Bad Poetry and Other Good Things

[iamgbow]

solstice (Aspen dispatch 4)

seasonal equidi-S-tant stardate

magpie organisms objectify shiny-O-bject

no [b roke n] glass by the poo-L-

sandstone silverdollar piling-S- on bedrock

bell -T-owers sans bells celestial amoebas on fleas on rats 

we call 'em quak-I-es cloud gradient forest eyes

debating -C-elsius and Farhenheit reading Corvus 

another revolution to -E-quinox dog off leash eating french fries

[iamgbow]

check for ticks (Aspen dispatch 3)

check for ticks

tiny white clouds floating down down down to the ground, gathering in small effervescent clusters

I love the cotton [achoo!] wood

sol sun standingstill stice

mind = mineshaft silvermoon downray greycloud whiteday

shale-and-granite rooftopdowntown

red sandstone city center tell me about your fascination with rugby fields

[iamgbow]

stingin'nettle (Aspen dispatch 2)

I felt the stingin'nettle before I saw it flashbacktrack to the place of my origin. 

spruces redman

abstract wasatch passages villages with biblical names 

my grandfather working in woodsmoke grandmother slicing tomatoes with dull knives. dusty tassels on a mythical leather jacket 

sacred fables sunken in soil where wildflowers wax and wane solstice to equinox to solstice 

Columbine Lupinus Indianpaintbrush

canyons here so steep and narrow the ground between remains dark even at day’s meridian

soul sole sol all remains alive

and I can make it to that tree

[iamgbow]

lakehouse lean (Aspen dispatch 1)

lakehouse lean LARPing imperialism

commonthreadbare omissions amid aeronautical time dilation 

atmosphere above kansas is a murder of crows

do not attempt to flush the pizza box while incandescent vapor channels dissolve into the solstice

soul vessel organic metaform molecularprisonriot 

all seek a different moon. seek all a callback to last year’s angle of the sun. 

thank you for flying earth airlines. the time is now. 

happy deathmarch. you are now years old

new jersey turnpikeplace market 

I know a spot just over that ridge. down below where the river runs crooked and cold

do you remember then when we kept the root beer and watermelon in the campside creek to cool?

neither do I 

[iamgbow]

molting

it could have been a ghost a mirage

fata morgana

It's always the smoke. Those sexy curves that can never...stay...still

::blink:: ::blink::

the feeling that you've been set up and all the world is an elaborate joke.

the word "solipsism" comes to mind

and the feeling fades as though the connection were stunted by some deep deep deeper untruth.

I'm just a traveler between time and balanced on some abstract meridian.

I am a new man

but here...

being alive means nothing in the land of the dead and the high desert haze and weary faces remind me:

I am just a traveler here.

[iamgbow]

just another shade of christmas

there's creosote in the air;

the smells of the first burn of fall and the overtly racist descriptions of the joro spider are lurking in the shadows

there are laborers

"I can buy your hand"

installing bead board and painting the inside of a two car garage.

"I can buy your back"

in the color touted by the influencers (brought to you by The Home Depot, and Pottery Barn) as THE garage color of the season

"But I cannot buy your heart and soul."

the games we used to play, chutes and ladders and candyland and fantasy football (aka django unchained for the modern american who likes their violence controlled, and as far away as possible)

halloween is just another shade of christmas; candy in different colors.

no longer warmed by this year's rendition of last year's version of the previous year's iteration of the corporate interpretation of a pagan tradition,

the highlight of my day is the way the acorns ---pop--- beneath my feet and how the remaining leaves hold on to the rain as long as possible...until it's finally time to just

let

go.

[iamgbow]

even the cats have manners

I have four walls and a window

and I walk amongst the glorious homes in this once untouched forest where everything is vibrant and healthy and cared for and timeless and even the cats have

manners.

and I feel so far away from what I know, so far from the dust and wind and lakebed rocky soil and sun-scorched grass...where every living thing is starving in some form or

another 

here I am the migrant, an obscure vagabond, a transient temporal testament to what can and will go wrong. oh how often we fall prey to trust and integrity.

what’s really at the end of this rope?

I walk to the lake and I watch the tiny waves come and go.  I watch the vultures lazily gliding in the distance.  I watch the monogamous geese, marching in pairs. I watch the turtles rising for air, appearing magically from the clay-stained water.

Am I the water? Am I the muddy shores? Am I the shimmer on the surface?

am I the mayfly, dancing in the speckled sunlight, dancing in artist’s eye and, dancing still dead in the sights of the incoming

swallow?

...no...

I am a tick embedded in a much larger more elegant and refined

beast

[iamgbow]

where clouds converge

Somewhere,

just beyond the blurry horizon line of your mind’s eye,

where clouds converge, 

where everything that ever was, and ever will be

exists.

creation is really the act of discovering that which has always been, living and existing on some other plane.

creation is finding that point on the horizon,

where clouds converge,

and pulling shapes and colors and concepts out of the ether and into your current reality - not replacing, but duplicating so that

everything that ever was, and ever will be,

remains.

all you see.  all you touch.  all you create was not made, but found,

where clouds converge.

[iamgbow]

butplease

it's a deal then you can say what you want

butplease

don't

there's the tease of the

carrot

which is me and the stick

is

the

pathology of internal assumption

[iamgbow]

ous

an engine revs somewhere in the distance

commercial airliner creep creep creeps across the sky dragging plumes of

one less tree to worry about

the snake and the frog, the spider and the heron.  there. on the shore. you can argue the definition of

"poisonous" and "venomous"

but what's the difference

when you're struggling

to

breathe?

[iamgbow]

sway this way

I sat on a bench at the edge of the lake and watched the tiny waves move driftwood at real-time-time-lapse speeds toward the muddy shore

some time passed.

I felt less like a violator of this space, and more a part of it.

if I could be still enough - patient enough - would a bird land on me? would a spider begin to spin its web in the crook of my arm? would the trumpet vine climb climb climb up me?

so still.

something on my neck I don’t care what. an itch on my ankle I don’t scratch. finding myself holding my breath I’m breathing so softly.

there’s the hum of the earth. the plates shifting. the chaos of wind. the delicate breath of a bumble bee’s flapping wings.

in spite of my stillness - and extreme patience - and deep meditation - no bird alighted, no spider spun, and no vine crept. I was still a visitor in this place.

I realize now, that it’s not enough to be still, you have move

like the trees.

[iamgbow]

a star is born

what we had

have

is the way the breeze turns the leaves, but

there’s no slow burn just

supernova

it’s the pink blaze of a wild azalea on a rock island

fire fire fire then smoke.

the smoldering last breath of flash fire

it’s not that we’re broken. what we have just can’t fit in any box, imagined or

otherwise

its the ground ivy that hides the snake, and the suburban lake bed littered with Mesozoic 

remains.

[iamgbow]

outsidein

before the street lamps and the soundless swirl of bats

the sun sits low in the sky, somewhere behind the trees, hanging on, resisting the pull of the moon.

there’s a hazy-creamy glow that makes all the greens greener.

azaleas bloom where once the anonymous blank space of winter and

half-wild wisteria draped drunkenly on larger things - a Dionysian temptation for all but the butterfly.

a static calm - maybe the threat of rain - no breeze and all standing water is rendered glass.

flicker of candlelight it seems is the only appropriate light and each flame dances to the hum of the earth - above beyond beneath and beside anything we can fully understand or express.

speaking is pointless. breathing is calculated - how many heartbeats are in lockstep tonight?

before the sword of Orion, and the cricket drone, the world wants you to wait for

just one minute.

[iamgbow]

morgan falls

not far from here,

evergreen shrubs. some kind of  rhododendron

the brittle remains of fallen trees. some snapped in half, succumbing to some unseen flaw. an anomaly. some tiny weak spot that formed long ago and grew weaker with each passing year.

(I know how that feels)

the trees grow tall here.

some cut clean. sawdust held to damp ground. mixed with the autumn leaves. gold on top of red on top of brown.

sycamore on top of oak on top of birch

the thin skeletal branches on tiny trees springing up and down under the nervous weight of a silent black bird. 

you can see the river here. not so during summertime when the rain comes unexpected and channels down hill (as water does)

exposing the golden glitter in the red Georgia clay.

further in. smoke rises. the small chatter of gatherings. families taking photographs in matching shirts. children playing. a bench overlooking a wall of bamboo.

some history remains. but it doesn't feel like progress and there is no atavistic roar. the falls aren’t falling and the river rolls on

indifferent.

[iamgbow]

a curious case of whatif

encased in the decadence and sublime ignorance that is affluence and  the ironic coexistence of sheltered and worldly

where so many have the means to be myopic.

a world built upon death and ghosts that still to this day whistle through the trees, and the bonemeal in the mortar and the blood in the clay that forms the bricks

really I’m just a few bad choices - or tough breaks - away from destitution, destruction

and

oblivion

and I wonder what our modern world would look like if Martin Luther King Jr. had been white, and Hunter S. Thompson had been black.

without the ease of stereotypes who is the visionary? who is the patriot? who is the radical? who is the menace?

who is revered? who is reviled?

there is no culture without counterculture and we try in vain to peg the misery on ________.  there is no revolution. and there never will be

because everyone today is so comfortable

even the hippies have

cellphones.

[iamgbow]

land yet alluded to

there sits a crane defiant against

the rust and gold skeletons of the river trees.

behind this the evidence of creation is a smoky glacial visage inverted against the glintshake sky.

the weathered and rotting fencepost not unlike the other inhabitants in this or any land...walking or standing or crying or dying among the oxide and treeless faces and beneath them all ruins of past present and future.

What once was will be or is 

when the time is right yourself, found and as yet lost in a blank space on an ancient map

crafted by people you’ve never met,

and are told by whom you trust

to believe

[iamgbow]

homeostasis

how delicate is that line between

nurturing and smothering

see also: homeostasis

the thirstiest of plants will die from being overwatered. how desperately the fern needs shade. and how many species have succumbed to our best intentions?

the orchid and the rock.

the withered, the weathered. yes, vibration emanates from even the densest of objects. solid granite pulses with life. ashes to ashes, dust to dust, diamonds to coal, steel to rust.

And here is man, the one creature who can bend, mold, exercise and execute his will, for he survives.  

and man will be the last creature to walk this earth [and the next] and would that be considered

victory or defeat?

with each breath I exhale life, and inhale death.

and to think I lived my entire life as if I were made of stone, only to find out I was a delicate

flower.