a moment turned

...an abstraction from a longer poem

a moment where time stretches-
stairs growing longer with each season,
yet the house doesn’t change.

Names slip-
spoken and lost, like coins lost in a torn pocket-
clinking faintly in empty halls.

Mornings are misplaced,
folded into tired afternoons.
The calendar lies blank, scraped raw,
its edges powdered with erased plans.

Memory-lanterns fog,
their flames sputtering wax into silent rooms.
Rooms hollow as unbreathed ribs,
their emptiness pressing in.

The glacial movements,
each step a test of balance,
each pause a fight to recall a name.

The body grows heavy.
But the space between heartbeats-
this quiet is still known.

.

Reviews

[Michael Sun Bear]

This is beautiful writing even if one finds the message sad. There are so many great lines. I think my favorite is “Mornings are misplaced, folded into tired afternoons.” I so related. I am giving a lot of thought to your last two lines as I recently suffered an extended period of severe atrial fibrillation, which completely disrupted my life in a frightening manner and gave new meaning to “the space between heartbeats.” So I just read your poem through again and decided it’s going into my Favorites library.

[redd Brick Keshner]

Thanks for the Fave, Michael. After hundreds of poems this is a rarity indeed. One of the most important functions of poetry, I believe, is its ability to tackle any and all emotions and human conditions. Thanks also for taking this poem along with your personal journey. This is such a privilege. 🕊️🙏Freds

[Soren]

Age, memory, the more pages read the harder to retain all the details and as the end grows near all merges into one story without details. In some dementia hastens the pace. A lovely write my friend and I feel it all to clearly as the years take their toll. I love the metaphor used here and the second stanza is very identifiable.

[redd Brick Keshner]

Hello, Soren. The merging and conflating is quite confabulating! Perhaps Sean diving it would be the most graceful thing to do! Thanks as always, dear friend 🙏🏻🕊️

[Soren]

Most welcome my friend

[RomaJ]

Redd, this poem struck me profoundly. I love how you stretch a single moment into a landscape of memory, weight, and passage. The stairs, the lost coins, the hollow rooms..they all carry both tactile and emotional gravity, and yet, amidst that drift, the quiet between heartbeats reminds us of something enduring, almost sacred. It reads like a meditation on presence itself, on what remains when so much else slips away.

There is a luminous melancholy here, a recognition of fragility, and the language mirrors that with precision and care.
Beautifully penned,
Roma

[redd Brick Keshner]

Thank you, Roma. The sacral quality of both life and poetic expression are quite essential to the mind and to being. At least I think so.🙏🏻🕊️

[Chris Shaw]

The aging process, the body and mind in decline. Nothing remotely pleasing about that. The harsh reality that many have to face.

Silent rooms, glacial expressions, some really great lines here Freds. Third stanza superb.

Chris

[redd Brick Keshner]

Nan used to say we have to age with grace and dignity. And there is much comfort in that. Thanks for telling me about the third stanza, Chris. 🙏🕊️
Freds

[Chris Shaw]

Yes, with grace and dignity if permitted, your nan was right. Sadly for some dignity, flies out the window. I see it all too often at the Oaks when I visit my aunt. Aging can be so damn cruel Freds.

[redd Brick Keshner]

And that is one of my trepidations as the years grow slimmer! Perhaps poetry will be an aid to guide and keep. I guess, we shall see, Chris. Thanks so much.
Freds/