Jeffrey Hull

The white whale


The great white whale beholds the sail
   That means to work him woe,
And plumes the breeze of southern seas
   Where Bedford whalers go.

The lookouts shout, the crew turns out,
   The longboats pull away;
With rope and lance and half a chance
   They'll kill the beast this day.

The captain's eye regards the sky:
   The gulls now tell the tale–
Their raucous cries the calm belies
   Where sounds the great white whale.

He rises now and at the bow
   Harpoons gleam sharp and long;
Then there's the throw! and off they go–
   The rope sings out its song.

The salt spray flies and stings the eyes;
   In headlong buck and leap
The whaleboats dance and dip and prance
   Like sprites across the deep.

Then all is still and with a thrill
   The crews gasp at his rise:
Leviathan now turns on man
   His black and baleful eyes.

They watch in awe his toothy maw
   Gape terrible and wide;
As if in dreams the sailors' screams
   The only sound provide.

He sounds again and flukes descend
   To crush the men and boats
Upon the swell the splinters tell
   Where one lone seaman floats.

And down below the bilge planks show
   The whale has come to call:
A crash! The din! The water in!
   He means to kill them all.

The ship sinks fast until at last
   The masts slip out of sight,
And on the waves but one man raves
   Upon his float that night.

The story's old and often told,
   But mark this hoary tale–
And learn the rule: that man's a fool
   Who seeks his own white whale.

The wise man learns, where hatred burns
   But naught of good can come;
Obsession's cost is ever lost
   When God totes up the sum.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

© 2009 Rick Lee


How tiny then those feet that she caressed
When Mary put the Christ child to her breast,
And cradled in her loving mother's arms
The form of God on earth made manifest.

And surely Joseph took a father's pride
As toddling steps became a surer stride
And boy about the temple grew to man,
Whose feet would take Him whither, what betide?

Along the winding roads of Galilee
His sandals bore a dusty ministry
Down trail and track to bring the blessed news:
Fulfillment of the ancient prophecy.

When Jesus sat with Pharisees at meat
A quiet weeping sinner washed those feet
With tears of shame, and dried them with her hair;
Her faith had earned forgiveness made complete.

At last His feet received the brutal spike,
The sinners' and the Saviour's fate alike;
The taunting soldiers gambled for His clothes
And pierced His broken body with a pike.

And now at home in glory sits the Lamb
Upon His throne beside the great I Am;
There falling at those feet all Heaven's host
And all the prophets back to Abraham.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Dedicated to Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto

© 2007 Nina Camic All rights reserved.

Were there a place where dreams were real
   And wish need not be spoken
But merely willed, and thus fulfilled:
   No dreamer's spirit broken.

Were there that place for all to find
   In nightly sleep, or waking,
Not guilt nor shame nor hurt nor blame,
   But misspent time's remaking.

Were there a place where reverie,
   Reality beguiling,
Could past erase and in its place
   Leave hearts to reconciling.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

© 2007 Nina Camic All rights reserved.

The bones of the ancestors hither and yon
With patience await a particular dawn
When dressed in new raiment of flesh on their frames
Will rise from their graves to remember their names.
And what will they find in such terrible hours?
No fish in the waters, nor birds in the bowers;
Before the Son comes to spread peace in his path
He'll summon from heaven a War-God of wrath.

The green seas will boil, and pale skies glow red
As trumpets of archangels, rousing the dead,
Awaken their souls and their bodies as well
To march in the armies of heaven and hell.
And curious what the commotion's about,
The new resurrected will rise up and shout;
The main of them bound for the blackest abyss,
Except for such few as are fated for bliss.

But now in their homes the dead peacefully sleep
Beneath some green hillside, or cast in the deep,
With sad weathered headstones close marshalled in rows,
Or graved in old meadows, where grass only knows.
Awaiting their day of rebuke or reward,
When Day of all Days brings the Lamb with His sword,
Now all that remains of the worst and the best,
The bones pass the ages content in their rest.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Sunrise over the Kanawha © 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved


Age is heaped upon the old
   Like beauty on the fair;
Wisdom's lavished on the wise
   As fools no folly spare.

Old men need not to be told
   How cruel is master Time;
Young men stop their stubborn ears
   And will not heed his chime.

Profligately burning hours
   Like leaves on autumn lawns,
Callow Youth with ears of scorn
   Half hears the truth–and yawns.

Time will teach but soon how fleet
   He runs from day to day;
Soon enough the race is called
   And light has slipped away.

Age just shakes his snowy head
   Whose years have come and gone;
Count them wise who find their joy
   To greet another dawn.


© 2007 Jeffrey Hull

Rays © 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved


A little town, not long ago–
In cosmic terms, a day or so–
Admittedly a humble place
To usher in a Savior's grace;
A dusty bend along the track
That ran to Hebron, out and back.
A common birth, a poor boy's lot,
Like millions more long since forgot:
A baby slept with kid and lamb
And crowned the line of Abraham.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

December Evening Sky © 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved


Grendel! Now there was a troll's troll! That beast
   Came silent as the summer dew, like mist,
Vile arms strangling lookouts 'til struggle ceased,
   While Hrothgar's beer-hall fire cracked and hissed,

The drunken Danes snored soundly and deep dozed,
   Dreaming scenes of Asgard, or the great hall
Valhalla. The ruthless fiend crept and nosed
   Out a weakness, burst through the wooden wall

To fall upon the king’s men unaware,
   Slaughtering the sleepers without a sound,
Heads ripped from bloody necks, a ghastly tear,
   Crushed Dane skulls and limp bodies in a mound.

The grim monster with hate filled eyes of fire
   Brought doom from which no sentinel could guard–
No unarmed man or woman felt his ire,
   His burning hate and quarrel from them barred–

But full in fury fell on those at arms,
   The thanes of Hrothgar, king of all the Danes;
Deflected not by sorcery nor charms
   Such incandescent hate that never wanes

But brightly lights the ages, 'til its ground
   Dissolves in misty time, where sleep the souls
In bliss or torment, dead to sight and sound:
   Cruel Grendel–there was the troll of trolls.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

I leave now my possessions,
   The ship my spirit sailed,
And likewise last confessions
   Boxed up and tightly nailed.

My name and deeds forgotten,
   Nor carved on any stone–
My house, its timbers rotten;
   I live here quite alone.

No vessels proud await me,
   No far off perfumed land–
No more can time frustrate me:
   My glass is out of sand.

My guards have all deserted,
   Alone I pace the walls;
Commands I once asserted
   Now echo empty halls.

My food is recollection
   Of dreams that long since died;
I drink with sad reflection
   This bitter cup of pride.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Crazy Black Janet danced wild ‘round the square
Raven locks flowing with stars in her hair–
Never seen tearful, nor ever seen sad,
Everyone thought that Black Janet was mad

Twirling to tunes that the nightingales sing,
Calling their lovers aloft on the wing–
Danced in the summer and danced in the snow,
Never had married, nor taken a beau.

Lindsay the Piper long pined for his love,
Face of an angel and eyes of a dove–
Piped his beloved a low wistful tune,
Piping at midnight beneath each new moon.

Black Janet danced as the piper grew old,
Danced 'til the day when the piper grew cold–
There in the graveyard where secrets are kept,
Crazy Black Janet was still, and she wept.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Title placard, Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927


The crystal city spreads before my gaze
Its glass-clad spires above the summer haze;
They rise as if to clutch the crisscrossed sky
Where contrails weave a lofty tapestry
Depicting endless motion to and fro–
The pinnacles of pointless come and go.
And there below, the glinting cars parade
In grand battalions by an esplanade
That limns a shore, and farther still, a bay
With heeling sailboats charging through the spray,
Careening on, a salty cavalry
Like knights of some aquatic chivalry
All jousting 'round a foam-flecked azure field,
Each sprit a lance, each sail a blazoned shield.



Scene, Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927



Along the asphalt boulevards and streets
The blaring autos march, and none retreats
As phalanx meeting phalanx at each cross
Must have its futile way, or count it loss.
And now the dipping sun calls out the hordes
Who vainly seek ephemeral rewards,
To bee-like buzz about the corporate hives
And trade their light for simulated lives.
Disgorging by the squad and by platoon
They spill into the fading afternoon
Abandoning the towers' glass and chrome
To squander precious hours driving home.


Scene, Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927



Now night unfolds her blanket; stars appear
But pale against the city's atmosphere
Of glowing buildings, every window lit
And every street ablaze, as would befit
Triumphal dramas of a bygone age,
Now recreated on the present stage.
The snaking lights along each motorway
Press through the night until the breaking day
Burns off the morning fog and calls again
The myriads of stoic businessmen
Who stream into the towers to resume
The jobs that bite by bite their lives consume.





New Tower of Babel, Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927




This vision now unfolds so stark before
My dreamlit eyes, as opening, a door
Reveals forbidden glimpses: first a thrill
To snatch away the breath–and then a chill.
For now the city's secret will be told,
That palls the scene and leaves the marrow cold.
The inner eye of thought now peels the skin,
Revealing what lies sinister within
The glitter of the chromium and steel:
A modern monster hungry for its meal,
Behind the mirrored walls of glass concealed–
Now in the half light of my spell revealed.
And there I see the city: a machine
That grinds down dreams of men by dull routine:
From industry to greed, and love to lust,
Until at last their souls are crushed to dust.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2009 Nina Camic All rights reserved.


The blackbirds have decided
   To mosey south again,
So lately I'm derided
   By slacker journeymen.

The raucous undertakers
   Sit perched upon their limbs,
Fluff up their black windbreakers
   And screech their birdbrained hymns.

They jostle in the morning
   And trade their empty threats,
Squawk one another warning
   And flash their epaulets.

I leave them to their chatter
   And hurry on my way;
As noisily they scatter,
   I'm off to meet the day.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

I stare at these four trailer walls
Where fame and fortune leave no calls
And wonder what made her decide
To leave our cozy single-wide.

What blandishments of here and now
Could nullify her marriage vow
To stick around through thin and thick,
Or rich or poor, or well or sick?

Just who enticed my erstwhile wife,
And promised her some better life?
Does sordid drama somehow seem
Fulfillment of a housewife's dream?

Good luck to her as off she goes;
She's packed her bags with more than clothes.
Though blame is mine, I think she'll see
When she arrives, well, there she'll be.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved


Jemimahs on the griddle,
   Fat bacon in the pan;
No Sunday morning riddle–
   That's how please a man.

As fog burns off the hollow
   The moon goes off to bed,
And sleepy stars soon follow,
   Far ridgelines blushing red.

A moment quickly fleeting
   To drink the breaking light,
Then wash and off to meeting,
   And singing time tonight.

The Sabbath chores are calling,
   Won't wait another cup;
I'll have to quit my stalling
   And hitch the horses up.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved.


Red light in the window, blue light by the door–
Old humiliations on the killing floor.
Hundred pounds of heartache, ounce of cheap perfume:
Dragged his resignation up to see her room.
After, there were mumbles; silent he arose,
Stripped of expectation, sorted out his clothes–
Rust around the drain plug, stains on dingy tiles–
Flickering fluorescents, lines that mark the miles.
Time to flee the morning, time to have a beer–
Warding off reflection how he wound up here.
Red light in the window, blue light in her eyes:
Hope has not forsaken–it's just in disguise.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Manager, Maxfield Parrish


He's more flesh than spirit,
   He's more weak than strong;
Truth–he will not hear it,
   He's less right than wrong.

Sadder than he's wiser,
   He's more old than young;
Sleepless early riser,
   His songs die unsung.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee


Like birds on the wing, like the waves on the sea,
We'll swirl with abandon, my love, we'll be free–
Stairstepping aloft on the beat and the tune
To skip 'cross the sky, while that stuffy old moon
May frown his reproaches as much as he might:
The stars shine for lovers, the heavens' delight.

And when the sun's eyebrow peeks out from his bed,
Our dancefloor of clouds all a-kindled with red,
Why, homeward we'll whirl for a last glass of wine,
And blow out the candles, then your hand in mine
We’ll soar once again in our dreams of the time
Together we swayed, our own soiree sublime.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee. All rights reserved.


Did God construct the wing to please the eye,
Or frame the globe to love the butterfly?
Did He allow the vision of a cloud
To tantalize how heaven is endowed?

Did thunder or the keening of the wind
Precede the time when Adam's clan had sinned?
Then did the Maker give His sons the choice
To heed or not their gentle Father's voice?

And fragrances that waft upon the breeze–
Beflowered meadows, heavy laden trees
With sun-kissed fruit's intoxicating spell:
Were they here, too, before our sense of smell?

Did He fill up the sea with briny salt
To taunt the tongue and thus His work exalt,
Then did He grant His children sense of taste
To savor foods with which His world is graced?

The brush of lover's lip, or gentle hand:
Did these precede or follow God's command?
Does all the world around us thus confess
His presence in a mother's tenderness?


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Unicoi State Park, Helen Georgia. © 2006 Rick Lee. All rights reserved.


Has anybody spied the sky?
   I seem to have misplaced it;
I hear it's blue, but what to do–
   Some dark thing has effaced it.

Has anybody seen the wind?
   I heard someone defaced it;
Despite all pleas he marred the breeze
   And spoiled the clouds that laced it.

Has anybody sipped the sea?
   I miss the waves that graced it;
It fills my dreams and there it seems
   My mind can almost taste it.

Has anybody heard my heart?
   Some bitterness encased it,
And left its room a quiet tomb
   As if someone erased it.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

His prison cell a mind too small
   To hold the thought of grace,
Where lies no sentence can recall,
   And fear and boredom pace–

The walls are tall and stout the door
   That keeps the quiet in
'Til sense relents and grants the floor
   Its stony discipline.

Upon a time the Jailer came
   And offered his release,
But found that shame had made him lame
   So left him there in peace.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Muir Woods National Monument, California © 2006 Jeffrey Hull


The trumpets of the greenwood
   Blow vivid reveille
Announcing morning's glory
   To meadowlark and bee

As honeysuckle tendrils
   Subdue a sagging rail,
A lurching, lazy boundary
   Patrolled by wary quail.

The sleepy ferns unfurling
   Close by the waking glade
Revere a toad Siddhartha
   Within their solemn shade;

The warty little Buddha,
   A dry leaf for his bowl,
Awaits a buzzing offering
   Then gulps the fellow whole–

And savoring the morsel
   With pleasure unconfined
Returns to meditations
   With emptiness of mind.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Chatahoochee River © 2006 Rick Lee


It seems me and Mojo have parted our ways;
He vanished last Wednesday–no sightings for days.
I've checked all the hospitals, bars, and the zoo;
By all indications the partnership's through.
It's not unexpected; you work like a dog
'Til joy disappears, and the dance is a slog.
I hardly can blame him for taking a hike
These days when so many are going on strike,
Away on vacation from keys or from pen,
Not knowing for sure if they'll ever again
Have just enough spunk and the requisite spark
To hit literarily out of the park.
For words in a string are an intricate thing:
It's devilishly dicey to get the right swing.
Without Mr. Mojo there's not much to do–
Play pool, or give up on a crossword or two,
Or hang down at Tony's and have a few tears,
Remembering the day, blubbering into my beers.
So here's to my Mojo, wherever he's gone
I wish him the best for the road he is on;
When that which he's seeking to find has been found
Someday Mr. Mojo might drop back around.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

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

I'll pack my bags for Splitsville
   And forward all my mail;
These worn out shticks and bits will
   Just soft shoe 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

With her casks to the brim and with ample supplies
On the tide she set sail while the moon on the rise
Cast its glow on the ship as the sails were unfurled,
Casting off for the lands at the end of the world.

On a westerly breeze she sailed smart as you please
With the helmsman directed to southern degrees
And the furrow she plowed lay as straight as a line
As wild water erupted from bow and from chine.

By the binnacle light where the compass read true
The stout steersman looked out on the indigo blue
Where he saw that the swell was beginning to mount
As the wind likewise rose, he would later recount.

By the midwatch white foam on the waves let them know
That the scudding low clouds now foretold of a blow,
And the deckwatch looked up as the stars ceased to shine
While the rigging above seemed to groan and to whine.

When the morning watch came up on deck to relieve
They could see by the sky there would be no reprieve,
So they grinned and they shrugged at the waves and the gale
And aloft the men clambered to shorten the sail.

The George Whitcomb now heaved on a mountainous swell
Like some terrified man on a sleighride from hell
Driving into a wave face, then shaking it off,
Vaulting over the crest, plunging down in the trough.

While a furious force drove her onward and on
The first mate took the foredeck, the captain the con;
As the ship lurched and staggered through old Neptune's realm
It took two of the crewmen to handle the helm.

The wild water washed over, a monsterous stream
Then Old Billy below cried, "We've opened a seam!"
With the perils of topside came danger below
As the cargo broke loose and was flung to and fro.

To the men below decks came a preview of hell:
As they struggled for footing the deck rose and fell.
Like the wildest of horses the ship bucked and jumped
And the water rose faster the harder they pumped.

Soon they knew that the storm meant to swallow them whole,
The good ship and its cargo and every soul,
For the splinters of two boats had washed overboard
And between them and death: one good skiff and the Lord.

Lying battered and smashed in Poseidon's great fist
Now the proud vessel Whitcomb had taken a list.
As she rolled and she wallowed, he feared she might flip
So the captain commanded, "Abandon the ship!"

Fully twenty-two men of the merchant fleet's pride
Were assembled on deck and went over the side
In the lee of the ship where the waves weaker churn
Swimming strong to the jolly boat close by the stern.

Now they clambered aboard and pulled smartly away
Although lashed by the wind and the rain and the spray;
With the storm skies above them now hinting some light,
Going down by the bow, the ship slipped out of sight.

In the stillness that followed the mate said a prayer
And the captain made certain that each man was there.
With each sailor accounted the oars were then manned;
Scarcely six sunsets later they sighted the land.

Well there's danger aplenty where men go in ships:
While the vessels look mighty when tied in their slips,
All alone on the ocean's as lonely can be,
And there's danger aplenty when men go to sea.

May the blessings of God fall on all of the men
Who go forth on the ocean again and again,
For the truth on the wind sings as plain as can be:
You may master a wave–no one masters the sea.

© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2009 Rick Lee


If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one ...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds. - Bhagavad-Gita


The sunset's king recesses down the sky
   To kiss the land and bid goodnight the day,
But does not dwell upon the by and by:
   His glance will someday boil the seas away.

What blessings that his light on earth bestows
   Are bought and paid with incandescent time
As star-stuff burns–and when the big one blows
   A fierce deep-throated closing bell will chime.

From long before the ancient dawn of man
   Where frigid eons kept the heavens' keys,
Apocalypse on God's installment plan:
   The end of days glows just beyond those trees.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

River Orb, France © 2006 Nina Camic By gracious permission; all rights reserved.


The river is not mad at me
   I reassure myself,
As I am slammed hydraulically
   Against a rocky shelf;

Then bobbing up I wave my hand
   To reassure the crew
Before the safeties on the land
   Can toss a rope or two.

Though I pretend to be unfazed,
   My soggy mind is blank;
I splash about like someone crazed,
   And wash up on the bank.

I clamber back into the raft
   To analyse my swim,
Reflecting that I must be daft
   To paddle on again,

But rivers flow so well downstream
   And it's too far to walk;
A river man must more than seem–
   Not simply talk the talk.

The day will come when bones stay home
   And let the rivers run–
Instead of rocks and rolling foam,
   A hammock in the sun;

But I won't think of that gray day–
   I'm hardly sore at all–
The sky, the trees, the frigid spray:
   The raft and rapids call.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee All rights reserved.


Darkness be my pillow,
   And sorrow be my bed;
Bend me like the willow
   Then bind me to the stead.

Sing me soft of sadness,
   To fill my eyes with years;
Succor me my madness,
   And gently blot the tears.

Help me bear the birthing
   As what will be is born;
Ancient bones unearthing,
   My hair of pride be shorn:

Lift me, do not scold me;
   Please let me feel the skies–
Hold me, darling hold me,
   Once more before I rise.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Morning: Lake Monona © 2006 Nina Camic By gracious permission.


The west winds blow from where the night resides,
The east winds whisper hope and rising tides.
The north winds chide the clouds to hide the sun,
The south winds coax the tropic waves to run.
The wild winds charge around the sky's expanse,
The mild winds sigh as flowers dip and dance.
The cold winds tuck the woods in fluffy beds,
The old winds sow their salt on snowy heads.
The sea winds waft from fragrant lands afar,
The bay winds sail hearts homeward 'cross the bar.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Andrew Hull By permission.


A heart awaiting ransom
   Had hidden in a drawer;
Love peeked across the transom
   Then seeped beneath the door–

A mist of vague emotion,
   Turned rivulet of grace,
'Til stream become an ocean,
   A torrent swept the place.

It flooded to the gables,
   Knocked everything askew,
And cleared away the tables
   To set the feast anew.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Freya, Norse goddess



The gates of Vahalla are darkened;
   Great Heimdall¹ no longer stands guard
Where warriors old Odin² hearkened,
   Who'd fallen by axe and by sword.

Full five hundred forty grand portals
   Led straight to the father's great halls;
The roofing, the shields of immortals,
   And rankings of spears were the walls.

Bold breastplates upholstered the benches
   Where every brave soul had his place,
Drank mead that undying thirst quenches,
   And dined on the great boar apace.

The broad plain of Asgard³ in stillness
   Recalls the great contests of old;
Men die not by spear now, but illness,
   Heroic tales no longer told.

And Freya⁴, the boar-riding beauty,
   War-goddess of passion and love–
Valkyries no longer stand duty
   To usher the bravest above;

Their queen has surrendered her powers,
   Retreated to sulk in her home,
To mourn from her far fabled towers
   The silence in Odin's grand dome.

Now Loki the Trickster⁵ plays ruler
   And cowards have taken his cause
And none is more ugly or crueller
   Than those who would fashion the laws

That bind men of courage in shackles,
   And stripping the bravest of pride,
Their tail-tucking yapping of jackals
   Would all that is noble deride.

The winds of the heavens blow colder,
   But breeze in the desert burns hot;
The North gods grow older and older–
   Now where will our rescue be got?

We call on great Odin: Awaken!
   We call on our ancestors' lines
To roar 'til the sleepers are shaken!
   To shout til they stiffen their spines!

Awaken the gods from their slumber!
   Awaken the men from their thrall!
'Til filling their ranks without number
   The cry has awakened them all.

Then gird up their arms for the battle
   To save all the good and the true,
Ignoring the cowardly prattle
   To do what the brave always do.

Of those who are marked for their glories
   Let spirits convey to the Hall
Where Freya's valkyries⁶ sing stories
   About the last conflict of all:

The brave–not the glib nor the clever,
   Not cowards nor tellers of lies–
Will live there with great souls forever:
   They only have claim to that prize.

And those who remain with the living,
   Who knew that to shrink was to sin–
Will earn from their brothers thanksgiving,
   And with the immortals be kin.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

1. Guardian of Valhalla, hall of the spirits of brave slain warriors.
2. Lord of the warrior gods (Æsir). God of both wisdom and war.
3. Realm of the gods.
4. Norse goddess of love, sexuality, fertility and battle. She and the valkyries gathered up the souls of the brave slain, to be apportioned half to Freya, half to Odin. She rode into battle astride a great boar, or rode in a chariot pulled by two blue cats the size of lions.
5. The Trickster, god of mischief and fire.
6. Minor female deities in Norse mythology, who served Odin; led by Freya, their purpose was to choose the most heroic of those who had died in battle and to carry them off to Valhalla where they became spirit warriors; those alloted to Odin were destined to fight at his side at the preordained great battle at the end of the world, Ragnarök.

© 2006 Rick Lee


The Blue Ridge laundry hung along the sky
   Beyond the highway's disappearing end
Hums lazy longing songs of by-and-by;
   The road, too busy, hurries 'round the bend ...

The heavy sky wore mountain sawteeth dull
   So long ago; the nubbins that remain
Can scarce impede the clouds that boatlike scull
   Along the ridge above the valley rain.

The mountains must remember in their dreams
   Those ancient granite days of grand display,
When caped in snow and bumping heaven's beams
   Their brooding crags looked down upon the day;

Now, crossed with track and trail of bear and coon
   They see both what will come and what is past,
And sleep the endless sleep of rain and moon
   Until the hills are ground to sand at last.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

        Black hole



They say there are holes in the heavens,
   Eternity's doorways agape,
Where everything's sixes and sevens,
   Where even the rays can't escape;

Where gravity's monster attraction
   Grabs atoms and pulls out their hair,
And infinite in its compaction
   The matter goes heaven knows where.

If singing the Kyri' eleison,
   Most hopeful for some saving grace,
Our souls sail beyond some horizon
   Perhaps into just such a place,

Then what if that hole is a portal
   That leads to some strange by and by–
Where human life meets the immortal:
   The gate at the end of the sky?


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Cholesterol, 3-D molecular model



I read a list of seven things,
   The habits I should quit;
And worst of fortune's darts and slings?
   Why, honey, you were it.

The other six were bad enough
   To wreck my life for sure,
Like smokes and booze and all that stuff—
   And most of all, amour.

But your seduction's subtle art
   Enticed me toward my fall:
If love be life blood of the heart,
   Then you're cholesterol.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Rick Lee By permission.


Old steeples float above the town
   Where birds and clouds belong,
And watch the sun drift gently down
   Each day at evensong.

The light selects a gleaming spire
   From those that dot the sky;
The others, in more drab attire
   Cannot attract its eye.

The chosen tower flaunts its glow
   Before its lofty friends
Until the sunglow dips below
   And sunset vigil ends.

Perhaps when dawn redeems the light
   And hoists it into view,
Another's crown may shine as bright
   With morning's rosy hue

But for this hour of waning day
   The chosen belfry gleams,
And revels in its grand display
   Afire with twilight beams.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Charles Johnson By permission.


A smallish speck that shrank into the clouds,
   Its freight the heavy cargo of my heart–
Aground, despair amidst the airport crowds,
   Aloft, the dreamy sky pushed us apart.

Bad luck, they say, to watch a loved one's course
   Until she's out of sight; I turned away
My face, and hid the twinges of remorse
   I'd let her go, but she's still gone today.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

"Vacant Lot, Victor, Colorado 1985"
© 1985 Paul Cornelius By permission.


Old buildings by the railroad freight,
   Old storefronts in the town,
With sagging resignation wait
   For years to wear them down.

The boarded shops grow photographs
   Like mildew on the walls,
Declaiming fading epitaphs
   For lives no one recalls.

The weeds are mum what structures stood
   On littered vacant lots
That blighten up the neighborhood
   With glass and brick strewn blots.

The buildings and the people fade
   As time its purpose weaves,
As gone as last year's Fourth parade,
   Or winter's missing leaves.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2000 Bert Katzung All rights reserved.

I saw the rosy fingered dawn,
   That fabled Eastern light,
That Homer was so set upon
   To end each storied night

Brushed soft across the glassy sea
   And breathed upon the clouds,
And signaling the sun to free
   The land the night enshrouds.

The sun peeked up and chased the dark
   'Til only light remained,
And coursed along the fiery arc
   Apollo had ordained;

It reached its zenith by and by
   And glorious shone bright,
Illuminating earth and sky,
   And banishing the night.

But as the hourglass of day
   Marked cadence with the sea,
And minutes softly slipped away–
   I watched the daylight flee

Until at last the western wave
   Was lit this time by fire;
I perched upon a lofty bluff
   To watch the sun retire.

And with a final dusky blaze
   Deserting heaven's dome
To sleep beyond our mortal gaze–
   The sun again went home.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Nina Camic All rights reserved.

The rising of the greening shoot,
   The budding of the vine,
The plucking of the heavy fruit,
   The aging of the wine;

The counting of the bridal chest,
   The preening of the groom;
The rip'ning of a mother's breast,
   The swelling of the womb;

The gasping of the primal breath,
   The wailing infant's cry;
The suckling babe denying death
   And cooing at the sky.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

The house I used to live in
   Was ramshackle and plain,
The roof about to give in,
   Big holes let in the rain;

The floors were warped and squeaky,
   The doorjambs out of plumb,
The window hinges creaky,
   The rooms were painted glum.

Now evensong or matin
   Cool quiet rules my home;
The rooms are lined with satin
   Above, a roof of stone.

The alabaster remnants
   Of where I lived before
Are draped like honored ancients
   And laid out on the floor.

The ages pass in stillness
   From counting now exempt;
Walled off from pain or illness,
   Past praise or plain contempt;

But yet I miss the old place
   And friends who once dropped by,
Familiar as my own face–
   But most of all, the sky.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Nina Camic All rights reserved.

The scene of our devotion
   Was once the forest plain;
Before that was the ocean;
   Before that was the rain.

The meadow where we wandered
   Lay once beneath the sea;
And moments, idly squandered,
   Construct eternity.

If time is but illusion
   We are not less the same,
Like blooms in spring profusion
   That just a while remain.

The gardens dear to lovers
   Like lovers pass away,
And Time the bowers covers
   Beneath the coolest clay.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Mandelbrot fractal set. Wikipedia, under creative commons license.

I must have blinked my mind, for logic's train
   Deserted me, and there I stood: bereft
Of repartee, unable to explain
   My tortured lay of mental warp and weft,
   Ideas woven, wand'ring right and left
To reach an end and then begin again,
   A teasing circularity of theft
Purloining wit to leave a barren brain;

For fractals of mentation replicate
   By simple rule in sparse economy
Of left-or-rights that ever bifurcate
   In parsimonious autonomy,
   And trace their strange taxonomy
To work their spell at last and subjugate
   My head with ruthless heteronomy–
And lucid judgement discombobulate.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Portrait of Dr.Gachet, Vincent van Gogh, June 1890

I had a portrait painted
   To suit my vanity;
I saw it, almost fainted–
   What had he done to me?

I had a bio written
   To justify my life;
I must say I was smitten:
   It flayed me like a knife.

I had a garden party
   To celebrate my fame;
With food and drink most hearty–
   But then nobody came.

I had a fancy funeral
   To give my soul a boost;
But misdeeds, late or sooner'l
   Come waltzing home to roost:

I lie here six feet under
   In mould'ring fancy clothes
And cannot help but wonder
   How fitfully I doze.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

© 2004 http://www.mikesjournal.com/ by permission


Long echelons of laughing wings
   Ride north on southern air;
The heralds of ten thousand springs,
   Gay bugles honk and blare.

From high above the morning frost
   Formations bank and wheel
To settle from the skies they've crossed
   And grab a traveler's meal;

Then fluffing up their feathered cloaks
   They once again set forth
In harness with their airy yokes
   To haul the springtime north.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

I watch the slanting Sunday light suffuse
The uninspired air about the pews
Where duty with appearances conspires
To smother any incidental fires
Of passion here and there among flock,
And trades some current fancy for the Rock.
The queen posts and the hammer beams that soar
In grandiosity above the floor
Can scarcely hold the weight of Heaven up
As dwindling columns routemarch toward the Cup;
The roof above of slate from ridge to eaves,
The church below in thrall to mitered thieves.
The shrinking ranks that slouch toward the rail
With hopeful resignation of the frail,
Or those who follow sheeplike and confused,
Or those who from the argument recused:
Pretensions long since gone of search for truth–
They swill their gin of life without vermouth.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Once I was a rich man, for nothing did I lack;
The finest of all finery was laid upon my back.
My body like Adonis, my limbs were lithe and strong;
I revelled in each breath I took–'til Old Joe came along.

He never was invited, but some days he just dropped 'round,
Sans courtesy of phone or pen, his stories to expound.
He long regaled enticing tales: of lands that I would see,
Of green bedecked Italian hills, of sunlit Tuscany;

Of brooding glacial mountains, rushing down to alpine vales,
Or broad and blue horizon lines festooned with snowy sails,
Of buffaloes that snort and stamp on rolling western plains
And elephants that haul the teak through steamy jungle rains.

And then he spoke at fulsome length of deeds I yet would do,
What greater things I would achieve before my life was through;
"Let petty preconceptions no man's rightful dreams confine–
Why settle for a measure of just half of what is thine?"

He brought me gifts to add to those already in my store,
And when I weakly did refuse he simply brought me more.
His flattery and presents did my better sense cajole;
I came to crave these treasures, and his stories swallowed whole.

My longing to believe his tales my fears a while allayed,
But day by day suspicion grew I might have been betrayed.
The warnings, oh so gradual, were trifling things at first;
But by the time it dawned on me, my guest had done his worst.

A sideward glance of Old Joe's eye, and half my strength was gone;
My clothes now sadly draped the withered frame they hung upon.
And furrows came to mark my skin, as limping marked my gait,
And aching curvatures replaced a spine once ramrod straight.

He touched my shoulder lightly then, and straightway there was pain–
"Don't worry friend," he reassured–then touched me once again:
A dizziness upon me fell while Old Joe softly purred–
I glanced up at the hour and saw the spinning hands were blurred–

"I fear you now have not the time those dreams of yours to chase,
So I'll abide here by your side and help you to erase
The mem'ries of those things you sought and those for which you yearned,
And all you had before I came–to see what you have learned."

"When did I make this bargain foul, how could you so ordain
That I must trade for dreams and wealth, infirmity and pain?
You talked of plans and journeys grand, of diamonds and gold,
Of travel and adventure–but I'm only getting old."

Old Joe then smiled his crooked smile and sideways glanced at me:
"Just so it has been ever thus and ever thus must be:
I visit all who live so long, to all there comes the day
When what I grant unearned in youth, with age I take away."


© 2005 Jeffrey Hull

Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer, 1899

The bed was a raft on the ocean
With hungry sharks swimming about;
We tossed in a terrible tempest,
The wind made a horrible shout–
Then laughing-eyed arms folded round us
And gathered us tight to her breast;
At last we were safe from the danger!
As softly she tucked and caressed.
But what took those gentle arms from us
Ignoring all promise or plea,
To sail on in sadness without her,
Alone on that loneliest sea?


© 2005 Jeffrey Hull

Old Omar's bones long past succumbed to Time,
Who now has tricked the pilgrim past his prime;
   The rising moon no longer Khayyám finds,
And soon enough the traveler's bell will chime.

This sorry scheme our understanding taunts
As heaven high its stern duration flaunts;
   And one by one the rose her petals drops
As Time upon the countless gravestones vaunts.

Like briefest flash of gold in life's bazaar,
Or siren's sultry voice half-heard afar–
   The pilgrim knows how seldom and how short
The door to revelation stands ajar.

The wisdom of the sages and the seers
Is murmured down the corridors of years
   But in the lonely night cannot dispel
The phantoms of the pilgrim's hopes and fears.

The gate to hell or heaven stands agape
Or is this but illusion of escape?
   The fate of each is cast before his birth;
Nor tear nor tirade can these stars reshape.





So shall we then together, you and I
Enjoy what time we have beneath this sky
   And revel in our love and in this wine:
Accept the what and where, and ask not why?

And since we cannot fail to pay what's due
That Innkeeper who tolls our evening through–
   I hope he would permit a final cup,
And give me leave to drink it here with you.


© 2005 Jeffrey Hull

© 2007 Rick Lee All rights reserved


When I was young by night I'd fly
   With effortless facility,
But then grew older by and by
   And lost this strange ability.

Then magic arms no more would lift
   For heavy years had weighed them down
And robbed them of that wondrous gift
   To soar above the drowsy town.

So every night my inner eye
   Explored confined and dreary caves,
Resigned, but longing yet to fly
   Aloft o'er forests, hills and waves.

And then one night this grace returned
   And thus my spirit found again
The gift for which I long had yearned,
   Above, beyond the world of men.


© 2005 Jeffrey Hull