Featured Writer

                     Gregory Hoyal

                      of Prescott, Arizona                                                      

        Gregory Hoyal was born in Oakland, California, in 1955. He has always been an avid reader, going through the classics during his teens, particularly: Dostoevsky, Hemingway and Jack London. Tolkien was and is a favorite and has read the trilogy a dozen times as well as all the other miscellany.
         In his early 20's following a stint in the Navy during the tail-end of Vietnam, he embraced the spiritual life and studied many different forms of religion.
Gregory feels the high point of his life came when he had the good fortune to learn from two true American Masters, Joseph Miller and his wife Guinevere at the San Francisco Theosophical Society. Gregory states, “If I am not a total waste of time it is due to whatever small scraps of their wisdom I managed to ingest.”
         Any academic knowledge regarding poetry Greg says came in his 20's from his beautiful girlfriend of the time, Peggy Tahir, who he also admits was a cracking good poet. “Peggy generally loathed my poetry, but I picked up a few tricks from her and her artsy pals,” says Gregory. He also studied at SF State under Stan Rice (husband of Anne Rice of neck biting fame).
Time passed and Greg moved north to Index, Washington, where, Greg says, “I spent 15 years losing whatever self-respect I had left, but I met some cool ghosts and a beautiful girl who gave me the thrashing of a lifetime. Somewhat recovered, I now reside in the high desert of Arizona trying to write a series of short stories and a novel that I've been hacking away at far too long surrounded by my loving family and adoring fans.”

Enjoy a few poems by Gregory:

LONELINESS IS

Loneliness is the essence of the human condition
the longing for love, for the touch of a hand.

We all know how the empty night can be endless
the empty heart an open wound
When the march of years wears our lives
to little more than what had been.

A woman clothed with the sun
shall be dawning.

She waits for me there
when I lay down at last
in the embrace of my beautiful goddess,
every woman in the world.

I will become every man in her arms.

          ~Gregory Hoyal

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JOY IS

Joy is the natural state
a simple breath can take you.

No looking glass will show
the all pervading void.
No dust is fallen there

Nothing has touched you
empty yet full
endless without beginning
a calm river flowing
limitless light expanding
a quiet heart.

          ~Gregory Hoyal

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THAT THERE IS MORE

That there is more to all this
Than the horror we make of it
That some lasting part remains
When all seems spent
That some kind hand will take ours
When darkness surrounds
And the chatter of our insanity dies at last.

          ~Gregory Hoyal

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THERE WILL COME A TIME

There will come a time
when the last of our children
looks to the night sky
and sees only the black empty universe.

Dark Lord Entropy prepares his final victory,
our mother lies cold and silent.

Mighty star-ships, as many as the sands,
floating derelict; no valiant crews,
no new horizon,
no galaxies like wondrous snowflakes dancing
spinning to the music of their subtle songs.

What would you feel then,
the last one in the last days?

No years stretching forth,
only a billion billion yesterdays
no sons or daughters to give remembrance,
nothing.

All the poets and painters,
the builders and those who made green places in the earth,
all of them gone with no trace or legacy.

Will any of it matter then
when eyes close for the last time,
the vastness gathering round
while the final sun flickers and dies alone.

          ~Gregory Hoyal
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SUCH DREAMS I HAD

Such dreams I had then
again and again
until I found myself one day
with no hope in this world.

My body no longer strong or able
memory failing
thoughts now going the way of all my dreams.

I shall sit quietly
hoping that some might think an old fool wise.

My final dream not so different after all.

          ~Gregory Hoyal

If you would like to be considered for Featured Writer, please email your poems to heart@sc.rr.com or mail to: 

Connie Martin, Editor ~Nostalgia Press~2003 Broughton St.~Orangeburg, SC 29115