Cherry blossoms upon brittle limbs
brave the last chill, the wake of winter.
Gathered lovers, having shed buds
from hibernation, adorn pastel dresses
of heavy chiffon, the color of faded hearts.
Waiting for warmer touches
the soft ebb of spring’s smitten sun.
Knowing
the ground awaits their fleeting bloom.
The rate of speed in which we travel is unprecedented in human history. To think that for around one hundred years we have been able to speed through urban and rural spaces. These 100 years are a brief moment in comparison to our combined history.
When I started to compose _Landscapes_, I initially thought of modernism and postmodernism in basic forms. The first pertaining to new systems. The latter pertaining to dismantling of systems. And it came to me that our modernisms are a story of movement, and this movement is accelerating. We’ve traveled through both eras, quickly. Our perception of the world (_Landscapes_) has been altered to perceive it at a different rate of velocity. Different perceptions lead to different conclusions. No wonder people are always telling one another to slow down. I question whether that’s even possible.
_Landscapes_ is a composition of movement, of acceleration, of viewing landscapes at an ever-increasing rate of perception.
Click on the image above or the image link to Soundcloud below to listen. Thanks so much!
Underneath the bridge
Old bricks
Hold onto streets
Unaffected by wind
Weather fronts
Rolling tires
We walk them as
Train tracks slice through
Gazing at high grass
Growing between the mortar
During a downpour of days
And the cold slant of weeks
There are others there
Tents, rigs, and schizophrenia
Blue tarps & wagon carts
Their bikes
Ride rough
Over the bricks
Waiting for trains to pass
We still watch the grass
Bent by the weight of seeds
Swaying with the train’s draft
Raindrops, faces, and reflections
On Amtrak windows
Further up
The streets throw away
Their numbers
Taking on names
Of everyone in particular
Where bricks give way
To multi-layered pavement
And rainwater moves easily
Into green street planters
A series of waterfalls
Too small to be named.
Here, she seeks the frozen
Stillness
Sounds of water
But it eludes her
That soothing Wilderness
Of ruffled current, soft noise, & gentile fear.
She looks behind, for mountain lions
Who do not appear in solid form
And the bear who skips winter’s sleep
Just footprints in snow.
They meet her at water’s edge
Through snags of rhododendrons
With lost springs at their feet
Nothing left except desire
That sip of the coldest waters
Hearts exposed
To cool air & curled wind
Outside of skin, coat, fur, and claw
To witness
The soil stray among
Hearty leaves, fragile flowers.
The leaves have all but fallen
And the trail is a carpet of them.
The hills and roots remain constant...
Ridges and bumps between yellows
Reds, and browns
Where my feet pass cautiously
Not wanting to be fooled by
The softness of the ground below.
The air can be dry and crisp
Or temperate and soggy in the fall
And it is during this season
That the trail appears painted,
Textured, warped, dabbed onto
Curled around, twisted into
The unforgiving floor of Earth.
But I am affixed to this rug
And the colors of fall
Reflect
What is inside me, at times.
For I know what it means to fall,
To feel the wetness of leaves,
Peeling them off my palms,
Their earthy scent inhaled.
A volunteer walks the trail.
I see her occasionally
With nametag dangling
From a shirt pocket.
She says people sometimes get lost.
I act surprised, though I understand.
Passion can hit us hard
On the side of our emotions
And sometimes all you can do
Is check for bruises...
And keep those feet moving...
Though the ground is covered in leaves.
As always, all art on my blog is created by me.
The volcano is still a mountain
For it can catch clouds
Force the rain to fall
Sculpt nearby hills.
Gone is its snowy top
Thousands of feet lost
To air, sky, and atmosphere
Settled down to ash and dust.
But this just gives birth
To new open lands
Where the wild chipmunk
Is a bit more exposed, and
The eagle hangs upon new
Thermals and air currents
They...
Who live close know
The volcano is still a mountain.
The volcano invites you to watch
The slow tangle of clouds
Talk & tumble amongst themselves
The new grasses that make up
desert-like fields, inhabit space
Where tall evergreens once stood.
Creeks have been given new paths.
Even a group of crows
Crying in their best city voices
Cannot break the volcano’s presence.
They appear like children at a playground
Full of noise, laughter, bratty, and playful.
The volcano welcomes these tricksters.
Unlike the city, there is plenty of room for
Them to wander off and stillness returns.
Which is enough for you to notice.
Notice what the volcano wants you to see.
The distant lake sandwiched between
A valley under the veil of rain,
Small dune-like hills of old ash.
The cougar, elk, and mountain goat’s
Footprints, along with yours, embedded
In the leftover dust of the mountainside.
Fragile prints on top of bare earth.
But it is stillness.
That is the volcano's most important reveal.
For the sights that surround you
Stand still, as if they were painted time
Frozen on easel and canvas.
Here, you can look and see
With eternity in your eyes
Even though you know
Everything is forever temporary
And you are but a stroke of a paintbrush
That is still moist.
And I don’t know why I want to begin with and.
Perhaps, it’s because my life is a conjunction, where I’m continually moving from and to persons, places, and things.
Just like you, I’m always in the middle of something.
Yet, and is tricky.
One must be careful to avoid “this bad thing happened, and that led to this bad circumstance.”
One might try to mediate their way out of that kind of and with long engagements with commas, em-dashes - semi-colons; and (parenthesis.)
But that is precarious and can lead to stringing things out for too long.
I think the answer is found by being careful with ands and taking time and patience to produce good ands.
Some ands that I have planned out have become successful, such as writing and revising.
I think one of the coolest is “We met and fell in love.”
And an and can be friendly and downright cute.
How could pralines and cream exist without a nice and to bring them together?
And what about the ampersand?
How many symbols can look cool and bring clauses together at the same time?
Hyphen, em-dash? They don’t come close.
Where would we be without ands?
The beginning? Nowhere to go? The end, plain, simple, uneventful?
So, I guess my desire to start with and is my way of honoring the conjunction, for this ode is a continuation from all my writing before to all my writing to come.
Pronouns, proper names and objects are wonderful places to begin, and I highly recommend them, and I wouldn’t be writing without them.
But nothing would continue for anything or anybody without an and.
Welcome to my second installation of images! If you’re on a computer instead of a phone, you can click on any image to enlarge it. Check out Images 1 here.
Elvis can’t strum a note.
Still, many look for him
During a nighttime shanghai.
But these ghost-like hijacks
Excite only hipsters and bruisers
And cute, off-hour barista users
Wearing their best lattes
To catch the ships of myth.
Back on landlubber strip
Alcoholics look like pimps.
The 99 cent lady scratches
Lottery tickets, chewing on mints.
She yells at the gutter kids
Who pee on sidewalk cracks.
Children of insults and rip-offs
Selling newspapers to news crews
Their mouths askew with twisted views
Crooked grin from the bookstore girl.
Her windows bashed in for no reason.
Sells last year’s calendars & rusty rock pins.
The trattoria boils millions in noodles
Hiring from art school purgatory
Haloed waitresses with yoga mats
Channeling their inner schmooze
Living off deep-fried borrowed blues.
The mayor rolls out sorted plans
Sketches of the new Pantheon.
City council sucks sugar tits
From kiss-your-ass developments.
While food carts form shanty towns
For the visiting team’s hangovers.
Their mascot yanking on his head
Stuck
In a permanent state of cheer.
The old urchins on their last barnacle
Live back in the glory days
Of cheap chiva, bad Bud, & noses caked with coke
Taking bus rides to fake desperation
Basking in their burn out, dabbling in
Dysfunction. (A national holiday)
Celebrated with bogged down Bloody Marys
And get-well cards with handwritten
Apologies for nothing... that’s gone wrong.
MoonCat 