Tag: Shopping

The Tortured Scribe

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing6 Comments

block

Delusions scatter, inspiration dwindles;
how then shall I progress?
The world revolves on a shaky spindle
and the heart barely beats in my chest.

Having given so much to this wretched life,
I fear I’ve gone insane.
I awake at night with a sudden fright
and a fever in my brain.
I reach into descending light –
a trembling hand extends;
my fingers white, with no insight,
I grip the writer’s pen.

Words drip onto a page uncurled,
a scattering of thoughts still burning –
my soul calls out, “God, let me out!”
and speaks of desperate yearning.
Like splattered pools of fallen rain
that swallow my reflection,
I’m lost again and deep within
the fog of introspection.

And still no words to rise within
my consciousness this day –
expressions of this tortured scribe
Must find another way.

 

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IF JUST ONCE MORE by D.L. McHale

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Uncategorized, Writing5 Comments

 

A heart divided cannot beat for long
An unsung note cannot be called a song
The dancer spins a lonely pirouette
Who dances only with her silhouette

The un-prayed prayer on deaf ears fall
Despite the soul’s relentless call
This crowded world is such an empty place
When from heaven, too, angels fall from grace

The flames of love that burn so bright
Without lips to kiss becomes a dying light
The promise of love that is unreturned
Is the loneliest truth for man to learn

The sun may rise, but each day descends
Like a long, dark night that will never end
The longest path for he who walks alone
Are the shuffled steps toward an empty home

In winter’s grip, luscious gardens shorn
Though the wilted rose still bears its thorns
Yet all these sorrows I would dare embrace
If just once more I could see your face

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A Midnight Violation

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing8 Comments

fear

Bathed in an ethereal light
this child has no skin in the game
yet her trust holds demands
she cannot bear.

The creak of her bedroom door
snatches the sleep from her eyes
and in the darkness, horror descends;
her pillow, once soft and warm,
betrays her and once under, now over
muffles her surprise.

Beneath his weight, she dissipates
her cries muffled in the night.
Her fright smothers – she gasps for air
and he’s still there, grinding her
fragile hips into dust.

God looks on, and in His fashion
does nothing to intervene;
a celestial voyeur.

Stuffed animals bolt to the floor
one after the other, and with them
descends lost innocence; her
face laced in spittle, and she’s so little.

He rolls over, spent and condemned
as blackness descends to fill her.
Nothing is as it seems, but not a dream.
Tears wash away the vision of
this violation.

He rises as she plummets;
this child painted with the smell of
cigarettes and cheap liquor.
Morning filters through frosted panes
but she finds no warmth in the rising sun.

They’ll be no accounting for this sin
and no childhood left within this shattered
shell of a child. A darkness, deeper than sleep,
envelopes her lost innocence, and the
night’s breeze carries the cry of angels.

 

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Death’s Warm Embrace

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Uncategorized, Writing3 Comments

deaths-embrace

 

My dreams are fermented delusions
A kaleidoscope of meandering falls
Through time and space, while the
Screams of my infliction penetrate
And annihilate my grip on reality.

My waking hours, of which few remain,
Adds another layer of darkness to an
Already bleak existence, while the light
Of relentless self-reflection blinds me to
Any hope of reprieve or absolution.

I stand with one foot in the grave
And the other hobbled by uncertainty.
I do not fear this final step into the abyss
So much as I dread the act of departure;
The inglorious gasp of a final breath
Inhaling the petrichor of a wasted life.

A silent scream rattles from my gut
Cursing the sun of a new day rising.
I cannot bear another savage stroke
From a Sun that fails to warm me.
Let the final night descend and into
Death’s warm embrace enfold my soul.

 

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We Shall Remember: Ode to a Dying Poet

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

moon words

Your night has fallen;
the brilliant light
of the new moon
filtering through the
broken mass of clouds,
a brilliant ray reflecting
upon your tongue-kissed works.
Your verse remains standing,
redeeming the world from darkness:
they seem to move and
we are filled with awe.

Your words were mountains;
iron-like masses thrown heavily
against the somber sky –
and as the dark blue deepens
into purple and purple-black
we reflect upon your poems,
which were gurgling streams
of naked visceral truth
cutting through our consciousness.

One never thinks of velvet
when the light is cold and thin;
when snow lies deep
and the intense light dazzles the eye.
But your lines were velvet in their
silver light and inky blackness
and we shall remember.

Writer’s Block

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing3 Comments

block

 

Half smoked cigarettes fill the vapid air
the poet hunches over in total disrepair
His dalliance with the muse is such a sad affair
When words won’t come, he slouches in despair
The night mist lingers though he doesn’t’ really care
Surrounded by empty bottles, his vision is impaired
The empty page taunts him, “Fill me if you dare!”
He reaches even deeper, but there’s really nothing there
Another evening of this is more than he can bear
In absolute surrender, his pen flies through the air

 

The Skirt

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

red-skirt

 

You laid your plaited skirt

on the foot of my bed,

neatly folded as though

in doing so you could somehow

retain your virtue.

 

In the midst of our fleshy thrashings,

I kicked it to the floor, and you began

to cry, deep sobs that rattled

the mattress springs.

 

I moved, too reluctantly, to retrieve it

but you said, “Why bother? You’ve ruined it.

You’ve ruined me. You’ve ruined everything!”

 

Making love doesn’t always

mean making sense,

and so I threw my feet to the floor,

pulled on my jeans, and looked back,

although I would never be able to see.

 

“So that’s it?” you sobbed.

 

In affirmation, I buttoned my shirt

and turned toward the door,

and as an afterthought, picked up

your once plaited skirt, tossed it

carelessly over my shoulder,

 

and left.

 

Lady of the Night

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Writing4 Comments

moon-like-face

Her face is frost etched glass
floating in the blue-black winds of the night;
She illuminates footsteps hushed
on decayed and dampened leaves,
and grieves for freshly planted souls
who have turned from the light of day.

Her midnight corset is tightly laced
by the dazzling tails of falling stars,
and she moves in phases
with the hushed and tempered grace of a
childless empress wandering forlornly
through the cold shadows of winter’s garden.

She seduces the wolf and the poet with
equal ambivalence, each of whom
compose for her dream-soaked arias
and haunting sonnets that speak of
promises which will not be kept.

She mourns her powdered reflection
as it ripples across frozen lakes, and
hides behind silver-lined clouds when
she can no longer bear the loneliness
of her shadowy journey across granite
mountaintops and sleeping meadows.

At last, in the cool, grey light of morning,
as the sun softly caresses her porcelain
cheek with warm fingers of breaking light,
she sighs but once, then slowly fades into
the rose colored blush of a new day.

Love in a Coffee Shop

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Uncategorized, Writing2 Comments

woman-drinking-coffee-in-restaurant-outdoors

She’s not the kind of girl
men see across a smoky bar
and write songs about.
There is an uninviting sadness
in her dull blue eyes,
downward cast,
washing out the sparkle of
her tender youth.
Yet, I’ve sat here all morning
casting furtive glances above the
flipped lid of my computer,
drinking in the realness of her,
sipping the lukewarm resignation
that hangs upon her like a
torn burial shroud.
I am intoxicated by the way
she breathes slowly and with
lost purpose; how she twirls
a lock of her dishwater blond
hair with her forefinger,
the nail of which is bitten
to the quick.
Every few minutes she looks
off into the distance
with a blank and distant stare,
perhaps daring to dream, broken,
of a life that might have been.
I know, in that way of knowing
the permeates you to the core,
that she has lived, and felt, and
loved, and lost, and somehow
found the strength within herself
to carry on.
I also know that I love her,
she who I do not know
and she who no longer loves
in return.
She’s not the kind of girl
men see across a smoky bar
and write songs about,
but she is the reason
poets anguish into the night
to capture the authenticity
of true love and broken dreams.

Rapture

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Relationships, Speaking, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

Image

In this, my final mortal moment
As the layered veil of secrets
Like my breath, sure and softly drawn
Beneath my pale and frightened gaze
As my clay-sculpt feet are slowly
and with love gently lowered
Into the deep dissolving
Waters of eternal bliss
Even now do angels joyful weep
For my journey home is now complete

All my terrors and vain doubts
Are here now ghostly gathered
Beneath this black descending night
Each anguished terror vanquished
Before my dark and dimming eyes
The quaking and the making
Of all my Earthly fears gently recede
Fading as I am at last lifted up
Rejoice! My soul is holy Heaven bound

Do not grieve my passing, nor carve
The memory of me on granite stone
But rather, plant my bones one measure
Beneath the eternal Tree of Knowledge
For they no longer serve their upright purpose
And return the bitten fruit upon its branch
I no longer hunger for its bitter bite
Let the serpent coil beneath this truth
No longer shall I hide my nakedness
Beneath this slowly setting sun

One final time this weary heart beats
And I am free, unshackled and forgiven
My dust upon the swirling winds scatter
I do not fear the darkness of the hour
As I gather the warm encroaching light
In warm embrace, one last and longing look
Gathering my Final earthly breath
I shall, with open palms let go
My desperate and anguished grip
Upon this wondrous fleeting dream.
Then shall I, in certain knowledge, let go
For my journey here is full complete.

Appalachian Woods

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, Travel, Writing1 Comment

cabin

Our lives can best be understood
in all the things we craft from wood
The dogwood laid our cabin floor
hung knotted pine our shanty door

Six bowls we carved from fallen maple
a burnt mahogany sets our table
A dozen spoons and forks by hand
hewn perfect fit for every man

And woman, too, with pocket-knives
whittle tokens of our humble lives
Soft wicker thatched this rocking chair
and spruce the toys sprawled everywhere

In wooden homes that we have built
we hang on pegs our history quilts
Each patch a memory lovingly stitched
our purses poor, our lives quite rich

Our beds and wardrobes never falter
we hand-carved those from summer alder
Our coffins, too, of stout mesquite
for when our journey is complete

In wood we find our heart’s desire
or pain if come the wayward fire
And even so, most grievous sin
not to build from wood again

So now you better understand
how we live upon this land
Within the forest, and it in us
in God we hope, in wood we trust

Nature’s Aria

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, WritingLeave a comment

forest

Receive the sibilant symphony
of sunset’s twilight serenade –
a  cacophony of chirping crickets,
and grass-green geckos cheeping
within frost-flocked ferns
and flower-flecked foliage.

The shrill shriek of the osprey
slices the silence of the summer sky
beneath the bass beat of barnyard owls
hoot-hooting hallowed hallelujahs
in consonance with coyotes chanting
their mournful moonlight wail.

Dissonant and chaotic,
harmonic and serene,
nature’s love songs echoing
across gurgling moss-banked streams
against granite-faced mountains
silhouetted sentinels standing
behind the moon-misted
shroud of the falling night

Last Call

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing2 Comments

ghost

Last night, as I lay muddled,
in my whiskey-soaked slumber,
A wraith-like mist appeared;
blue-black and musty scented
in tattered rags dipped in dust.

My burning sleep-clenched eyes
could not squeeze the scepter gone.
Her orbs, two onyx stones
set above translucent cheeks;
her mouth, a gaping maw
spewing ruby-red flames.

She floated on an icy breeze
scented with blood and bitters.

“Last call!” she hissed,

pouring me two bony fingers
of amber absolution,
judgment oozing from
her snake-coiled tongue.
I listened to the familiar tinkle
of liquefied reasoning cascading
across ice-cubed rebuttals.

Fear terrorized me,
stroking my belly with cold hands.
My gut curveting far and high
like smoke-flecked stallions
raking the black sky
with their steel-sparked shoes.

the earth reached up
with vise-gripped soiled fingers
grasping my naked ankles
and pulled down my saturated bones;
my drunken soul laid out and set
beneath lichen-laced granite.

Jagged stone-edged knives etched
my name and this,
the year of my drunken descent.

Immodest Modesty

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing4 Comments

lucy

I am chastened by my own diffidence
humbled by my modesty and proud of
my own shy reserve. No one can touch
the depths of my self-deprecation, nor
measure the breadth of my charitable
heart. I am the king of paupers and the
meekest of the mighty; who then shall
match me sacrifice for sacrifice? I am
stealthy in spirit and mild in manner.
I am the best of the least and properly
pious. I should be highly recognized
for eschewing any recognition, for I am
uniquely unassuming and insanely
inconspicuous. People sing praises
about my passionate poverty and in my
retiring regality, I demur. I am me,
as modest as can be.

 

LOST FOR WORDS by D.L.McHale

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

______________________________________________

This poem contains 18 words that have been deemed the most  
sensual in the English language, the most soothing on the tongue.  
See if you can identify which words these are
___________________________________________

happy-birthday-chocolate-cake-for-Jeannie

she was
seductive and transcendent
demure and evanescent
lost in the shifting shadows of sexual sensations
her chatoyant gaze, her dulcet smile
she was erstwhile my beloved fixation

her words kissed my ears
imbuing my imagination
with fugacious desire

her touch left vestigial sensations
demanding a desultory and deep dalliance
her lissome lips lilting softly
ineffable moments transcending opulence
something surreptitious and sumptuous
serene, slavish, and sexy

Related articles

 

12:08 A.M.

On By Dennis McHaleIn Motivational, Poetry, Speaking, Uncategorized, Writing1 Comment

clock

12:08 A.M.

At least I think it was 12:08 A.M.
My eyes were wet and unfocused
as I hunched over the toilet,
regurgitating about $200 worth of
top-shelf vodka.

It might be 12:03 A.M.,
I just don’t know.
Everything is blurry and
the indiglo clock on the towel shelf
kept blinking faster than I could read.

I wiped my mouth on the right sleeve
of my cashmere sports jacket
and with my left hand,
flushed the john two or three times.

Again with the numbers!
It always comes down to the fucking numbers!

If the police ever question me about
where I was on the rainy night of  October 14, 2013
at either 12:03 A.M. or 12:08 A.M.,
I’m pretty sure, like the filthy tiles surrounding the toilet,
I had it covered.

The Ocean’s Song

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Travel, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

I.
Sitting on the bay, watching the ships go by;
Where they are headed, I don’t know, yet
My soul yearns to be likewise swept away
With the outgoing tide upon undulating waves.
Beneath blustery clouds let the extended bellies
Of white sails carry me across new horizons.
Beneath the crested waves, the mermaids sing
Siren chants of, “Come with me. Come with me!”
The baritone bellow of a ship’s horn
Blasts out, “Come with me, Come with me!”
II.
Icy winds caress my weathered face,
Each wizened line etched like a nautical map
Directing me toward tomorrow’s fortunes.
The salted air fills my aching lungs with a
Hope I have not known since childhood.
In my shoreline reverie, I am carried across
Blue-green oceans kissing distant coastlines.
“Turn, screws, turn,” let the waters churn
Beneath your tired and weathered hull
But do not leave me dry standing here.
III.
I yearn to drink the white foam of stormy seas
Beneath a blanket of heavenly constellations.
I do not care today for tomorrow’s sorrows
So long as I can castaway in the iron belly
Of a eastward steaming long boat.
I am now lost in the maelstrom of indifference
Upon these sandy shores, and my eyes
Are filled with the tears of a sailor’s regret
For having missed the outward tides.
“Carry me out. Carry me out!” and let the
Fish one day dine upon my happy bones.

Betrayal

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Speaking, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

Like a black-velvet curtain slowly falling,
I was not prepared for your numbing descent;
I am cleaved in two, a house divided against itself.
My thoughts, sharp as a honed razor, dribbles
incoherence as it passes over my muddled tongue;
thick molasses reluctantly oozing from a honey dipper,
but without the sweetness.
Do not pity me – I am yet fully housed within this melted
shell and am quite aware that my left side has betrayed
my right, but I no longer possess the mastery of pointing this out.

 

The Homecoming

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Uncategorized1 Comment

The royal robes of winter’s night tightly bind me
in its blue-black grip; and shadow of majestic mountains
kneel on the banks of frozen rivers, its cracked ice,
like braided lace hemming the barren valley floors.

An amber moon spills bitter glow through naked branches
like brittle fingers clutching a button-less cloak.
Icy winds whip swirls of fog across lifeless lakes,
and on broken wings doves fall from a voiceless sky.

In a distant village, old ladies warble lullabies
to their dying husbands; soft verse cutting like
jagged blades through thick cherry smoke,
bleeding from pipes clenched in broken teeth.

The children, with bellies as round as their joyless
eyes, feed upon fermented peaches and dance
on knitted bones, playing hide and please, don’t seek.

I have walked a lifetime to return to this, my kingdom,
stretching as far as the blind eye can see.
My head is crowned in a spray of dying stars
as my spirit is drowned in muted prayer.
My hobbled feet were cut upon jagged stones –
This is my doomed destiny; my home made in hell.

An Eternal Sunrise

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Uncategorized1 Comment

The sunrise is eternal –

Our measured days are not.

Yet still somehow in this moment now,

I am lifted beyond mortality;

baptized by this burnished dawn

and set afire with daring possibility.

 

All too soon, the damp, cold earth

will grip us by the ankle

and pull us downward.

 

This morning is not that day.

 

Heaven ascends before my eyes,

kissed by the reflection of amber rays.

My heartbeat echoing the foaming surf

while prayers dance among the murmur

of winged clouds in dawn’s soft pastel light.

 

The world spins round.

 

This is my temple,

and my soul, shrouded in the rolling fog

of a new day, is lifted upon salted winds.

 

I slip the bonds of my earthly servitude

and ascend upon the gilded rays of a new day –

lifted gently like a newborn in a mother’s warm embrace.

 

Contrasting Lights

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Uncategorized4 Comments

You have always stood beneath a dazzling
array of bright colors.
Brilliant, and brave, and blinding.
Your light provided bright reflections
and lit the stage upon which you danced;
careless, joyful, and exuberant.

It was a separate light that bathed me,
not quite so radiant and full of shadows.
It has never illuminated my way
nor has it warmed me in its beam.
It was what it seemed: an insignificant
blue glow, dim and misleading.

In your light, you were found. In mine,
everything was lost.

Living for the Moment

On By Dennis McHaleIn Poetry, Uncategorized1 Comment

Being how
our day ends now and nighttime lasts forever
Let’s cherish now
this fleeting hour, beneath this setting sun
It’s now quite clear
excessive fear has bound us all together
Let’s all draw near
and take some cheer before this day is done.

We’ll sing and dance
and take a chance upon tomorrow’s waking
We’ll pause and pray
that on this day, we find our full atonement
Take solace in
our lives within this moment of our making
The world may spin
unto the end, but the heart beats for this moment.