Your Face
After all those years between,
I'll hold you close again
And pretend I can explain
How much I missed you
During all those years
Between last weekend
And next!
—Larry Hallock
con te
After contentment has
For so long
Been memories of things
That once were,
I am compelled,
With these used up,
To move on
And make more.
—Larry Hallock
Friend
Not one night have I had to spend
Agonizing over whether you love me.
Not once have I had to wonder
What could fill the space
If you should ever leave me.
When I should laugh
You help me see it funny.
When I must cry
You make it seem worthwhile.
Others come and go.
Lovers love for just a time.
But love that lasts forever
Is what defines you "friend."
—Larry Hallock
I remember
A certain date
In September
Of sixty-eight.
In a hurry
As I walked past—
Not a worry
That you would cast
A look my way
To catch my eye
Or try to say
So much as "Hi."
But things went right
For soon we met
And on that night—
I can't forget
That old hard floor
Where we had fun
And wanted more
When we were done!
That proved a clue
And each day since
My love for you
Grows more intense.
— Larry Hallock
The Party
5:25 a.m.
The night's been long
And I must now retire
In search of sleep.
In this lifeless room
Just emptied of the laughter
Of my many friends,
I make the radio do its noise
Pretending it's a person
Here to be with me
And make it not so lonesome.
Around me all these beer cans,
Ashes ground into the floor,
Glasses partly filled
With melted ice and liquor
Lay in awkward symbol
Of the emptiness inside
The keeper of this room.
These glasses once were moving—
Lifting up to laughing lips,
Spilling down to tortured carpets.
These silly cigarettes
Once were keeping time
In maestro hands of lively gestures.
Now their silent immobility
Like the ruins of ancient Greece
Testify that once right here
In this very spot
Was laughter
People
And surely,
Somewhere,
Love.
—Larry Hallock
Honestly, I am NOT under the impression that I am a poet. These are simple, journal-like entries for remembering the moment.
Prices
I know you already made
this same memory
with another.
You share it
with two
or more.
And if it makes you uneasy
to see me relive it
with thoughts
so completely
of you alone,
maybe I should
be apologetic
or at least
go easy.
But I cannot.
Your uneasiness—
the divided allegiance
of your memories—
is your price.
Reliving the memory is mine.
—Larry Hallock
Sí San Juan!
Cocoa Boy
Rainbow 'round your neck—
Sweet Baby
Desire in your eyes—
Your tenderness
Is like the tropical sun;
And your devotion,
Like the waves of oceans.
—Larry Hallock
For Benny
Unmade Made Decisions
At some inappropriate moment
A kind of some thing some where
Sends a frightful burning to my chest
That lasts so short a moment
But magnifies within the private
Chambers of my soul,
The gravity of vague decisions
Made by choice or just by course
Which formed my world, decided my place,
Set me changeless in my fate.
It lingers only an instant,
This awful, burning feeling,
So I turn my mind the other way
As if it's there unnoticed.
But the feeling doesn't seem to mind
As it always may return.
With me deceived, and not the feeling,
In a moment it will go.
And I'll continue trying living,
Hoping that I’m somehow right.
—Larry Hallock
Wow, dark stuff, some of these! But they were written back in the early days. Self pity. More time spent ruing the curve balls than just getting on with life and embracing it for the endless challenge it is. It was before I knew that if you got lemons, you really could make lemonade. Good grief, I was never “changeless in my fate.” Today I’m a huge believer in what Peck says in The Road Less Traveled: all learning is by pain, and we do well to embrace it. Something like that. I truly value the pain that was behind some of these poems—for what it has made me.
Photo: Unknown
You emptied my emotions
like the last three drops
of two-toned cream
in the bottom of a pitcher
into you and your system
like bitter coffee
which was already too bad,
already beyond repair.
—Larry Hallock
is there one thing you did
first with me
is there one thing I can remember
and know you share that memory
with me alone
tell me what it is
and let me frame it
or let me put it like a poison
or mildly like an irritant
on the tips of darts and arrows
that I have ordered
never to stop reminding you
- Larry Hallock
Under silent darkness
Are found we three—
A bicycle
The edge of the sea
And me
Thinking about you
And marveling that this same moon
That melts into the sea beside me
Also touches your face
A thousand miles away
Illuminating your smile,
Not for me to see
But for others to adore.
—Larry Hallock
Today while wedging my lonely way forward
Through the confusions of today's here-and-now,
My heart got snagged on a memory of you
And I turned to see the thing that held it back.
Backward I gazed through piles of broken debris—
All the destructions in yesterday's wake.
From way back there your voice sounds tender and
It seems that when we were there you tried to love.
I asked for today to wait just a moment and raced back
To indulge in the strength of your arms once more,
To observe and determine what something I’d missed,
To allow you to manage the slightest correction.
But today was ready to go, and I had to move on.
—Larry Hallock
