About Tomcandoit

"Well, your honor, it was a bigfoot last night." Tom is an artist, freelance writer, poet, minstrel, outdoor explorer, graphic designer and former English teacher.

In My Room…

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Tomcandoit

* * * * * *

I will sense her presence in my room tonight,

Though I will never feel her warmth.

Like exploitations of the recent past,

My memories distort her image.

To grope for her in darkness

When she cannot be felt

After feeling her in darkness

When I could not feel

Is tantamount to taking trips

To towns where once you lived

Without stopping.

I will walk with her to the grave this morning

Before Phoebus warms the earth

And sears her icy charm.

His chariot, whose heat and radiance

Gives life to undeservers,

Destroys hope of life for two cursed souls

That once could live as one

And now must form their union –

Protected by darkness – clothed in chill.

Our love was never blessed by God,

Nor was it blessed by Satan.

Venus screamed when first she saw us,

For I am blind and she is a ghost…

* * * * * *

John Thomas McElheny – October 30, 1968

* * * * * *

Signals

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Tomcandoit

* * * * * *

It’s not the creaking of the floor

That signals they are here

Those faint elusive fingertaps

That prey upon our fear.

It’s not the crawling palp of flesh

That tingles up the spine

And makes us walk into a wall

Or cover heads and whine.

It’s more the sudden heart in throat

That harkens our aware

And causes us to stop dead still

To contemplate and stare

And trembling legs like rubber bands

That fail us when we walk

And frantic waving baby arms

That fly out when we talk

That tell us when the spooks are near

And spur us on to look

At things we might perhaps to fear

That live within a book.

But life is not a cavalcade

Of vignettes marching by,

And all that we can hope to do

Is sit, and wonder why.

* * * * * *

She Folded Time

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Tomcandoit

The Marshallville Chronicles…

* * * * * *

She folded time like a lacy linen napkin
And then snapped the creases out before
Draping it over my lap to catch the flood
Of memories and tabled dreams that my
Heart in my mouth could no more contain
And that cascaded in red rivulets
From between pouted lips now too soft
To dam the flow that had been held
Prisoner behind my still clenched teeth.
The memories splashed onto my lap
Making ripples in the newly formed
Puddle of unfolded time.
We held our breaths and played
Unabashedly in our puddle child.
I opened my mouth to rejoice and
Drowned us in a frozen tide
Of fiery emotion.

She folded time like the traveler she was
And then jetted across the empty room
Of our togetherness
Fast enough to vacuum the dust of life
Swirling just high enough off the floor
That it could not be stepped upon
But taken back as it had been given
When it was the dust of death
And the firmament from whence she came
Screaming like the Banshee she wasn’t
And threatening to yet return
On the day when I folded time
And she was real.
She folded time in a bare room.
She flew in the heaving of the drapes.
Again, she was never here.

* * * * * * * * * * * *