Inside a Gifford Pinchot Forest night Denny and I, with his Wasco legs Cupping our hands to make an old whistle Like the hoot of an owl to settle our minds From the fears of the directionless twirl of sky Those fires of Warm Springs The silence of the river’s falls The countless ghosts of oolichan.
Upon hearing the tones from our small soft hands The deer stand still, freeze in their tracks Only the heat of their breath moves Their black pool eyes, starless earth sight. Like the solemn overstory that extinguishes The travelling of stars All relativity stilled The planet, a jar, hermetically sealed Each branch in the maze of Douglas Fir Above our heads Are old stories still being told anew Our voices, with purpose, retell them to each other.
Stories of disappearance Stories that burn Denny says, “Little Fish, You have so many names.” And we know all about burning Such dry kindling, which are our bones Denny and I, the last ones That will end here with us without anyone knowing Just ask the dust.
The forest hides its mirrors in lakes and ponds And the stick people dance around their shores Denny & I saw our reflections for the first time When we took a drink Our spirits stained a huckleberry purple
Upper Twin Lake during a cold but dry winter. Mt. Hood peaks over the tree line. I won’t be posting as much, as I am in the midst of organizing material for a classic publishing medium. Thanks for all your support!
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.
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.
Spillwords published a short story of mine. The Death of Art. I like Spillwords because it’s WordPress’s magazine, with an editor. So, it’s connected to WP while being its own entity. The story, if you haven’t read it already, is a mix between Stream of Consciousness (James Joyce, Proust, and others) and Edgar Allen Poe’s Single Effect Theory. It’s a horror story…maybe. I tend to like implementing multiple themes. It’s not an easy thing to do. The story is not long. It would qualify as Flash Fiction, which is perfect for the internet. Give it a like using your WP account as access to Spillwords and take advantage of Spillwords yourself! The link to the story and Spillwords is below. Thank you for the support! I’ll be reading your posts!
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.
MoonCat 