I found myself enjoying a cloud mural painted in the skies above Ukiah’s western ridges this evening. I felt it deserved a tanka.
valley dusk
A wee haiku. I Love these things. This was inspired by the island mountains that rise from the desert floor in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
wane
sundial mountains
stretch their giant shapes across
the lessening days
In this poem, my 13th trisect, segment one depicts steel. Segment two depicts the skyscraper, in which steel is the most essential component. And segment three depicts the effects of modern industry upon earth and humanity, which includes mining for and smelting steel and the development and movement of all those resources that lead to the creation and maintenance of the skyscraper.
Alchemy
Ore
Forged by myriad million years of light,
cast against eternities of night,
elemental embers collect amid the void,
pooled in glowing clouds of dust and rock.
Particles accrete through time and motion,
condensed to monumental orbs of molten
crystal moods, amassing alloys mid the darkness,
cooled to form a rind of raw potential.
Fertile soils rise from ancient stone,
animating shapes of wood and bone.
Nimble hands evolve and grope the ground for clues,
scratching for a means to reach the sky.
Fires smelt a future from deposits
quarried from a realm of veins and pockets,
charged into converters from out the depths of reason,
hatching alloys cast as new potential.
Corpse
They rise as if from out the earth, a maze
of beams and columns stretched against the haze,
looming like the relic frames of ancient beasts,
massive specters moaning on the wind.
Reflections slowly seal each giant carcass,
body bags of alloys mined from darkness
closed around the ribs of tall decaying monsters,
ghastly shadows cast across the landscape.
They cantilever labyrinths of gloom
hard against an ever present brume,
where wander human wraiths yet bound to living breath,
faces filled to silence with dismay.
Like mausoleums raised to mark the open
graves where hopes lie wasting in corrosion,
great facades reflect with every sunset whisper
traces of the hollowness within them.
Course
Canyons wrought from concrete steel and glass
soar above an ever seething mass,
heads and fenders tossed within a frantic flood
swelled from centuries of strong desire.
Arteries of lava, veins of phosphor
circulate through fields of psychic squalor,
where great malignant tumors feed upon the current,
welled from out the heart of mass confusion.
Discolored patches stretch and fade from view—
membranes taking on a sickly hue—
an ever growing quilt expanding abstract themes
flung beyond the grasp of human thought.
Filaments of culture weave a madness
shimmered from the dark side of a canvas
suspended deep in silence against abysmal backdrops
clung forever to the soul’s awareness.
The prosody is pretty complex. If you’re curious about it let me know and I’ll respond with an explanation.
I had no idea where this was going when I started it, but I thought I’d just go with it and see what happened. I’m kind of surprised. Perhaps even pleasantly so.
rainbow
i traced its edge
through deep green fields
over pine tree hills and higher
till it scraped the desolate
snows of nowhere
and still i followed
on through alpine vale
and florid glen and down
jagged canyon ridges past
island mountains that rose
as if from seas of sand
and still i followed
past mesas lined with crows
and sere grass ranges
where lumbering cows rid
the world of diversity
and yet still on
along wide slow rivers filled
with stench fish floating lifeless
on bloated sides and
by pillars of smoke that
chased blue from the skies
and yet still on
through lifeless mountains
painted green to please the eye
past springs that bubbled poison
and wells that oozed dismay
yet still i went
following those faded hues
amid a web of tall marble
monuments each depicting
through stains the long neglected
dreams of liberty
yet still i went
along shores littered with
death where rag-worn poor rake
thin pale fingers through filth
for remnants of life
and finally there in a long
white plaza it ended
all its color drained to sooty
shades of gray that flickered
out from the last remains
of a once great constitution
now but a distant hope for
greater souls to strive toward
Another one pulled from the drafts of my little hiking journal. When I backpack, I’ll take a couple of bansuri flutes along. And in the evenings when all is quiet, I’ll try to play my surroundings. I’ve found that most places carry a song that can be felt and transposed through an instrument.
transposition
Over time I’ve learned the habit of casting all my sense across some scene, some place of peace and stillness, and in my heart asking to know its song. Then, if I’m fortunate, I’ll close my eyes and feel the sounds come through me, and I’ll find them on my flute. Then we’ll play together, me and the spirits who live there.
Another shorty from the journal markings I made while out on the Lost Coast Trail last month. This is also inspired by my two nights at Jackass Creek, which is where I was inspired to jot down the drafts for “True Nature” and “Glance”.
rhythms
the world is rhythm
waves against tall gray bluffs
wind rising falling over hilltops
crickets somewhere in the darkness
cicadas somewhere in thick green brush
woodpeckers atop long dead pines
and deep beyond sight the song
of robins calling back the sun
I normally don’t approach topics of this sort. But hopefully I can pass this off as a sort of pen-portrait and not as any sort of political commentary. I don’t actually know or understand enough to comment on American or World politics. But, regardless, this is the undeniable impression I get when I see Bush and certain members of his administration up in front of the microphones.
strange disease
your face looks somehow
slack
not with age but some
strange disease
your tongue slithers in and out
slicking greasy lies
like rancid butter
across rows of microphones
your cheeks spill out
over insect jaws that work
mindless as mandibles
on flickering teleprompts
your eyes are toxic
squalid little pools of terror leaking
shivers from soft busy glows
sea to noxious sea
your ears have rotted gray
deaf as battleship decks
slack as the torn and tattered flag
silenced behind you
your voice is the sound of gravel
shoveled from the backs of trucks
with dirt and lime into
long shallow graves
your hands grope out trembling
as if overcome by pressure
tapped from ancient soils long ago decayed
to putrid pools of loss
and your head swells grotesque
to bursting from your dark black suit
pumped with agendas too fetid
for the heart to endure
As I got to know my future wife long distance, I found myself wanting to assure her that my love for and dedication to her will never change.
“He loves me.”
This one was scribbled out as I sat atop a giant bit of driftwood watching the waves during a recent hike on the Lost Coast Trail in Northern California’s Sinkyone Wilderness State Park.
True Nature
When I go backpacking, I tend to my bring my journal along, or at least a little composition book. Here I’ll record any thoughts I have, or poem fragments. I should do this more often, since it affords me an opportunity to really sit with my thoughts, undistracted. Later I’ll go through the poem fragments and see about expanding them into actual poems (though I’m told a poem fragment is usually itself a poem).
Of the five or so recorded during my recent eight day walk, this one feels the most complete.
Glance
If I have a child one day, where would he (bold assumption I know) come from? I think we rain from the void into awareness. I think we drift in a sort of sleep, locked in the watery depths of consciousness and are eventually lulled by the rhythmic sounds of promise into life. From dream to dream we sleep our way through eternity, connected by an ever expanding web of condition—or karma.
Provision
