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Feb 2019 · 363
Cutting the Tether
JS Clark Feb 2019
I will take the knife and cut the tether,
I will cup my hand and puff the flame.
The wind shall bear me to fairer weathers.

Deep wounds, forcing the brand and the sever;
Creating within—magmas in my brain!
I will take the knife and cut the tether.

Alone—it’s beyond and through the never—
With war, it’s just us practicing our aims.
The wind shall bear us to fairer weathers.

I see the bullets dart like dragon’s feathers.
I make love in springs full of acid blame.
I shall take the knife and cut the tether.

Old men making noise; old bowls of leather—
Words from parched lips seeking civil refrain.
The wind shall bear us to fairer weathers.

And so the war knits on years together;
Man’s grand plan of securing creed and claim—
I will take my knife and cut the tether—
The wind shall bear us to fairer weathers.
Feb 2019 · 481
The Cold North Wind
JS Clark Feb 2019
I am the cold North Wind.
If I were human, I would be
Labeled a sociopath.
But I’m not.
I’m just cold.
Jan 2019 · 271
The Cosmic Gong
JS Clark Jan 2019
These are lines
Without thought—
I simply choose to be.

I will embrace you,
I will not ignore pain.

I am a human being.
I am no human doing.

I’m found on the mountaintop
Welcoming the sun—

In the valley,
Trudging the over and done.

I take in the present,
Dance with the stimuli.

I vibrate—HUM—
My frequency tuned to
The Music of the Spheres!

I dance into God’s throne room
And absorb the Cosmic Gong!

I touch the face of God,
Relax, and belong.
Dec 2018 · 264
Remember...
JS Clark Dec 2018
The dream is large and
Hard to hug.
The work-a-days are long
And seem to get longer.

Heading home from work spent
On one of these days,
I see these words—
“Remember who you are”.

Remember who you are.

I, we, are:
Poets
Engineers
Architects
Scientists
Mathematicians
Enterta­iners,

Working the daily as:

Baristas
Bartenders
Forklift operators
Custodians
Truck drivers
Grocery store clerks—all noble
Honest posts, every one.

Daily I meander this mid-size burg
In a cranky van as a courier,
Acting as grease to lubricate
Said burg’s school district cogs.

I wonder…
I wonder how many work at these
Worthy and square occupations and
Either do not recognize or
Ignore the fire burning deepest
In their heart’s furnace.

I jaunt about remembering,
Always observing,
Always knowing the fire will
Spit out the next poem.

Remember who you are.
Remember it is a choice.
Dec 2018 · 301
Ubermensch
JS Clark Dec 2018
Accentuate the positives!

One must cull one’s self from the herd!

Etch sublime visions
Obtained naked on the wilderness hilltop
In Earth’s stone,
Or write them on these sheets provided
By its mighty trees and
Resilient leaves.

Baste the naysayers
With Tony Robbins’ ladle
Full of succulent
Can-do verve!

Annihilate their gloom with
Bazookas of hope,
Uzis of alacrity,
Shotguns of perseverance,
And AK-47’s of love—

Live on the slopes of
Vesuvius—
Pitch tents in Tornado Alley
For vacation—
Go grocery shopping on the Serengeti,
And woo Amazons and Nubian warrior
Princesses.

Fear has no stronghold!
The end will not be the end!!
Eternal hard-on!!!
Sep 2018 · 385
Through the Morning Country
JS Clark Sep 2018
When times get tough, and tensions should ride high;
When one’s hands are lashed and frustration’s sound,
I take a ride through the morning country.

Like a sweet raspberry cream filled fruit pie,
I savor the pleasure that gets around.
The morningside country beckons to me.

The city’s too busy; crowded and fried.
I wish to kiss the winds with a resound!
I take a ride through the the morning country.

I wake up, and the sun is in my eye.
She's there with me as my feet hit the ground,
The morningside country beckons to me.

This woman I love, she knows how to try,
She knows where my sincere heart can be found.
We take a ride through the morning country.

There are those days that certainly blindside.
What I do often for sorrow to drown--
I take a ride through the morning country,
The morningside country beckons to me.
Sep 2018 · 185
Of Street Lamp Philosophy
JS Clark Sep 2018
And so the sublime
Converges with the
Common,
Emerging under the
Street lamp
Encased in
Unlikely cocoons—

Heady and heavy
Conversation
Under the beams
Of many keen suns
And riveted moons
Encompass the universes of
The obvious and the obscure—

The subject matter
Of the ages,
Yes, the *******
Around the corner.
JS Clark Sep 2018
I’m bucking trends—
Tendencies—
I’m going against
The flow of the universe.

It’s what I’ve always done,
Really,
What I’ve always preferred.

In the case of the you and I,
The cosmos seems to speak
Quite clear—
However, I’ve been just too stubborn
To lend it my
Practical ear.

Where you stand, you’re
The queen of my dreams,
Fair or no—
Propelling me against the
Astronomic flow.
Aug 2018 · 294
The Young Man and the Pond
JS Clark Aug 2018
The mantle of dusk
Is being cast upon a heat weary
Northwestern Missouri countryside
As a young man stands upon the banks
Of a pond making casts.

He’s been at this for some time
With little to no luck whatsoever.
His favorite quarry, the largemouth bass,
Has eluded him successfully thus far.

He’s been wandering this pond’s banks
For a coupl’a hours now,
Certainly an eternity when the
Fish aren’t attacking the lure.

The youth knows one can’t catch
The bass just standing in one place,
So he scans the smooth pond surface
For activity.

He gets teased by flopping fish here and There
As they feast upon a mid-summer’s smorgasboard
Of bugs and worms and frogs that chose to Zig
Instead of zag.

He finally spots a place he thinks
Will afford him the greatest chance at Landing that
Largemouth he knows he can catch,
And so he posts up for just a while longer.

He looks to the west and sees
A final sliver of the Sun hug the horizon.
The light is fading fairly quickly, and he’s All but done.
The trek home isn't far, but he has no Lantern
And has had enough of the mosquitoes.

One more cast, he thinks to himself, just One more.
He draws back, flicks his wrist, and lets fly.
He cranks on his faithful Zebco 33
And just as he is to bring in what’s
Always been his lucky beetle spin,

WHAUMP!!!

A bass akin to Moby **** himself Explodes
The pane of glass surface and
Devours the lucky lure.

In sheer delight, the young man and bass Begin to fight,
And what a fight this pond monster Provides!
The young man’s line strains, his pole Cranes, yet holds with the thrashing and Convulsions that only a bass can deliver in Its ****** attempts to divorce Itself from The hook.

The young man was prepared for this fish-
He had waited since he first learned to bait A hook for it--
Prepared with the right pound test of line,
The right rod, and the right reel.

The youth lands the prodigious Largemouth
And takes him off the hook.
Wrapped in twilight, there the teen stands,
With at least a six pound bass in hand,
Grinning and looking west at the Sun Goin away.
Aug 2018 · 440
Tour of Duty
JS Clark Aug 2018
Why is the Pentagon so sprawling?
Why should there be so many
Doors?
It is so I cannot stand or sit
To block entry,
Or proffer peace down
Its miles of corridors.

Why is the Capitol Building
So big?
Why does it seem so regal?
It is so I may grow weary
Climbing its steps
As I try to remind my congressman
To check against those Pentagon evils.

Why is the Supreme Court so imposing?
Instead of a temple, it should be a
Log cabin.
Imagine if it were a little more cozy,
But hey, we like our justice cold,
And perhaps a modicum
Rabid.

Then there’s the White House.
Her walls have seen so much.
From getting burned out by the British,
To sheltering both buffoon and
Brilliant.
The latter and former rendering more and More out of touch.

For the brilliant, we have the
Memorials and the shrines.
One of these is simply a great ditch.
The black granite cries with you
As you cry;
A proper reminder of brave sacrifice,
And that the Pentagon can be a *******.
Jun 2018 · 279
Give Me the Gray Spaces
JS Clark Jun 2018
Give me the gray spaces
Where virtue has chosen
     To hide.
Let me see the nuanced faces
Of human beings and being
Simple and complex sides.

Let me walk the line
That straddles order and
      Calamity.
Let me bathe in strange pools.
May my I be trained to truth,
That's found when the waters cool.

I am just a man.
A guy getting by.
I used to have a plan,
Until I realized.
Apr 2018 · 4.1k
The Favored Lie
JS Clark Apr 2018
Beware the bitter idiot--
That fellow with the sour
    Mind,
Cankered by disillusion,
And feelings of
Left behind.

So life may not be everything
As planned--
It does, after all, arrive in
Installments called the day.
One of these is enough to try
    To understand,
One enough for this thin
Vessel of stardust clay.

His voice is but a drone,
Nothing but rancor and filth
    Ride upon his tongue.
Complaint the engine of his
    Tone,
The wormwood ballad of
Pitiful woe he sings and has
    Ever sung.

He will not be mistaken,
For the street tough is at his
    Very core.
He will not allow to awaken
The malleable man of his
    Youth and yore.

And so this fellow who has
Shut his soul off,
Stands in front of his mirror and cries.
He's too proud to unhand the
Lance of the scoff--
Boldness is his favorite lie.
Jan 2018 · 253
This Short Life (10w)
JS Clark Jan 2018
Life is way too short to worry about Lengthening it.
JS Clark Jul 2017
Oft times I wonder what I should do with myself.
I look off in all four directions at any given time
And there is no direction.

I find myself wandering--in a period of wandering.
What does a man say to himself during such times?
It’ll be okay, things will work themselves out in the end?

There would seem to be little solace in this axiom.
Life is strange.
Like the sickening loop-de-loops on our best roller-coasters.

I type this out on a digital tablet with virtual keyboard
In utter perplexity.
An old soul in fast times…

Tense times,
Shallow times.

My neighbors amidst this age haven’t the patience to see how
Events birthed from hollow promises and hasty decision will work
Themselves out.

Promises from leadership whose god is the U.S. dollar.

We get a logjam of hurried consumerist theoretical practices,
Ruthlessly implemented as some kind of workable
Reality among a conditioned populace.

In the end, the only beneficiary to this manufactured bliss
Is the savvy and rich manure shoveler--that neighbor
Among us who throughout each and every day shovels

The materialistic dung into our throats and fully expects
His fellow neighbors to swallow this **** in expectancy
Of the utopic times to come.

And so the tail teases.
Jul 2017 · 439
Alone
JS Clark Jul 2017
I put the eggs in the water,
I am alone.
I cook them for myself,
I am by myself.

Folks may want to feel a bit sorry for me.
I always wonder why.
There is stark difference in being alone
And being lonely.

I know many know this difference,
These folks know that alone is alone.
I don’t understand the need for
Constant companionship.

I don’t understand the
Always-Needing-to-Be-Married--
I don’t understand their sneers and jeers.
Freedom is a fine mistress.

I’ve been in the relationship,
I’ve felt the benefits of the companion.
But there’s something to be said for alone.
Solitude asks for nothing.
Jul 2017 · 243
Smoke Woman
JS Clark Jul 2017
Hello Smoke Woman.
O ye of beauty unrecognized.
Winsome vapor roaming lonely night,
Seductive puff dust-deviling in my corner sight.

Barely perceptible.
You have a texture,
A scent,
A glint of your wafting dance,
Of your healing haze,
Of your silvery lips enameling my ear...

Whispering, ever whispering,
That your love is constant near.

O Smoke Woman!
Ye etheric vagabond
Who drifts in and out of my dreams,
Who in my nightly cosmic time speaks
With voice so rakish husky,
Ratt'ling off daring poetry
Plucked wet from Eden's streams.
Jul 2017 · 276
I Am the Strong Wind
JS Clark Jul 2017
I am the strong wind.
Whispering from cold cradle--
Autumn leaf maestro

Whirling symphonic drum taps,
And conducting the falcon.
Jun 2017 · 426
The Lasso
JS Clark Jun 2017
I move like a whisper among my neighbors.
The lasso grips tight--
I cannot seem to loosen its grip.

My **** makes sounds like a banjo
As it hits the bowlwater.
My mind ever drifts.

So restless my soul since
Once again I maintain the solitary man,
Coming back to what has always been known.

The lasso wants to mercilessly hang on
To memories. I have to move on!
This stallion must find good, green pasture!

I fight the bitterroot of jilt.
I fight the saltiness of heartbreak.
Love has such a powerful lasso…

Love is such a powerful wrangler.
Jun 2017 · 335
Searching the Search
JS Clark Jun 2017
I don't know what the future holds
What may come my way
I'm at the ready for that which unfolds
I'm happy that I'm loving you today

Today we find ourselves apart
Our flyin rug of love ripped away
Though sad and afflicted is my heart
Hope stands firm in the disarray

Am I foolish to cling to such hope
A question popping up now and then
I reckon it's a healthier kind of cope
Than Jack Daniels, Budweiser and gin

I've searched the search a long time
Raising walls shielding from tempest wrath
Finally find my fancy in year forty-nine
Yet somehow end up back on the forlorn path
JS Clark May 2017
A continent's scout
That once touched Pacific sands,
Has on the Natchez Trace
Taken his life at Grinder's Stand.

Such the news the Chickasaw
Agent bore
Telling President Jefferson
The great scout Meriwether Lewis
Is no more.

Five years prior, you were commissioned
To a quest,
Mr. Jefferson sending you forth
To explore the core of a new nation's
Enigmatic west.

The Mandan's song still warbles
In your ears,
While the mighty Missouri's current
Still rushes through your tears.

And now, on a porch of a tavern
In west Tennessee,
You look back in that direction
That has ever seduced thee--

You cannot seem to shake him--
That black dog of lassitude--
That murderous hell-hound what has
Shadowed you across majestic
American longitudes.

His image is there, in the polish
Of your piece
With every throb of your head
His moan ebbs at your peace.

During the journey, Clark was always
There to help stay the hound...
Knew how to handle him,
Knew how to keep him bound.

Perhaps that is why you are looking west
This time around.
Not for something new,
That, you have found.

No, you are simply looking yonder for
Someone to **** this **** hound.
It is thought by some historians and scholars that Meriwether Lewis had Bipolar Disorder
May 2017 · 315
I Hear David Bowie Singing
JS Clark May 2017
David Bowie sings,
I feel restless at the cut--
The world being sold.
May 2017 · 558
A Sam Spade Kind of Day
JS Clark May 2017
I wake up on a cool December morning,
Look at the clock which says five 'til eight.
However, it's still as dark as it was two hours prior--
That's when I knew it was a Sam *****
Kind of day.

Sleepy drizzle cast a steely sheen on
The street; while bustling cars within it played.
I just turned over and went back to sleep,
Perhaps feeling a bit lazier than ol' Mister *****.

A couple of hours later I'm preparing for
A lunch appointment,
Part of social dues I suppose I must pay;
The waitress at the restaurant says she likes
My coat and hat,
Of course, I tell her, well, you know,
It's just a Sam ***** kind of day.

Amidst the heavy mist I go to the store without a list
Only knowing that a Christmas desire must be assuaged.
Chocolate is what's required and to this end I retired;
That and an Americano on this
Sam ***** kind of Day.
May 2017 · 725
Love's Precipice
JS Clark May 2017
Love's precipice edge,
Both daunting and inviting--
Beckons the redwood.
JS Clark May 2017
Death rides a Harley,
The past is afraid to follow.
May 2017 · 666
There Sits Athena Weeping
JS Clark May 2017
I’ve seen nothing but shallow all my days.
Have heard much railing of men against God.
Wisdom weeps as for the train she awaits.

Of this world--yes the same that's all a stage--
Hypocrites be kings! Their offspring hug fraud.
I’ve seen nothing but shallow all my days.

The preacher man in this country now begs.
Begging for one to fund the work of God--
Wisdom weeps as for the train she awaits.

The practical man speaks riddles in waves,
These disappear upon my wink and nod.
I’ve seen nothing but shallow all my days.

I want to rant against my neighbor--rave!
The unreasonable, I cheer--I laud--
Wisdom weeps as for the train she awaits.

So the solution is without delay,
Big Cadillacs and grasping at straws.
I’ve seen nothing but shallow all my days.
Wisdom weeps as for her train she awaits.
May 2017 · 1.3k
Red Stick
JS Clark May 2017
Enough is the word.
Media martyr bleeding--
SNAFU Johnny Law.
May 2017 · 413
The Falcon
JS Clark May 2017
The falcon rises high above the plain.
A man skips stones slow along the lakeshore.
Where is love when needed in times of pain?

How rough to walk the corridors of shame.
Seems as though I can't bear it anymore.
The falcon rises high above the plain.

The locust is damp, there can be no flame.
A mother cries for her children at war.
Where is love when needed in times of pain?

A princess ponders in watching the drain--
Am I truly the one whom he adores?
The falcon rises high above the plain.

Lovers quarrel in fields of sugarcane.
She’s flustered. He thinks it is fields of corn.
Where is love when needed in times of pain?

A man sits distraught, waiting for a train.
All the patches of his quilt have been torn;
The falcon rises high above the plain.
Where is love when needed in times of pain?
#villanelle
May 2017 · 345
A Response
JS Clark May 2017
Hello?
Who is this?
Ambition.
Oh. I wasn't expecting your call.
You weren't expecting much of anything
Were you?
You're such a ****** coward
You won't talk to me face to face.

I--
WHOA!!!
Before you say anything in defense
Of your miserable self
I must set the record straight.

Without me you would
Not get up mornings.
I'm a huge player in giving
You that urge.
The only reason you work as hard
As you do is because
I whisper there's always
Something better ‘round
The curve.

Your bitterness will make you
Come to an early end.
It’s not my fault you’ve made
Poor decisions up and down the line.
Your scathing rage against me
I will not pretend,
Baffles considering I’ve worked hard
To polish and make you shine.

I'm done speaking with you,
No more, from me, shall you receive
Positive coercion.
If you want to be rid of me, free of me,
Very well…
See how far that gets you.
May 2017 · 345
Talkin' 2017 DT Blues
JS Clark May 2017
Eliminate
All the hate
The rich, the powerful--
They use it as bait
To disunify us,
The common workin' men
Last time I checked
We're all Americans!

These next four years
What will they bring?
Are you sittin' on your hands
Are you lettin' 'em wring--
Are you letting the fear
Seep into your soul
Remember friend that
God is in control
His throne
His tone
Recompense I see
Maybe not now,
But eventually!

We work in the fight
We fight 'til we win
Guthtrie's sayin' this
All those years back when
We were weatherin' a storm
Called the Great Depression
Now it's 2017 and there's
Another'n 'round the bend.

It's Hurricane Donald
And he's made landfall
Category 5 with a
Promise, a call
To take America back
Make it great once again
All for the sake of
The common labor men.

Don't know bout you
But my back's still sore
I'm always wonderin'
What the rhetoric is for--
For the more things change
The more they stay the same
So we switched up the boss
Is it not the same game?

Uncle Sam's not quick to
Relinquish his grip
His wallet's gotten fat
And he's become used to it.
But I digress, I must conclude
I must look forward
To shift my attiude
And recognize the growing
Pains of this nation young
Work the fight with calloused hand
Rather than cringe with hand wrung.
May 2017 · 313
Ambition
JS Clark May 2017
Ambition...have we met?
It seems we have at some forgotten time.
Once a bulwark of my mind,
How clumsy of me to forget.

Once you were the engine behind my dreams,
The impetus of my intent.
Since last we spoke, my life has careened,
What was once a straight line is now bent.

I have worked these many years at a breakneck pace,
Trying to achieve conclusive and elusive goals.
While you show nothing of mercy or grace,
You maintain silence of your hidden tolls.

My life? Not where I thought it would be.
Encumbered I’ve been with your shackles
Of greed,
Your lust,
Your power,
Your malcontent.
May 2017 · 558
The Myth of Amherst
JS Clark May 2017
I sit down with the Myth of Amherst
And soon troubles and worries
I forget.

I look to see if her verse still breathes
And find with hearty satisfaction
They do still yet.

I entwine myself in her arrangements
Enigmatic and she kindly takes
My hand…
She leads me through gardens of
Imagination replete with untitled topiary
And genius meter.

Where I encountered first
The Myth of Amherst,
I'm not exactly sure.
Her words--canteens of obscure mysts
To slake an interested thirst.
May 2017 · 820
Cookies and Milk
JS Clark May 2017
Cookies and milk,
The allure drew me in.
As I opened the door on
That warm, Spring day,
The fresh scent of home baked
Raisin oatmeal cookies filled
The air.

Aunt Charlotte
Welcomed me in
With open arms
And a wonderful smile
That nothing can compare.

Just an ordinary recipe
With no special ingredients,
Made with love and great
Care--
Aunt Charlotte and me--
Oh! What a pair.
My father wrote this poem...
I fell in love with it the instant I read it...
May 2017 · 374
A Sunset Fetching
JS Clark May 2017
I’m rollin’ west toward the downtown;
My eye adjusting to a robe of twilight courtesy of a
Sunset fetching.

Having come from the grocery store,
I drive and think of why I like the summertime twilights:
Of the cicadas singing in muggy treelines--
Of screened in porches with single bulbs--
Of newly caught fish being cleaned in said porches--
Of kids deftly riding skateboards on uneven sidewalks--
Of shadetree mechanics cussing at another raked knuckle as their respective hot rods come together.
Of the lightning bugs as they beacon for their mate to be...

There’s the drag racing out at Osborn on Friday nights.
The fishing on the Missouri and random farm ponds any given evening into night.
The mosquitoes,
The chiggers,
The ticks,
And the bullfrogs…

The summer twilights--
The beauty of a season.
JS Clark May 2017
As I was talking with the crow
He smiled at me as sometimes
Crows are wont to do

He said you really are a good
Man you know
As bid me to partake of his freshly
Prepared stew

He looked me up and down with
His keen bird's eye
Gave me a wink and said
Son I surmise
That you are far too quick to criticize
All those that pass your way

I said what do you mean
I just mind my own affairs
This relieves me of many burdens
Pressures
Cares

The crow laughed heartily as he took
A bite of his stew
He stated I'm afraid you miss the point
Of what is being said to you
Your kind does not need reminded of their
Sins and their flaws
All that manages to do is slash soul
With self-righteous claws

Take my advice when next your head
Is filled with fault finding words
**** them right there
Too many times they have already
Been heard

The crow reminded me that I was a good
Man tis true
And that he hoped my digestion would
Kindly oblige to his stew
He hoped it to be nourishment
For my soul to renew

I then asked the great black bird
What was in the concoction
For indeed I had to know
Why my dear boy
The corvid replied
It was me the whole time
It was me
The crow
May 2017 · 293
Cash Black
JS Clark May 2017
Sitting in Cash black,
Pondering Selby concrete--
I sell Brooklyn Bridge.
May 2017 · 309
Shakespeare Tickling
JS Clark May 2017
Spectres in windows,
Shakespeare tickles a ******--
Venus does not yawn.
May 2017 · 273
Whiskey Falls
JS Clark May 2017
The visceral glides,
High above the whiskey falls--
I'm in the barrel.
May 2017 · 289
My River
JS Clark May 2017
YOUR eyes are the earth!!
YOUR lips are the trees budding--
YOUR hair, my river!!
May 2017 · 261
Winter's Cold
JS Clark May 2017
There was Winter's cold,
But I was with YOU my LOVE!!
Grand hibernation!!!
May 2017 · 279
Breeze
JS Clark May 2017
The south breeze wafts through,
Goosebumps rise upon her neck--
The breeze is my breath.
May 2017 · 408
Eulogy
JS Clark May 2017
For------

The robust and the rakish--
You were a king among them.
You were the last of a kind of men
That petted the Timber Wolf
And stared into the eyes of the
Grizzly Bear.

That breed of chrome and steel called
Harley-Davidson bore you on your
Perpetual pursuit of the wind.
Now we look forward to hearing your
Voice in the free breeze that enticed you
Time and again.

You were cut from the cloth of Paul Bunyan
And John Henry.
You smiled at the arduous, the laborious, and
The heavy.

Your eye was as good as the plumbline,
But the plumbline you still used;
Your work in the construction of bridges in
This Missouri River valley was your signature,
A tangible legacy no honest man could deny
Or refuse.

Sleep now, R--- B----, a well
Deserved rest--
For from among the ranks of Crockett and
Boone, you’re Lancelot--
The shining, the best.
May 2017 · 307
Soaring
JS Clark May 2017
I have been soaring for many years.
As I bore up my wings upon the thermals,
I would ride high above the storms.

I would look across the top of the
Cloud mountain and see nothing
But beautiful, pensive expanse--ever
Proud and joyous to be an eagle.

But I would yearn…
I would yearn for another such as myself
To be gliding across the torrents.

To be looking in the direction of my flight.
To be concerned in finding me--
Even beyond finding her next meal.

I can see far, but not far enough sometimes.
I can't see the whole, and thusly, the whole
Grand orb of time…

But I can see into the expanse--
And the day came--
When I saw her,
When I saw YOU!!!

There!  In the expanse!
Across the top o’ the tempest--
There YOU were!!!

Gliding, soaring, were
YOU!

Miles away and across--

Our eyes met across the tempests.
May 2017 · 1.9k
Awaken
JS Clark May 2017
Your love wakes my soul,
Just as the Spring wakes the Earth,
Both tickle the core.
May 2017 · 1.6k
Pure Winds
JS Clark May 2017
Pure winds
Beautiful prairie

Tall grass
Kissing the dew

Mighty fork
Winding tributary

Escorted by grass, fescue

Aged trees
Standing in groves

Greet the fowl of dawn

Talking bison
Muffled tone

Still awaken the merry prairie dog

Lone rider
Haulin' mail across the plains

Headin' west, for Sacramento

Indian fighter
On plains self-same

Will insure this mailman sees no tomorrow
May 2017 · 333
Love is a Rock Face
JS Clark May 2017
Love is a rock face,
Climbers oft find a toehold--
Until sets the sheer.
May 2017 · 303
Spires
JS Clark May 2017
The spires are built--
Erected by prideful men.
My pride lies in YOU!!
May 2017 · 452
Ether
JS Clark May 2017
I float among an ether,
As we all do I suppose--
An ether of numbers,
A zeitgeist of digital woe.

Jim Croce once sang
Of his having a name.
A member of this world, yes,
Singing the individual refrain.

The place where I live,
They desire community;
But it’s all contrived--
We’re just dollar signs in unity.

Sadly, we will be nothing more.
We’ve been lulled to a desperate sleep.
This ether of digital zeitgeist
Will not our souls to keep.
JS Clark May 2017
I approach the traffic signal that stands
In its service for guidance
At the intersection
Of Frederick avenue and 10th street.

To my left is the statue of the gallant Pony Express rider,
And just to my right
Entering my field of vision is a
Man of some years.

These years are
Tucked away throughout a
Bent chassis.

And bent he was,
He was one
Who looked as though the labor of ten
Ordinary fellows
Passed across his crooked spine.

He was smoking a cigarette and walking,
Rather shuffling, short, stuttered steps
Southward perhaps to the
Wesley Towers senior living apartments
On the next block,
Or making his way to the
Patterson senior center one block
Further for some
Pitch with some pals.

I had to wonder,
Yet somehow to me
It was known, that this fellow
Walking so slow,
Built this old river city.
May 2017 · 384
Composition
JS Clark May 2017
What is it to be human
Consider
A sponge
A granite rock face
A basketball
A sunrise
A sunset
An internal combustion engine
A land mine
An a-bomb
A train
An eagle
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Phosphorus
Sulfur
Water
Fire
Wind
Ea­rth
Dust...
May 2017 · 612
American Brainstorm
JS Clark May 2017
Is compromise a ***** word
Truth is found in strange pools
Let us be truth explorers
Let us ferret out the corrupt and **** it
Horrible citizenry makes for horrible policy
Recognize your space and value within it
Don’t give me your self help
Simply give of the self
Stay informed fellow Americans, fellow countrymen
Don’t let the Republic suffocate amid pure democracy
Ratchet the brainstorm
Make the connection in the middle when building the tunnel
Is middle a ***** word
I’m stymied at the junction of ambition and lethargy
Occluded at the crossroads of the gospel and the blues
I’ll simply take the fork Yogi
I still want simple solutions to complex problems
The mindless maintenance of the Trump Bulldozer being one
Hillary Clinton being another
The time has come for the third party to rise again
Resurrect the Bull Moose
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