Jeffrey Hull

Broadway


I’m just your stage door Johnny,
Another decked out swell;
My clothes are flash, I'm scrawny:
I'm just a burned out shell.


Show me that nuance, baby,
Give me that winsome smile;
Blow me a kiss and maybe
I'll hang around a while.


You know my camera loves you,
The f-stop of my eye
Records what fortune shoves you;
This Nikon cannot lie.


Here comes that Broadway feeling
I've had so many times;
My cheap burlesque reheeling
Old jokes and pantomimes.


That good old Broadway feeling,
The curtain's going up;
They laugh to watch me reeling
To drink my bitter cup.


I'll pack my bags for Splitsville
And forward all my mail;
These worn out shticks and bits will
Just slide on down the trail.


That same sad Broadway feeling
As sure as sure can be
Tells me you're double-dealing:
Our time is history.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull A significant edit of the original - not posted heretofor.

I marveled at the birds' design,
   At feathers dull or bright;
And wondered at their soaring grace,
   The tips and wheels of flight.

Then walking one fine day a bold
   Idea came to me:
I made a sparrow with my hands
   And then I set it free.

My small creation fled with joy
   Away upon its skies
But now that made with such great care
   I hardly recognize.

So now I watch and wonder yet
   Just how it came to be:
I made a sparrow with my hands
   And then I set it free.


© 2011 Jeffrey Hull

i79 morning, West Virginia © 2010 Rick Lee


I had a talk a while ago
   With Immortality;
Surprised was I at his display
   Of interest in me.

I'd spent some time with his dear friend
   The droll Infirmity,
Who shared with me some cheery tales
   While chatting over tea.

Now once I thought an endless life
   Meant blessed eternity
But these old fellows seemed to hint
   An endless misery.

Still others visited my hours
   With infelicity,
But none could match the icy stare
   Of mute Infinity:

That gloomy countenance conveyed
   A chill civility
That cast a shadow black as night
   Upon my reverie.

His eyes, void, zeroes, dead as stone,
   Bereft of sympathy
Peered forth as from the blackest night
   With bleak severity.

And leaving, ere he closed the door
   His thought came plain to me:
"It's only in the moving on
   That souls find liberty.

"What e'er awaits those on this plane
   Defies discovery
Of what lies next for all those souls
   That travel on with me."


© 2010 Jeffrey Hull

Spring snow on branches © 2010 Nina Camic


Forty years a zombie,
   Forty years undead;
Forty years these hungry
   Worms inside my head.

Ghouls of recollection,
   Iron in their claws:
Why does love abandon,
   Not confiding cause?

Those who choose departure
   Should heart's passion die:
Might you spare a moment -
   Pray just mention why?


©2010 Jeffrey Hull

Misty morning, West Virginia © 2009 Rick Lee

When the diamond points shine coldest,
   Midnight's staircase all bestrewn,
Let thy beating heart be boldest
   'Neath the levitating moon:

Cast thy bread upon the waters,
   Sow thy seed on fertile ground—
Shun all shaky-handed potters,
   Bleary captains run aground;

Tarry long by those that love thee,
   Guzzle deep the wine of Life;
Peer beyond the stars above thee
   Past the tears and toil and strife.

Of such joys will nights apprise thee—
   Mossy dreams worn smooth by years:
Blessed be the Blood that buys thee,
   Balm to all thy shame and fears.


©2009 Jeffrey Hull

Moon over America © 2008 Rick Lee

My ship is taking water
   As I hurry out to sea
To flirt with Neptune's daughter
   Or his daughter flirt with me

While bright eyed dancing sailors
   On their pennywhistles play
Of sailing ships and whalers
   At the dark'ning of the day.

It's a jolly bit of boating
   If the sailors sing in tune,
And keep this vessel floating
   'Til the rising of the moon.


      The rising of the moon, my boys,
      The rising of the moon—
      We'll keep this vessel floating
      'Til the rising of the moon.

I've charted no returning
   And this port I'll hail no more,
I seek the fires burning
   On some distant fragrant shore.

And as I track the ocean
   Shine the stars that midnight pave
Above the soft commotion
   Of the phosphorescent wave.

With sails and shrouds a-singing
   I look forward to commune
With friends whose souls are winging
   At the rising of the Moon.


      The rising of the moon, my boys,
      The rising of the moon—
      With friends whose souls are winging
      At the rising of the moon.

And when that moon has risen
   We will raise our glasses high,
Our bodies no more prison
   And our souls released to fly

Where meadows dance with flowers
   Where sweet honey fills the comb
Where nectar rains in showers
   Where our joyous spirits roam.

Let all our pain and sorrow
   On those golden sands be strewn
And washed away tomorrow
   With the rising of the moon.

      The rising of the moon, my friends,
      The rising of the moon—
      And washed away tomorrow
      With the rising of the moon.




©2008 Jeffrey Hull


NOTE: This may also be (and probably ought to be) sung to the tune of an Irish rebellion song, By the Rising of the Moon, words by John Keegan Casey. The melody for Rising was also was used for a more recent insurrectionist song, The Wearing of the Green. The original melody was written by the famous itinerant harper Turlough O'Carolan.

Looking down above the city,
   Bustling proles and hoi polloi,
Faded collars hot and gritty—
   Stands the super paperboy.

Never was some stupid yokel,
   No, the man who says what is;
Cosmopolitan, yet local—
   Wasn't he the big news whiz?

Not some product of the play-schools
   Of more ordinary men,
Topped his class at A-grade J-schools—
   Saved the world with mighty pen!

Fantasized of fame and prizes,
   Wrote his novel on the side;
One too many compromises
   Gently greased his downward slide.

Long he views the surly skyline,
   Every dream so long gone bust;
Hacking out his dreary byline
   All he sees is grime and rust.


© 2008 Jeffrey Hull

I framed a face of patience
   'Til patience was my name;
Though bathed in good opinion
   Impatient just the same.

I took the hue of honor
   And dyed a princely gown
To wear while out parading
   My fraudulent renown.

I mimed a touch of kindness
   As if it were my own,
Yet crouched in shame behind my
   Dissembling heart of stone.

Then cried my twisted spirit,
   Then moaned my black, black heart:
I yearned to love within me,
   Not pantomime the part.

And in a blessed moment
   A fair grace murmured low
An all-forgiving whisper
   As soft as falling snow.

Thus bare of all pretension,
   My armor stripped away,
I wept for my salvation
   And bowed my head to pray.


©2008 Jeffrey Hull

Mount Everest at dawn - unimpressed by temporal travails below
© 2007 Abrahm Lustgarten



I gave my true love all I owned
   And all that I could borrow;
A fool's investment, soon bemoaned—
   It bought me only sorrow.

I bargained with a silent sky
   To turn her heart toward me;
The sky, like I, began to cry—
   But tiring, soon ignored me.

I pled my case before the sea,
   Which he found unimpressive;
His waves replied dismissively
   I seemed a bit obsessive.

I begged the mountains intervene
   To somehow sway my lover;
The frosty-topped were less than keen
   To help my heart recover.

At last I begged the laughing breeze
   To help her heartsick brother—
She giggled, racing through the trees,
   "Why, go and find another!"


©2008 Jeffrey Hull

Sunset over Ithaka, island home of Odysseus



So hereby my Homeric tale:
   I set my foot along the path
Bereft of horse and shoe and nail;
   Inciting neither joy nor wrath
Of lofty gods, my ship set sail.

And venture far I did in time
   By sea and land and mountain pass,
In scalding heat or winter clime,
   By desert dune or high crevasse—
A windswept wand'rer's paradigm.

To fabled Ithaka and back
   With canvas set my oarsmen rowed
The island of the wise to sack,
   As passing years like water flowed
Beneath the keel's soft hissing track.

But then at last the field and grove
   Of distant shore before me lay,
That land for which so long I strove
   Through trackless sand and crashing spray,
To loot and plunder wisdom's trove.

There sat an ancient in his hut:
   "Your journey was the prize you sought,"
He smiled, and I could not rebut.
   "No greater treasure can be bought,"
And with a laugh, his door he shut.


© 2008 Jeffrey Hull

© 2008 Nina Camic All rights reserved.


When all the leaves have fallen,
   And all the suns have set,
When bee is done with pollen,
   And fisher shuns his net,

When stars take off their twinkle,
   And breezes tire to blow,
When age runs out of wrinkle,
   And winter pines for snow–

Just where the blue is nearest,
   And stretch the heavens wide,
I'll wait for you, my dearest,
   With mossy time to bide.


© 2008 Jeffrey Hull

Charge of the Light Brigade, Balaclava, Crimea, October 25, 1854.


Beyond the realm of light and sound,
Beneath some weedy leaf-strewn ground,
The gallants of the bold brigade
Who charged the guns now rest in shade
While on some shelf a book decays
That sings of how the the blacks and bays
By war's confusion and mischance
Rushed headlong forward, flag and lance.
Some say the dead in glory lie
Beneath some bright admiring sky
But who can name one bold hussar
Who charged the cannons of the czar?
Huzzah, huzzah! the Light Brigade!
Huzzah! the reckless dash they made!
But like their charge, their lives meant nought:
Not ground nor immortality was bought.
Forgotten now the sparkling sight
Of sabers in the morning light;
Forgotten, too, their dying groans—
The weight of time has crushed their bones.



©2008 Jeffrey Hull

Northern mockingbird. Wikipedia Commons




A cheery song I lately heard
   That floated from a fence whereon
In rebel gray, a friend averred
   That I should rise to greet the dawn

That poked its head above the verge
   And splashed the clouds with hopeful red
Where moon and sunlight daily merge—
   But I in sickness stayed abed.

Some intuition gently stirred,
   I bid the curtains open drawn;
I know now what the mockingbird
   Will lilt aloft when I am gone.


© 2008 Jeffrey Hull

© 2007 Nina Camic All rights reserved.


Abroad, above, below, behind,
   Revealed full plain to see:
The truth unwinds to those not blind
   To man's iniquity.

The moon must monthly hide her face
   Above this sorry show;
And stars endure with chilly grace
   What prospers here below.

The lamps beneath the bushels hide
   To flicker there unseen;
Dishonest men in pride abide
   And all that's true demean.

The foolish mill about in herds
   With slouch and downcast eye;
The stones cry out for honest words,
   Yet dares no voice reply.

The wicked now their gain compute
   While others but bewail;
If good men keep their counsel mute,
   Then evil will prevail.

© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Marko Rämö, FeaturePics.com


I am a lonely pilgrim,
   A pilgrim's lot I share,
To wander through this valley
    And often taste despair;
To miss some rocky foothold
   And stumble from the way,
Or lose the track in darkness
   When night has swallowed day.

I heard a fair voice calling
   From far the other side
Across a quiet river
   That ran both deep and wide;
It beckoned me, or warned me—
   My ears could scarcely tell—
Sang soft some voice of heaven,
   Or growled some fiend of hell?

Thus in a failing twilight
   I stood upon the bank
And bled out my resistance
   As fear my courage drank.
Then whispered low my Master,
   His voice devoid of wrath;
With grasp as soft as morning
   He set me on the path.

© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Seaside, Monterey, California 2006 © 2006 Jeffrey Hull


Beneath the patient starry sky
   And mountains of the moon
As quiet as a mother's sigh
   A tide will come, and soon;

To fetch that due from debts accrued
   Or laid to our accounts
The twists of fate will be unscrewed,
   And reckoned all amounts.

When sweeps that foam across the bar
   To whisper low our names
It beckons come just as we are
   And voids all other claims.


©2007 Jeffrey Hull

Hephaestus, smith of the gods

I summon you, oh great immortal smith,
   Hephaestus, ancient master of the steel:
From days of fading legend and of myth
   Again let hammer ring and anvil peal!

Call forth those fearsome fires of storied fame
   To smelt the stones about your smoky deep
Then pour your magic ingots from the flame
   Hid deep within your sacred mountain keep.

Now stir the blazing coals, and fan them white,
   Your brooding visage dark, as cinders fly,
And leaping sparks give off their eerie light
   That casts the hammer shadows arcing high.

And forge for me such armor as your hands
   For star-crossed bold Achilles did supply:
A shield of gleaming bronze with iron bands,
   With magic plate to shield him breast and thigh.

Then beat from sparking steel a blade right keen,
   In dreaded dragon's blood full tempered then,
Such fearsome sword as mortals have not seen,
   A flashing brand of gods, and not of men.

For blood of mine has answered country's call—
   Far-voyaging men war's dangers cannot shun.
Use all your godly crafts, may he not fall;
   A mortal father asks this for his son.


© 2004 Jeffrey Hull

Storm clouds and bird © 2007 Rick Lee


When I was shut-in and abed
   An angel came to me;
She fluffed the pillow 'neath my head
   And brought a cup of tea.

Her cool hand lay upon my own
   And straight my fears were gone;
The softest light about her shone,
   Like mountaintops at dawn,

And louder than her voice to me
   The hissing of the foam
Of waves upon a quiet sea
   That sings the boatmen home.

And when my heart surrendered to
   Despair, as sick men will,
That whisper would my strength renew
   And bid my soul be still.

She sat with me by night and day
   So long ago it seems;
But still she listens when I pray
   And visits in my dreams.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Night sky, West Virginia © 2007 Rick Lee

"There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio:

   What is sacred?
   Of what is the spirit made?
   What is worth living for?
   What is worth dying for?
   The answer to each is the same: only love."

Life's compass rose has four points true,
   Four questions that distill
The breath that animates our lives,
   The breeze that sails our will.

What sacred oil illuminates
   The darkness here below?
What blessed unguent balms our wounds
   And wipes the debts we owe?

What makes men conquer fear and doubt
   And rise to face the day,
When all life's joys must disappear,
   Like dry leaves blown away?

How is it that a man can choose
   To risk his blood and breath,
To fight for where his heart abides
   Perhaps to seal his death?

The answer constant, simple, true,
   Without, within, above—
As say the many, live the few,
   The only word is: love.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

The monkey clans assembled
   Each turning of the moon,
And how the jungle trembled
   From midnight to the noon!

They screeched and howled and hooted,
   Ignored no hinted slight,
As loudly they disputed
   Each noble monkey's right.

They held a grand election,
   A leafy crown to bring
With bows and genuflection
   To coronate their king.

Surrounded by his flunkies
   And chosen by acclaim,
The king of all the monkeys
   Was monkey just the same.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull