The clanging gong of midnight sounds.
Now trolleys, steaming hard and fast,
Their schedules filled, with hearty bounds
In panic rush to meet its blast,
Each car more eager than the last.
The day well done, the merry crew
At twelve each night hold rendezvous.
Evelyn Coffey
Broken
Are the winter-white skies,
Broken and desolate
Like my heart.
Beat, dull-fingered rain,
No-silver-singing rain,
Beat upon this heart’s blanched windows
Like multiple hammers
On an empty drum.
No tinkle in you now –
Flat now –
Stolen the music
On the rolling rim
Of each drop
Falling.
Sound, thunder!
Cut, lightening,
Sharp and shrill!
Cut like the sharp,
Shrill blade
Of a saw.
Make way for spring –
Carve a path in my heart
For spring –
Spring, throbbing
In sky as a room throbs
When a cello
Stops singing.
Burn me!
Burn winter’s shadows
From my heart.
Evelyn Coffey
Black- feathered sheaves that slap harsh air
with waving wings dart like spooks
through dismal, gray-spun skies, I watch
your silhouette with dainty flare
secreted on a dark-barked tree.
Your plumage melts in shadows deep
as night. Unsought and unobserved,
your glee may pour its mirthful cup
into the snow-drenched ground below,
or soar the heights of powdered dome,
cloud-barred from view. Abandonment
is yours. Envy is mine, whose wings
are bolted to earth’s stagnant clay.
Evelyn Coffey
Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.
In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.
Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.
The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.
He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.
His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.
He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,
A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.
It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.
One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.
But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun.
Evelyn Coffey
To Fred W. Boltz, Lt. Com. U.S. Navy
The sea
Has a way of building a man . . . . .
The sea
With its deafening, massive span.
Out of the stillness . . . in the stark,
Dim spread of colossal dark,
The soul of a man has room to grow,
White
As the clean, white whip of the surf;
Right
As a ship’s sure cleft of the sea.
The sky
Has a way of molding a man . . . . .
The sky
With its winging, cloudy clan.
Out of the twisted winds, the wonder
Of lightning-laden strides of thunder,
The mind of a man has room to grow,
Wise
As the stars that cradled silence,
Eyes
Circling truth as gulls sight prey.
The soul
Has a way of finding a man . . . .
The soul
With its fearless, mystic plan.
Out of stardust and ocean foam,
Grinding clay and pregnant loam,
It shapes the noble heart of man,
True
As the sun that conquers shadows,
Blue
As the waves that burn in brine.
Salute this man of ocean’s making!
Drink him joy with singing lips.
Drink him joy with glasses breaking . . . . .
Master of men, and seas, and ships!
Evelyn Coffey
Red-tipped fingers click
Castanettes while night's canvas
Flaunts bare white arms. Limp
As a fallen tree; vivid
As wine; lips tight on a rose.
Evelyn Coffey
Ship, take me out to sea with you
Now, while the riding waves are high.
A purple cloud hangs in the sky
Below a sheaf of white and blue.
I’ll add a sailor to your crew,
A merry one, you can’t deny!
Ship, take me out to sea with you
Now, while the riding waves are high.
I’ll chop the foam that stains your view.
I’ll make the hidden anchors fly.
I’ll steer your course. I’ll even try
To calm the wind’s mad hullabaloo.
Ship, take me out to sea with you
Now, while the riding waves are high!
Evelyn Coffey
Your eyes are torches, spearing shadows in
My night. It loomed a vast and tainted ghost
On white day’s soul. Its haunting, spectral din
Harpooned my sense, reflective of a host
Of rabid things. In anguish I cried out,
And found your hand, and felt your warming smile.
All-healing dawn would put the beasts to rout,
Blue reason’s calm had said; but what a mile
On mile of dread till then! Quickly you came
With sleep-songs on your lips, and your eyes shone
As God shone in my dreams. The very same
Brown softness hallowed them. No more alone!
The alchemy of love diffuses fear,
And glowing trust emerges from its bier.
Evelyn Coffey
When through supreme activity's dull hum
You feel the thudding sputter of despair,
Like solemn poundings of a savage drum
Foreboding death in sordid thoroughfare
Or hostile haunt -- a sobbing, glum lament --
A stirring, whirring drug that funnels clouds
Of siddy pitch where glamorous clouds were spent;
When stumbling, mumbling, blundering blind crowds
Have hissed the surging sculpture that your brain
Has wrought, travailed -- remember while thus prone
To anguished earth, while suffering's tortured strain
Bowling your shoulders into muck -- alone --
The very earth in stolid throe has thought,
And Love paid Death the ransom that it sought.
Evelyn Coffey
As the old year ends and the promise of a new one lies before us, think upon Evelyn's exultation of Christ's Easter fulfillment.
The hour has come to pour the Easter wine
Upon the altar. Let its red flow bright
Upon the altar cloth, the brilliant white
That ever tombs a sainted relic mine.
The hour has come to free the prisoned Host.
Lift up your tongues, and let its message rest
In whiteness on their red. The holy test
Has been fulfilled. Christ has surpassed His boast!
The shrouded skies have lost their deadliness;
The sepulchre surrendered its chaste prey.
White chimes are tinkling immortality.
His hour has come Who walked upon the sea.
His hour has flamed, exalted by duress.
The Risen Christ proclaims it Easter Day!
Evelyn Coffey
Tonight
I was bereft of light
as a bird
bereft of wings
lies aching.
Upon a thousand strings
music spread his wings,
vibrant with words unheard,
clef on radiant clef awaking.
Strung on air,
my heathered hair
uprode the night,
a myriad gong
sprinkling the flight
of song.
Evelyn Coffey
(Because I want him to make music again)
Scarlet there
The heart lies,
Bright with song.
Sing!
More than fair,
Sight sighs –
Fairer than song,
Sing!
White weep
The fingers
Where lingers
In bright sleep
The song.
Forever
Is never
Long.
Sing?
Evelyn Coffey
Resplendent with the dew of early day,
An apple tree arose, its blossoms white
Against a moving sky, cloud-swept and bright
Earth’s rooted chalice, sprung from plastic clay.
My spirit drank the wine from beauty’s lips
As ardently as dawn embraces night,.
Impetuous, like storm waves tumbling ships.
Evelyn Coffey
(A Meditation on the Painting of Soldier-Artist H.H.)
There . . .
Only . . . there
At Your Feet
I lie,
I kneel,
I wait. . .
Needing You,
My God!
Others where?
None so sweet
My sigh
To heal
As O great,
Bleeding You,
My God!
Yours to bear!
Your Heart’s beat
Did die,
Did seal
It’s fate,
Binding You,
My God.
Ours to share!
At Your Feet
Men lie,
Men kneel,
Men wait . . .
Finding You,
My God,
Only There!
Evelyn Coffey
The forests are flaming now.
the quivering bough
Is shedding each reluctant leaf
whose golden, brief
song is ending.
Bending
in the mire
of mud and fire,
Scattering the deep-
huddled sheep
on the earthy floor,
looking for
an unforgotten spring,
I found a ring
of purple clay –
a ring of clay
that once wore stem and petal!
This sodden metal,
dank and soft,
sent aloft
the first white springing wind
pale perfume, thinned
in April rain.
Sleep out of pain,
Violet …….. sleep!
Evelyn Coffey
Evelyn Coffey by Pat Kyser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
