You have opened a Site in Memory of  Shaughn O'Halice
 My name is
Hal Ethridge and my     wife is Alice Ethridge.

We live in Tucson Arizona All year around
My  E-mail address is "he_9921@yahoo.com"
I enjoy writing poetry and
playing with electronics.
Alice and Shaughn
Hal and Shaughn
This is Shaughn!
Actually Shaughnessy O'Halice
Born 14/01/1984
Died 23/04/2000
He Will Always be Loved
Please  read and (hopefully) enjoy my Poetry
The Poet
by Hal Ethridge
A poet paints with word and tone,
His colors bright or gray
realities that he has known
on paper makes them stay.
When loneliness assaults his day,
when life turns dark and grim,
he seeks solace in word play,
his way to talk to"'Him'.
He plays with words to fit his needs,
he looks for line and flavor
yet no one hears his silent plea's
to hear it said 'He's clever.
 
 
 
"WHEN ELEPHANTS WERE NOT EXTINCT "
is the work and property of Hal Ethridge.
It is for the use and enjoyment of his family and friends. It  remains his property.
 
TO REACH A DREAM
by Hal Ethridge
To reach a dream you must turn loose
of all that you are  holding
and grasp at that, which fleet's from you,
forgetting reasoned scolding.
The dream you seek if grasped, though weak,
will pay for all your loosing.
There is no cost too much to pay,
do it, stop your musing.
 
 
 
SPRING
by Hal Ethridge
Spring, dull brown, gray some green.
Breeze, wind really, some chill from melting snow.
Birds, well some Robin's somewhat bedraggled and sooty.
Water in sudden rivers washing waste in gutters to polluted        seas.
Me, older, grayer, sadder and disillusioned by yet another       
Spring.
 
 
NOW
by Hal Ethridge
 
Now we meet past with present, present with future. It is here where we spend our lives.
We are like a reed that grows from the bottom of a flowing        stream.
It protrudes through the surface and the current flows around  it.
We like the reed are rooted in place, and time like the current flows around us.
We can gaze down the stream and see our past as it flows away from  us,
now beyond control and only a memory.
We can anticipate the pleasure or pain we will feel as the currents
of the stream or life surge toward us. Yet these things are beyond control.
It is only the current that strikes us now, the present, that we  can deal with.
This is the 'now' of life that is everything.  Past, a dream of  what may have been.
Future, a dream that may be. Now is real, all that we can change, for better or worse.
For some, their roots grasp the stream bed firmly, or the currents are gentle.
For others the current may be great or their grasp on the bottom weak.
Yet for all, the erosion of time and current will finally cause the reed to
loose it's grasp and travel with the stream into the past.
The End
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBER
by Hal Ethridge
Falling stone, broken bone. Head bent, not heaven sent.
Pretty        Nurse is no curse. Treated good as she should.
Given bill! Feel real  ill. Now walk plains for my pains.
A MOMENT IN THE PARK
by Hal Ethridge
I made no promises today,
no bonds that I must keep.
The day is mine to work or play,
or maybe even sleep.
A poet paints with word and tone,
His colors bright or gray
realities that he has known
on paper makes them stay.
When loneliness assaults his day,
when clouds turn dark and        grim,
he seeks solace in word play,
his way to talk to   'Him'.
He plays with words to fit his needs,
he looks for line and  flavor
yet no one hears his silent plea's
to hear it said 'He's clever.
TODAY
by Hal Ethridge
A time to start,
the past depart.
Go along the way.
A new world pending,
the old one ending.
No call to bid it stay.
For something new,
the tried and true,
forsake for this new day.
In search for gain,
or escape from rain
It's time to make a  play.
Your never done.
The final gun
sounds once but not today.
NEW YEAR
by Hal Ethridge
A tiny point in time my friend
at new years start and old years end.
A time of fears and expectations.
A time to give congratulations.
 
For now in this short moment fleeting,
our hopes and fears are both competing,
fear of what fate has designed
and hope for what we seek to find.
The moments passed, you are beginning.
Your path is filled with losing/winning.
Reflect on what the old year taught.
Now set your goals and seek what's sought.
 
THE SOUND OF 'S'
by Hal Ethridge
Silent seas, sandy shores, setting sun.
Seeking sympathy, suffering.
Sighing sad songs silently.
Senses slowly suffocating.
Sadly seeking something.
Finding sublime senseless        sameness!
WASTED LIFE
by Hal Ethridge
A wasted life it may have been as mortals judge the ways of men,
but as I look upon the past and see the plan that fate had cast,
could I but live my life again, I'd do it now as I did then.
 
SOLITUDE
by Hal Ethridge
I want to go down to the beach today,
I want to walk in the sand.
I want to watch the breakers play,
and spend the day unplanned.
There's solitude on the beach I find,
alone twix't the sand and the sea.
Somewhere apart from the worldly grind.
A place where I can be me.
TENDER TOUCH
By Hal Ethridge
Soft hands on fevered temple that heal and soothe.
Soft words on troubled mental that never bruise.
Soft hands and words from strong brave love.
Your gentle ways are like a grove
where willows sway in gentle breeze.
Strong and supple through scorch or freeze.
Your "tender touch" to me.
 
EXODUS
by Hal Ethridge
Sun and sand and beach and sea, down in Mexico
underneath an orange tree where the pace is slow.
Every day is blue and gold, sky meets sand and sea.
Youth forever, never old. Here just you and me.
Take us from this hurried pace, below the border go.
Forget the Gringo's constant race where time is not a foe.
With the time clocks final stamp, when the rush is done.
Every day in tropic camp, sitting in the Sun.
 
WONDERING
by Hal Ethridge
Watching out the window at the distant mountain tops.
Wishing to be wandering out where the skyline stops.
Wanting more of living than to draw a daily pay.
Wistfully longing for a future not so gray.
Wasting precious moments as years go slipping past.
Wondering if it's worth it, each day so like the last.
Sitting, watching, wishing, wistful and forlorn.
Wasting time and wondering just why I was born.
 
Waking every morning afraid to face the day.
Wondering, ever wondering, should it really be this way?
POEM IN PASSING
by Hal Ethridge
 
I'm on my way to work today. I cannot say I earn my pay.
I have        to go, they tell me so cause I am poe, woe woe woe.
It is a sin, you        just can't win so off again for pay of tin.
Dawn to set of Sun, always        on the run. Never any fun. Now I'm done.
EARLY SPRING
by Hal Ethridge
It's coming Spring the snows are gone.
The winds of March are coming on.
The mountain sides will soon turn green
with scrub oak, pine and aspen clean.
 
These trails I rode in Spring's before
to mountain crag's where Eagles soar.
It's coming Spring but not for me,
there is no time, I can't be free.
FUTURE? PAST?
By Hal Ethridge
In day-dreams deep the Earth I see,
before Man came, (or after he
Had gone to what fate meant for him),
in ancient past, or future dim.
 
The Earth is dust, no foot-prints show.
In quiet beauty rivers flow.
Is Man to come, or has he passed?
It matters not, the dice are cast.
And Man for just his Moments glory,
His birth or passing, just a story.
His dreams and plans of "future? past?"
have been/may be, but will not last.
 
QUEST
by Hal Ethridge
In retrospect I now dissect my life and place it here.
Without a plan became a man and journeyed far and near.
I've seen Marseilles and Subic Bay, I've fought on Chosen's shore.
The land of Calm, then Viet Nam, and still, I journeyed more.
In Shannon town I've drunk them down, and Juarez found me there.
As memories pass, some dusky lass I've found exceeding fair.
So little time here in this rhyme to tell of where I've been,
but please take note and you may quote, my dreams take me again.
In quest of fun I've watched the Sun go down on Tokyo Bay.
'Neith azure sky's I've told sweet lies in Bordeaux far away.
I've drank wine near River Rhine, burned my candle at both ends.
So ends my quest of East then West, the past and future blends.
 
KIM
By Hal Ethridge
A dark bay mare, so close to black
with white upon her heels and nose.
A walk that set all others back.
My memory's of her glory grows.
 
A dancing step and willing ways.
No grade to steep or trail too        long.
A style to please admiring gaze
and at the finish going        strong.
No more is she there in her place,
but memory fills her empty        stall.
No more the chance to win the race.
Her racing's done, she won them all.
Now in my dreams I still can see
her cross the finish going strong.
Somewhere now she's running free.
Her memory bright however long.
 
 
RECOLLECTION
by Hal Ethridge
They came from the East and they came from the West
to show what their horses could do.
They came from the South with some of the best,
The North country was showing some too.
Their horses were good ones, the cream of the crop.
Their were fast ones and fine ones to see,
but the one that was best and always on top
was the mare that I called "Kimberly'.
When you looked for endurance she had what it took,
and start from a stop, she was fast.
For handle and savvy, why she wrote the book
and any horse running she passed.
 
I've seen some of the good ones and owned quite a few,
Thoroughbreds, Morgans and Grade
but that Quarter horse mare was better for true
wherever her entry was paid.
 
If horses were trading for gold pound for pound
and I had my druthers to say,
I'd still rather have that bay mare around
than all of the gold that they'd pay.
ON A STONE
by Hal Ethridge
He was not best, but far from worst.
Seldom last, not often first.
With too much zeal he wasn't gifted.
With time to spare a drink he lifted.
Yes watch the lady's fair he would,
and steal a kiss when ere he could.
He bragged a bit and told some story's
of better times and greater glory's.
 
Forget him now he's met his maker.
he met his match and couldn't shake her.
She did him in and he expired,
in act's of love she was inspired.
He left her here among the living,
because of all her willing giving.
He died in bed, his passion cresting
and though in bed he wasn't resting.
                      The End
 
 
 
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