The sky burned into ashes, leaving the vista shady and tender for my barren eyes to absorb. I’ve dodged the city. What a catchy place!
Even on the nighttime highway, and in my rearview mirror; someone’s headlights felt unsettling? This whole week, the tiny spurs of reality have been stabbing at my heart.
Then, a brief moment on a rain swept desert was curing all the misery?
Please disqualify me from rat race of modern life.
The land has been swept
by winter and summer.
It’s tough and faded.
It’ll outlast any human era.
I once passed an old graveyard,
and saw the eroding tombstones.
Each individual had dreams,
a pumping heart,
and a smile.
The land
will outlive the foolishness
of lonely humans.
This morning, my bag was finally packed after inserting instant mash potatoes and Top Ramon. My cook’n pot is tight ‘n secure. My car is full of gasoline with blankets in the trunk. I’m prepared for the boonies, and now I’m feeling reckless, and something is waiting.
God, please, I’m leery of this formidable square house telling me how to behave and how to live. The TV is a non-stop chatter box. Society keeps rambling on… Everything has a purpose, but your face is in nature, it heals my silliness. Pity me for feeling more reclusive every hour.
Damn! I want the desert surrounding me, providing a hiding place from cities and towns of never ending man-made sounds. I love quiet days of cloud shadows passing over. This is true happiness, my friends!
The wind-swept canyon lands are awake with strange skies of soft blue complexion.
Rattle in the wind
like bones
soft and brittle,
the corn isn’t ready.
The wind loves your fields
of dead awful silence.
What creeps in your shade?
Cornstalks are friends,
they laugh,
and they cling
to Mother Earth,
graciously.
I sing to you,
from a hammock
nearby.
Just listening to your
Leaves.
The corn babies are wrapped
up in their cocoons,
still developing.
I picture myself somewhere in a sandstone canyon on the Colorado Plateau; a deep gully in the belly of Mother Earth. Rock walls tower hundreds of feet above my head. Looking up into a narrow sky, I see clouds drift slowly in the heavens. But really, I’m actually typing a message on the internet. There is tremendous pressure to disappear into the boonies, beyond the reaches of my home town.
A reckless wisdom taunts my footsteps, speaking to me in windy whispers. The trees have eyes looking at me. Listen to the forests howling in distant mountains. Giant Ponderosas filter wind through furry branches. Their steeples stand tall against Father Sky; their roots sink deep into Mother Earth.
I feel crazy, craving an escape. I’ve been chained to the hardware, the square house, the quilted bed, the fast food, the television, and the structured linear things of society. How bitter sweet.
Turning on the radio late last night, I listened to AM static singing from distant lands . I could imagine the radio waves bouncing and traveling hundreds, even thousands of miles to reach my little receiver and through the speakers.
Maybe I can wander off somehwere faraway?
Rocks cry under clouds pouring endless sweat
on green grass that dies slow in autumn.
The rabbit’s life grows cold and meets a fiery end.
Young was the sky that stood bold.
Shadows again hunt the black leafless night.
The sweetness is no more. Here comes he
an animal ghost laughing between
two unexplainable worlds.
It is quick with movement to steal air
carrying a joke that a jester couldn’t give.
The mystical trees paint the
coyote’s soul over a white canvas.
He answers quickly to the
injured rabbit’s eerie squeals
swiftly ending his struggle and pain
caused by the old man’s black Sedan,
as it journeyed the gravel road.
the mornings here on the desert are still,
long, and eternal
why is the landscape so barren,
and beautiful?
stories burn like the never ending past
I usually come here story hour
when Earth recites her tales
just before night when the heat sings sweet
I have found no common place
because my dream belongs to
this sea of rocks, stones, and bushes;
endless walls of grabbing beauty
and pictures painted on golden faces
when I die in my country bed
the sleeping hills bury me under their desert trees
one day walking across this endless void
will be peace within my happy cave
to my lonely fire at night,
I sing to your visions
the stars above
grow fat and twinkle
monsters are always heard
stone blood keeps flowing
never walk alone in
this world of supernatural
behind mountain doors
desert gods build palaces
Rolling thunder echoes across the land
Shadows creep behind images.
Unusual feelings manifest themselves
in the strange day.
A timbered forest is
where black ghost creatures
lose themselves in bushes.
A sound is made here
and then there.
The spook is a jestful trickster.
Many things speak up from the
floor of the ancient earth.
It is how the wild
animals of this forest
find peace to survive.
It crawls upon your skin,
walks upon your feet.
It dangles from wrinkled trees.
They have eyes staring
at you from nearby.
Maybe it is an unknown beast
about to jump from the brush!
I enter the abominable church doors of a mall while listening to elevator music echoing down hallways of painted diversity, of various stores. Maybe I’ll go window-shop and purchase a book?
I stroll around with money in my pocket, supporting the system that I may despise? The establishment cuddles my sweet tooth for french fries and pizza. Afterwards a movie fills a spot on a lazy afternoon, a horror flick fresh after a hearty meal.
Feeling superficial in my heart, I wonder why I am plugged into this worldly infest of salad bars, and restaurants; and a town full of magic lights that buzz on street corners, and concrete-asphalt rivers that run for miles. I’ve traveled in a car, and looked at the random garbage, glass, and pop cartons that litter the edges of highways and interstates, woven from town to town in tangled lines on a map. The traffic on Interstates hums, honks, and screeches.
I complain in distress while waiting for my clothes in the dryer. The news marches across that TV screen and I’m intertwined with the machine. It has captivated me with electricity, and restrooms with indoor plumbing instead of out-houses. No walking through snow 200 feet in the middle of a winter’s night, just one simple flush.
But let me tell you, my feelings of resistance clamor! Tenacious are the glimpses of my imagination and its shimmering temptations. All else is uneasy on this strange earthy day in this minature western town. All around this eerie house, that wind keeps howling!