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Bill MacEachern Dec 2023
Wood Walk

I wood walk for leisure
I wood walk for me
I wood walk to listen
To old woods that creak

I wood walk at daybreak
I would walk and breathe
I wood walk and take in
The scent of wet leaves

I wood walk and ponder
I wood walk the trail
I wood walk the winter woods
When I want to feel

I wood walk in rhythm
I wood walk alone
I wood walk and listen
As birds sing along

I wood knock on knotted pine
I wood walk right in
And then walk the wooden pews
Of my church again

Bill MacEachern December 13, 2023
Torin  May 2016
I walk.....
Torin May 2016
I walk
Because you walk

I walk
With the pain of the world I know

I walk
But I will not probably get very far

I walk
Watching my feet so I don't fall down

I walk
With a heart beating your name

I walk
With the most irreverent steps

I walk
Knowing you walk as well

I walk
In joy because I'm in your thoughts

I walk
Towards the love in your heart

I walk
Because you walk towards me

I walk
Every foot-fall in your directuon
Simon Piesse  Jul 2021
Walk Home
Simon Piesse Jul 2021
Walk in familiar slippers
Walk when walking’s spent
Walk on hollow highway
Walk in a birthday dress
Walk under frigid stars
Walk with ancestral song
Walk with right
Walk with wrong
Walk in spite
Walk in pity
Walk in the backstreets
Walk in the news
Walk in borrowed city

Home is leaving
Home is a journey
Home is coloured pencils
For a distant classroom
Home is a wilderness
Home is an army
Home is inquisition
Home is another way
Home is a haven
Home is a promise
Home is a rose bed
Home is tomorrow
Home is hard
Home is good

Simon Piesse
This poem is inspired by the continuing ill-treatment in thought, word and deed, of refugees in the UK, notably children.
Paula Putnam Jul 2019
As I was slowly walking down the street,  hear nothing but rustling leaves and whistling wind. It is quite quiet tonight, if I don’t say so myself. I begin to walk in the street because the sidewalk comes to an end. I have gotten so use to the route, that even though it is darker tonight, I can still see where I am going and it is easy to navigate along all the curves. I come to the big, old, Cherry Blossom Tree at the end of Saint Monroes Avenue. I hear a soft whisper of a couple teenagers in one of the houses. Then, all of a sudden, I hear a loud crash with screams that followed. I don’t quicken my speed because it is just something that I normally hear whenever I’m walking. A slight breeze whips through no sooner than I paused. I take a moment to just look around and enjoy the peaceful night. An owl hoots high in the tree above me. I look up into the dark night sky that is covered in clouds with the moon shining through. For the first time in a while, it seems to be a full moon. I always keep track of when the full moon appears. It intrigues me just because it is so different. I begin to walk again and I just enjoy the rest of my walk. Finally, I’m at the end of Saint Monroes Street. Approaching another street, I see that it is so much darker than all the others. I don’t pay it any mind because I’m so use to walking in the darkness every single night. More noises crash through the almost silent night. This time it was a little weird. I thought I heard someone whisper my name, but when I turned around, no one was there. I just turned back around and continued on my walk home. I finally make the last turn onto my street. Now it is just a straight path home. My house is completely dark when I arrive. I’m use to nobody being home at all. It’s always been like that. Whenever people ask if they can come over, I have to say no. They would turn me in if they found out I lived all alone in this big house. I never really see my parents anymore. They always disappear every time I arrive back at home. It’s like they hate me, but I have no clue why they would hate me. I guess it is just because I have let them down so much and I’m just a disgrace as a daughter. They truly wanted a son, but ended up with me instead. Of course, I have a younger brother, but I never see him either. They keep him away from me since I’m so different from the whole family. I’ve learned to live with all these responsibilities on my own over the years, so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I just wish I knew what I did and how I can fix it. I hear whispers of my name every night as I look around my lonely home. I make me a sandwich and begin on my homework. I absorb myself in my work so I don’t notice how lonely my home really is. I finally finish all of my time absorbing homework and take my plate to the kitchen. I turn off the lights and listen to music so I can fall asleep. I wake up every morning to the same birds chirping their little melody. I take a shower and skip breakfast, like I do every single morning. I walk to the bus stop just to realize that it was Halloween and they let us have the day off of school. I walk back inside and finally realize that I am not alone. I look up to see a teenage boy around my age staring right back at me. I am completely startled as he yells my mother’s name and I looked up to see the beautiful woman looking at me. I am stunned by just how breathtaking she really is. I try to say hello, but I couldn’t even get the simple word out. She looks at me in concern. She must notice the small slits on my arms, but I try to think it was something else that she noticed. She asked if I have gotten smaller and I said yes. I said that I’m not small enough yet and I have to keep pushing myself. She mentioned how I was getting too small. I’m only 130 pounds. That is way too much for me to weigh. The boy that is around my age looks at me confused. I ask who he is and my mother says he is a family friend. Of course, I wouldn’t know him because I’m not really a part of the family anymore. I turn to leave, but he catches my arm. I try to yank away, but his grip is too strong and I stumble into his arms. I push myself away to stand on my own and my mother asks where I am going. I said I’m just going on a walk and she shouldn’t worry about it because she is never around and never cares to talk to me any other time. I walk upstairs to grab my bag and money. I had decorated the whole house in Halloween stuff, because it is really the only thing I can look forward to doing each year. I have no family who really cares, so I do all the traditions and stuff all on my own. I run down the steps and grab my keys off the hanger by the door. My mother and the boy was standing by the door waiting on me to return. I look at them and know that they aren’t going to really leave me alone. I ask what they want and they said just to talk. I told them I didn’t have time and pushed my way through them. As I reach the outside, I begin to cry. I can’t believe that she thought that she could just walk back into my life after all these years. I put up a wall so no one could ever hurt me again. I plan on never letting her back into my life. I’ve grown so use to the feeling of being alone, that I don’t really want to let any of my “family” back into my life. I just remember that I left my cars keys inside the house and have to walk back inside infront of all the people who walked out of my life. I just hope they have left already. I walk inside and that boy comes and meets me at the door. I look at him and just walk past him to the living room. I see not only my mother, but my brother and father, as well as some of their friends sitting in the living room. They all look at me and I awkwardly smile, walk over to my bag, grab my car keys, and turn to leave. As I am leaving, they tell me to sit down and talk for a little while. I say that I can’t and turn to leave again, only to run into the same boy again. This time I say sorry very quietly and leave the room. I make it out the door before any of them was able to make it to me. I get into my car and drive off to my favorite Halloween store in town, Mount Terror. It has all the best costumes, candy, decorations, and anything known to Halloween. I grab a cart and begin to get the candy for tonight. I go and pick out the last part of my costume. I make sure I have some Halloween games and activities for the party throw every single year. I finally make it to check out and load everything into my car. I go by Superfast Supermarket to get all the food that I need for tonight. I finally return home and begin to unload the car. I unlock my house door and walk in with every bag on my arms. I kick off my shoes and throw down my purse, keys, and jacket. I look up to see the boy staring at me again. He comes over and offers to help me carry things, but I say no thanks and walk towards the living room. I see that more of my family’s friends are sitting in the room with them. They all see me with my arms full. I slightly smile and walk through in order to get to the kitchen. I dropped two bags because they ripped. I place everything down in the kitchen and then turn to go pick up everything I dropped when I see the boy had brought it all to me. I walked over to him and helped him. I said thank you and he smiled. I placed everything down and walked back out into the livingroom to the front door. I grabbed my purse and hung it up so it wouldn’t just be laying around. I walked back to the kitchen and began preparing the kitchen for all of the food I had to make. I preheated the oven and began to mix every single dessert that needed to be mixed up and placed them in the pans. I was able to fit four pans in at once, so I could begin the other parts of the cooking. I played my music, so I couldn’t hear what they were talking about in the living room. I could feel the presence of someone in the room staring at me. I turn and notice it was him again. He finally speaks and tells me his name, Dexter. I ask what he wanted from me and he said he just wanted to talk to me for a while. I finally gave in and told him to stay in here and talk for awhile. It lasted for the hours I was in this kitchen, but now I don’t know exactly where I stand in this mess.
JP  Sep 2016
its a way soul feel
JP Sep 2016
Success
you walk out

Failure
you walk in

Happiness
you walk the walk

Sorrow
you walk, walk, walk…slowly

Fashion
you walk the walk on straight line

Army
you walk the discipline walk..

Rope
you walk the walk to walk

Stage
you walk the walk to talk
Jordan Alexander Sep 2010
I will walk
And I will not turn
I will not speak.
I will walk

and the world will know
what I am about
because I walk

My mind will have it's troubles
My heart will shatter
and my muscles will be strained
But I will walk on
as I did when I was young
And the world will learn with their eyes
and I will teach.
I will walk.

It's not about me.
I may not even believe
but I will walk.
And bit by bit
they will talk
about how I walk.
The will murmur to themselves
and I will know how they murmur.
And I will walk.
I will walk to the sound
of the murmurs
ignoring the roaring pain
of my mind
and slowly
bit by bit I will be.
I will walk.
And then I will fly.

They will walk around their houses
their streets
their parks
imitating my image
and slowly bit by bit
they will walk.
Their imitations will become their walk
They will walk.

And when I fly away
they will walk.
And slowly
bit by bit
they will be.
And then they will fly.

And then it's perfect
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
.how  dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...

)            that's all i wanted to disclose...
what comes now,
is all the unnecessary details
that would constitute a prose piece...
albeit in cascade - for the ease
of the eyes bunddled up in a
claustrophobia of a paragraph:

i know: the mere word 'dignified'
seems rather obnoxious...
but... how dignified it is,
to take a walk at night...
esp. when one is recycling leftover
bottles of whiskey, whiskey,
beer... whiskey...

after reading Knausgård vol. 1 -
with his father strapped to the house
with his mother drinking himself
to death...
perhaps i'm also akin...

but... there's "****" to do in between...
good god! mein gott!
greta thunberg! run! i said run idiot!
run to the recycling center with
those glass bottles!
success though: cutting the ingestion
by over a half...

current bank balance?
nearing 2 thousand pounds...
and there's the garbage to sort between
the recyclable and the non-recyclable...
there's the tending to keeping
the house clean...

there's a remnant spark about giving
a toss about some sporting event...
there's cooking a dinner...
but... it seems i miss the man who would
find about an hour and a half
to walk the streets at night...

somehow i missed it -
but... i imagine the sight of a week's worth
of empty bottles in the wardrobe...
i've had enough and...
i call the dog that's the dignity to take
a walk at night...
to never overthink anything except
thinking - that i can leave in the basket
of nothing...

sometimes the ego-automaton jumps
in and makes my walking meditation
fuzzy... that's where i find this mythological
ego of psychology -
ego the anti-narrator...

which implies: not myself... reflexive...
not my, self... the reflective circumstance...

and there's no familiar presence
of an mp3 player (broken, ****** lasted
for 3 years, good enough lifespan)
and no headphones...

perhaps i was anti-radio some time ago...
i've amassed a decent personal library
of audio... but now i rarely use it
having made a discovery of the gramaphone
and vinyls...
and being the late 20th century colt...
i should still be ripping c.d.s onto
mp3... but...
i just wanted to check out what i was
missing...
perhaps... the crazed sound of passing
cars, will indeed, never replace
the cobblestones and hooves...
but... there's a right to heave a sigh...
for no apparent reason other than:
i've met myself this very first time
having aged...

this is not a time for west coast
1990s pop punk or punk rock or whatever
they called it... when you would
either run in gallop jumping
in a jonathan edwards style...
or looking down and walking into
a lamp-post... this is no time to be
refreshing the cinema of youth...
with the offspring's ignition...

not when you're walking: and trying not to think...

also of today: my jewish newly converted
to islam neighbour came round
asking about my mother's slight bout
of depression concerning...
her recent hip-replacement...
and what's still in the post...
the aesthetic surgery...
after all: what surgery, proper...
is also a plastic surgery - an aesthetic...
obviously the muscles and the bones
are intact... but there is always a chance
that waste tissue will be removed...
fat... etc. and it hasn't even been 2 weeks
since the surgery...
and she said: your mum should look
at my surgery scars...
i lifted up my t-shirt and turned
to show her my back... namely my
right shoulder-blade...

and i said to her: you know why i didn't
get aesthetic surgery on this mark
of cain? that's the same reason why i don't
have tattoos...
nothing against tattoos...
i have the only tattoo i need:
a mark of cain and some historical tattoos...
dates... that i keep close to me
from my time in the pedagogy meat-mincer
effort... how it began with the romans: per se...
later began with hastings 1066...
but it would never begin with:
the first battle of Tannenberg (1410)...
so you don't know how i think my mother
is exaggerating?
it's a good thing she's my mother...
she can have her ******* pass...
i'd give her the same ******* pass if...
we were married for 35 years and...
she was a woman i could grow with...
otherwise? the ******* pass i reserve for
children...

i subsequently signed her will...
yes... she came round looking for a second
witness for her will being made official...
or ****** bureucratic paper...
but nonetheless official...
i didn't mention the fact that...
the two witnesses that have signed the paper:
need to be present simultaneously...
i asked her... what's my occupation?
oh... right... i'm a scribbler...
a chicken-scratcher... writer of no
guild... a writ pusher...  

but all i wanted to write was...
i'm not a fan of the haiku...
esp. the western haiku... or a maxim:
i abhor maxims...
but if you put Kant into the juicer
and you spit out the congested
categorical imperative...
and it doesn't sound like the original, should:

act only according to that maxim whereby you can,
at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

id est:

act only according to that haiku whereby you can...
at some distant point of time,
convene for it be a shared experience
in the ratio of a 1:2 point of seperation...
2:4 4:8 8:16...
but that's not really a categorical imperative
to begin with... what sort of "idiot" would strive
for a maxim to become a universal law...
universal laws are maxim spin-offs...
or i'm just blah-blahing too much...
waiting dear god: for the razor's edge (and drowning)...
or a punchline on stage in front of a dumb / mute
audience...

o.k. 5-7-5...
syllables... given the japanese don't use
letter but have syllables instead...
again: i'm not a fan...
if it took my long enough...
i'd find my 5 syllables and my 7 and again
my 5 syllables...
but i am a westerner...
i deal with letters... i don't deal with syllables...
unless they are prefixes akin to trans-...
meta-... anti-... post-...
the western adoption of the haiku implies
the boredom achieved from too many
sonnets... is the haiku the new sonnet?

i'll try... but i'll need to open a dictionary
for this effort...

water knee deep truce (5)
to the drowning man imploring (8)
signature the soul with this last breath (9)

or however many... it's just a passing thought:
i don't know how it would be worthwhile
to think inside a box... standing outside it
to begin with...
a haiku and no punctuation:
if you're going to be puritanical about it...
no punctuation?!
no diacritical markers?!

the Kant reference is just to ease up on:
who the hell would live by a maxim,
a stand-alone maxim at that...
one maxim to make it into the realm
of gravity...

there's the plethora of aphorisms that
are observations that... well...
let's just say it's no an imitation game... (

since how the hell does:
how dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
all of the above?
darwinism in images:

stopped climbing trees...
stopped being furry...
stopped dreaming about snakes...
stopped fearing snakes...
stopped wrestling with tigers...
stopped king kong versus tiger gorgon...
jumped into a whale...
came out sonar Jonah with hell'io Job
to boot...
stopped climbing trees...
took toward the complexity
of climbing rocks...
esp. boulders... later desired
the great big button of a cookie i.e.;
desired the moon...
brewed some moonshine...
build the mirror corridor
at Versailles...
dug up lazy dinosaur bones of
that thick glutton splodge and...
retired the horse... drove a car...
etc. etc.: came across
the happy birthday of death by
gregory corso and said:
that be one of the best recitations
of poetry i have ever heard...
in youth and Paris and Paris was
the signature...

all of this but there's still...
how dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
more to the point...
how dignified it is, to walk at one's own
leisure...
a bottle of england's finest ale...
theakston's the old peculier in one hand...
a marlboro cigarette in the other...
how dignified it is...
to walk: but to also walk... at one's leisure...
not running a marathon...
not... running the concrete or the tarmac
dry with new year's even resolutions
to loße mass... (yes... since weight involves
gravity blah blah)...

this auto-correct science factoid rubric
around each corner...
i can only admit that walking...
is a sport for gentlemen...
cognitive ping pong ensues...
a solo game... perhaps...
it's not a matter of sport...
or attempting gentlemanly stature...
which could be the case...
say... if i were 75... years old...
but...

that's all fine and dandy... the psychology
behind darwinism 2.0
not even copernicus made it that far
with his "revolutionary discovery"...
or not that Ptolemy was still...
index... bibliography and historical
constipation when attempting to be
democratic and historical...
in a single poo'em... with no rhyme...
and certainly no overt-technique biases
to: "identify with"...

it's still an image burning in my head...
the gorilla that would / could wrestle
a lion to sleep with a ripped-off jaw...
the thumb-king of the jungle
and the savannah...
and of course the donning of the conquered's
mane...

but beside all the discoveries in the past
and the present...
i will find myself smirking...
laughing to myself...
that someone will find this too...
i can't stress it enough:

when i see people driving their cars...
some fast, some slow...
walking onto a bus is not a leisure activity...
it's not even a dignity...
it's a time-warp... a short-cut...
besides the point...

even this brain sometimes allow for
the dignity of walking to be eclipsed...
what its sometimes-odd bursts of egomania /
megalomania or all those other:
traits of the rational man...

perhaps this is the first day i've truly
appreciated the sensibility of walking -
much more in that: it became a dignity...
like the time i found the antithesis of narcissus
in my shadow...
once upon a nightly promenade
in the english outer-suburban labyrinth...
20 minutes walk from the fields,
grazing horses... foxes, badgers and...
no wordsworthian naturalism... i.e. the idyll...

superior intelligence, the fork,
the knife, the screwdriver the *****...
the hammer and the nail...
the scythe, the sickle and the lollipop...
the telephone the radio the television
the soap opera addicts...
the bedsheets the bed the cushion
the shampoo and soap...
all of it... but none of it at the same time...
with what comes a priori and with
what comes a posteriori...
the dignity of walking...
perhaps the only state of grace...

perhaps less "abilism" and more - upon reflection...
a mother strapped to a bed
after a hip-replacement surgery?
i.e. in a personal, very personal,
non-Teheran specific vicinity?!

perhaps the most basic meditation is required...
nothing grandiose...
nothing temporal or non-temporal...
something basic...
i.e. spatial... a meditation on cross the street
like a mindful hedgehog that you are...
and not panic driven like a mother goose
with her nursery...

walk long enough and you can even
experience bouts of spontaneous amnesia...
which is not related to actual memories
and their totality...
more in the immediacy: amnesia ex cogitans...
amnesia out of thinking...
10 minutes apart and you can almost
forget what you were thinking of...
10 minutes more pass... the labyrinth spits
you out and you recover from that temp.
bout of crucible amnesia: to forget what you
were thinking about...
which is a variant to that other escapism
of day-dreaming...
since you're walking... and no day-dreamer
is synonym of the thinker who also walks...

this variant of escapism comes of its own
accord... perhaps it's an ontological built-in-mechanism
that when you couple walking with thinking...
you'll most certainly experience these
bouts of "amnesia"... which of course doesn't
include walking in circles... but in a labyrinth
of your unconscious motives...
that the body is dissociated from a conscious will...

since... what sort of thinking exists
on a treadmill... or during running... to begin with?

how  dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
dignified in that: one is not so much able
to come across one's best ideas there...
but that one can simply come across... cogitans per se
-

yes... i.e.: to be free from cogito ergo sum...
to come across the res cogitans medium...
only while walking...
and not like Descartes imagining oneself
sitting at a desk of doubt...

i find no better alternative: walking opens up...
thinking-in-itself... sometimes that's merely translated
as: being... it does not specify / reveal itself
as a: necessity of narration...
thinking is not narration is not thinking...
if you have experienced the ugly spontaneity of
the ego... in that vein of psychology's
three-tier meta-brain dissection of the mind:
subsequently the soul... blah blah...

now i see... this has become a sit-down meditation...
it has to end...
now that the arms have been employed for
a period longer, than the legs were employed
for, prior.
Coleman M Lowe Nov 2020
Angels walk among us,
Each and everyday.
Angels walk among us,
No matter what you say.
The Lord sends them to us,
When he's not ready for us to leave.
Yes,
Angels walk among us,
Though you may never see.
And there I prayed,
Making peace with the Lord.
When I heard a sound.
The flutter of wings perhaps?
Or, Just the sound of an angel,
As her feet touched the ground.
My prayers were interrupted,
So I snuck a quick peek.
And there standing before me,
My eyes beheld an angel.
Her garb was plain,
And she had raven black hair.
I know now she was an angel,
Who was standing there.
She appeared as normal,
as you and me.
And she asked,
If she could pray for me.
But it was an angel,
Sent there to save me.
I was so very low,
And thought I was ready to go.
But the lord wasn't ready for me to go.
And had sent his angel,
To insure I did not go.
Yes angels walk among us,
In many different ways.
Angels walk among us,
And most will never see.
Yes angels walk among us,
The Lord could choose you,
Or even me.
Yes angels walk among us,
The Lord sends them to us,
In times of our need.
A child had wandered,
Much too far away.
To an unsafe place,
She should never be to play.
Yet the Lord chose a passer by,
Who'd never gone that way.
To spy the young child,
Who was in a dangerous way.
To inform her parents,
Of where, She'd gone to play.
To insure she'd survive,
Yet another day.
Yes,
Angels walk among us,
Despite what you say.
Angels walk among us,
Pray they never go away.
Yes,
Angels walk among us,
Though you may never see.
Oh yes,
Angels walk amongst us,
One came and saved me.
                                     Coleman
Written while hospitalized after a remark by one of the nursing staff with the VA.
Gerry And The Pacemakers
Best Of Gerry And The Pacemakers
You'll Never Walk Alone
(R. Rodgers - O. Hammerstein II)

When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
When songs are poems

— The End —