No Regrets - Spring 2018 Issue 21

No Regrets

Spring 2018 Issue 21

No Regrets, a journal of poetry, prose and images about the exploration of being and meaning.

Clayton Medeiros, Editor, Poet, Photographer claymedeiros@aol.com Neil McKay (Johnny Trash), Webmaster Submissions are by invitation of the editor Epublishing http://issuu.com/claymedeiros/docs Facebook page, No Regrets Journal, haikus poems and photographs https://www.facebook.com/NoRegretsJournal




Spring Bouquet Red tulips rise from grainy oak The dining room table’s rectangle Framed by four slat backed chairs Set on the polished wood floor Warmed from decades of shoes From its perch on the well Used off white crocheted doily’s Butterflies and scalloped edges A cut glass vase parses Late afternoon’s angled sun




Swallows expectant green spring gardens swallows swoop and swerve erratic pilots fool ground control




Maternal Update I see my mother in rain drenched clouds driving windy white ripples on the bay too busy for heaven she wanders the earth ever since the northeaster took her ashes out over Horse Neck Beach into a swirl of snow and drizzle that soon enveloped her beloved Well Fleet the bay slowly adds sand on one side of Cape Cod while on the other crashing Atlantic waves tear at precipitous cliffs and beaches




Uncle Ernie’s Stone Wall The old stone wall Reflects the work of hands That made it many years ago Every stone belongs Uncle Ernie walked the wall Each Spring to restack Winter frost heaved stones On the house side of the wall Were primroses and rhododendrons The other side looked to a field With some twenty cords of firewood Capped with plywood sheets Held down by glacial rocks Unearthed turning up the soil For the vegetable garden Beyond the garden wall Blueberries lined a path Into the woods that once Held a copper still




Discussion Words were in disagreement, What should be said, remained silent; The sun continued on its way, Through the day, into the afternoon; The moon rose, meandered east to west, Through ever darker skies, Revived by another day’s dawn, Once again words could not agree.

What should be said, remained silent.

Meaning, no longer possible, Libraries shuttered their doors.

Books, left to their own devices, Discussed issues among themselves Through a broken window children Saw the pages turning climbed Through to listen to the dialogue Across the centuries as to what Must be said, shared and preserved




For Stephen Daedalus radiant images luminous in the mind harmonized spirit aesthetic pleasure turns page after page enchants open hearts




Celebrate Should we furl emotions No Let them sound in the wind Ricochet around town Often misunderstood In quizzical wonder With hooray and huzzah Up and down all around

Today Memories look askance At efforts to begin another day Fearful they might lose out On their rightful place In the emotional line up Who or what gets attention Who or what’s left behind Perhaps entirely forgotten Replaced by a new narrative In the continuing biography




Infinite Life if you were immortal existed beyond time with its light and darkness with its good and evil with its birth life and death would you miss mystery




Worship In the Peruvian Andes A group of villagers stand On a crest holding hands In predawn light Await the Sun Spirit To rise as it always does Their quiet fervor equals Prayers that rose Through the festival Celebrating the Virgin In the adobe church On the village plaza A Franciscan monk In tawny brown habit Performed the Mass Fed them the blood And body of Christ




Sacred Places Rome the City of Man Rendered unto Caesar Justice was Caesar’s Rome the City of God Rendered unto Peter Justice was Augustines’ Medieval Churches Towered over all else Bells rang day began Bells rang day ended