Category: Poetry

Effortlessly

June 23, 2025

There is a slight slant to the landscape. 

Chalky old lava flows stuck to a shape 

Remnants of a past…angled. 

Once, this earth changed its appearance 

Into patterns we wouldn’t recognize. 

 
The bridge is out, lower in the canyon 

Where the Klickitat turns towards Adams.  

I and everything wait for the rain 

The parched flowers and grasses 

Their fragile skin and stalks, browns, and beiges 

Bloomed easily last spring, without effort. 

 
Along the dryness, scattered tree limbs 

So light, they remind me of bones 

Whitened and greyed by summer. 

I imagine them becoming new forms 

A collage of life, blood, and image 

Their uneven surface, knees, elbows, & heart 

 
A scattering. 

 
(“Once, I believed your hands were so soft, 

I thought they were made of petals.”) 

 
I pass a row of old houses 

Where the highway bends between bluffs. 

Thier lawns littered with sticks & twigs. 

I can barely see the yellow line of the road 

It having faded through all weather. 

 
I feel a sprinkle. It passes quickly.

Rowena Plateau. Near where a large fire recently burned. A place where spring flowers bloom.

Reality TV

June 9, 2025

We sleep in the abandoned house 
On top of a worn, rough carpet. 
Small creaks are heard underneath 
From floorboards, that are 
Exposed in spots 
Revealing coats of wax and stain. 
 
We wait for morning’s blur 
Pushing ourselves up 
With scuffed hands, still soft 
After the night’s search 
For baubles & bits worthy of trade 
From dumpsters, the urban Pandora’s Box. 
 
You found a book, still new 
Though its cover is creased 
Said you’d become a writer 
Said it’s already been written 
...Somewhere. 
 
The city seems to flicker. 
We wait ‘til afternoon 
To take a shower at the center 
Looking for a cure  
to the night.
 
In the rec room 
There’s television news in the periphery  
Featuring the fallen... 
Car wrecks and shopping malls 
Losses of temper & savings accounts. 
Fashion zombies writing best sellers. 
Cops, cops, and more cops. 
Snow at five, touchdown at six.  
Stay tuned for murder at eleven. 
 
The walls at the center glisten  
But so does everything. 
Oil shapes our safety 
From the gloves that handle our births 
To the glossy final finish in a box. 
Life unravels in microfibers. 
Even the old floor we sleep on 
Is topped with a polymer that flakes  
Its bits colored like peanut brittle. 
 
An insane medium sits in a corner 
Next to a group of schizophrenics. 
She says, “Pick a fate. Any will do. 
But it must be done not as you, but by another you. 
Amass! Amass! Be a mass cookie cutter 
Fender bender, beach comber 
Record collector, gas cap aficionado, murderer. 
This isn’t reality TV, this is reality.” 
 
We pick perfection as our fate 
One where our bare 
Feet glide across a tiled floor  
All smiles 
To a refrigerator filled 
With presents to ourselves, where 
The fat has gelled inside our ground beef 
And broccoli, still firm 
In its plastic bag. 
On shelves, there are jars of berry preserves 
As red as the day they were picked.  
There is a real bed, with a comforter 
We would make love. 
 
Millionaires and sports heroes have come  
to the center to serve turkey to the homeless. 
It must be Thanksgiving. 
A news crew is here to tell the story  
About how real they are 
How clever they are to have picked their fate. 
They seem uncomfortable handling mashed potatoes. 
The medium smiles at us and helps herself to a huge portion 
Of cranberry sauce. 
She says, “Fate is that little dog that won’t stop barking  
At everything and nothing.” 
And she laughs, mimics a dog bark. 
Her lips are stained a weird kind of pink. 
 
The cooked turkey is greasy, 
Oily. It’s basted in something unique. 
Our fingers become slick 
We lick them dry while heading back to 
The abandoned house 
Carrying leftovers. 
 
You’re wearing your jeans 
The ones you have worn a hundred times. 
I know them so well 
I’ve memorized the weave 
Of their blue threads and 
The one button that won’t stay buttoned. 
It is as if you’ve written these memories down 
Inside of me...somewhere. 
We lie down on the ragged carpet 
Waiting for the night. 
I kiss your lips. 
They are softer than any other  
Lips in existence.

“Overpassed”

Wild Lake of Summer

June 8, 2025

I’ve come to walk along her edges 

Where I have seen the rain fall hard 

Upon her surface 

Creating a mirage of current 

And where the sun places twinkles  

Inside the ripples of her smile. 

 

Like many times before, I dip my hand 

Into her body, she is still cold 

Even this far into the season. 

For the sun can only skim her. 

There are deep hidden springs 

Within her heart, that 

Forever cast new spells. 

 

The encircling trail 

Is now all dust and powder 

And I feel as if I have hooves 

Kicking up clouds, settling 

Quietly, quickly behind me. 

A patch of dry rocks 

Where the spring runoff 

Had cascaded through crevices 

Show the wrinkles of her ancient age 

Bones of memory 

And though she stays stoic 

She aches, (as I do) for fall and winter. 

 

At times it seems we are rebelling 

Against the sky  

Rebelling, even further out 

Into all that’s unknown 

Until we reach the point where our fingertips 

Touch the inseparable network of everything. 

 

There is a waterfall 

Tucked up high in the surrounding mountains. 

Calmed of its spring strength. 

I could reach it through deciduous and evergreen. 

Perhaps that’s where the tale is 

The one I will take back with me. 

The story that proves her magic 

That quells the heat of the city. 

For once I have the story 

Nothing can sink its teeth into me.

I will be stripped bare down to the aura 

I will have absorbed her power  

And even if the city sees the pain in my eyes 

I will persevere. 

 

I’ve come to hear something in a voice 

Only she can create.

That I am free. 

I bend down and drink her 

With my head next to her shore 

All pain vanquished.

This is one of the Forlorn Lakes, near a place called Indian Heaven.

Formations

May 30, 2025

I can hear her  

Carving out the valley below. 

She has sung this way for centuries 

In a voice I know...for 

Her tone is part of my resonance. 

The shape of her course 

Is the shape of my course. 

At times rapid, in haste 

To meet expectations 

Whether her own or someone else’s. 

Other times, slow in patience  

To form pools, back currents  

Allowing a respite for reflection. 

She is no fool. 

She knows how the quiet mingles  

With the rain & dissonant wind. 

She is not made of perfect lines. 

And on those occasions 

When the weather has darkened 

She will reshape the valley...and 

As I stand among others  

Next to lovers fallen 

With our moss-covered branches intertwined  

My roots dig into whatever mud has solidified 

Into the new path she sculpts. 

If there be no footing 

I will need my roots no more. 

All my essence, that resonance 

Shall be given back to the valley she carves 

In whatever form I will have taken 

Believer, nonbeliever, goddess or grub 

Fern, flower, or fleeting leaf 

Silence and cacophony combined.

Up in the clouds. This is about 4000-5000 feet up above the Salmon River, near Mt. Hood. Click on image to enlarge.

Permafrost

May 18, 2025

Running upon tender permafrost 
The fragile life on sure limbs 
Scuffed hands with lucent thoughts  
to touch 
Seasons unflinching. 
 
Still, the settled soil gives way to blue 
Clinging to winter’s craft.

Hope is the World.

In the Land of the Sloughs

May 12, 2025

People, Poetry, Short Stories

Danny sat beneath the Washington side of the Interstate Bridge    
14-years-old, drinking a six pack of Lucky Lager 
Stolen from a warehouse near the railroad tracks. 
Warm beer. 
Lucky L had jokes underneath the bottle caps  
Silly verse on jagged tin, which he 
Stuffed into pockets of his Fort Vancouver jeans 
Worn out to near dust before the school year started 
Purchased in the boys' department of Sears 
On Main Street, a block from Kiggins Theatre 
Named after someone he didn’t know 
Or for that matter, gave a shit about. 
  
A few feet above his head 
Cars travelled from one state to another 
Cool-like, 70 miles-per-hour plus. 
Their tires sounded electric… 
Rippling…as if they were lost static 
Flying into ether, with a polyrhythmic crunch. 
They hit sections of steel 
Truss thumping upon truss 
Large pulses of movement. 
The world felt like it was breaking into pieces. 
Any minute, he expected it all to come undone. 
Any minute, he wished for something to come undone. 
  
Next to the Interstate Bridge 
Sat the Thunderbird Inn at the Quay  
Its deck dangling over the dead river 
Supported by a maze of oiled logs 
Poles stuck upright  
Into the shallow muck of the shore. 
A victim of the Bonneville Dam 
Creating a wooden maze, a black forest underneath 
An invitation to a secret mission for a bored kid 
With nowhere to go for no reason, irresistible. 
Danny thought “Remember that kid from a few 
Years back? 
The one who drowned, crawling 
Underneath the Thunderbird?  
What was his name?” 
He didn’t remember. 
But he remembered the kid’s crewcut.

The Columbia River never moved 
Unless you swam in it, against the current 
That’s when you look towards the shore 
And notice you weren’t getting anywhere 
Like being leashed to the banks, chained 
While the river licked you with its green tongue 
Of pea soup ripples and algae blooms. 
Never drink it, but swim until  
The big ships come, hoping to ride the wakes 
Like a lost rollercoaster car. 
  
Danny only crossed the Interstate Bridge 
When the Multnomah County Fair was at the Expo 
Past Jantzen Beach 
In the land of the sloughs. 
He hitchhiked rides 
Passing under the green arcs of the bridge 
Expecting an epiphany  
Even if it had no meaning. 
He had enough money to get in, but none for rides. 
He chased girls for hours until his boredom reached 
For a wallet sticking an inch 
Out the back pocket of an undercover cop 
Who dangled a two-year-old on his shoulder. 
The cop was quick 
Had Danny’s head twisted backwards 
Like a Lucky Lager bottle cap. 
Other cops, dropped their camouflage 
Swarmed in around Danny 
As if they had found DB Cooper. 
The child never fell from the cop’s shoulder. 
Danny’s head twisted in slow motion 
Amid the midway of games 
Where dimes were tossed into dishes 
Balloons never stopped popping 
Softballs missed stuffed dolls  
Basketballs hit the rims of small hoops 
And the occasional cheer of winning.

The bridge through an old piece of glass.

Old Growth

April 25, 2025

The old ones  

Who witnessed centuries 

Of life, love, & lingering seeds 

In soil, of grasses, and youth 

The greenest and driest 

Of our leaves 

All born of the same soil 

Connected by roots and rock 

On this soft shell blue marbled  

Mist...manifested 

Long before thoughts coalesced 

Into abstracting objects of speed  

And decay 

While days accelerate 

For reasons that can't be wrenched 

Nor pried from the hardened pitch 

 
Lives measure outward 

Until years have aged  

Their weathered bark 

Skin 

Yes, I speak of our skin 

No longer supple & smooth 

Furrowed, rumpled by  

Love’s attempts and its fruitions 

As if all truth and heartbreak 

Have folded in upon themselves 

 
Movements forward and backwards 

Are figments of a collective imagination 

Enveloped in ideology and romance 

Still 

The old ones, reach for the sky  

With only the wind to aid their voice 

Adding 

To lucid stories of the embellished heart 

While we, the amplified souls 

Listen

A trail near a lake called Burnt Lake. Might be a little hard to see on a phone.

This is the trunk of an old growth tree. There not many of them left. They look a little different than other trees.

Movements

April 14, 2025

Poetry

A cougar is perched up high in a yellow pine, hidden. Below him, a trail cuts through grasses, and I see his paw print in bare dirt, formed when the mud was thick. Now, it’s dried into cracks, wrinkles in earth, his movement of the past solidified. He doesn’t worry about me, the noisy one, whose feet crunch upon leaves, dried long before the last of summer appears.

The turf is so dry and brittle. It’s a fragile crust. One hard step and I think the entire world would crumble. Flowers of the new spring have already begun to wilt, dropping petals. Their flakes stick to my socks, scratch my ankles.

Even now, the grass begins copying the color of the sun. No matter how good of a watcher you are, you can miss their intricacies, their dance with the wind, a courtship of eons, and their ever-slow movement, a reach for light.

Breaking into the sky, Adams, Hood, St. Helens, even Ranier surround themselves in blue. Their heads adorned with hats made of clouds, attempting to pierce gravity, the last mystery.

Sometimes I worry about movement…the sun, the earth, our movement…my movement. It’s too easy to believe in one singular movement, especially my own.

The cougar will come down from the yellow pine at dusk, when it’s difficult to see him. He is the color of the sun. He will use the sound of the dry flowers and deep grass… and when the coming night quiets the wind, he will search for the slightest movements.

Somewhere near the Klickitat River.

Eastern part of the Columbia River Gorge.

18 comments on Movements

Cold River (A Murder Ballad)

April 7, 2025

How cold this river runs  
 
How cruel this river runs  
 
All light is caught in a freeze  
 
Here, the water has no peace  
 
All is numbed by an endless rain  
 
I swear the moon has a crease  
 
Her voice is just below the ravine 
 
I try to silence the refrain  
 
Her song echoes above the trees  
 
 
I see her in the river’s current  
 
I think I can catch her  
 
Bring her back up  
 
If only to the coldest of sunshine  
 
My fingers slide upon her skin  
 
But she slips through my grasp  
 
So, I look downstream 
 
To catch a glimpse of her  
 
 
I drink from the hidden lake  
 
Clear, cold, and clean  
 
I dance upon winter’s snow  
 
On the edge of everything  
 
The leaves have fallen low  
 
No telling what they’ve seen  
 
Soon the river will meet the sea  
 
Where all lies will finally cease

When the Willamette River meets the Columbia River, the latter breaks up and forms a delta of islands until it converges downstream. (A clue? Is this poem really a murder ballad?)

The Clackamas River near an interesting little town named Three Lynx.

Consider

March 31, 2025

April is still cruel 
And this city? Still unreal.  
The snow will melt 
Daffodils will bloom 
Arrows will still fly 
Even Cupid shoots them 
With awkward aim 
 
Are we mistaken to listen to the wind? 
That whisperer that works 
Its way between warm clothing 
...Tickles, biting softly 
On the ends of our touch 
Imprinting its song on our necks.

                                                          “I would have never thought 
                                                          You would become my lover 
                                                          Having passed you 
                                                          In the hallway a thousand times 
                                                          Among the smell of floor wax 
                                                          Cafeteria food, and 
                                                          The slamming of locker doors. 
                                                           ...Excuse me 
                                                           I’m younger than that”

Now, in the city of Yonder 
Stands our orphan 
With his gun 
Walking along the edges  
Of an eternity of assumptions 
The quickest way to freeze 
Us into madness...oh, do not 
Ask what is it? 
Even Dorothy killed two witches 
And I swear 
The sky has been etherized. 
 
For I have known it, known it all 
Have known evenings, mornings 
Afternoons 
Have known 
The familiarity of strangers 
My nose buried in their bosom 
Of warm, warm skin, bared to 
Gravity, orbit, & galaxies  
Moving...moving... 
Moving

                                                        “What a Sunday drive it was 
                                                        Unplanned, without directions. 
                                                       The heat of summer blew 
                                                        Into our rolled down windows”

O you who turn the wheel  
and look to windward, 
Consider.

In this poem, I abstracted lines of famous poems and lyrics to shape my own poem out of them. Along with the poem I added on of my abstract images. Thanks!