Homepage
CPC Online Shopping Mall
Classic Car/Truck Section
Automobilia/Collectibles
Handmade Classic Wooden Boat Models
Place An Order With Us
Journeys--Short Stories Of Good Things Remembered
Letter From the Owner
Links
Contact Us
QUESTIONS? Call Hal (the owner) at (518) 674-2445
Tiptoe through the rhymes and prose. Tickle your senses, then arrive at a place you never imagined you were going. Words do the deed of surprising. Be surprised. It will not hurt one bit.
Thoughts, Poems, and Prose
IF
If all the little boys and girls
kept their little toys and curls,
this world would be a daffy spree of happiness.
MEMORIES
How is it one remembers?
Pieces?
Small parts of a whole?
I remember all the inferences of spring--
cupping hands, trying to contain the wind
for other days when spring was just a memory.
In spring the winter shows its wisdom,
softly trailing powdery skirts
off over far horizons where past winters go to wait
and watch the open fields on mountaintops.
Did you know I'd lived ten lives
in my short, one score life?
I had.
I'd run through woods and felt the shaded ground
with hands that needed all their sense of feel
and more.
Every slight inflection made by woods and man
affected me--
here,
inside,
a place few people ever see.
I hope you saw it once before the world recalled you.
Memory is just a step away--
a thing we like to overlook when life is good
and cling with whitened knuckles to when storm clouds seem
apparent.
One other thing that seems apparent
is that springtime's losing out to summer once again.
It's happening outside my window
and beneath my bareskinned feet.
Silently,
occasionally,
when no one's here
I turn my eyes upward to some envisioned deity
and wonder...
Outside of Night
Frost is with the evening air
and summer's gone where summers go:
away.
To memories.
Wildflowers on the hill I walked upon barefoot
when spring was here
are giving one last show before their seasonal sleep.
Outside of night,
mountains still remain the best of places
to consider worlds from.
Catching colors as they live,
I,
unregenerate,
alone,
remain.
Certain as the wind that drives my soul,
the earth is good and generous.
And as a pensive, searching soul,
I cannot take my eyes from her.
Perspective
Perhaps we have to start with lightto understand our worth,
or even lesser things,
like rain or earth.
Krahnwanadhit
High up,
ascending
toward the mountains shaded with a blackened sky,
I,
alone with the night,
account for all my thoughts,
share them with the sweetened air,
and somehow justify a reason--
the reason to be peaceful--
that I found some doubts about
when the sun was out.
Room
All the seasons must have run
a little extra fast and far
to give this winter room to roar.
Criticism
When we're not some falling down thing
trying to be ourselves,
we're some fallen down thing.
Next to the Road, Limping Slowly
A soaking hat pulled tightly down,
a saddened face set in a frown,
an aching body, aged long past
what solitary years attest
gave him appearance of a man
beyond the point of feeling,
and attempting to make others feel,
a revolutionary's zeal.
Reaching
Night thoughts--
is where our treason lies.
Escaping definition,
vague, formless aspirations
for a better...
something.
Expression
Thoughts wear words
like the body wears clothes.
Some fit well--some fit poor,
but even those that fit the best
leave hidden beauty unexpressed.
Sometime
Sometime-----before the light is gone-----
we could empty our hearts of lost emotions
which leave us lonely in the night-----
and consider love.
Joshua
Joshua was just a dog
who stumbled over her own paws
when she was just a pup.
I used to pick her up
and run with her through fields at sunset,
let her sleep warm in my arms,
and sometimes in my bed.
And in return, she gave me love.
That may seem strange to those
who never loved a dog
or had a dog love them.
And if it came to choosing friends,
I'd choose from those who had,
because, when Joshua was gone
I used to look for her in fields
and sunsets,
and those who had would understand.
Aloof
Matters not,
your bland approach.
I've held God's hand sometimes in walking
through the evening, fog-damp, deep green fields on mountaintops.
Should I worry, then, about your cold?
Hope it's better soon.
Changing of The Guard
You take it now. It's time.
The dusty, tan-brown roads are quiet--
lightly brushed by cool night dew,
and fading fast are footsteps that I made.
I never understood the leaving
of some one thing, place, or feeling
loved so dearly...
but,
it's ready.
Time for you to take it now
and try to get the bend of it.
Comparison
The world looked out upon the sky,
and being a small part of this, I
looked out too, and listened, still,
to see and hear who would decide
when worlds resort to hope,
as people do, from in, as well as from outside.
Sophistication
This corner of the yard,
once kept,
has gone to weeds and wildflowers.
It will not tell the hours of work that kept it.
Should it have the chance
to go back to design again,
I believe it would reject it.
Insatiable
Once again is not enough,
or ten times that.
Wanting everything at once
keeps coming back.
On Confidence
Little bricks of my world
scattered all about me.
It doesn't take a hurricane
to blow things over.
Sometimes just a slight breeze will do.
All by Myself With You by My Side
May I turn to you in the morning
and ask you of mysteries unknown?
May you stand by my side in the sunset,
and in your presence, may I be all alone?
Let me gaze at your beauty of rareness,
let me walk with you through the tide.
Let me stay with you always, forever.
All by myself with you by my side.
It Is
And if you come to ask yourself,
if you come to wonder
what the grandest thing in life could be,
some wise and old, prophetic soul
once said that it is love.
It is.
Suspended
Dance.
The cool, blue moon,
suspended,
splashed the morning sky awake
and danced.
Far below,
the mountains ran the risk of waking,
all unseen.
Eliza
Some wondered why the autumn came,
why leaves already green enough
began to change,
except Eliza,
farmer-resident,
who said it had to be.
"It has to be,"
he said.
And when asked why, he'd say
"because things change,
because their standing still
would bring an end to life.
When people leave a farm, it dies,
because they take with them
the change of all their living."
He was right.
But still, when autumn ended,
old Eliza carefully wondered
at some leaves,
that clung to autumn trees,
reluctant to come down.
Eternity
Eternity can show her face
in most likely any place.
Skeptical
Improbable, the air,
the happenstance,
gold-aggregate that be.
Take two lungfuls of it with you
back to death.
I can spare them,
and you're going to dearly need them dearly.
Say
Cold, dark evenings tell the truth
of summer's warmth sublime.
Easy up and easy down,
breathe deeply all the sweetened flower fragrance,
say you love me, if you wish.
I wish it all the time.
Should You
Should you need the summer forest
when the winter's deeply-deep.
I will bring the fragrance of it
to you in your dreamy sleep.
Hero
I'll take the tree that fights the wind,
that, unwound down, snaps back again
above the quilted, patchwork earth,
and never, never, never dies,
before believing in rebirth.
Inside
In summer, summer time I stay
beyond the road, in quite a way,
among the pine and basswood trees.
If you should pass, remember me.
Into
Into the autumn we belong,
where wind is full of fragrant song
and memories and dreams undreamed.
That's not for sure, but so it seems.
Underneath
Underneath the night is me.
Lift a corner of it.
See?
Goodbye. I'm Finally Me
Sunnin' me
country side up.
Runnin' me
and laughing, childlike,
giggling.
Hopefully the business world
has given up on me,
packed their briefcases,
gone on home.
I'll mail them each
a delicate piece
of Queen Anne's Lace
to wonder on,
if it is they wonder still.
Ah well,
that hill is next,
and I intend to climb it high.
Goodbye.
Noncompliance
The wind shook windows
through the town.
Except for one,
which turned around
and shook it back
in planetary innocence,
with no regard for its offense.
Your comments or questions are welcome at houghton@classicpreservation.com.
© H. Houghton