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     Please remember that the poems in the following pages are written and copyrighted by myself, John Richard Hustings. Feel free to make personal copies but if you display them on a web page please be sure the poem is followed immediately and exactly by the copyright notice below the next paragraph.
    Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you. - Copyright 1995 by John Richard Hustings - I require that none of my poetry be reproduced in print, on any video media or distributed in any manner, other than through private (non-profit) web pages, without prior written consent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

        The days of life were long
They were like the ocean shoreline,
                 seemingly unending.
        Those days were like the pages in a book,
One that has sat on the top shelf.
               Dusty and unread
         I filled them with the preoccupations of the lonely
And watched their passing with guarded longing
                  That none would return...
                          In memory.

  
	For the Wretched

	Oh cursed life
	the harbinger of agony and despair,
	the purveyor of death
	to the contentment and joy which should
	be life.

	Longing, such as I have never known,
	and loneliness,
	is all that awaits each day
	and every long night.
	And if eyes are truly the windows of souls,
	then through them
	you will see a wretched
	emptiness.
	And down beneath the layers
	of subversion and deceit
	that we layer upon the face of the soul,
	is a nakedness
	that the absence of love,
	condemns us to.
 
-John Hustings- 5-1-89
  

     A piano sits quiet on an empty stage
     A single spot light shines down
     Nothing but silent seats fill the auditorium
     The silence is saddening


                                    1984

 

IT PRESSES IN AROUND ME

AND THE DAYS GROW COUNTLESS.

MY DIRECTION CHANGES WITH THE WIND.

THE SMELL OF AUTUMN, IS HEAVY IN THE AIR,

A STENCH THAT ASSAILS MY SENSES.

MY MIND GOES OVER AND OVER THOSE LAST DAYS

THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC CONFINEMENT OF WALLS IS TO MUCH TO BEAR.

THE FACES AND THE NAMES OF PEOPLE AROUND ME

BECOME INDISTINGUISHABLE BLURS.

MY FEEBLE GROPING FOR SOMETHING...

SOMETHING I CAN NO LONGER GRASP.

THE FEAR THAT IT IS BECOMING UNRECOVERABLE,

IS MORE THAN MY SANITY CAN WITHSTAND.

MY SOUL SUFFOCATES IN CONFUSED UNREADABLE EMOTIONS!

THAT ONE THING THAT GAVE ME...

...SECURITY, STABILITY...

IS GONE...

OR IS IT?

I NEED COOL BREEZES AND WARM SUNSHINE...

I NEED SOME FREE WHEELIN'...

A LITTLE OPEN SPACE...

MY HANDS UPON THE WHEEL... A LITTLE PEACE OF MIND...

IS THAT TO MUCH TO ASK?

- JOHN RICHARD HUSTINGS -

1983