Hope

A Grouse

A Grouse

It hurts. She is so far away.
I can barely hear her voice on the phone.
It hurts. I can only comfort her with words,
useless words, clichés that will never
take her cares away, how could they?

Ghosts of a nearby past drift silently by.
I wonder what can say to each other,
whether we should chat about the weather,
or whether to let silence hold sway.
I don’t want her to put down the phone
even though we’ll talk again today.

My body hurts with her hurt. I know my pain
will soon go away, but hers – I hope it doesn’t stay.
Outside the window, two red squirrels play.
Words break the silence: I’ll call
you later. Make the most of your day.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Grouse.




é

To be a writer (Revised)

To be a writer
revised version

To be a writer ….

Those who would true valor see,
let them come hither.
One here will constant be,
through foul or fair weather.
There’s no discouragement
will make her once relent
her first avowed intent,
to be a writer.

Those who beset her round
with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound:
her strength the more is.
No blank page can her fright,
she’ll with a sentence fight,
and she will have a right,
to be a writer.

Rejections nor false friends
can daunt her spirit.
She knows she at the end
will a book inherit.
So critics fly away,
she’ll fear not what they say,
she’ll labor night and day
to be a writer.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
To be a writer
revised version

Comment: I first wrote this poem in January 2021. It is, of course, a rewriting of John Bunyan’s hymn / poem, To be a pilgrim from Pilgrim’s Progress. In the original version, I kept the male pronouns. However, after collaborating as the only male participant in [Quick Brown Fox] Brian Henry’s Advanced Writing Group of 13 fantastic women writers, I realized that the female pronoun was, in so many cases, the most appropriate one. I therefore made the necessary adjustments. You can find the old poem at this link – personally, I prefer the new version! https://rogermoorepoet.com/2021/01/11/to-be-a-writer/

Speaking

Speaking

I speak to a generation
I cannot see
as others in the past
have spoken to me
in languages I had to learn
words in books
hand-written on paper
or carved in stone

who now will listen with their eyes
as I have listened with mine
adding subtracting challenging
sometimes blindly accepting

my world is not their world
nor is their world mine

yet the sun still rises
the same moon
waxes and wanes

hate happens
yet hope and wisdom
still remain

Click for Roger’s reading on Anchor
Speaking


Red Sky

Red Sky
After a long conversation
with my hero:
Travis Lane.

“Red sky at night,
shepherd’s delight.
Red sky in the morning:
sailors take warning.“

But I am not a sailor,
nor will I ever be one.
Nor a tinker, nor a tailor, nor
part of any nursery rhyme.

So easy to follow the sheep,
and graze where they may graze,
in safety, and the shepherd’s crook
all too close at hand, with both
hands and shoulder all too ready
to save, comfort, and carry
home to the security of a safe place.

Better by far to float along,
guided by sun, stars, and tide,
choosing your own route as you go,
or going with the eternal flow,
going where it takes you,
red skies at night, storm warnings
in the morning, and everywhere
the give and take of creating
new things, new paths, wherever
you may choose to go.

“Red car at night,
wifey’s delight.
Red car in the morning,
hubby take warning.”

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Red Sky



Grief

Grief

Grief leads us to the cliff’s edge.
It hardens our features,
brings tears to our eyes,
or turns our hearts into stones,
hard as rocks, cement blocks
that feel nothing.

Sometimes it pushes us
over the edge and we fall,
down, down, into a darkness
that never, ever seems to end.

Friends desert us.
Food is fruitless and fallow.
Our table top is a desert,
barren and bare,
with a lone and level
patchwork cloth that stretches
into far-reaching Saharas,
Gobi wastes of endless sand.

Who will resurrect the dying heart?
Who will hold it in their hands
and bring it pulsing back to life?
If you won’t do it for yourself
nobody else will care to try.

Think of the happy times,
the times when the sun shone,
the earth was warm,
and your life was a walk
in a garden full of flowers.

Then feel the sharp stones
beneath your feet and know
that joy and sorrow,
laughter and tears,
sun and clouds and rainbows too
will always grow
to lighten the lives
of all of us who dwell below.

Click for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Grief


Knowledge

Knowledge

“Knowledge: that which passes
from my notes to your notes
without going through anyone’s head.”
aka
“Filling empty heads.”

I came here a beggar, begging bowl
in hand, begging for knowledge,
at the seat of all knowledge,
from the hands of those who knew.

They fed me, taught me,
brought me into knowledge,
as they knew it, but I yearned
for more, so much more.

I found it, one morning,
in my morning mirror, shaving.
I looked into my own eyes and asked:
“What are you teaching?”

My answer: words and empty words,
formulae handed down to me
over generations of people
who thought they thought because
they repeated what others had thought.

This was not what I sought.
Then, and only then, did I look
into the eyes of those I taught,
those who sought knowledge from me,
in all my worthlessness,
and I asked them what did they need,
what did they want to know,
and why did they want this knowledge.

Then I asked them how I could help them
to attain that knowledge for themselves
and to use it to construct their own lives,
on their own, without interference and shame
as I had never done.

Then, and only then, did I know
I had become a teacher in the true sense
of the word, and that together with me,
my students had learned to teach themselves
multiple ways in which to grow.

Listen to Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Knowledge

The Water Tower 4



The Water Tower 4

The artist scales Jacob’s ladder,
per ardua ad astra,
through hardship to the stars.

He discovers a jigsaw puzzle
of shattered color and shape,
a serpent’s shed skin of paint,
battered patterns broken, stripped,
dangling, swayed by the wind
that washes and renews the world.

What world you ask?
The painter’s world. The world that dwells
within the meditating mind.
The creation that awaits the artist’s touch
in order to come alive and beckon us.
The secret, sacred world
of the artist’s hidden garden,
soon to be revealed.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Water Tower 4

Geoff Slater – Painter

Roger Moore – Poet

The Water Tower 2

Geoff Slater (Photos)
Roger Moore (Poems)

The Water Tower 2

Shall we begin at the beginning
at the water tower’s foot
where the itch of dried flaking skin
is unbearable?

The earth worm coiled around the tower
opens his mouth to devour his tail
and the movement of his scales
scours old paint in an effort to remove
all traces of the former painter’s footprints.

Oh, the defiance of wind, rain, snow, ice,
the hot summer sun, and the tower
sweating year after year,
erasing man’s efforts to control
time and space with created beauty.

But now is the time of endless renewal,
the sun’s return to renew
the infinite cycle of death and rebirth.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Water Tower 2

The Water Tower 1

Geoff Slater (photos)
Roger Moore (poems)

The Water Tower 1

Where do we begin? At the end,
with the artist’s vision
of where he wants to go?

Or at the beginning,
even though all artists know that
their beginning is in their end
and their end is in their beginning?

Choose: for there is always choice,
a road taken, a road untaken leading
who knows where
and to what unknowable end.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor
The Water Tower 1

A Moment of Joy

A Moment of Joy:

It’s always great when a friend actually reads one of my books and then writes to me to say how much he (in this case) enjoyed it. I quote: “I really enjoyed the concept of the image and writing. I’ve attached my favourite of the bunch. Audibly said “wow” when I read it.” It really makes my day (week, month, journey) worthwhile when someone reaches out and says ‘Wow!” Thank you, that certain someone. You shall remain anonymous for now, but your words will live on!

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Launch Pad