Poetry workshop
Duanesburg, NY
October 14-15, 2011
Some contributions
By Patrick M. Doyle
The Power of Words
And what if my words
cut you off
strangled your voice
silenced the truth
struggling in your
secret heart
And what if my words
were not true
masking what was
struggling deep in my
secret heart
And what if my words
were true
and spoke to your
secret heart
And what if my words
caused pain, hurt, doubt,
fear
And what if my words
could not heal.
Four Ayem
The Greeks had a word
or two
for it: chronos, kairos
Time—tick-tock, tick-tock
You tick me off!
Talk!
Talk!
A pendulum
Slowly, inexorably
Slicing away my life
tick-tock, tick-tock
tick-tock, tick-tock
Be here now!
anxiety, depression
no time, no cure
wasting time
killing time
kairos, chronos
circular, linear
circles and lines
tick-tock, tick-tock
Depression lives
in yesterday’s house
Anxiety lives tomorrow
tick-tock, tick-tock
back and forth, back and
forth
slicing, slicing
a straight line
to the graveyard
inch after inch, after
inch
seconds, minutes, hours
the measuring goes on
days, weeks, months, years
it doesn’t end until
we count the shovels
full of dirt
needed to fill the hole
tick-tock
tick
tock
tic…
Learning to play
This is hard
I want to be serious
Create! Create!
No—let go!
Just be!
Slooooooooww
d
o
w
n
there…
that’s
better.
Now, shift gears
Get up
Get going
Get the canoe
out of the barn
and paddle away
to nowhere
in particular
Just for fun.
Learning to play 2
A little gold spider
dropped by the other day
Rappelled from the ceiling
to the floor
As I lay in my bath.
The Exchange
It lies just
beneath the surface—
sub-liminal
the line is fine—
but it does
exist
Don’t go there!—
because it just might
hurt
too much, to bear—
the weight of my
conscience
when I almost—
turned my back
on you
but in the end—
I came back
and held your hand
not because I wanted—
or duty called—
it just was
and you held my hand—
and gave me more
than I ever gave you.
I like to live in…
Barbados and eat fried chicken
on Baxter’s Road late at night
And in the morning take
a sea bath and drink
Banks beer before noon
because I am on holiday
and Uncle Jack who is
Trinidadian always winks
and says “first today
in this glass”
And then we laugh and
eat piles of flying fish and
Callaloo and macaroni pie.
I like to live in Barbados
at Christmastime where
we sing “I’m dreaming of
a bright Christmas” and
go swimming in the
Caribbean Sea after a
dinner of pudding and souse
with all the trimmings.
