Independence, Oregon

Green fields, like emeralds where the ransom for a day's peace is only a deep breath.
The trees run across the ridge like that same squirrel's tail, the one who wanted nothing to do with you.
Sunlight spackles the clouds and the hues of blue come and go in the passing shade -
From beneath such pillows, briefly escaping the bright of day - sanctuary from above;
The hills roll into the switchbacks down the mountain side, where gravity accelerates everything.


Pulling the axles and the wheels into position along the curved roads takes more concentration than it's worth.
Steering a car is a matter of survival but it can be quite restrictive.
Staying inside the lines is such an ingrained skill, you hardly notice what it might be like
If the our scientific boundaries permitted us flight or excavation.  We might not need such constraints
Such that we might soar over land and tunnel through the earth - alas, these are not our talents.


Nevertheless, this is some world of imagination, where the jade and amber hillsides touch upon a dream. 
Here in the sanctuary of space and freedom can lines blur into a cascading wave of emotion.
For words to matter the brain must indignantly connect with this Earthly reality.
Yet among the clouds and the leaves, the spirit can soar like not like an animal but, instead, deified.
The elastic nature of the universe is always reluctant to reveal itself but when the irons are shed
One may pause and feel the freedom of one's outstretched arms, unbound, capable in any space,
When one finally arrives here in Independence after having travelled from anywhere else.

Agapanthas

The agapanthus step out from underneath the curtain
Gardeners do not attack upon the stalk of bloom
Tentacles of summer stretching into the season
Time spinning around the bulbs
The grunge of the fungi leaves the orchids to forgive

Those damn stalks burn their blooms into the dry sun
Cells dried upon the flower, like flesh from bone.
Still like the casketed, painted like stone
Where the forever is not a matter of debate
But only matters as to interpretation

The leaves of grass sing, where the embers of spring die
The flowers of before bloom eternal
And ideas of tomorrow could never bloom.
Theorizing science is the nature of man
Whereas the nature of Nature is to consider none of this

Hunger

Quiet pain inside
Growing deeper and deeper
A rumble bellows

Feeding the injured-
Instinctive evolution-
Keeps the pain away.

If there is nothing
Can you solve an empty well
With just air and hope?

Feeding the hungry...
What isn't impossible
Creates solutions.

Those empty children
Stomaches wanting nourishment
Need real food to eat.

Yelp

I just left a really long post on Yelp.
I thought I was really clever.
In the end it was pathetic.
I came here to pay penance.
I should at least offer the universe a shitty poem.
I believe have accomplished everything I set out to do here.

Tight Spaces

Hamstring as the marathon ends
Cramps in the arms dangling in crags of caverns
Hotels in a faraway land and on currency at hand
Attics full of Christmas lights and taxidermy
Cars stuck in bumper to bumper traffic
A bathroom on any bus... really, any bus
Any cliffhanger, despite the vastness of the fall
Covers that tuck you in before storytime
Lies between the one you love and life you lead
Spoons in hammock, 'neath some palm fronded canopy
Coffins, urns, graves and mummification
but not tombs, fires, cemeteries nor pyramids
Any moment between birth and death
The heart when it's found true love
Hands held tightly believing in one another.