without buildings

Momentary Architectures

an underwater flower swaying beneath the wake

a long-dried leaf tumbling atop a snowdrift

the gathering storm clouds looming over treetops

the delicate romance
of momentary architectures
in which i often linger

photos by a.c. nagl

safehouse

An Armor Of Our Own

all harm ends here

safe beside
safe inside

pull the blankets close
beneath our chins
and hide another hundred years

all harm ends here

photo by a.c. nagl

A Sun Unhinged

the name of a person you once knew,
uttered,

more like a silhouette in a dimly lit room,

the light bulb going off overhead
becomes a sun unhinged,
spinning out of control
on a collision course
with your world
especially when

the name is followed by

a beat,
a breath,

a word like a sigh of blinding candescence,

cancer

, a luminaire illuminating dark corners
caching a collection of memories
covered in a thick dust, long forgotten
but one by one gaining a glow,
dotting the black space of dreams
like so many stars in a night sky,
falling like a cold chill in the absence of the sun

for Dave W.

For John McPhee

A World Away (Hermit In An Ancient Sea)

in these hills,
hidden from a world on fire,
i sit watching snow fall,
building walls around myself
with mcphee's geology

that says,
this used to be a great ancient sea,
which i believe,

cloistered here, a world away,
as a wave of flush from this red wine
washes over me, flooding this biology,
extinguishing the flames beyond these hills
even if only for this brief moment in time

living out loud

Sounding Off In A Vacuum

i threw a brick through a window,
it didn't make a sound,
but as you heard i'm still picking up the pieces

i threw a wrench into a situation,
it didn't make a sound,
but the silence that followed is almost deafening

i threw a rock inside a glass house,
it didn't make a sound,
but listen closely for the coming recriminations

like bringing a bull into a china shop,
these are the repercussions of sounding off in a vacuum

green grow the rushes grow

Green Rushes / Grey Ruins / Lush Landscapes

You threw me under the bus knowing we still had roads to travel,
Brown dirt off-the-beaten paths and broad blue highways spidering maps
Like veins coarsing beneath the skin covering a broken heart,
Left to lament the forever altered scenery surrounding us,
Green grown rushes turned to ghost grey ruins.

The blood black bruise of tire tracks across my back will fade
And I will pull myself to stand again on seemingly unsteady kildeer legs,
Brushing the dust of disillusionment from my sleeves,
Placing the crumple of a hat back upon my birdwing bandaged head,
Ready to walk this road alone, healing as miles become years,
Wounds becoming scars that time will forget but I will never
As I wander new lush landscapes alone without you.

it's no game

Second Chances

never recognizing the moments that will matter most

[a redlight run by a woman]

we put our faith in ouija boards, fate or fortune one letter at a time

[my brother in a coma, in intensive care]

like a thousand puzzle pieces that never fit to form a landscape

[by his bedside wanting just one word]

end up playing 52-pickup again and again with each others emotions

[on my knees praying]

a random spin on the board of Life where it's better to be lucky than good

[both of us, suddenly awake, decades later, a thousand miles apart]

an entire game of Scrabble where we both have only vowels

[still wanting just one word]

never recognizing the moments that might matter most

... not once, but twice

Lightning In A Bottle (As it Begins To Snow)

lightning over snow stretching across an open field,
strange days have found us, indeed,

and in their landscape the snow turn rain turn fog
beclouding what the coming months may hold

no crystal ball can say, but surely snows will return
to freeze us fast in place to the slow grey of december

until gypsy winds blow come march to stir
the bedouin spirit of our vagabond hearts

the lion to lamb a reminder of april days around the bend
and a new wandering spirit on the way

though the wanderlust of years sits still admiring this moment
where we have captured lightning in a bottle as it begins to snow

old man river

Like The River, Slowly

like the river,
in the dry of autumn,
I roll along

slowly
these
days

slow over the round of rocks beneath me,
shaped by years of swift and rush,
hardened in the harsh sun cycles of drought

not looking ahead or behind I've found
nor is this head lost in the clouds,
walking behind my own shadow for once,
leading me where I may follow

subtle and slow enough is this journey at last
to stop and step around the nest of an ovenbird

painting: Reflections of Autumn III by Connie Tom

consider the chaos

Upon Further Reflection

Consider the chaos,
Fashioned from the stagnant mud of gene pools,

Mutating from brain to blood to lung,

The muck of it slowing even the strides of Science,
As it walks freely into, while overwhelming, a room,
One already wading in the quick sands of time
Slipping through our Quaker hands,
With no divine right to crawl on all fours from the ooze
Into a cell that can never contain its divisive nature,
Splitting while spitting the black-bile, green-gill of certain consumption
Sight unseen though as obscene as the crooked smile it cracks

While shattering the illusion, along with the vanity, of our vitalogy

Reflected in a mirror image no more than a mirage,

And so upon further reflection and without reservation
We call its bluff, force its hand, take it to task,
Armed to the teeth and ready to face mortality but not before

Walking through its irradiated wildfire-floodplain-landslide wasteland
Cradling, carrying the swaddled remains of calm dignity,
Rescued from a hospital room filling with smoke bedlam and mud fathoms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/science/25visual.html?_r=1&ref=science

well in hand

A Scar Is Just The Sound Of A Rusting World Healing

i burned my hand

and it began healing overnight,

the red welted-white blistered palm,

read in the dark of a
psychic-tarot-fortune teller
dream seance,

revealed

a life in balance,

a world perfectly positioned
in the center of a fulcrum
held by that same burned/healing hand,

the other cupped to an ear to hear
the harmony ringing softly between
birth and death,

listen,

water smoothing shattered rocks,
snow falling on dead trees,
pianos rusting in country fields.

photo by shelley powers

burningbird.net/life/balance/

dance the night away

To A Scottish Lilt

I dreamed I danced and danced with you,
My two clumsy feet, two sweaty palms
Remembered I was sleeping and so
I waltzed without a stutter in my step,
Never speaking, closely listening
To your breathing, unconsciously knowing
You were lying right beside me
As I bowed and you ballerina curtsied,
My hand gently slipping into yours
As we danced the night away
Side by side, slumber leading.

Christ you know it ain't easy...

Live Through This

I won't die twice.

You murdered me once
but I dragged my own skeletal frame
from a shallow dirt grave up the hill backwards,
like a Fitzcarraldo made of spit, spite and marrow,
narrowly escaping a fate worse than death,
the slow suction of life with you
like crucifixion suffocation giving way
to the exaltation of resurrection summited,
witnessed only by the golden light of a rising sun
high above and beyond the thrust of your dagger glance,
dull now with the rust of bloodshot, suicide tired
weighting all those setting suns you've spent alone
looking back counting days whose weathering winds
aged you where it matters most,
around your eyes, behind your eyes,
left blinded by your own selfish desires,
but still able to see you murdered me once.

I won't die twice.

... just my imagination, once again...

Crush (We Will Not Be Lovers)

melt summers' swelter memory in your imagined kiss kept for a
keepsake,
warming my imagination through shiver winters though we have yet to
meet,
sheltered in daydreams of gravity autumns i fell for you unseen beneath
leaves,
where hope springs eternal for love blossoming below the surface still
hidden.

i am the cosmos

The Man In Me

end of another year,
not just any other year
but the beginning of the end of an era,
moving light years beyond myself
in search of deliverance from myself
to find the outstretched arms of the universe
reaching down from january through june, july
and on 'til now, ancient hands grasping my palms,
pulling the fabric of my being through some rip
in the tapestry of the time/space continuum,
delivering the man in me to the life
that always seemed like a dim and distant star,
leaving behind the boy, safe and sound,
within the constellations of my memory.

'tis the season

Let Us Garlands Bring

let us garlands bring,
it is the season for forgetting while remembering
forgiveness shivers outside in cold structures of silence
awaiting the warmth of breath's whispered reassurance
as soft as winter's blanket adorning snow-covered pines.

photo by a.c. nagl

soul mining

Of Placers Found

mining the placers of this life,
found riches slipped into mud-wet pockets
though hidden reveal

the diamond in the rough of
a curled photo of maternal great grandfathers
standing in the thaw of a dakota spring,
dated 1934, the year of my mother's birth

the golden moment of
steadying her with an arm extended
across the stoop of her caned gate
ambling over the ice of yet another keystone winter

the silver lining of
the days come rain or shine
of summers in their footsteps, autumns in their shoes,
walking seasons in their shadows where i stake my claim

whichever way the wind blows

Nothing Left For The Lions

shook from sleep in this garden,
kissed, crossed, then torn apart,
all you knew of me, 25 years,
a short lifetime like another life now,
blown as dust to a locust wind
carrying within its swarm of sound
the din of denial, the buzz of betrayal,
the lone elder tree of this new desert
stripped leafless to bare witness
to nary a Judas hung upon a rope of remorse
from limbs that cast no shade to sand
where predators late to the jackal kill lie,
licking wounds and searching for scraps,
finding nothing left for the lions

Give 'em Enough Rope

Infinite Gist (an open letter to David Foster Wallace)

i have no respect
for giving up,

the ghost

of you

left behind something less than infinite.

surely you jest,

mock my own happiness

as I sit here in a small room,

writing,

happy in this alone, if nothing else.

happy, even when left hanging in mid-air,
waiting on a word, a phrase, a line

like,

the most intellectually ambitious novelist of a generation's
seemingly boundless gift found finite despite it all, after all,
having stepped off his own thick tome into the infinite,
what might have been left dangling at the end of a rope

, sad i know,
but really nothing more than the gist.

image by ryan alexander

riding the iron horse

The End Of The Line

where do we begin, where do we end?

riding the rails of this life,
the tracks curving away,

disappearing,

ahead of
and behind us.

iron horse hearts
plowing through
drifts of snow born sorrow
piled along the steep of a grade
we all must climb,
blocking the bend of horseshoe curves
we cannot see beyond.

the beginning of our journey becoming
a blur of motion like a locomotive
speeding through a station,

heading west into a setting sun,
over years, over miles,
passing through suspect terrain,
physical, emotional, mental,
finally arriving at a destination,
the end of the line.

our own wild horses tamed at last
and lying down beside us in Elysian fields.