Author: poetryfest

“In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice ‘cross a mountain side.
Stay alive.”
-Big Country

In a big country you can lose
yourself. As easily as in a crowded
cityscape sidewalk. Elbowing
your way through Douglas firs
or pine trees taller than any main street
building and loan company
yet still dwarfed by the Redwoods
of ancient America. I could run
from myself only to collide with
my recalcitrant parts in an alley
of thickest brush, dirt pavement, fox hole.
Crawl inside. Hide. Emerge new, in flight
undaunted by cruelties of the world.
Turn my face, knowing suffering
never ends, though mine is now
a fable for the ages.

(Mount Melleary – February)

Today I pull on my Grandad’s woollen jumper,
the blue and green chevrons mimic the mood,
and wander the woods at dusk.

I see ash, oak and willow proudly growing
from freshly logged hillside
and fungi flourishing under sheltering roots.

The trees imitate giant apostles,
watching over pilgrims on secluded quests
who know not that these titans listen.

The colossus oak has seen man’s downfall
and willow has wiped the tears of lovers,
all while the ash stood sentry on moor side.

I scour the skies above, watching the leaves wave
and ripple as a flutter rises into crescendo
stirring all who bear witness.

Go fly fishing.
Immovable – vulnerable
Locked in form.
Near the river bed, whilst heavy head rests
fear engulfs you – digest.
Wild animals lurk – Your eyes dash
Be amazed that you made it through the night without a scratch.
No broken knee caps
No heart attacks
Lift a latch. Open a door.
Check the floor, under the rug, for the booby trap
Under the stairs, behind the washer, deep in the junk drawer,
top shelf of the fridge – way back.
Hung on the rack, to the left of the closet, in the garage, search the whole flat.
Don’t exhaust the mirror looking back.
For you won’t find more than what you already see in yourself right now.
Time has a funny way of doing that.
Right now, the seasons are changing.
Right now, you grow with the buds
Right now, the ice sweats and melts into the glass
The meaning is only meaningful to few: perhaps to you?

Measuring the weight and worth
of unborn wildflowers
riding the horizon slung wide on winds
clutched in starling beaks
a confluence emerging from
chance graphs of sunlight
plotted points of rain showers
carrying fragile starbursts of amethyst
unfurling painted tongue blossoms
dying back to form silent instruments
shattered scattered seed songs
calculatingly complex
quadratic bursts of potential
freed fractals crushed underfoot
spilling to broken earth
churning multiplication of the finite
loamy crumbs and verdant blades
thrust between equations of twilight and dawn

The flute against
a stone wall where
it plays, celebrating

Hopi pots
and necklace art
of fertility in beads;

Kokopelli plays
a trickster tune,
holding a horn

higher then low,
legs keeping pace
with the dance of animals.

Outside is the wind,
Inside is Queen Jane’s Painting –

In from the sea the town is washed in browns and deep blues,
The buildings are hidden, their lighted windows gone when the wind blows.
The fog hangs over,
Twists in alleys,
Creeps under the doors.

The dock is lost in the dark,
Only vague outlines, a splash of color –
The moon momentarily comes through and lights the wooden railings,
Before they’re gone again.

A glow from out the windows, yellow and poor,
It spreads across the water,
Growing weaker as it leaves the shore,
In the dark the waves lap gently with no one to see.

Greatest sharks dripping in and out of eye sockets
Thrashing against rusted panels of brutes
Unequivocally intimidating in my self-made habitat
Hunters marked me by my callousness–I’m it for the season
Charlatans parade on their boats for just my apparition
Breaching to show you my undisputed domination
Beware the Deadliest catch! She bites!
You sought and saw my imbedded scales
Snatch me from freedom’s waters with a love lost bait
Man’s despotism inflicted over my poached body
Your hubris allows one perfect bite on fleshy familiarity
Suffocating in palms of air as you debate torture regiments
Heart of sigmoid behind my eyes near the brain
I think you’re seeing it now
You admired me in the water to doom a quick love
Thoughts of preservation come second to your ego
Feed by my thrill
A seashore rarity but queen of my castle
Drag me atop your pathetic boat to plan my fate
Finning isn’t suitable, taxidermy is your speciality
Bowels in or out?
Pulverized with seasoned mallets my blanched meat
Hollowed down to the least frighten parts
Count my teeth as lesions on your leg
Dumped on the lip while touches play with my skin
Smear my predatory gaze with pocket knives
Malnourished while fish hooks link in my ribs
Display me upside down in a humiliation ritual
Empty mouth dangling open
Curate my appearance to fit an unfulfilled lifestyle
Just let me be fucking cool
My legends outweighed my existence
Valuable as a gilded trophy to sit upon a hunter’s mantle
Have I made you a wanted man?
I was violent it was the right call
If you hadn’t captured me I would have killed you to prove I could
Becoming the prolific sadist that slips inside your skin
Puppeteering you with each nerve ending
Being your prize will cost my vitality
Live without my life, may my body suffice.

These deciduous paths
I have known for two decades
Keeps me grounded in the hills
Of ancient Appalachia
And I fear that if I venture
Farther away to new paths
And new lands
I won’t find my way back
I’ll be lost forever

To the hills, the trees, the forests, the people, the culture
That raised me, that taught me
To appreciate everything within my reach
Everything outside our windows

Where did all the Blue Jays go?
The trees are thin and bare
Their songs are but a memory
And no-one seems to care
Did they find someplace better?
That lacks this hollow shell
Did they disappear without a trace?
Or a soft farewell
I know there’s something missing on the branches of this town
Oh, what I’d give to hear again that whisper of a sound
The silence screams to all who feel as if they don’t belong
One day I swear I’ll go to where the blue jays all have gone

The sea is the ultimate teacher within our reach

Even if I dedicated my entire life to a sober,
disciplined study of consciousness, meaning,
and fulfillment—I could barely map 10%
of the domain. I want

to be a shark.

I want to be an angler fish.
I want to be a thermal vent,
nourishing shrimp and other life so far
removed from the sun’s influence
that photosynthesis could stop
and my brood and I would go on.
I want to be the center of the Earth.

I want to sleep so hot
and so intensely that
the planet only survives
by my good graces.

I want to be silt, salt, and sand. Foamy
and only a strange preview of a complexity
that presents innocuous
while capable of crushing
every machine humanity
has ever manufactured
just by the nature
of my being. I’m embarrassed

to be a person.

I want to cultivate love, even
for the parts of me
who want to cultivate resentment.

I have had a pretty great life,
even if the great parts
have been unexpected.

I love my brain, my heart, my lungs, and my spinal column
despite the trouble
they can sometimes cause. But I am ready

to let them go when the time comes.

There is a committee inside the body
and it’s unclear when
the members are influencing me.

I want to accept all the truth
and wisdom from every continent
intelligence surmounts every boundary
just as every body is designed
to handle death.

I want to look
angry and dangerous
without realizing
anyone is looking. I want
my nature
to be
crash and nurture
absorb, digest
and cultivate,
swallow and breed.

I want to be a black hole.
I want to be the hazy expanse
of a new star. I want to be
the burnt-out sun.

I want to be two galaxies
entangled, following gravity’s logic,
indifferent to the consequences, indifferent
to the causes. I want to be the white-hot star
before it collapses and the new
universe

on the other side of the event horizon. I want to be the fabric of time,
the dark matter, the anti-matter, and the dimensions themselves.

The heat death. The absences.
The purpose, stripped of its illusions. The truth
that is only true while it is stuck in your teeth,
before some carnivore
ejects it, along with fish parts, waste,
and digestive enzymes
after it has vibrated

with the first atoms before light,
before time, before the dust
got the idea to become rocks
before vapor became drops.

The brain is doing its own thing.
Projecting images within folds,
guessing at where the dressing ends,
nurturing the wound, neglecting the gauze.

The brain has its own time.
You can’t learn kung fu in an instant
but the brain will take an instance
where you missed the hint
and shove it into your face for as long as you live.

Your brain is not your own.
You are a growth protruding
from reality’s constant experimentation on itself.
You’re lucky you’ve ever been
happy once. You’re lucky you were born
with enough good fortune that you made it
to 13 before your first real suicidal inclination.

Your family is lucky you barely had any idea
how to act on your urges. Your family is lucky
you didn’t have the internet back then.

Your brain is like if the universe is paying
a small amount of attention
to an infinitesimal droplet
of its own, glowing life
while it’s on the phone,
watching a YouTube video,
and setting some of itself on fire.

Your brain knows what you should say,
but only in its own, sad little theater.

And even then, it could be wrong.

It is a supremely imperfect
computational machine

stuck in the gums
of an eldritch creature swimming
in waters deep enough to crush
a rhinoceros skull.