What I have seen with closed eyes is yet to be. Where in the river is there a rock to hold on to?
Ray Whitaker has been writing poetry since about age sixteen. His poetry writing covers current events with intuition, clarity, and form. His poetry has been described as poignant, relative, and invoking.
He is a member of the NC Poetry Society, the NC Writer’s Network, ‘The Neopoet Group’ in promoting an International Poetry Family and participates with other Poets in anthology works [2022]. Since moving to the Colorado Springs area in 2021, he has been participating with the Pikes Peak Arts Council and other cultural resources during National Poetry Month and Arts Month in Colorado Springs.
His interest in photography has been in place since his teenage years. He uses several Olympus Digital Cameras to record and compose his images.
One of the mature voices in poetry, his work brings insight to the everyday occurrences in our lives, as well as in-depth examinations of the dilemmas we find ourselves in. Sometimes writing as a Poet of Agitation, as well as a Poet of Witness, his work is current to most any reader.
All writers and poets are writing out of “the Self” however there are directions that the self speaks into, that change. Now Ray’s writing is to put foremost in his work, just who he is writing for. He intends on writing for the everyday man and woman. He firmly believes that poems need to reach into the everyday person’s pictures in their minds, and engage with those. This is where he aims to make a difference in his creative writing. He’s fulfilled when he sees that his work is provoking thought in his readers. Ray has four books published, and two chapbooks. His work has been published in ten different countries.
Ray was a Delegate to the 2024 Writer’s International Panorama Festival this past January. He participates regularly with several zoom poetic events worldwide. Among them, he has been spotlighted on a US National Poetry broadcast from Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio In April, ’24; and also has an upcoming International Poetry Recital hosted by The Fertile Minds out of India this April.
SIMIANS
What I will become waits in me like an ape
Moving hand in hand thru the tree limbs
Shaking the flitting leaves with the movement
As if a wind blows strong.
What I may become is different from that
Like an orangutan
All orange and hairy
With and expressive face
And having arms too long
For a nicely tailored shirt.
Thinking sometimes that what I have become is
Expressing like a howler monkey
White-faced, with a screech
That resounds off the trunks of trees
In the jungle
As their leaves absorb the rain.
What I have seen with closed eyes is yet to be.
Where in the river is there a rock to hold on to?
The Eye of Horus stares at me
Its magical power inherit
Daring me to use
My opposable thumb.
***
HALLWAY OF COMPASSION
The sign reads Radiology across the hall
Nurses and therapists walk by carrying
Their nourishment for the work
To attend to the infirm
Sometimes it takes all they’ve got to give.
A bit further down the hall
The wall pulses Cardio-Pulmonary in bright red letters.
Some folks hurry by
As if they are afraid,
To breathe.
When what’s true is they are just in a hurry
To get to the cafeteria at the far end of the long corridor.
The reception area is nearly empty.
The patient has been taken in.
The family awaits as if a bear is around the corner.
The bear is large, quiet, yet angry and reddish-brown
The patients and family do not dare to disturb it
A Therapist comes out of the staff only door
Calls: “Mrs. Aorta, it’s time…”
Though he would have taken Mr. Venacava if need be.
It is the dream of many to get to the doors
At the other end of the great long hallway
Passing the bear safely, unnoticed
Still strongly able to put one foot
In front of the other.
***
WALKING THAT OLD ROAD AGAIN
Deep in the woods
There is the stream crossing on flat stones.
Down by the creek
Where the turtles are up on the flat rock
Look closely now clouds suddenly cover woodlight
Its dim, you may see Mr. No-shoulders on the bank too.
The journey continues through the thick standing woods
To where the log cabin once stood
Four cornerstones still mark their job
Support plain, even these many years later
Further down by the creek is where the turtles sun
And where the otters play.
This woods walk gives a time for reflection
On your considerations this day
Deep behind the leaves just off the path
The deer are watching your paces.
Closing your eyes, you can still hear
Her sweet sad voice singing y’all’s touching song.
You can sit on the place of the broad, open bank
With your feet in the water
Sunlight and water splashing on wet toes, it’s just stirling
Wondering where next is it you need to go,
To continue to grow,
Which path is there, to take you to a destiny that cares!
___________________
