The Journal of Bison Jack

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

[thejournalofbisonjack]

The Glass Hat (2016)

If we allow ourselves to be guided

by our instincts and stopped listening

to our thoughts, maybe the people

we dreamed of being one day might

just be the people we already are.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Stellar

Delighting still  

in the afterglow,

we are but the fatal

swoon of a miracle

in thrall to the unknown

and the unknowable.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Clouds (from To the Quick, 2015)

They exhaled at the same time;

the clouds of their breath coming

together in the cold silence.

I know we can’t be friends, she said,

but maybe one day we could be

strangers looking at each other

across a crowded room again.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Odds and Sods

I recently read somewhere

that the odds of each of us

being born are one in four

hundred trillion, which

would suggest we are either

miracles of biological and

cognitive engineering or a

glitch, and that perhaps it

is time we decided which.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Where Old Friends Meet

.

Seventy percent water,

bent to the earth, we are

but ripples inhaling the wind.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Caught Somewhere

Perhaps we are

simply fugitives running

from impermanence,

caught somewhere

between longing and solace.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

The Promise (2021)

.

Wherever you decide to go,

promise me that you will not hide

from yourself and wherever you

decide to stay, promise me that

you will not live an ordinary life.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

A Likeness (No.1)

Glass reflections

in filligrees of breath,

we are the ineffable

held briefly up to the light.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Everything

Sometimes,

I wish I could

make the word

everything

sound like the

everything I mean.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

The 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.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Vespertine

I am drawn to

the stranded light

that is left behind when

the sun goes down,

for in the crepuscular

ruins of all my reverie

is a secret walled garden.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

A Poem’s Wants

.

A poem wants

to be a photograph

in the same way

a photograph wants

to be a painting

and a painting wants

to be a song that

wants to be a love letter

in the same way

a love letter wants

to be a poem.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

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.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Here We Are

.

Here we are

quietly vanishing

while secretly

hoping we will see

through each other

before we disappear.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

Will King’s

.

With every breath we

stand at the edge of

a great abyss on the

frontier of our own

unimagined vastness.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

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.

[thejournalofbisonjack]

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.