Art Night

Broken hearts and misfits

prone to delusion and distraction we

walk the world

with tunes in our heads,

colors in our eyes connecting

dots in mostly

irreverent ways mad,

we are, every one.

Not quite part of

your sane little world.

We find each other in coffee shops,

church basements, impromptu meetings

art markets, open mics,

circles made to grow larger

we come as singers and players

writers and tellers

seekers and loners.

Loners, all

Until we find each other

strange and dented

then,

poem by poem

song by song

we make

the invisible, visible

the foolish, brave 
the world, more human.

© 2016 Donna Jo Wallace 
shared with Poets United / Poetry Pantry #285

Soon

I could have

brought my music to your room

when I came to help with chores each week.

I would bring my fiddle soon

I thought

after I’d learned some more.

I would have brought my music

to the hospital

but it seemed awkward to jar the silence

with such joy.

Anyway, you would be home soon.

I should have dared to be heard

to know your delighted eyes

just to see that I tried.

Small comfort to improve now.

Now I look up from my song and think

hey Mom, listen to this,

and for a while I imagine

that somehow you can.

©2015 Donna Jo Wallace.

Silence Song

Freeway lights wash over my face

one by one, by one, by one, by one,

the lonely rhythm tells me

we have approached another city

far from where we’ve come

and far from home,

Dad’s hands steady on the wheel

Mom dozes in her seat

A sister at each of my elbows

I wait,

This is the gorgeous silence

after the singing has ended,

wheels and road, each
pushing against the other always and forever, 

the white noise drones on still
and fills my ears,

Far from home

my family is condensed to this small steel box

pulsing along the highway

following the long smooth curve of the Earth,

halfway between silence and song,
halfway between home and not home,

©2002 Donna Jo Wallace.

The Reason for the Music is the Music

The reason for the music is the music.

The reason for the mountain is the mountain.

The reason for the eagle is the eagle.

The words only get in the way.

The roads only obscure the view.

Some things remain wild and exist relentlessly without
You.

If you need a reason,
you missed the point
of all that is.

©2011 Donna Jo Wallace.

Coffee House

Cups fill to the brim with music

rich and warm, poems
brown and frothy

Guitars burst with pages from life, real and hard

Masked thinly by tune and rhythm.

We are neighbors who agree to be strangers,

To seek kind anonymity for

memories too harsh to bear

dreams too fragile to speak aloud.

Performer or audience, to watch or to do

Here, it’s all the same.

To slow down

for an evening separate from a frenzied world

We take a breath of another life.

We take away bits of each other;

See in others bits of ourselves.

We have stolen a moment of sacred sharing

Among strangers who are really neighbors.

©2011 Donna Jo Wallace.