Tom Atkins

Tom Atkins Jan 2020

Dreams.
Never ordinary.
Surreal landscapes.
Unrecognizable creatures.
Dead people dancing.

Voices.
Always voices.
Voices of the dead.
Of betrayers and lost loves.
Voices of strangers in the night.

Colors.
Impossibly vivid.
Bursts of light in the darkness.
often with music.
Full moon madness every night.

as if your mind rebels in the dark,
unwilling to allow you the peace you dream of
in the day.

I dream a lot. In color. Often with a soundtrack. So vividly that at times I wake up and it takes a moment to determine which is real and which is a dream.

I am sure a dream reader would have a field day with me. Mostly, I am glad they fade quickly.

Tom

#dreams #peace

Tom Atkins Dec 2019

Ice Floes

You sip your coffee in a nearby diner.
The place is empty.
It is too cold outside for wandering,
even to familiar places.

Part of you is still numb,
Historic wounds still holding sway.
You sip your coffee in a strange kind of meditation,
waiting for the feelings to break like river ice.

I am a slow processor of emotions.

I was first exposed to winter rivers clogged with massive blocks of ice piled one on the other until the surface resemble building blocks thrown in a two-year-old’s temper tantrum, when I moved here to New England. Ten years later I love seeing it.

I really am at my favorite diner. It really is empty. Even the cook is downstairs doing some kitchen prep. I use my time in the diner to write, which involved working on breaking my emotions loose.

From those three things, this poem.

But lest you think it was that easy and clear, this began as a long, long rambling sort of poem. It is a bad writing habit of mine to write around the main thing. I once had a writing teacher, Richard Dillard, who said my life would be spent finding the poem in my poem. He was right. More than he knew.

#emotions #diner #wounded

Tom Atkins Dec 2019

Invincible

There are flowers on the window sill.
Wildflowers in a blue vase.
A small oasis
in a life that is anything but.

You release a sigh,
and with it, tension.
You focus, completely on the still life

and feel your own heart still,
your breath slow.
You fall into yourself,

You sip your coffee,
your morning slowed to the point
you control it. Not the other way around.

There is a small smile on your face.
Today will be a day of victories.
You know it, not even knowing the battles that await you.

Still. Slow. Aware,
you are invincible.

How we start our day can color the entire day. The days I manage to keep to my routine of prayer, meditation, and writing, I can handle anything.

I have a lot of little places of peace around my house. Still life vignettes. They do my soul good. Not quite temples, but soul stilling none the less.

Today is a good day.

From those things, this poem.

Tom

#routine #depression #joy #small #victories

Tom Atkins Dec 2019

One Mess at a Time

Yours is the art of the broken.
Always patching. Always aware
that nothing and no one is perfect,
least of all you, that all things
are in a state of constant repair
and readjustment, never quite
and likely to never be quite, and so
you paint, you write, you stumble
in public, one of the broken masses
only louder than most,
less willing to hide the cracks,
or perhaps only, less able.

You have no plan.
An age of plans have blown up in your face
time and time again, mocking
your presumption, finally able
to simply be, simply do,
less a creature of inspiration
than a plugger, stuck with
your inability to surrender,
a construction worker building happiness
one mess at a time.

I have been in my art studio for just at a year now. The picture shows what I started with. It’s actually my favorite picture of the studio, mess and all, complete with the presumption, in the form of the sign on the table, that it would become more.

Now it is a working place, with tables and easels and a whole slew of half-finished work and paintings on the wall, always in a state of flux as my thoughts and work changes and grows, as I get things right and get things wrong.

It’s not a perfect studio. Not particularly photogenic. You’ll probably never see it in an issue of better homes and studios. But it’s mine. It’s me. Gloriously, loudly, imperfect.

This morning, I read an article about how the search for perfection kills the good. I’ve lived that one. Never again. Now, it’s just about progress. Growth. One step at a time. One day at a time. How did I grow today? What did I try? What did I risk? What can I learn from it all?

It’s a different life. At times harder and at times easier. But I am so much happier with it. At 64, I cannot recall being this close to happiness. And for a depressed guy, that’s a big statement.

A lot of that has to do with the woman I love. She is so honest, so real, so loving. Able to let me struggle and she shares her own, leaving me with no doubt, none at all, of the depth of her love.

And if we are mostly adult children (And I believe we are), that kind of total love is life-saving. Stumbling is never fatal. Grace lives.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom

#poetry #art #perfectionist

Tom Atkins Dec 2019

Return

The studio has been closed for nearly two months.
It is cold there, and the paints are stiff and thick.
You turn on the heater, but it will take time
before your breath ceases to create clouds with each breath.

There are two half-finished paintings, so old
you have lost the inspiration that started them.
They look flat and lifeless and you cannot choose
between finishing, or whitewashing to start again.

There is a large frame on the floor awaiting new canvas.
but you are feeling small, diminished, not ready for boldness,
growing back into yourself one step at a time.
Forward. Back. Forward again.

You are uncertain. Your feelings have been overwhelmed
by your brush with death and you cannot even name the demons, if demons they are, that haunt you.
They are like ghosts, disappearing each time you draw near.

There is a chair in the middle of the floor. A garish thing,
full of bright magic. Half-finished, the color fighting
the original dark stain, the carvings crying for color.
A color you cannot feel.

But feelings are fleeting. As desirable as they are,
you learned long ago you can function without them,
and that it is the work that brings them back,
that allows you to overcome the things that overcome you.

And so you pick up a brush. With effort, you squeeze
the first bright color onto the palette. Red.
The color of passion reclaimed. The color of blood.
The color you lack.

And you paint.

I have been out of my studio for about six or seven weeks, unable to stand long enough to do any good work. With luck, I go back for a few hours tomorrow.

Recovery is more than physical. There’s a mental/emotional/spiritual element as well, and often that takes longer than mere ****** healing. But there is rehab for that too. I’ve lived in a place of numbness since that first announcement of cancer a few months ago. And even now, after all the tests and surgery and more tests, after beating it back to zero, that invisible part is just now starting to heal.

It’s all work. It’s all worth it.

And tomorrow? I’ll probably start with the chair.

Tom

#recovery #cancer #restoration #art

Tom Atkins Jun 2019

Transparent and Dark

Transparent and Dark

The old venue reaches across the boardwalk,
its magic long evaporated,
a victim of neglect and storms in equal measure.

There are windows. high and void of glass,
the sashes lacking paint.
Rot is plentiful.

There are windows, high and dark,
perfectly clear, with nothing to see
save the perpetual night inside.

You stand below, knowing this is what others see
when they look at you,
transparent and dark,

overwhelmed by neglect and storms,
strangely unwilling
to succumb.

For the last decade, I have posted poems on my blog along with photographs I have taken. This one, for instance, has a photograph of an abandoned hall in Asbury Park, NJ. Posting poems here has made me look at the verse harder to make sure it can be "seen" without the photographs.

#transparent #dark #seeing #shame #life

Tom Atkins Jun 2019

Waiting for a Train

As a boy, you waited by the tracks,
often for hours in a hot summer’s day.
Sweat bees hovered around you,
their tiny stings keeping you awake as you waited.

Hours sometimes. Half a day.
You waited, never knowing the schedule, but sure
the train would come, eventually.

You heard it before you saw it.
A low rumbling in the ground beneath you,
until finally, it came,
the blunt engines, dark and menacing
and then the long chain of cars.

Coal cars, each one piled high with black stone,
shining in the sun, fresh hewn from the West Virginia mines.
Here and there, a few chunks fall,
enough to build a fire in the night.

But not now. For now, you sit,
the earth rumbling beneath you,
the steady click-clack of the wheels,
watching the occasional spark of steel against steel,
waiting, waiting for that last car,

the caboose, red with its windows dark.
No evidence of life, but you knew; you always knew
someone was there,
someone, not you, not yet, but someone,
was traveling around the bend,
far from your little boy’s world,
and part of you traveled with him,

A yearning that has never left you.
Wanderlust, that bit of a boy that still lives
in this gray-haired shell, waiting at the crossing
as the train passes by,
more than patient,
you smile, remembering not who you were,
but who you are.