Midnight Walkin' Series of Poems - by Mark Raymond Ganzer

Tjhe following collection of poems I wrote, beginning on 17 September, 2010, the day I decided to quit taking my anti-depressant, and stopped being a person with an extremely limited range of emotions (depression not being one of them - joy not being another).

Grant me compassion oh Lord, above all else
And humility, that I not dare to judge
That I not forget my own foibles
That I strive to give comfort at all times to those in discomfort
And thank You, for the many gifts you have given me
For drawing me back from the edge
When I looked into the abyss
And saw no other way out.

Oh Lord, please grant
That there be Karma on this earth
So that the good that Your good ones do
Shall feed them in their hour of hunger
Shall shelter them from the storms
Shall bind them safely unto their own
That they always know their own,
And their own shall know thee.


Went a'walkin' tonight
And the moon looked just like
A tangerine slice
Standing ripe and upright
on a phantom table top
above the house tops
and the tree line
in the Western sky
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Walked again, late tonight.
Up the road, northbound, past the elementary grade school
where Carnival weekend ended earlier, at 6 p.m.,
Except for the carnies, who must take it all down,
and pack it all up, before they can trek South.

Could almost swear I heard the mysterious sounds
of the spirit voices of teenagers, too old now
to be seen at a carnival for "the little" kids.
But sensed that the spirit voices still had
a tiny longing to be there once again,
to experience the wonderment and joy that carnivals bring
to young boys maybe young girls too, when first they ride
those oh so big machines, not the least embarrassed
to be clutching very close to the side
of dad; probably even mom too would do.
Or maybe it's just me I heard - missing the days
when Adam was younger, and smaller, and I might loomed
large, like Homer Simpson, a pretty big presence in his life.

Farther north, farther beyond the school, things got
eerily quiet. No dogs barking, no cars driving by,
no skunks, no coyotes, no raccoons - to be seen,
nor to be heard. Lights out save for the occasional
home with a TV light glowing in an otherwise dark room.

Turned around to come back.
And I wondered why the Ferris Wheel is missing?
Can it really be a carnival with no Ferris Wheel?

Cloudy skies, didn't even glimmer the moon until
I got back to the school. No tangerine moon tonight,
no way no how. Chalk white moon, moon beams barely
peeking through but when they do, eerily slipping through
the darkness of cloud cover. Saw one star only.

Is it always like this when summer slips away?
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Tangerine-shaped moon again tonight
Tangerine-shaped moon again tonight, so white
Low riding in the pitch-black cloudless Eastern sky
Hovering, just hovering, not resting any any table-top
house-tops or tree-tops,
Looking more like it's being held ever so still
By some invisible puppeteer's strings

But how'd the moon move there tonight, midnight,
What arc did it travel?
What course did it take?

There is so much that I don't know,
That I still need to learn.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Portents of things to come
Went mid-morning walking today
And the sun shone so warm and bright
Above an infinitely blue sky
That it would have been possible
To miss the south-wind carrying
A chilling breeze, a portent of
The things that are to come.

October, mostly my favorite time,
And not merely because of Halloween,
Adam James' favorite holiday, and all
Those wonderful memories of Adam and Peter
Wearing grim reaper costumes
And the delightfully silly smiles
They wore too, smiles
That come so naturally to vaguely aware boys.

Nor because of the tree leaves transforming
Into their true colors, so grandly,
So vividly, so majestically, and then
So suddenly gone, save for the odd withered one or two
That hang on so valiantly (or so habitually)
Until the gusty winds of March
Finally persuade them to leave that to which they clung,
As attached as I am to this house,
To this neighborhood,
And to my memories.

October holds the promise of the greatest grandness
Of the trees; so grand that thoughts of winter's
Harshness are pushed somewhere deep into the recesses
Wherein dwell the hopes and dreams of a silly boy
Who once loved in a silly, hopeless, helpless way,
That comes so naturally to the vaguely aware.

Well, come, October, my old friend.
Welcome, October, my old dream.
Well, come, October, my desperate beginning.
welcome, October, my bitter end.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We need warm
We need warm, accepting, human beings
Who have learned life's most important lessons:
that life is not easy,
that we all stumble,
that we all fall,
that we cannot pull ourselves up all by ourselves,
(much less by our bootstraps)
that along the craggy, rocky way,
there have always been helping hands,
and guiding lights,
and guardian angels,
and that when we finally learn to forgive ourselves,
then, and only then,
do we learn to forgive others,
and become warm, accepting, human being