Contributor: JD DeHart

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Once, she was assembled,
a living whole, but now an embodied
puzzle. There is no way of knowing

at what age she fell apart,
or to trace the first rattle of brokenness.

It's a question best left unsettled
unless you have an army behind you.

What was the moment she
was disassembled? A wounding made
long ago in her history,

I suppose. Nightwalker, no longer
a dreamer. Another puzzle:

What happened? A folded-up passerby
waving his finger, or a wad of
stained cash. She went away, that's sure.

Yet, I still wonder. Did she think
before she was walking into the shadow
of trees? Did she remember

the sound of her own childishness?

A whisper through houses, over small
side streets, across rough country roads that says,

Don’t get in. Don’t go, stop,
this is where you fall. This is unholy second
earth shatters.

You can be better. There is still life to live.
You have a voice, girl. Don't silence yourself.
The world fights enough to do it for you.

But all the figures float by, still trying
to reach while each word became
a silent syllable on some unknown

forest floor.


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Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
There is a mountain standing in
the middle
of my soul, waiting at the moment

I am met with a brush of the hand.

There is a hidden place in me
that no wind will root out, a palace
where trees enclose,

they stand guard, ice crystals
snap them, but a thousand more grow
back,

this mountain goes deep,
down to the world’s center,

down to the nexus of where
it all began.


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Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Believe in your story,
believe in your journey. These
words burn for a reason,

clamoring for release.

Some will say no. Some will
hold up hands and turn noses.

Talk still, speak.

When they turn you away
thirty times or three hundred,

remember the mountain inside
of you, be reminded that your story is
power,

speak, scribble, tell, and dream.


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Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I flatten myself
in a representation. This is
not me.

It’s just photo paper. It’s
just a bit of life contained
in a glimpse of an image.

What bit that is we shall
never know. I ain’t telling.

I can scratch the surface, no
sore marks are made. Just
the fabric of a canvas, dinged
up a bit.

My real face doesn’t flap
like the cardstock print. It doesn’t
float away in the wind.

I’m much more complicated
than that. Maybe.


- - -
My new book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, is available from Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

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Contradictory,
you say, but of course.

I am a series of contradictions.

My opinions are constructed
of an elephant graveyard of my
experiences and biases.

Awareness of self leads to a notion
of a pastiche. We are as many and multitude
as the fragments light reveals we
have been breathing all day.

It begs the question:
What qualifications make an other
the arbiter of what’s right? I reserve

the right to be absolutely contradictory
to the point of incoherence. Making sense
to others is not my reason for being.

Who is in the circle that most speaks
to our lives? 


- - -
My new book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, is available from Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I’ve taken my interest
and given it a lovely corduroy
vest. There now, so dapper.

What a gentleman gesture.

It’s not that I’m disinterested.
In fact, the opposite. I have made
my curiosity as appealing as possible.

Just as we often play the actor,
practicing our lines in the rear-view
mirror. Shaping our mouth just so we

will be found human too, found
acceptable in another’s sight. An Other
who is practiced just like us.

Don't pretend you don't rehearse.

Dressing lively details up
like a lineup of dolls.

It sounded so much better in the car.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Out on the lapping motion
of a summer lake, the teacher
spins another dream.

He’s where I learned about
Friere. And so many other names.

Reader of books, one who studies,
innovates, he presses forward
for fear of stagnation. Makes, creates.

Years ago, he might have been
something like a hippie, shaggy-haired
boatman with no need for a necktie.

Now, he is inviting: Let’s learn together,
soft voice, setting a stage in a room
on land or in this glistening ride.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Through the small
round mirror into past
and present, I see a segment
rendered clearly. Thank you
for having me.

A refraction point, the image
of myself gazing back,
found like a toy prize in
another person’s set of tokens,
a box of shared memories.

This eye, this body,
traveling through undefined
space, in need of a velvet
rope to tether to the ground,

this vantage I call unique,
shared by many, documented,
cross-examined, defended,

metaphysically concrete,
constantly searching,
inevitably human and partial,
recounting the story of
another and yet myself.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Turns out, sharks like
thumping music. Swinging
sharks, imagine them in tuxedos,
swimming just beyond the reach
of your bass sound.

Soft jazz makes them go away,
just like the unhip. Just like
those with myopic vision
and narrow minds. There are other
shoals for those types.

I wonder what country does?
The slow sweet melancholy of classic
bluegrass tunes probably doesn’t
play well (don’t go swimming on that
assurance, please), but I wager that
the drumbeats of modern tunes

probably gathers some teeth.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Make me promises.
Predict my future.
Cast a bold vision.

Be honest and sincere
twice a year. When there’s
a microphone. Only then.

Tell me the world is my
oyster then cut out the branch
from beneath my toes.

Watch me cling to your words
like stone wings. I sink
on your 50 percent chances.

You should be a weatherman
at this rate, laughing in your warm
window while I walk in the hot sunshine

dressed in a thick raincoat.
People make more honest sounds
in the bathroom after a bad meal
than what these proverbs add up to. 


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Last night, I took
a deep dive, one tablet
the night before, one half
the following night,
into dreams.

Horror films played in my
mind waking me with imaginary
sounds. I checked the world for sources
of what could only have come
from a shady corner in my brain.

The precious earth was split
into pieces and fireworks fell
in the shape of electric batteries
in the fictitious backyard. A ridge
ran through what I knew to be true.

A familiar face was a wooden,
twisted cane who swore to never
have anything to do with me.
Funny thing is, in daylight we’re not
even that close.

And there were even yet
other images that flickered,
now forgotten, erased almost
the moment they happened,

dissipating in the breeze
or whatever happens outside
at 4 in the morning,

while others linger and cling.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I use the screen
to make an image. To
construct a reality.

It's not real. You can't
touch it. It feels like the flat
surface of a representation.

But then, so might I. As I move
my voice like so many others
I've heard before. As I place
my form in the room,

dancing a bit in my mind. Should
I make the dancing real?
What should I enact? I take

this string of words and make
a puppet of myself, seeing where
the narratology leads.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
…poetry had to rhyme.
Not all the time.
(chuckle, chuckle,
snort)

…poetry had to be true.
Someone made all that up.

Why, I could write a poem
about a man with an axe and
a large blue ox. Happens more
than you might think.

…poetry had to be chained.

Poetry can break the bonds
of
line
and form. Poetry
can do whatever the hell it
wants.

Poetry is that kid at the store
you simultaneously love and want
to punish for misbehavior.

Poetry is spoiled, lovely, crude, erudite,
evocative and numbing,

the only
way to capture
the loss, the pathos,
the perfection

we feel on this lonely
and bustling path.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I knocked at the door, listening
to the way a bone sounds when
it strikes against wood.
Strange to me how I am
a soft creature with a bony set
of branches underneath.

But, back to that knocking sound.

In that moment, standing in the lobby
so warm the pages of the magazines
touched the air with curls, I thought of the way
air
was once pushed out of my body,
meeting the earth from a medium
distance – I thought until then I was iron.

Out from a door across the hall
pops the person I am looking for, on
cue, sidestepping this contemplation,
stepping out as if she has a secret
entrance to an MC Escher print
that hides behind these flattened walls.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
The still lull of another
day passing into rainy night,
a meditation for wisdom
to arrive late.

Instead, flashbulb reminisces
of what memories have been
stored up in the cranium’s
strange amber.

An old face with curiosity,
a chase across a seaside parking
lot, no doubt leftovers from quirks
and tidbits caught in the wires.

All of the day’s television,
conversation, furtive visits, redisplayed
until waking and collecting again.


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Good old boy
from the good old boy ilk —
but then, who do I call good?

A slick hairdo, tooth-gleaming
grin? Even lions have those.
A family crest? We have seen
a soiled history of proud names
hiding hatred in white canvas.

Prince of a guy might turn
out to be Prince of cats. Betraying
by the third act. A Judas kiss
with all the promises mouths make.

A friend for eleven years suddenly
proves to be an enemy or just
ambivalent; creatures wrapped up
in two-minute blips of ambition.

But then what is the good,
and how do I name it?


- - -
My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Pardon me, imminent author
It seems there is a stitch
running through your fabric

I’ve seen these words before
on the graven images of others,
fragments of their imagination

It seems to be a reconsidered
constellation, a mixture of past
and where we’ve been

Spots of light that promise
much until our crash landing
arrival —

But then we are creatures
of habit and nostalgia, rooted
in our history, reaching forward

with fingers that, ultimately,
curl back, rooting our rhizomatic
founding of seasonal identity.


- - -
I have a new book of poetry, A Five-Year Journey, just published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I can tell you
what’s behind those doors.
As you walk down that
familiar unfamiliar hallway.

Inside, there are rattles, dancing
roaches, and old lines. Gossip
makes a merry way around.

I can tell you the faces
to trust. The words to watch out
for. It’s all blurry.

People can be kind in one
instant and ravenous in another.
They are territorial and misguided.

They can also be lovely, like
gems tucked away. It’s too much
advice, perspective, momentary
musing.

Best to be quiet
and let the moon roll over
I suppose.


- - -
I have a new book, A Five-Year Journey, just published by Dreaming Big Publications.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
I can tell you
what’s behind those doors.
As you walk down that
familiar unfamiliar hallway.

Inside, there are rattles, dancing
roaches, and old lines. Gossip
makes a merry way around.

I can tell you the faces
to trust. The words to watch out
for. It’s all blurry.

People can be kind in one
instant and ravenous in another.
They are territorial and misguided.

They can also be lovely, like
gems tucked away. It’s too much
advice, perspective, momentary
musing.

Best to be quiet
and let the moon roll over
I suppose.


- - -
I have new book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, just published and available at Amazon.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Don’t worry, dear
one, even if the stories
are true, they are so muddy
it is hard to be clear.

A flushing rush of whispers
and collusion are like
dirty icebergs floating
in the dark.

The most exercised muscle
is the mouth, the only sliver
of the body some people
seem to use. I myself

prefer the fingers, joining
words, or the entire arm for
making lovely brush strokes
on the canvas of the world.

These are muscles worthy
of use, like the unseen matter
of the mind, like the talent
for finding a bird’s song.



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