don’t complain

I walk the holy ground

My brothers helped defend

Some of them can’t walk at all

 

Need help

Homeless vet

Most people think it’s a scam

Too lazy to work

Must be crazy

Eyes averted

You see me

Watching the light

Doesn’t make it go away

 

I try to stay clean

I have a toothbrush in my pocket

Gas station bathrooms

Bottled water

Hotel rooms

Stained and broken

Wash my clothes when I can

 

Can’t help this time

That’s okay

I’ll be here tomorrow

Flying my flag

Standing under the red, white, and blue sun

Still here

Still proud

Try to take me down

My colors don’t run

 

Tony Whitford © 8/10/2015

 

 

 

NOISE

 

 I tried not to say the words

Tried not to speak

Tried not to hear my thoughts

The noise they would release

My mind would not be silent

My heart would not be quiet

No amount of meditation

Could convince them to be still 

No sleep

The words continued

No gate

The words contained

Broke through the wall of will

Like water crashing from the sky

And as the words fell between us

I saw it in your eyes

The light that filled my rooms with hope

Began to dim

A joy you held so near

Felt smaller now

Pulled at the seams

Less important

And frayed

Betrayed by my words out of place

 

If I could take this moment

And change it back to then

If I could pull them back

Change them in some way

They would not be the words

I choose today

But the past cannot be swayed

The line must read the same

They remain throughout our lives

Lying between us

The dust will not cover them

The weeds will not grow

Great stones have given way

And I see them everyday

I tried not to say the words

Tried not to speak

Tried not to hear my thoughts

The noise they would release

 

Tony Whitford 7/22/2015 ©

 

 

 

 

Turn To Stone

Standing quietly, watching over the hill filled with monuments to the dead.
Never pausing to rest.
Never seeking shelter from the rain or cold.
Never hiding his eyes from the pain.
Never turning away from the awful grace of God, the savageness of man, the hate we feel for another.
He waits for us to see, he waits for us all to be - the ones who will hold out their hands, in that single act of kindness that can transform the fury, that will transform the suspicion, that will carry us, one and all, to the promised land.
This land of ours, this land of milk and honey, of mercy and love, of forgiveness.
Will we shelter them?
Will we feed them, educate them, listen...when they speak, hear... what they say?
Or will we turn away, turn to stone, and stand on the hill - filled with monuments to the dead?

Tony Whitford
  6/28/2015

The Water Never Lasts

 

Few have left the battle
None have ever won
Rusting swords still rattle
Bring you bullets, join the fun

Lawyers, blood, and money

Fill this paper lovers dreams

Swim through mud to find them
In a dying magazine

On a hill far away

From a room yesterday
Out of space
Out of time
Out of money
Out of mind

Be the veil, be the bride

With a word we divide
Out of money
Out of time
We’re out of space
Never mind

Someone bring the wine this time

The water never last
Wrapped in secret smoke we climb
The mountains of the past

Mother television can you

Tell me what to know
Tape my eyes wide open
I don’t want to miss the show

Take my hand and love me

Can you tell me where to go
I’m afraid I’m ordinary
Temporary, I don’t know

 

Tony Whitford © 5/20/2015

Giants On Parade

When we were young

We watched the palace fall out of the sky

We waited for the dragon

Dripping love to make us high

We ran with gods and drank their wine

We ate the dreams of men

We called upon the hearts of Troy

And we shouted in the wind



In time we learned to twist the vine

Escape through smoke and shield

We slept beneath the clouds of gloom

And turned the broken wheels

The steel we wore spoke to our hearts

We drank the blood of youth

We buried blades in waterfalls

And lied to find the truth



We drove our shining time machines

And flew the dragons dry

We carried love across the sea

And vanished from the sky

The bridges burned in purple smoke

Our horses sawed their reigns

We charged across the fields of hope

And cursed the yellow stain



Our cries of "Death to boring lives"

Rang through our fierce brigade

Our hearts were filled with martyrdom

Our hands affixed to blades

The seeds were sewn, the minds were blown

The Piper dearly paid

The whirlwinds dusting kingdom come

Were giants on parade



The fires of torn and tearing down

Now smolder in the rain

And Silence fills the empty halls

Where music filled the stage

Wild poppies rustle in the wind

Where skin and bone provide

The strength to hold the crumbling walls

The years, the crushing tide



 By Tony Whitford
March 23, 2012

Atlantis Sleeps

Atlantis sleeps
Cold and deep
The silent and blue
She is a victim of the shifting earth
The rising tides
The agents of destruction
Ringing bells of sin

Above her on a sea of concrete
Extraordinary beings swim the reefs of steel
Heads bowed to the gods of circuit and screen
In the distance the sound of a horse
Breathing the thin dark air
Plumes of mist rise from its nostrils
Golgotha his name, black as night, strong of heart

His rider waits
Standing beside his withered shanks, tattered cloth
Hair and blood, beard and bone
He watches the waves
Waiting
Watching from the dark shore
An agent of destruction
Patient behind the dunes
Listening for the bells

The water rises
The horse sidles, lifting his head, ears scissoring
His rider mounts, tack creaking
Blade gleaming
Salt mist in their eyes
Silence now
Not even a dog
The bells begin

Listening

Listening

 

I think I have forgotten

To talk to him

I haven’t heard him speak in so long

Maybe I lost the will

The ability to hear

I used to talk to him

When I was young

And missing him

Words beneath my heart

Hidden from the voice

A language

Only the lost can hear

I heard him call my name

 

I think I have forgotten

How—can that be true

Talk to me now

I promise

I will listen

I am listening

What is there left to say

What did you forget to tell me

I have time

You can have all you need

I have not forgotten you

 

 

Tony whitford   9/18/2014

  

The Words Of Our Fathers

 

 

What will become of

The words of our fathers

Speaking

Through atmospheres of impatience

Through lives unattended

Or unexplored

 

What will become of

The message there repeated

Falling

Through attitudes too sure

Through expectations unmet

Through hands held together

In unexplained loss

And love

 

What will become of

The hope in the whisper

Rocking

In a quiet room

Soft breath on his cheek

The gentle beat of a heart against his

Looking into a future

Uncertain

Unprepared

But willing to believe

 

What will become of

The child of the father

Running

From the words they will not hear

Crashing against the hope

Of the other

The quiet room forgotten

The meaning somehow lost

The words that held no cost

 

 

Tony Whitford   7/15/2014

 

 

 

Memento

 

She gazes in the mirror

As the memory of a younger face begins to fade

A shaking hand reaches up to wipe away the steam

To wipe away the dream

And there in the glass

The past falters to a red beginning

To a distant horizon

Where a man stands shaving

His neck stretched upward

His chin pointing to the mirror

A razor in his hand

Triumph over the weak in his countenance

A bottle of Jim Beam on faded Formica

To steady the nerves of a man's last day

The burning brings courage, chasing the fear

Liquid fire drips through her chest

The devils tears

In another room she hears her mother

Sobs of regret behind broken doors

Holes in walls

Stains on floors

Her fallen angel

The angel that could not fly

Looking through this window into the infinite

Looking back with no fear of the instrument she has become

She remembers the sound of the gun

Echoing in the small bathroom

And the spray of a man's last day

Covering the walls in pathetic loss

Living fluid beating through the heart of a monster

Now nothing more than paint

The smell of the shaving cream

She opens the drawer of the vanity

And gazes at the razor

Yellowed ivory, stained with one scarlet drop

Never to be wiped away

One raised chin

One shaking hand

One memento of him

 

A.W. Whitford

11/10/2013

 

 

 

Strange Captain

Dawson adjusted himself, sliding sideways, and picking up his books, allowing the man standing in the aisle beside him to sit down.

 As the bus pulled away from the curb he began to feel the familiar melancholy weight of a thousand days spent in a robot repetition of work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, work, eat, slowly pulling him beneath a wave of depression.

 How had it come to this? Where had his life gone wrong? There had to be a different life, a different way to live somewhere out there. He suddenly realized that his life had somehow gotten completely off course; this wasn’t what he wanted. The endless days floating aimlessly in a sea of doubt and self loathing aboard a boat with a captain he no longer knew or understood. It simply had to stop.

 He decided he would take the elevator to the bridge and introduce himself to the stranger at the wheel; he would let this alien captain know that his services were no longer required. He decided that he would take the wheel, check the compass, and make the necessary course corrections. He saw himself standing on the bridge, the blue water of the future shining like diamonds ahead, the dark water of the past churning beneath him, lost in his wake.

 He smiled as he stepped from the bus, the wash of exhaust fumes filling his lungs, the noise of the city and roar of the diesel engine fortifying his need for change.

Captain, allow me to introduce myself.

When Darkness Comes

 As a new year rushes toward us, we often look back and try to remember the time that seems to have washed beneath us as though we were nothing more than driftwood, pulling away from the shore, only to return again, as the waves of daily life push us toward the sand.
 We think of the people we met, the friends we lost and the family members that fill our memories with love and happiness, the feelings of a life well lived, and the prospects of the life still ahead.
 And we think of the people in our lives that fade into the distance, there one day, and gone the next, leaving us to wonder if we will ever see them again.

When Darkness Comes

 

Light fades from your eyes

Like water from the shore

Pulling away to touch the sand

Of another place

Another time and space

I breathe the air you push away

And listen for the words

You forgot to say

Your voice

Like a falling wing

I have forgotten

The momentary Illusion of life

A moon disappearing into the daylight sky

Left here among the living

We wait for the turn

For there are other worlds to see

Another us to be

Yet somehow among the stars

I feel your living pulse

I feel your reaching hand

And I see through the night

I remember

And I rejoice

For there was a time

I knew you

I feel I know you still

It was not a dream

And when the darkness comes

Two moons are there for me

In the quiet of the night

Your eyes are what I see

 

 

Tony Whitford 11/30/2012