Driving by Night
This winding road I've left behind
Still twists in the rearview, turning
the moonlight in my windshield
follows me forever, flickering while--
gentle Aldeberran follows his sisters
chasing me, and the Pleiades
my great aunts sang to old Mr. Moon,
in a circle, sewing, soothing,
stitching colored moths, twisting--
yellow bands
mark the pavement
I can hear their voices in my heart
(Pine trees percussion)
breathes sighs of harmony soft swaying
moonbeams along patches
of red-clay and rocky roads--
long have I driven with the sun
at my back, the East Texas thickets
impervious to time while
in my mind, I drive and drive
and drive
that old twisted road
I have left behind
This winding road I've left behind
Still twists in the rearview, turning
the moonlight in my windshield
follows me forever, flickering while--
gentle Aldeberran follows his sisters
chasing me, and the Pleiades
my great aunts sang to old Mr. Moon,
in a circle, sewing, soothing,
stitching colored moths, twisting--
yellow bands
mark the pavement
I can hear their voices in my heart
(Pine trees percussion)
breathes sighs of harmony soft swaying
moonbeams along patches
of red-clay and rocky roads--
long have I driven with the sun
at my back, the East Texas thickets
impervious to time while
in my mind, I drive and drive
and drive
that old twisted road
I have left behind
Furrows
Furrows, dug into your brow,
where seeds of madness lay…
Once, your barren eyes pinned me.
I fled then like crows at death’s hour,
thinking: how can love, once
nurtured, abandon
the field to ruin?
our histories etched into the earth,
planted, sown, rent apart
this is the soil in which I lay:
sterile, calloused ground
that yields neither anger
nor grief
but indifference.
Furrows, dug into your brow,
where seeds of madness lay…
Once, your barren eyes pinned me.
I fled then like crows at death’s hour,
thinking: how can love, once
nurtured, abandon
the field to ruin?
our histories etched into the earth,
planted, sown, rent apart
this is the soil in which I lay:
sterile, calloused ground
that yields neither anger
nor grief
but indifference.
Most of these poems
have been published in
Issue magazine. Some
were published on
ezines and in
anthologies. And some,
I love despite their
flaws and didn't want
them to be left out.
All of these poems are
my own.
© Celeste Hollister,
1996-2006
have been published in
Issue magazine. Some
were published on
ezines and in
anthologies. And some,
I love despite their
flaws and didn't want
them to be left out.
All of these poems are
my own.
© Celeste Hollister,
1996-2006
To Genia
A passion for red
She floats forgotten among the
already dead
Like a doll from childhood’s dream
The guns have no sight for her
They will find her later
For now she is playing children’s games
Of follow-the-leader and hopscotch
In blood-stained snow
A passion for red
And she did not understand
They would find her later
Under the bed
Playing hide and seek.
2 October 1996
A passion for red
She floats forgotten among the
already dead
Like a doll from childhood’s dream
The guns have no sight for her
They will find her later
For now she is playing children’s games
Of follow-the-leader and hopscotch
In blood-stained snow
A passion for red
And she did not understand
They would find her later
Under the bed
Playing hide and seek.
2 October 1996
Paper Heart
Torn,
She shows me her paper heart--
broken,
She pleads for me to mend.
So young is she
With her soft felt wings,
and dollhouses and dreams,
to look to me
to mend these things.
20 October, 2000
Torn,
She shows me her paper heart--
broken,
She pleads for me to mend.
So young is she
With her soft felt wings,
and dollhouses and dreams,
to look to me
to mend these things.
20 October, 2000
We Have What We Have
So many dreams
So many thoughts
So much pain
So much joy
In our brief lives
The sadness and the tears
And if I live many years
Before my death
I wish for you happiness,
Contentedness
My love
We only have what we have.
So many dreams
So many thoughts
So much pain
So much joy
In our brief lives
The sadness and the tears
And if I live many years
Before my death
I wish for you happiness,
Contentedness
My love
We only have what we have.
You
-- took without asking
I gave without taking
And always, I was mistaking
Your eagerness for love.
Summer 1993
-- took without asking
I gave without taking
And always, I was mistaking
Your eagerness for love.
Summer 1993
Sleepwalk
Misty-eyed, she greets the morning:
Another night alone has passed
She enfolds dying dreams in her arms,
Those downy wings best left to the night
In her heart a star is circling,
Not choosing a place to light
But hovers he, and drinks, then flies,
abandoning her once more at dawn.
Though seas and skies sweep around her
And breezes tease her tangled hair
She walks around in day-time dreaming
Imagining that he is there.
Misty-eyed, she greets the morning:
Another night alone has passed
She enfolds dying dreams in her arms,
Those downy wings best left to the night
In her heart a star is circling,
Not choosing a place to light
But hovers he, and drinks, then flies,
abandoning her once more at dawn.
Though seas and skies sweep around her
And breezes tease her tangled hair
She walks around in day-time dreaming
Imagining that he is there.
The Origin of Light
Turn back the shadows
Turn back the page of time
Return to days of platinum youth
When the sun
Followed
A newborn child
Beyond this horizon lies another
Continual to these imperfect lenses
And in the organ of life they knew
The divinity
Of candlelight
Brought to us by God himself
Descended to a tree of fire
To illuminate those lives
With rules
Incendiary
And the priests who understood
To well its awesome power
Cloaked it within veils of cloth
Then shamed the world
Who would behold it
Turn back once more
To the time enlightened
When astronomers reordered the universe
To prove that light
Came from within.
Turn back the shadows
Turn back the page of time
Return to days of platinum youth
When the sun
Followed
A newborn child
Beyond this horizon lies another
Continual to these imperfect lenses
And in the organ of life they knew
The divinity
Of candlelight
Brought to us by God himself
Descended to a tree of fire
To illuminate those lives
With rules
Incendiary
And the priests who understood
To well its awesome power
Cloaked it within veils of cloth
Then shamed the world
Who would behold it
Turn back once more
To the time enlightened
When astronomers reordered the universe
To prove that light
Came from within.
Darkness
Darkness of forgiveness,
edged with earthly tears,
beg you for raindrops
from crystal skies?
With broken fingers outstretched,
do you pray for rain, for absolution
that all of humankind
should moil an existence
between the stars while
nebulous curls spawn
galaxies of indifference?
Cold stars, burn brightly on—
Forget your glory
and foreswear the night
to shed your illumination.
The monks in earth-clad robes
understood it best—
To splay dirty hands in sublimation
Their souls burning lamp oil
To hide the darkness.
25 September 2000
Darkness of forgiveness,
edged with earthly tears,
beg you for raindrops
from crystal skies?
With broken fingers outstretched,
do you pray for rain, for absolution
that all of humankind
should moil an existence
between the stars while
nebulous curls spawn
galaxies of indifference?
Cold stars, burn brightly on—
Forget your glory
and foreswear the night
to shed your illumination.
The monks in earth-clad robes
understood it best—
To splay dirty hands in sublimation
Their souls burning lamp oil
To hide the darkness.
25 September 2000
The Chambered Heart
A nautilus
Alone on the shore
So like the heart --
Many chambered
but mostly empty space.
Its skin worn thin
by a crash of waves
retains our lost loves
in its hollow cells.
For Tom
July 1999
A nautilus
Alone on the shore
So like the heart --
Many chambered
but mostly empty space.
Its skin worn thin
by a crash of waves
retains our lost loves
in its hollow cells.
For Tom
July 1999
Lament of the last Summer
Clutch of memories
untouched for years
crowd my mind.
You were the boy
who held my hand
and wept
on the scaffold to manhood,
not yet afraid to cry
How can I sit beside
these unfelt strangers
with your skin stretched
like a tarp over the bones
of an excavation?
When you held my secrets
in your hands
while bombshells of boredom
burst around us?
How can I pretend
your life didn’t end
in the hypodermic hush
of anonymity,
your amber skin blanched
like parchment,
a hollow chronicle
of nothing?
This one's for Josh
Clutch of memories
untouched for years
crowd my mind.
You were the boy
who held my hand
and wept
on the scaffold to manhood,
not yet afraid to cry
How can I sit beside
these unfelt strangers
with your skin stretched
like a tarp over the bones
of an excavation?
When you held my secrets
in your hands
while bombshells of boredom
burst around us?
How can I pretend
your life didn’t end
in the hypodermic hush
of anonymity,
your amber skin blanched
like parchment,
a hollow chronicle
of nothing?
This one's for Josh
Summer Equinox
Mother and Daughter
we curl together
hands within hands
our hair entwined
with the roots and leaves
of sheltering trees.
This midday softness
blessed by solstice stirrings
presents a myriad display
of butterflies like tiny kites
and moss like lanterns
strung from branches.
In this pristine meadow
we spin like angels,
two halves of the one.
We are together little girls
I am reborn in you
with childhood’s eyes.
In your trusting slumber
you curve toward me
arms outstretched.
I marvel with a child’s devotion
at this person once within me
asleep in my embrace.
For Katrina
15 September 1999
Mother and Daughter
we curl together
hands within hands
our hair entwined
with the roots and leaves
of sheltering trees.
This midday softness
blessed by solstice stirrings
presents a myriad display
of butterflies like tiny kites
and moss like lanterns
strung from branches.
In this pristine meadow
we spin like angels,
two halves of the one.
We are together little girls
I am reborn in you
with childhood’s eyes.
In your trusting slumber
you curve toward me
arms outstretched.
I marvel with a child’s devotion
at this person once within me
asleep in my embrace.
For Katrina
15 September 1999
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Angels, Demons
I held you once
in dreamer’s soft slumber,
a meniscus of tears in your eyes,
As you told me of the long ago drowning
that brought you to heaven’s breast
When your treasonous tears fell,
finding you feather-fragile in my arms,
I traced the hollow of throat, line of chin
to end their twining procession.
In heaven
you smelled boughs of spearmint and
evergreen,
you felt the brush of an angel’s wing,
In that radiance, you stood whole,
worthy of god’s love
In that absinthine night beside you,
While the halogen light sang,
You spilled tears for a self-cursed soul
defiled by hypodermic heavens,
fallen beyond redemption.
I whispered to you my secret promise,
threaded on your lips with my fingers,
that you would see again that blazing light.
(I pray that I was right.)
Demons of regret torment me now,
with tangled thoughts
lost between waking and sleep.
Would those angels forsake you,
who once found you so pure?
And would they have me condemned
to tortures of stone,
Had I claimed those yielding lips
for my own?
For Troy
I held you once
in dreamer’s soft slumber,
a meniscus of tears in your eyes,
As you told me of the long ago drowning
that brought you to heaven’s breast
When your treasonous tears fell,
finding you feather-fragile in my arms,
I traced the hollow of throat, line of chin
to end their twining procession.
In heaven
you smelled boughs of spearmint and
evergreen,
you felt the brush of an angel’s wing,
In that radiance, you stood whole,
worthy of god’s love
In that absinthine night beside you,
While the halogen light sang,
You spilled tears for a self-cursed soul
defiled by hypodermic heavens,
fallen beyond redemption.
I whispered to you my secret promise,
threaded on your lips with my fingers,
that you would see again that blazing light.
(I pray that I was right.)
Demons of regret torment me now,
with tangled thoughts
lost between waking and sleep.
Would those angels forsake you,
who once found you so pure?
And would they have me condemned
to tortures of stone,
Had I claimed those yielding lips
for my own?
For Troy
The Skeleton Key
Take this key,
It opens every door
Find a room,
Make it yours
Your hands of bone
Will cry no longer
Take this promise
It opens every door
So make it yours,
Little ghost
You are welcome here.
For Amber
2 October 1996
Take this key,
It opens every door
Find a room,
Make it yours
Your hands of bone
Will cry no longer
Take this promise
It opens every door
So make it yours,
Little ghost
You are welcome here.
For Amber
2 October 1996
Porter Middle School
Porter Middle School
Much as I hate hate HATED
Working at Porter
With that very long drive
And halls that smelled of feet
And a principal who made
Me feel
This big
Much as I hated it,
I miss it,
Surprise.
I miss my first desk
The one they shoved
Behind the bookshelves
In the corner
I miss Ms. Grandinetti-Johnson
I miss Dr. Fralin
I miss our talks at the end
Of the day
When we were too tired
To do anything but
I miss the colony of Quaker
Parrots, one of them named
Butterbean
I miss how they have the
Place a hint of magic
How the kids would hear them
Imitating raucous kids
And they’d watch ’em
And never throw rocks
I miss our brownie-cookie-cocoa
Fridays: Six kids and me
At a picnic table
After lunch
Under the trees
Always something
Always someone to see
I miss their hungry fingers
On Mondays
I miss their grubby eyes
Every morning, saying
Here! Here is a place
That’s safe
That’s warm
That’s clean
Where they love me
Even if I yell and throw
My books in the trash
They love me
I miss my students most
And I worry:
Do they love them?
Do they know that on our
Last day
We stood in the hall
All of us huddled close
And when the bell rang
That final bell
Do they know that
We stood there
That we didn’t want
To leave?
Porter Middle School
Much as I hate hate HATED
Working at Porter
With that very long drive
And halls that smelled of feet
And a principal who made
Me feel
This big
Much as I hated it,
I miss it,
Surprise.
I miss my first desk
The one they shoved
Behind the bookshelves
In the corner
I miss Ms. Grandinetti-Johnson
I miss Dr. Fralin
I miss our talks at the end
Of the day
When we were too tired
To do anything but
I miss the colony of Quaker
Parrots, one of them named
Butterbean
I miss how they have the
Place a hint of magic
How the kids would hear them
Imitating raucous kids
And they’d watch ’em
And never throw rocks
I miss our brownie-cookie-cocoa
Fridays: Six kids and me
At a picnic table
After lunch
Under the trees
Always something
Always someone to see
I miss their hungry fingers
On Mondays
I miss their grubby eyes
Every morning, saying
Here! Here is a place
That’s safe
That’s warm
That’s clean
Where they love me
Even if I yell and throw
My books in the trash
They love me
I miss my students most
And I worry:
Do they love them?
Do they know that on our
Last day
We stood in the hall
All of us huddled close
And when the bell rang
That final bell
Do they know that
We stood there
That we didn’t want
To leave?