The Journal of Bison Jack

These are the mumblings, stumblings, and humblings of Jason Armstrong Beck. ©JAB 2008-2026

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Closer

.

The closer we become,

the closer we are to the unknown;

the closer we are to what we cannot explain,

the closer we are to home.

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Here We Are

.

Here we are

quietly vanishing

while secretly

hoping we will see

through each other

before we disappear.

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Will King’s

.

With every breath we

stand at the edge of

a great abyss on the

frontier of our own

unimagined vastness.

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Memorial Day Weekend

.

Who are we to dream

but not remember

the lap of the waves

and flap of the breeze

and clap of distant thunder.

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A Resolute Tree

Last night, in the midst

of a late summer storm,

I stood in the window and

watched the live oak and

magnolia trees being mauled

by the wind and imagined

my arteries reaching deep

into the soil until they

became the roots of one

of the resolute trees so that

I might one day learn what

the trees had to say about

the man in the window.

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You Are A Stranger Here But Once

.

After all, she said,

perhaps happiness

is whatever time we

have left between

tragedies, illnesses,

disappointments,

and grief.

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Advice to a Young Poet (redux 2025)

Write a fistful of poems

before you are twenty one

and spend the rest of your

life rewriting them until your

fist becomes an open palm.

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The Prevailing Wind

.

When the light inside you

feels as though it is being

suffocated by the dark

theater of the prevailing wind,

you must decide if you are

the lighthouse in the metaphor

or the storm-tossed ship.

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When the Day Comes

-

It is 5am.

The sky is black

with up and down rain.

I can see my naked

reflection in the window

and in the shaking trees.

There is a storm inside me;

deep inside my innocence.

You are still sleeping.

The day has not come

for you yet.

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Dreams of Being

.

If we allow ourselves to

be guided by our instincts,

and stopped listening to

our thoughts, perhaps

the people we dreamed of

being one day might just

be the people we already are.

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Good Eats Ice Cold Beer

.

After all, what little

do we know beyond

the tiny wonders and

abandonments of

our own improbability.

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Art’s Cafe, Savannah, Georgia, 1948

.

In the part of me that stayed behind,

there is still a suitcase waiting by the door

and although I no longer believe it is big

enough for me to leave with and begin again

somewhere, I like to think that one day it

might be small enough for me to disappear.

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Into Days

.

In late summer,

when the evenings ripen

into days of unrelenting rain,

the forest encroaches, and

the blades of grass sharpen,

and we become the wild things.

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Pine Tree Inn, Eden, PA.

,

Perhaps

happiness

is realizing

all the things

that could  

have gone

wrong and

didn’t.

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Imagining a postcard arriving this morning from my dearest friend who died last year….

The Names of Things ( Dear You #6)

I am beginning

to forget

the names of things

as there is

no separation here

only the

emptiness and

spaciousness

of my own undoing

on this journey

into being.

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The Comet Liquor Store

.

I met you when we

were both falling apart

and for a brief time

we fell together,

burning through

the atmosphere

of each other’s lives

like shooting stars.

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Surpass Kid

-

Forever caught in

the undertow of childhood,

I have spent most

of my life circling myself

while reaching down for

my own outstretched hand.