Author: Rob Kistner

Original DDE™ art: “What It Takes” by: rob kistner © 12/16/25

 

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2025 taught me survival

as a quiet discipline

 

not heroics

not banners

just breath

returning again and again

 

eight hospital days

machines humming

uncertainty

confusion

ebb and flow of fear—

 

time reduced to repetitive procedures

meaningless chant of numbers

mask-obscured faces

voices in the near dark

unfamiliar medical odors

and endless footsteps—

so many footsteps

 

eventually names

and increasing recognition

 

I learned—

the strange journey of surgery

how stubborn the body can be

how mercy arrives

disguised as routine care

how precious water is

privacy is relative—

 

and the number of dedicated people

needed for one critically ill to survive

 

how life keeps choosing you

even when you are unsure

 

 survival

ultimately is not defeating fear

it is gratitude

practiced daily

 

for morning light

for water held steady in a glass

for the kindness of caring hands

for a gentle word

 

for memory

still answering its name

 

I move slower — yes

and much less steady

but every step carries thanks

 

being here is enough

I accept the gift

and hold it gratefully

 

rob kistner © 12/15/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

 

 

Original DDE™ art: “Forever” by: rob kistner © 12/16/25

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before the gate opens

your hand steadies my heart

 

golden light gathers in the flowers

like the precious luster of your hair

 

we lean into our promised future

beginning—

breathing one horizon

 

where love becomes a path

and every step is already homeward

—forever

 

rob kistner © 12/15/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

Original DDE™ art: “King of the Mountain” by: rob kistner © 12/11/25

Original DDE™ art: “Winter Mountain” by: rob kistner © 12/11/25

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frost trims every pine

breath blooms in the cold

snow hushes the trail

crows carve distant arcs

icicles ring faint

light breaks through the firs

 

a fox prints the ridge

creek mist curls upward

wind waltz’s old growth

moss glows under ice

stumps play mountain tag

silence leans in close

 

shadows drift like wraiths

climbs thrust ancient spines

sun flares gold — then fades

deer pause in thin light

sky holds winter’s blues

night steps soft and sure

 

rob kistner © 12/11/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

        .Original DDE™ art: “Euterpes” by: rob kistner © 12/8/25

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I.

she sang like someone

afraid her breath

might bruise the air—

 

soft…

 

trembling…

 

a moth

caught in the bright machinery

of a spotlight

 

yet her voice

her amazing voice

unfurled in colors

only the lonely

or the broken

could see—

 

lavender spirals…

golden threads of harmony…

red embers of passion—

 

all curling upward

 

like smoke

from a slow-burning star

II.

 

he watched from the doorway

of the world beside this one—

 

the tech genius

with midnight-static eyes

 

the man—

 

who walked confidently…

who heard things…

who knew things…

ahead of everyone else

 

his coat shimmered with circuitry—

fabric stitched from the edges

of equations

 

boots dark as mirrors

reflecting futures

that hadn’t occurred

 

he didn’t applaud

he listened

he watched

 

he saw time

bend around her voice

like heat around a flame

III.

 

after the show

the alley peeled open—

 

a long corridor

made of floating tape reels

spooling backward

into the scent of rain

on old vinyl

 

street lamps

melted into neon shapes

the world had yet to invent

 

her breath

formed pearls of sound

that hovered…

hesitated…

then popped—

into tiny bursts of light

 

he stepped through the distortion…

 

a silhouette

drawn in electric ink—

 

reached for her hand

as if touching a fragile frequency

that might vanish

if startled

 

IV.

 

time parted

like a curtain

 

melting clocks

sagged on velvet air—

their seconds dripping

thick as honey

 

electric guitars

grew from the floor

humming chords

older than memory—

newer than tomorrow

 

fragments of 1967

drifted by—

 

paisley fireworks

above the bay bridge

unfurling in slow motion

 

a whisper of Woodstock

carried on the wind

 

Janis laughing

                                    somewhere at the top of the sky

 

our confused girl felt a breeze

from another decade

lift her hair

 

calling her by a name

she’d never spoken aloud.

V.

 

her shyness cracked…

 

thin shell falling away

from this woman

who had been waiting

inside the quiet

 

her shadow split…

four versions of herself—

each singing a different note

 

a harmony of everything

she had refused to believe

she could become

 

he stared

perplexed

frozen in awe

 

he realized too late…

she was not

an anchor

for his temporal machine—

 

she was the storm

that made time tremble

VI.

 

she stepped high

onto a floating vinyl disk

spinning like a slow universe

 

felt the pulse of the sixties

thrum beneath her bare feet

 

for the first time

she lifted her chin

and let the world see her

without apology

 

let the world hear her

unfiltered

 

her voice rose

fearless and iridescent

and entire decades awakened—

like giants

turning over in sleep

 

it was in that moment

the tech genius understood

 

he hadn’t taken her to the past—

she was pulling the past

to her

 

reshaping time…

 

a new future

from a single

impossible note

 

this girl was

Euterpe—

 

goddess of music

goddess of lyric poetry

goddess of the double-reed flute…

come again—

 

to bring a new sound

into the world

 

rob kistner © 12/9/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

Through an open, where no curtain hung — I saw you…

Original DDE™ art: “Many Paths” by: rob kistner © 12/8/25

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When Elias returned to the valley after forty years, nothing had changed except him. The houses sagged in their same crooked ways, and the river still braided silver ribbons through the pines. But the mountain—his mountain—waited with the stillness of something that had been watching all along.

He stood at its base, breath misting in the cold.

“The granites and schists of my dark and stubborn country,” he said aloud, tasting the old words  his father once recited, “have not forgotten me.”

A faint vibration answered, subtle as a heartbeat felt through earth. Elias stepped closer. Memory rose from the ground—his childhood footprints, his mother’s laughter, the echo of a boy’s unbroken hope.

“I thought I was lost,” he whispered, choking back years of tears.

The mountain offered no comfort, only presence.

Yet somehow, that was enough to bring him home.

 

rob kistner © 12/8/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

This song I consider to be one of the most stunningly beautiful, and yet, most devastatingly sad songs ever written… the depth of Balin’s lyrics and the fragile delicacy of the performance are masterful!!  …and the Rickie Lee Jones performance below will break your heart, if it is not already broken…

Original DDE™ art: “Cadbury Crazy” by: rob kistner © 12/8/25

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in the hush of Arctic midnight

when most sane creatures sleep

a giant Kodiak bear

lumbers through the snow’n sleet

an appointment he needs keep

 

driven by a sinister craving

a craving dark and deep

 

not  salmon

not ripe berries

not moose steaks on the grill—

no

this bear wants Cadbury eggs

and he craves to get his fill

 

he raids the local sweet shops

trips the bells with joyful clout

paws the pastel wrappers

till the crème is all squished out

 

he stacks them like fine treasures

each egg a sacred prize

then toddles off in darkness

quite pleased with life

 

a subtle twinkle in his

Ursus arctos eyes

 

now folks in Nome

leave him offerings—

a box or two each night

in hope that Sticky

(the bear ‘s handle)

will spare their doors

and keep the peace polite

 

but still he comes a-rumbling

a legend now well known:

the mighty Cadbury-Crazed Kodiak

who rules the streets

and the sweets

 

rob kistner © 12/8/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

 

Original DDE™ art: “Idea Rising” by: rob kistner © 12/7/25

 

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a new dawn

moves inside me—

 

so soft

it feels like breath

I didn’t know I was holding

 

it arrives without clarions

just a warm press of presence

in a place I go — too seldom

 

an idea

 

astonishing

yet gentle in its entry—

 

it rises like a slow wave

a momentous tide

made of quiet insistence

 

it breaks — not on the world

but on the shy shoreline

behind my heart

 

where I keep the parts of myself

I’ve learned to protect

 

when it reaches me there

I feel something deepen—

 

a tenderness

a recognition

a small courage waking

 

the idea doesn’t demand

it simply waits

as if asking a single question:

 

Will you let me stay?

 

and I do

I let it find its way

through the bright passages

of my wild imagination

 

into my quiet inner passages

of conceptual calculation

 

into the dim corners

that still remember how to blaze—

 

it is mapping

with its soft searching light

everything I have yet to create

 

it is looking

for a fresh shore

from which to embark

 

as this new dawn

of an incredible idea

rises—

 

quiet at first

 

just a shimmer

on the mind’s horizon—

 

it soon will break

sudden and immense

 

like a momentous wave

unspooling its long-held thunder

upon the open shore of possibility

 

I feel it gather

feel it swelling

 

a pulse of light

moving through shadow

 

a whisper

sharpening into full voice

 

It brings with it

the scent of futures

that have not yet

learned their names

 

the faint warmth of brilliance

testing the edges of becoming

 

in this widening hush

I finally understand

 

I am not witnessing the idea—

I am entering it

 

its pulls me inward

toward its bright terrain—

 

where imagination

keeps its promises

 

and creation breathes

its first deep breath

 

here

on this radiant shoreline

everything is suddenly alive—

 

and the world waits

listening

for what magic will call out

from this rising tide

of virgin light

 

rob kistner © 12/7/25

Poetry at: dVerse

 

Time will change us, but we can’t change time.

Original DDE™ art: “The Current” by: rob kistner © 12/4/25

 

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there is a vital current

in the vast sea of time

 

a gentle but constant flow

below the visible world

 

it carries the fading warmth of now

into tomorrow’s still-forming light

 

we drift upon its invisible insistence

held by a rhythm older than memory

guided by forces

that whisper through our choices

 

through the soft turning of seasons

through the small courage of endeavor—

of waking again

 

today glimmers briefly—

a bright crest

on a wave already traveling

 

already reshaping itself

into the next unfurling moment

 

ahead lie uncharted waters

shorelines faint as breath

possibilities drifting like seeds

on winds of a distant summer

 

time moves

we move with it—

toward the bright edge of becoming

 

time’s current holds us steady

even when we lose our way—

 

it moves us gently

faithfully

toward the future

 

a future

rising like a breaking sunrise

over an unseen land

 

rob kistner © 12/4/25

Poetry at: dVerse